[Event - Halloween 2019] BONES!

Wilder flinched at the voice that suddenly whispered in her ear and whipped up, finding herself face to face with wow, a really big guy! But that wasn't important right now. Her detection came up with something really strange. A mysterious force that was surrounding the area, magic that she'd never encountered before. She raised her head, sniffing at the air, as if that would do anything to help. "I'm checking to see what kind of magic is around..."

She broke off as the rat came bounding towards her. She didn't move, just watched the bones curiously as they approached, trying to reach forward with her magic and touch its mind, if it even had one. The magic fizzled and died before she had a chance to do anything though. Perhaps it was a stupid idea, but she took a step forward towards the rat as it got close, wondering what it was going to do. Maybe it wants a hug?

Azrael watched the rat as it turned to face them. Or, well, turned its body to point at them. He doubted it could see. After all, it was bones. Bones were food and shouldn't be moving. As it came skittering forward, Azrael huffed. He prepared himself to do something about it, chest beginning to glow and burn, but Wilder was doing nothing. She was watching it curiously. He looked down at the kitten and cocked his head. Maybe she was doing some magic. If she was, he didn't want to interfere and instead, stepped back, crouching and raising his arms, ready to take action if she was put in danger.

He glanced to the side as others appeared. Another cat. Some kind of....four legged mammal of sorts and a black dog with wings for arms. Nice. Perhaps they had more info. "Bones are moving," he grumbled to the four-legs that had called out. "Impossible, yes, but happening. Have you seen any more?" He asked this last question to the other two, still keeping the eyes in his left palms focused on the rat.

The bones, wreathed by the faintly-phosphorescent glow, for a moment looked like they might drive right into Wilder and attack.

Instead, however, the amalgamation paused, sat upright, reached forth its tiny bone-hands, and tried (quite unsuccessfully, of course) to pry Wilder's gem from her face. It held no real strength to it; it simply, apparently, wanted something shiny.

When the rats stopped in front of her, Wilder couldn't help but be a little nervous about what it was going to do. After all, she was basically throwing herself at its mercy to do what it wanted for a few seconds. She knew that if anything bad did happen, the Gembounds around her would probably jump forward to intervene, and she wouldn't exactly take it lying down. So she waited for a moment, tensing, but it only reached forward, grabbing at the heart on her cheek.

She giggled, flinching back. That tickled! She batted at the rat bones unconsciously as it scrabbled at her, a flick of her magic reaching out to grab the skeleton and push it away. Not too far, just far enough that its tiny claws couldn't touch her. She panted from her laughter and looked around at the two Gembounds that had appeared. She didn't recognize the dog-thing, but the other was Giggle! "Hi, Giggle," she purred. "I checked its magic too! It feels like there's magic all around here." She glanced around, as if looking for someone else that was using magic, but there was nobody else there but the five of them.

Azrael watched the rat carefully as it tugged at the kitten's gemstone. One of his hands came up to stroke at his bear thoughtfully while another hand opened out to gaze closer at the rat from the eye in his palm. He glanced over at the dog that had spoken and let out a snort. "Did not think it alive. Rat bones do not have life in them. It must be magic." He went silent as he watched its strange behavior, trying to collect the heart shaped rhodonite from the kitten.

A thought occurred to him. "Perhaps it is like the golems. They cannot think, nor are they alive, but they are reanimated by magic and hunt it down." Inexperienced as he was with his own spells, he couldn't confirm or deny this himself, and so was out of ideas on how to figure out what was going on. He was a brute built for strength and combat and hunting. He glanced at the others, how they were using their magic to get to the bottom of this...and he was overcome with a surge of jealousy. I want spells like that too. But he shoved the thought away for now.

Out of curiosity and out of a loss of what to do next, he reached forward to grab one of the bones from the skeleton, aiming for on of its legs. A femur, maybe. He wondered if it would resist his attempt to grab it in any way.

As Azrael picked the femur from the rat skeleton, something rather strange happened: the entire skeleton went with it.

The bones remained anatomically arranged, as if Azrael had picked up a rat who was wholly invisible bar its own skeleton--though it was very much only bone, and the strange glow that flickered around it.

The bones fought, struggling, and the tiny skull whipped around, chisel-like teeth driving for the demon's hand.