ORIGIN - Step 1: Kidnap a Snail

Deli

After some time thinking out, strategizing, and keeping their ears open to gossip and rumor, just in case, they'd settled down on their plan. However much they'd like to target the Seven for this job, they had a feeling that messing with, quite possibly, the best spellcaster in the caves might not be the smartest idea. But the Voidcrawlers were perfect for one half - so naive, so devoted to their leader. It was the other half that was the problem. But they had an idea. It was a risk, but this whole thing was a risk. They could only hope it played out smoothly.

As they crept through Cetus, nose twitching as they searched for the scent they needed, they tried to cast a little cloak over themselves, to hide their fur. They knew that the snail wasn't exactly one for great eyesight but they'd rather not risk anyone seeing them out here. The whole point of this, after all, was to conceal their identity, right?

But...of course, that wasn't going to happen and, instead of becoming reflective, it was almost like they were becoming easier to see, white fur getting brighter, colorful markings growing even more saturated...well, oops. That was going to fuck them up, probably.

@Voidmother

When Deli found the snail and her concerned-looking kooru, Sunny would be half-feral laying in a tiny puddle of Oil and eating it as fast as she could (not very fast -- tiny mouth). How she'd gotten to that point, however, was another story entirely.

The Voidmother was not a creature who liked to sit still, especially not when something was pulling her. They were being toted around on their mount, the loyal and glowing Voidstrider, through the doom and gloom of Cetus. It had been the web of a Silk Spider, all bright colors and glowing body. It had a piece of something shiny and green on its back -- a stone, perhaps, but that wasn't what concerned Sunny.

What concerned her was the violence in her mind. The urge to take and destroy--! "Kill it," she demanded without quite thinking, projecting into her familiar's mind an image of her digits crushing the spider's tiny body and turning it into nothing. Returning it to the Void. Sunny shook her head violently, then, and frowned -- "Um," she said, trying to figure out why she'd said such a thing. But as she scrambled for an explanation, her familiar had already acted.

The Voidstrider had been reluctant, of course -- but she had failed to notice this tendency as being a side effect of Sunny's bouts of chaos, and was generally the type to reason that the Greater probably knew more than she did. So her tail reached out as the spider tried to sort out if the kooru was also a silk spider, and just like that its exoskeleton was crushed and it was murdered, on Sunny's command.

Dismay ricocheted through her as the kooru wiped her digits off on a nearby tree, disgusted with the webbing clinging to them -- and then... before Sunny's eyespots, the poor spider began to decay. Black. Inky, like-- Chaos. Void. Her whole body buzzed, and before she knew it she had been dropped (or maybe she fell?) into the puddle of Oil, absorbing it through her skin and trying to drink it. Insatiable, this need was -- and she was obsessed with the feeling it gave her.

Which was somewhat comical, all things considered, since she was a tiny snail with a nervous-looking deer behind her (and while Voidstrider had noticed Deli and was inching into the undergrowth to hide, Sunny was too preoccupied to notice her familiar's panic).

@deli

Deli

As soon as Deli came upon the strange scene - the familiar and the snail creature and the puddle of oil - Deli reacted, the failed spell from earlier very swiftly smoothed over, fur becoming transparent as they blended into the world around them. Hopefully they hadn't seen them, or that they couldn't pick up their scent with all the damp rot. Or, if they did, that they wouldn't be able to distinguish who they were.

Now invisible, they carefully stepped forward, careful not to step on anything particularly damp, so that they wouldn't leave any noticeable footprints and simply...leaned over, stretching out a paw, and attempted to pick the snail right off of the ground by the gemstone. They tried to get their fingers underneath her body too, but the rolling desire to join her in lapping up the oil had them...unwilling to even touch the black liquid.

@Voidmother

The kooru's eyes widened when Deli disappeared, and she shot off into the undergrowth. They were distinctly canine, after all, and likely dangerous, and now she could not see them. Voidstrider already spooked easily -- this was enough to make her want to scream.

The disturbance was enough to startle Sunny and have her looking up, distracted momentarily. "Voidstrider?" she called, confused -- how was she going to get home now? But the link just fed her back a jumbled mess of panic and the memory of some kind of canine creature killing a darker blue kooru, and then the snail felt a pressure.

"Hey!" she called sharply, her eyestalks waving around. What was pulling her?! Her mind worked quickly, wholly distracted from the Oil now -- oh, no, no no! What was happening?! Something she could not see was trying to pick her up, clearly, and the Voidmother was powerless to stop it. If she tried to hang on, she'd be likely to tear herself out of her shell, and if she were to give in she'd be removed. Still, Sunny had no desire to die, so she pulled herself firmly into her shell and continued to yell. "Excuse me?! Put me down this instant! I am not a Lesser, you know!"

@deli

Deli

Deli saw the lesser running off into the undergrowth, but they didn't know that it had seen them. Either way, lessers couldn't speak, so they couldn't go blabbing to others about who they had seen. Still, it was concerning. They might have to come back here and find it again and...do something about that.

Still, the snail could do nothing and it was easily to just hold her in both hands and run, keeping their fur reflective so that they weren't easy to see. They stayed low to the ground, stooping a bit so that Sunny wasn't as visible, hidden a little better by the undergrowth, and covered her whole body with their hands, able to easily cub her in their palms. Just in case they became visible again.

Deli grinned at her complaints and hissed into their hand, distorting their voice so that it was lower-pitched and more scratchy, hard to recognize as theirs. "The Bonebound know exactly who you are, Voidmother." They said nothing else to her as they headed towards the exit of the cave.

*exit, unless stopped

@Voidmother

Sunny huffed as the stranger kidnapped her. What was she to do? And where was her mount? And more importantly -- what was this awful nausea sweeping through her? Sunny felt distinctly sick. Lightheaded, too, and just generally unwell in a way that felt rather similar to a strange creature trying to eat her from the inside out. Could the Oil be doing this? Was it poison? She wasn't sure.

More importantly though, who were these Bonebound? Why had she attracted their attention? And what in the name of the Void was this stranger planning to do with her?! Well, she thought as she was cupped in their hands so that she couldn't see, I suppose I have no choice but to wait and find out.

/exit voidmother
@deli (visibility)