but satisfaction brought her back

Her fur was slicked back by all the moisture in the air and she shivered a bit as the cold penetrated her skin. She looked around, wondering if this was the place that N'chard has his kingdom. Or perhaps the place where Rezik took the leadership away. And, perhaps, where the Overseers destroyed them all.

The Ridges were above her now, slick and slippery, but she was small enough to begin to climb. Each step was carefully measured - claws unsheathed and grabbing onto the rock as she went, occasionally slipping a bit, but she managed to right herself. About a quarter way up the wall, she paused and tried to divine something, pressing her nose against the cold stone and willing her eyes to see the past.

It was as if something was present. A cool wind, briefly coiling and sweeping up the ridges, farther toward the ceiling.

An image, briefly, of precisely what she sought: the blue stag-like creature, with its humanoid face and its tree-like antlers, picking its way cautiously along the water-slicked ledges. Following it were eight or so other creatures, of various shapes and sizes. They were heading higher up, and slightly to the right--and then they faded from view.

Wilder blinked open her eyes and looked up. She'd...she'd have to climb all the way up there. The memories were leading her up, up the slippery ledges, perhaps to some place at the top where the kingdom rested. She flexed her claws and readied herself for the climb but as soon as she took her first step, she slipped. Her paw pushed against an icy path and, a moment later, her grip was lost and her paw went shooting out from under her, throwing her back. She yowled with surprise and tumbled down the ridges, clawing frantically to stop her descent.

She eventually managed to hook her claws in a foothold and she groaned as it jerked her claws, making it feel like the rock was jerking them right out of her paws. She hung there for a moment before she scrambled back on the rock, breathing heavily, her claws aching and her paws sore.

She took a moment to regain herself, but the throbbing in her paws didn't go away. She pushed herself up until she was sitting and began licking at the fur between her claws, trying to soothe the pain. It did a little bit, but she could still feel them ache as she set her weight on them again.

She looked back up, determined to reach the top, her curiosity making it impossible for her to just turn away. She had to know, now that she'd seen it.

Carefully, she began to climb the ridges again, being extra careful to see where she put her paws down. Every step was measured and careful, watching out for puddles that could be ice and frost that could be slippery, testing each step before she put her weight on it. She slipped a few times on the way up, and it took her a while, but, at last, she was almost near the ceiling.

She heaved herself onto a larger ledge then the ones beneath her, panting and quite tired from the grueling climb. She inched forward so that she wasn't so close to the edge anymore and set herself down, pancaking right on the center of the rock, aching paws spread to the side. She looked very much like a rug.

After a moment of rest, she closed her eyes and focused on the stone beneath her. Perhaps a long time ago, the kingdom was here. With Rezik in control, N'Chard gone, and some ill-fate awaiting them around the corner. A rush of magic filled her head and spread into the ground.

Flashes, over time. The blue stag-creature returning, solemn. Standing among allies as they grieved. Bowing to a great beast, something black and many-limbed, water cascading over its oily hide. The group members one by one returning to be laid to rest--sometimes only a few bones, or a gem--and a sense of servitude. Slavery.

The last three, laying the blue stag, wounded, into the mosses. His stone cracking and growing around his body as it sank into the mud.

Laid to rest a leader and a hero, with none aware of the things he had done.

Once her eyes were open again, she was already feeling a little bitter, but now that she knew what she needed to do, she groaned. She didn't want to dig. Her paws were still sore and her claws were aching. But she forced herself to her feet. She didn't want to keep waiting around. If she did, she'd never want to get up again.

She pulled herself over to the nearest path of damp soil, sniffing around, even though any trace of Rezik and the kingdom was gone. Long, long gone. Without further hesitation, she began digging, the earth quickly soaking into the fur around her paws, but she found it to be less strenuous on her claws then she had originally predicted. It wasn't hard to dig through, with it being so damp. For a while she dug until she felt the tip of her paw bump against something hard. Immediately, she reached it and began tugging with all her might. There was a loud sucking sound as the earth pulled back, unwilling to give up its treasure but, eventually, there was a sense of sudden freedom and she staggered back, her paws wrapped around a piece of bone.

For a moment, she caught her breath, moving her eyes down to look at what she'd pulled up. It was a rather small one, perhaps a part of a femur. It was old and chipped and broken, but it was still a bone. Maybe it was one of Rezik's, maybe it wasn't. There, after all, were other members that had been laid to rest here. It could be any of them.

Once she had calmed down a little, she righted herself, sitting down next to the bone and holding her paw on top of it, her eyes closing as magic pulsed through her body and into the bone, begging for it to reveal its last moments.

"He's not going to make it." A crackle of magicka, a hiss.

Sight faded into a six Gembound gathered around Wilder's view, and it was as if she was lying on the stone. A wheezing sound came from her. She could feel that her stone was broken, a stone at her chest--agony lancing through her. Another creature, like a slender monkey with four arms, was passing long fingers over her chest, his face looming close. Fire licked out again from his fingertips. "It's no good. I can't seal a stone. It isn't like flesh."

Quiet crying, nearby.

Another voice, deeper. "You were brave, Ancilla. To say such things."

A fourth, a familiar one--"He was foolish. They do not tolerate such talk."

"It needs to be said. We can't continue on like this." "He shattered it?" "Yes... for insolence. Bastard." Quiet, for a moment, the sound of milling bodies. Wilder's paw reached out, pulling at the rocky ledge, as if to try and pull away; she was mindless with the pain. She could see that she had purple fur, long black claws. Her wheezing grew worse.

The voices became distant, background noise, not understandable--garbled to her dying mind. Vision faded in and out, graying and then coming back, sharp with the pain of the near-shattered gemstone. Magic leaked away. Minutes passed, with perhaps Wilder's knowledge that this creature was destined for death emphasizing the slow horror of the inevitability of it--the gradual spiral of pain and sickness into unconsciousness and death. She was trapped in the vision, the way the creature was trapped in its demise, unable to break the pain, the exhaustion... until, at last, the creature gave a final agonized cry and the stone seemed to give a sharp pain through his chest, and all went black.

She was trapped. She hadn't expected this. N'Chard's hadn't been like this - it had been painful, yes, but this...for a moment she feared she could not leave, she would be stuck like this forever, drifting between life and death, past and present. What had she done to deserve this...or, really, what had Ancilla done? He had said something to someone and his gem had been broken because of it. The answer came to her quite quickly. He had stood up to the Overseers. This really was a cruel time.

Just as the pain became too much for her to bear, there was a stab of pain and everything was gone. She was blinking awake where she had been, breathing rapidly and shivering a bit. The world seemed empty all of a sudden without that horrible sensation and it took her a moment or two to adjust.

The pieces were falling a little more into place. The Overseers were cruel and merciless - anyone that spoke out, anyone that said something that they didn't like, they cut them down without mercy. It was horrible. More of an afterthought then a conscious effort, she set out magicka into the air, searching for any faint glimmer of life - Rezik's stone, perhaps, or Ancilla's.