[EVENT] The Trial of Hydra - Reclamation

Warrior stumbled and skidded down the ravine trails, nostrils flared as he sucked in great breaths. It was precarious, but he'd been here before. It wasn't that he knew where to place each hoof (he'd never really braved the plateaus alone), but he knew how the rock could crack, and not to step on the little overhangs, and the like.

As he reached the bottom, he summoned up his magicka. Blood was mixing with the grime to smear his hide an ugly red-brown. He shook himself, blinking, and lurched into a slower, but steady, pace: a swift trot that would neither leave his companions behind, nor allow him to lag back himself.

After a few moments, however, he found that he felt... drained.

Unusually so.

It was an exhaustion that bit at his gemstone, as if sparking through his magicka; it drained his muscles, until he was stumbling and limping. His gait gradually slowed to an unsteady, slow trot. More and more his head and tail flagged, hanging, until it looked like he might simply collapse altogether.

What have I done? he thought, blinking up past a strange haze to watch other Gembound vanish over the ridges ahead. Then he fell, a hard rock down on his knees, one that jarred him and split the skin to leave another wash of blood flowing in rivulets down the rock ahead. ...Oh no. Horror, fear, gripped him. He tried to stumble up, and fell again, and a moment later found that he was on his side, head spinning.

Had someone sabotaged him-? Even past his fog, though, he remembered trying to use his magicka, and the sudden bite at his gemstone. Had he... dispersed his energy, instead of recovering it-?

Even more horror washed through him, bone-deep and chilling, as he realized that the next stretch was the one he had nearly died in before. He remembered dying, even: sinking and choking, the world--already black--fading from his mind. Now he'd be behind the rest, trudging through it all over again, and exhausted...

That fear drove him back to his hooves, a sharp and shrill whinny voiced as he kicked back onto the trail, newly-wounded knees pitching him downward every few steps.

- IVORY-

Ivory glanced left and right.

Everyone else seemed much the same as she was: shaken, scratched up, but okay. "Nobody dead yet!" she tried to offer, cheerfully, then almost fell off the side of the mountain.

"Oop-!" She hauled herself back into line, snorted, and continued on. "Gets pretty gruesome, I think, sometimes." Not that she'd been here for every trial, but she'd heard stories on top of the shit she'd seen. "We're the good group, though. See those idiots way far out ahead-? Something happens... nobody can help them. They ain't gonna get 'first place' when they're dead." There was a grim confidence to this statement.

Her gaze then fell upon the small, almost frail-looking one--no, not frail, it just looks that way compared to a lot of the others here. That, and he was a little... stretched and twisty looking. Fiver. He'd taken a bit of a beating, what with those Eyehooks trying to murder him and all. "Hey," Ivory called over, shifting her heavy trotting plod to try and come up alongside him. "You wanna catch a lift?" She nodded to her own back, then paused, taking the rare step of calling on her magicka (she hardly touched the stuff). A fat banana appeared out of nowhere, thudding to the dirt, and she tore it in half, nudging half toward the smaller Gembound. "'s magic," she explained, past the near-inhalation of munching on her own. "Tastes good to just about anyone! Feels great, too." She forgot to mention the whole "and makes you sparkle for awhile" thing, but that seemed obvious, now, what with how she was glittering.

The claws and beaks seem to be behind him, from the sounds. He can hear the others ahead, leaving him behind. There's no chance for it, unless he hurries up to catch them.

"Wait!" he calls out, staggering after the others. The darkness is all encompassing, as he drops onto all fours in his best attempt to run after them.

He remembers the precarious nature of the cliffs just in time, narrowly avoiding careen off into the open air. It feels around carefully with its talons, climbing down after the main group. With luck he'll catch up.

One moment, Spinnaker thinks he's as good as gone. The next, his assailer is twisting away, letting up the attack. He takes his chance, darting back into the air, ignoring the scratches bleeding him dry.

With a tilt of his head, he sees his saviour, another feathered fellow, speeding along ahead. Can't be left behind, can we?

"I owe you one!" he squawks, even as he watches Corsair dissappear ahead of him.