[Quest] The Three Kings - Wild Hunt

"Hello!" Poco cheered to the kitten, and then... "Well, I don't know! What's a King?" she asked the birds with a chirrup! and a prance in place, "Kings sound COOL!" and then "Hello! Hi! Hey-oh hi!" to the many-many-many Gembound that came after.

She perked her ears at the bird "That sounds scary, Hounds are weird! They are drooly." Poco Loco listened close - as close as she was capable - to the birds as to what they needed, and without another word spun and bounded away.

Poco Loco spent hours dragging the rod back to the Kings, and by the time she was back her neck was aching, her body throbbing. But she dropped it in front of them though they were her human and it were a bird, and stood up proud as could be, purring at the top of her lungs. "This is a rod! I found it forrr you!" Her tail waved happily, "I think it's a rod, at least. I don't know what a rod really is."

And she didn't sound particularly bothered by that.

"There is no need to apologize. It is perfect. Thank you," said the voice called Alnilam, to Sharp's apology. And again, a nod to James, when he explained, and a "This, too, is perfect; we thank you."

The cat had brought them a second rod--a backup, perhaps--and the Three Kings dipped a star-glitter head, the galaxy hues of their body shifting and churning with the movement. "Excellent... you have all done well."

"And STILL no blood!" Alnitak snapped in complaint. "...But we will wait," came Mintaka's more patient voice.

And so they did, for a time.

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When, eventually, Hargrave came to them--whether the others had come back and forth to check on the progress, or not--the Kings spread their night-star wings and swept closer to inspect it. Auroras seemed to trail briefly in their wake, and their eyes shone icy blue.

"It's rotting!" Alnitak complained, at once. "It took this long, and it's-" "-fine-" "-it's not fine-" "We will just need to be swift." The eyes flared red for a brief moment, talons pulling at the rat; and then the cloth, saved from what James had woven, was pulled forth from where it lay across a nearby rock. The cloth was dipped in what parts of the rat had not decayed, until it was soaked in blood.

Then the rod was picked up in the Three Kings' beak, and to this they affixed the blood-soaked cloth, hanging it at one end--like some sort of strange flag.

"We will call you," the Three Kings explained, "when it is time."

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This concludes Part I of The Three Kings - Wild Hunt. Characters may exit at any time, and participants will be tagged when the next phase begins.

"It will form a banner--a magic they cannot deny," came the Kings' trilling response.

And the whirling galaxy of feathers began to raise it up.

The rod: a flag-pole, of sorts, lifted and thrust into the stone, piling down so that it stood straight and strong.

The cloth, having been dipped first into the blood, soaked red: then raised, draped, on the pole. And now that pole was upright, the flag not battered by wind and proudly flapping, but hanging limp and gory, dripping. But a magic enshrouded, now: a glimmer from the Kings, an aurora of starshot colors that swirled up around both their body and the new-formed banner.

"We will be some time," their twinned voices said, almost gently--and then the dark and swirling magic, studded through with silver stars, obscured them.

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The Three Kings have exited, and will return and be able to be interacted with once the next phase begins. The magic shrouds them from any interference.