to transcend DEATH - Printable Version

He had heard it described before and he trusted this description to drive him to the place. The cave where one's power would reach new levels, where one must pass a test. Well, bring to Anubis any test in the caves and he shall pass. What dark depths he had already walked, what foul borders he had already crossed. He would take this test. He would become unstoppable, unswayable.

Before the cave he stopped and looked around. "Emuh," he called into the darkness, although his voice still seemed quiet. "I am searching for you. To take your test. I wish to transcend." Excitement made his eyes gleam against the shadows, as concepts and ideas raced through his brain, oh the many things he would do if he achieved this power, the things he could learn if he just had more power.

"WHO--OOOH? WHOO-OOOH COMES?"

The enormous black owl swept down, talons clacking on the floor; he was hunched, ram-horned head tilting as he eyed Anubis over. Toxic green eyes blinked once, and the shroud of sparks that had cloaked his ragged feathers now shifted subtly, turning to drifting spores.

"OOOH-OOOH, ANOTHER OF YOUR KIND COMES TO EMUH-... THIS IS A POPULAR ONE, HMM?" he mused, head jerking this way and that. "YOUR NAME! SO I MAY INSCRIBE IT IF YOU PERISH! I WILL WRITE IT IN YOUR BONES!" he added, but already, the cave behind him had changed.

The lights had risen, then dimmed, a dull gray rock plunged into pitch darkness, the sound of slow grinding audible.

Anubis frowned as the owl swooped in. My kind? He almost wanted to growl at the massive bird, but instead he simply retorted, "You have never met somebody like me. I am Anubis."

He stared for a moment longer, as if daring the bird to kill him himself, for he would not otherwise perish. Not here. And then he turned away and strode into the cave. For whatever test had been set out for him.

The darkness was oppressive and already Anubis found himself thinking back to the prison that he had recently come from. The pressing, all-consuming dark. This was different, though, not old and stale and unnervingly quiet. Still, he was not going to be ambushed, if that was what Emuh would try on him.

As he strode forward, a few fungal lights popped up on the right and left, their dim, eerie glow giving Anubis's eyes something to reflect, looking back and forth for some kind of opponent or puzzle.

Anubis had taken perhaps two steps before Emuh fluttered up and landed in his way.

"OOOH, HOO, NO, NOT YET. It is RESHAPING. A GUEST AWAITS PERMISSION!" The owl gave him a hard glare, head turning wholly upside-down to stare at him a beat. Insulted? Warning?

His words, however, were true enough: the cave was still shifting, cracking, churning.

"UNLESS YOU WISH TO BE ANUBIS PASTE! -ANUBIS SOUP! EMUH WOULD EAT IT," the owl added, and cackled delightedly.

A few more moments passed, the owl staring, and now the grinding stopped. "YOUR TRIAL BEGINS NOW! ...You would have STOLEN EMUH'S GLORY if he had been robbed of the chance to say that..." A soft 'tsking,' then, as he turned and took wing.

The cave within brightened. It was, as Anubis would find, fairly well-lit: from no discernable source, but lighting and ambush were not a threat.

The cave consisted of a long, narrow walkway. The walls left and right, and at the end, held a second section of the cave that was blocked off from him, but he could see and smell inside through the myriad tiny holes that peppered them.

Within, savage Pitch Rats were running amok, squeaking and panicking. Very possibly, Emuh's magic had simply yanked them here from elsewhere in the cave, and they were not pleased.

Some were dead, already dead or killed in the melee. Their bodies lay fresh and limp along the sides.

Left and right, two pedestals stood. They seemed movable, like pressure plates--not that the jackal would have seen one before; but each time a rat ran across one it depressed, with a loud grinding sound. Thus far, both had not been depressed together.

Above each, too, hung a huge hunk of meat suspended by threads of flesh barely more than a tendon.

The very end of the long, narrow walkway, once Anubis at last reached it, had a third pedestal with meat. The rats ran freely all the way around, chittering and shrieking.

Anubis glared up at the massive bird as he got in his way. A faint hint of embaressement warmed his coat, but he didn't show it, as he simply stepped back, silent, and waited. As soon as the test had begun, he moved past and into the well-lit room, not bothering now to grow anything to light his way. What a relief - he was sick and tired of dark, stuffy passageways.

He analyzed the situation as soon as he entered, peering through the holes - noting the rats, the meat, the dead bodies, the pedestals. He quickly surmised the pedestal's purpose. Evidently, something would happen if they were pressed down, perhaps pressed down together. Two here and, as he wandered down the hallway, he saw the third. There was too much chaos here, however, for it to be done without his aid. Part one of his test, then.

He turned to glance at one of the bodies, sending his a good chunk of his magic towards it. Fungus began to spread across the surface of its skin, like veins, reaching all the way up to its eyes, which slide open, milky, unseeing white. At his mental command, the rat rose and made its way over to one of the first two pedestals, climbing atop it and standing there, awaiting further purpose.

Anubis waited for a moment, then, to see if another rat would step onto its opposite pedestal, so that they could be depressed together.

The first of three pedestals slid downward with a grinding sound as the dead rat pushed atop it.

Somewhere distant, the thoughtful (or perhaps mocking) click-clacking of a giant beak echoed.

Two pedestals remained; the rest of the rats continued to scurry about (or lie dead).

1/3

His puppet stood faithfully upon its pedestal, but even with this one control among chaos, there was not enough consistency to press down the other two pedestals without assistance. Well, more meddling, then, was called for.

He peered through one of the holes that gave him a visual of one of the hanging bundles of meat. He squinted, looking up at the rope holding it aloft and realized it wasn't rope at all - that was flesh. Flesh...could be decayed.

With a soft huff, he willed his fungal magic to collect around it and watched from his distance as the color of the flesh began to change as hungry, deadly fungus spread across it.

In the meantime, his magic flicked towards the rat on the other side. Almost mechanically, it stepped off and headed towards the other pedestal. On the way, it stopped at one of the dead bodies and reached down, grabbing it by the scruff. At Anubis's command, it dragged said body onto the third pedestal - one those were in place, it would head back to its own and await the fungus to eat through the flesh holding the meat above the third pedestal.

The tendon began to rapidly decay, fungus eating it away to a thin thread--and then--snap!--it fell.

Tumbled, thudded down, almost but not quite bouncing away, landing at the edges of the pedestal.

A grinding sound as it depressed, and the skittering of two dozen rats racing for it, was punctuated by an echoing voice.

"OOOH-HOOO. IT IS ANOTHER CLEVER ONE. CLEVER, CLEVER, HOO!"

The final pedestal at the end of the room remained. What was strange, though, was the lack of danger up until this point. What threat could rats behind a stone wall possibly pose-?

If Anubis maintained his skill with magic, he would not have to find out.

2/3

With the two pedestals now able to be pushed down, Anubis moved to the third with a frown, looking through the small holes. Was it really so simple? Disappointing.

He reached for his well of magic again, to do the same thing he'd done on the last tendon "rope", but as soon as the magic came to him, he felt the strain of holding the zombified rat weighing heavily on his mind. He flinched and immediately lost control of it, causing the fungus not to spring onto the rope but his own paws. He growled and stumbled back, scraping his paws against the stone to try and get it off before it did too much damage.

Emuh's laughter could be heard, but it was quickly drowned out by a second sound: a loud stone grinding, not unlike the movement of the pressure plates. This one, however, was all around--up and down--and it came with a hefty jolt that nearly knocked Anubis off his feet.

The walkway rose higher.

The ceiling lowered.

Suddenly the space was claustrophobic: from some fifteen foot ceiling to half that, still only a couple of feet wide.

It ground to a halt, but it was clear that repeated failures might add Anubis to the piles of meat in this place.