[Quest] The Trial of Hydra - Blinding White

Kalama sucked in a breath preparing to shout at Imp.

"I have an approximate knowledge! You just went in here and did," she paused again, beak open. "Iunno, something Fuck dumb, probably! How else did you survive?"

Kalama hated a lot of things, but most of all she hated the thought that Imp, her rival could've fought more than her.

"You haven't fought more stuff than me! Ive fought half the caves by now!" Vargas? She wracked her brain. Who was...wait. The giant purple monster that was there in the beginning. They were massive . "I--I could totally beat Vargas! I could do it! I'll do it when we get back! When I win." Yeah, she would win. All this pain would be worth something. There was no way she would go through all of this and not win, right? That's how worked, she was the hero. Heroes always win.

think "speak"

The agate was fine. Desert let out a woosh of a sigh in relief, unable to catch himself before he did it. They were fine.

He blinked, briefly, at the proposal. Wasn't he supposed to be the one to ask? Shaking his head before giving the faintest of smiles, he nodded to the cockatrice. "I agree." As he flapped, drifting, now, he turned to where the glow was. "I haven't seen it either. It's mirrored by something with one of the groups." His tail flicked back, though he wasn't able to see where he was indicating.

The glow dulled as he neared the door. Wide wings flapped as he settled in, looking over the glyphs and- 'The key.' Footsteps from behind drew his attention to the arriving group. That fox still held it in her mouth, and it looked like she was struggling all the while.

In turning, his eye caught the reflection of one of the glyphs around the door in a pillar, and his mane stood on end.

A bleeding bird, hung upside-down before him. 'A familiar sight,' his brain supplied as it dredged up memories and- No. Huffing and shaking his head, he looked to the other statues with an air of weariness.

Each held their own instructions, and when he settled on the last, he drew together an image of all of them. The bowl and the... Blood? An eye. Feathers- or a wing?- and... An antler. 'Use your head,' Vargas's words echoed. His head- or his antlers? Carefully hopping through snow and plowing his way closer, he stared up at the looming sigil. Sharp eyes turned quickly on the rest of the group, scouting out the beings filing in.

He didn't remember anybody else having antlers.

Would they have to sacrifice for this, then? Drawing his face up in a brief flash of anger, he let the grumble run through him before he grabbed at his head, no explanation given.

His old antlers shed, but these had always stayed. "Everyone, I have an idea." He looked to the others, prepping to snap off the antler not protecting his gem unless any objections came his way. He wouldn't give to the rest, but- this was the one task given to him. Others had eyes, blood- and he had no feathery wing to donate to the line glyph. The large herbivore had the same idea as him and he nodded to her. "We've got to give up part of ourselves to save the whole."

Well, if one was already sacrificing, he'd join in too, sucking in a breath before jerking the bone up to crack it off. A sharp cry escaped his gritted teeth and tears welled in his eyes as a sharp 'snap!' echoed from his body.

His sacrifice was read to be made. Blue blood ran down his fingers as he curled his wing-fingers into his shoulders, drawing himself away from the pain lashing out through the sensitive horn. The goal was never to survive, but to do this dark magic, this incantation and self-demolishing to progress in the world. It wasn't anything new to him.

His eyes dulled as he dropped the antler into the bowl, heated blood pouring behind his ear.

With that done, he promptly shoved the damaged part of himself into a snowdrift, giving a brief but loud groan of pain. Alright. Calm down, Desert, you've had worse. You were literally stabbed in the mouth, remember? You're fine, you baby.

Drawing in a deep breath, he emerged from the now blue snow and looked over the rest, watching for reactions and breathing hard. "Alright. Okay. We need-" He winced as the sharp cold set in to the exposed flesh. "An eye. First off- or something like that. For the one bowl." He began to cradle the side of his head now, holding more snow up to it with his wings. "And feathers. If y'all wanna cut off a wing, go for it. We can't go any further unless we do this." He briefly glanced at the snow he'd been holding up to see if the bleeding was slowing- as it was- and he continued to apply wet pressure to the area.

Palefur arrived at the cave first, the strange blue glow notifying her to its presence. She padded forward towards the pillars, giving each of the inscriptions a withering glare. Of course they would pull shit like this on her. Taking a single look at what was in front of her, she amassed that she'd have to wait for the others. She didn't have that stupid blue thing (damn it, she should have known that would be important) and she figured that the pillars were asking for sacrifices. She certainly didn't have feathers to give and like hell would she be giving up an eye.

Scoffing, she turned and paced in front of the bowls, waiting for the others to arrive. She doubted that just one sacrifice from her would be enough.

As they trickled in one by one, Palefur watched them all with a careful gaze. She opened her mouth to explain the situation, as she'd figured out already, but Desert-Rose beat her to the punch. Annoying, but whatever. She nodded. "Yes. It wants sacrifices from each of us. Feathers, blood, eyes, and claws." Which is why she was a little confused when the dragon snapped off a bit of his antler. "I...I'm not sure that's what it meant but I'm sure the sacrifice will be noted, anyways."

Which came to her sacrifice. Blood or claw. It would probably be better to sacrifice blood, as that wasn't as permanent as a claw, but if she gashed herself too good then she would weaken herself for whatever was coming next. Then again, tearing out a claw would be painful and could severely limit her mobility if it hurt too much.

She made a decision and stepped up to the blood bowl, climbing so that she was standing on the edge of the stone. She lifted a leg and bit hard into the thickest part near the shoulder and let the blood drip down into the bowl in front of her. She cringed at the sting, and as soon as she felt there was enough, she scrambled off and immediately began licking the wound. It was bleeding more then she'd planned.

Lyra held tight to Virgil as they crossed the river, heart beating wildly and almost stopping when the bison slipped. Her jaw was clenched tightly until they were finally on solid ground again. Virgil didn't look like she was doing that great so Lyra immediately jumped off her back and looked up with worry. "Are you okay?" That gash looked nasty and it took her until the bison swung around to let the blood drop into the bowl to realize what was going on around her.

The pillars were menacing and each made her stomach quiver nervously. They each had to give something up? Her long feathered tail swept behind her and she glanced back. She could give a feather, sure, but they weren't...they weren't really wings. And others were already giving to the bowl of blood.

Instincts screamed that she should do the safe path. She should just give herself a cut or rip out some of her feathers, but she remembered a lot of things that Winter used to tell her. To be kind, to be selfless. She would hurt so others wouldn't have to hurt instead, carrying pain so that her family wouldn't have to feel it either.

Her breath picked up. She was really going to do this, wasn't she? She doubted anyone else was willing to give up a piece of their sight, but she had a feeling that they'd need to put something in every bowl. Swallowing thickly, she stepped up to the bowl and sat back. "I'll do this one," she whispered. She raised one of her bird-like claws and gulped, trying to steady herself. Her limb paused about halfway there against her will and she took a shuddering breath.

She would do this fast.

All of her strength surged against her own instincts and managed to get her claws to her face, quickly stabbing into the area around her left eye, pulling the eyelid out of the way, and inserting sharp talons into the socket. She froze up at the uncomfortable pain, but forced herself to stay steady as she finished the job - she gripped with her claws and ripped outwards, tearing the eye clean from her head.

She couldn't help it - she screamed as blood poured from the wound and the eye fell to the ground. She immediately reached up to cover that horrible wound with a foot, trying to stop the blood from flowing too heavily, but a piece of her mind still urged her to finish her task. She took a second to cry and quiver before a trembling claw reached forward, grabbed the eye, and placed it in the bowl.

She retreated, then, towards the snow, as the dragon had done, and pressed her face into a snow-drift, turning the white a startling red color as she sobbed against the pain. She hoped that it was all worth it.

She wasn't sure how the river held up, but Shida somehow made it across with Ivory intact. She breathed with relief as they made it to the cave along with most of the others. She glanced around, a sense of foreboding overcoming her. Did dad really go through something like this? He hadn't said anything about a cave like this when he talked about it.

She glanced at Ivory while the others were talking about sacrificing, giving up parts of themselves. "This is some crazy shit, huh?" Because it was seriously wild - this was some dark magic bullshit and Shida didn't like it at all. But still, everyone was already sacrificing parts of their bodies and Shida wasn't going to be left behind.

Clenching her teeth, she stepped towards the bowl labeled for feathers, turning to her side and grabbing a couple of the biggest feathers on her wings. She considered just ripping the whole thing off, as the dragon had suggested, but she wasn't suicidal like the dog that'd ripped out an eye. She quickly tore out some of her feathers, cringing at the sharp pain, making sure to only grab the biggest feathers to keep the bleeding to a minimum, depositing what she'd gotten into the bowl. There were some streaks of blood on the feathers that remained - guess she didn't do as clean a job as she thought before.

Oleander

Melt all your art and drink the paint

She was just following behind warrior. That was supposed to keep her safe, right? He knew were to go, or, at least, he was stronger then her. Better then her and she could follow him and survive. The rumbling sound alerted her and she looked up just in time to see the snowdrift cascading down from the sides of the ravine. She cried out and tried to get out of the way, but she didn't have a chance to react.

As the snow buried her quickly, she felt heavy blows as rocks rained down as well. She squeezed her eye shut and waited for it to be over. She was going to die here, wasn't she?

But, thankfully, it wasn't so as Warrior came galloping in to save her, his voice making it through the snow. He was digging her out, somehow, and she whinnied with terror, trying to push through as well to escape. She gasped a breath of air as her head emerged and then the rest of her body followed. She scrambled to her feet, a slight dizziness taking over as a trickle of blood ran down her head - probably from the rocks. "Th-thanks Warrior," she gasped.

She followed after him, still winded, still in shock, until they arrived at the cave. She watched a little blankly as the others began to gave up pieces of themselves. She got enough cognizance, however, to realize that she probably should to and staggered towards the blood bowl, where she thrust her bleeding head over top and let the blood steadily drip into it for a few moments.