An unusual silence reigned along the stretch between Orion and Monoceros. In dim light verging on total darkness, not a hint of activity could be heard. Tunnel runner hooves did not click their way across stone to another cave and a well-deserved nap. Neither did the ceiling harbor the customary shrieks and rustling wings of roosting bats. Perhaps the nocturnal and diurnal were in the midst of an artificial dusk, and their different lives had overlapped for a moment. Maybe both were still stuck falling to and rousing from their respective slumbers.

Whatever the reason, the matter didn’t apply to East. Nor did it to those that had never lived to begin with. Their shadow-shrouded figures clung to tunnel walls and fixed frozen eyes upon the bird standing below them. His feathers were neat and slick, his demeanor seemingly calm despite the unmoving audience. Head on a smooth unhindered swivel, he surveyed the poorly lit surroundings. Then, tilting his beak until his neck could’ve snapped from how far back it leaned, a cool gaze lifted to meet another’s.

When he at last spoke, the first words were delivered in gravelly tones.

“Long time no see.” And that it’d been, though the tunnel might as well have existed outside of time for what little changes had taken place since he’d last visited this well-worn pathway. Aside from the rags and metal scraps displaced by passersby or the dust motes that drifted at so much as a soft exhale, this was a gravesite. Yet another among many. "How's business been?"

No response came other than the whistle of winds escaping from Monoceros. As they whisked by and lightly tousled his crest feathers, a touch of amusement gleamed within yellow irises. He'd expected nothing more from the stone visage. No doubt he would leave with the same questions as usual about its purpose.

Nevertheless the one-sided interaction, part jest and part genuine curiosity, persisted. East hopped for a better perspective on the bowl grasped between his untalkative companion's great talons. Rapid wingbeats arrested his fall for a few seconds more than ordinary, barely enough time for a proper peek at the collection of items inside. But enough to know no change had happened here either. His landing, unsteady but safe, was announced with a soft chuckle that fell from his beak.

"Slow then," came the answer to himself, shaking his head in mock disapproval. "Be easier if you spilled on what you want, pal. Better yet, why."

At least the beast didn't look like one for blood sacrifices—after all, they had the arena for that whole messy affair.

A soft, cool wind blew through the tunnel; a touch of autumn, a hint of seasons that never delved this deep. A promise of winter that the caves would never truly see fulfilled. Behind East came the sound of rustling: like dry fall leaves tumbling lightly along the rock.

Should he turn, something was there: a small notebook, easily missed, lying against the tunnel wall. The pages were lightly flipping in the wind that blew past: had the book been there all along, unobtrusive among the stones, or had it suddenly appeared..?

The notebook's pages were dark with markings, but East would need to approach it to investigate...

The Tunnel fell still, as if holding its breath.

A Mysterious Notebook has appeared. Investigations should be GM-tagged, but anyone may join this thread; however, please allow East to post first.

@East

When the only company around was unfeeling stone and the musty, tattered possessions of those long gone, hearing the sound of anything besides your own breath was bound to cause more curiosity than usual. Loneliness might spur the tilt of a head, followed by a sharp glance over the shoulder to whoever or whatever might be waiting to be noticed. Someone particularly starved for interaction might even spin around with a greeting ready in their beak, eager to strike up the conversation they yearned for. East could've done any of those, but he chose not to. He'd had more than his fill of existing among other Gembounds; the deathmatches had seen to that, leaving him just as hungover as he was hopeless by their end.

So while the leaves that couldn't have been leaves rustled, he took his time, continuing the private joke he'd started for a while longer. The gleam hadn't left his eyes. If anything, it intensified. Whether it was due to the one-sided talk or the mystery behind him was anyone's guess.

"Ah, sorry. I'm afraid I don't catch your, eh, drift. Mind repeating that in the common tongue by any chance?" A pause kept up the pretense of conversation though his partner remained stoic and tight-lipped, and an exaggerated sigh came promptly after. "Fine, be that way. I just hope the next fella's got better manners than you."

Parting words delivered, a casual pivot faced him to what'd been at his back. Typical for the bird, his expression was unreadable at the sight of fluttering pages. The rest of his body revealed much the same, save for the light-footed manner in which he approached the book. The steps were those of one daring to draw near to a sleeping beast, uncertain of the outcome—whether it'd doze on or wake to snap its displeasure. What marked the pages was a blur to East as he semi-circled where it lay, the flipping at the whims of the wind too fast for his mind to process the images upon them. He'd need something to pin them down, either talons or a tool. Caution a dear friend of his, the latter would be the obvious preference if possible.

Scanning the floor yielded a flimsy metal scrap, thin and long with edges rather sharp, judging by how he almost cut himself handling it. A worn rectangle that had more holes than fabric was found next and was wound round the other item to allow a safer grip. Then, held carefully between a front and back talon, he lifted the combined creation up and lowered it upon the flurry of pages so that it might rest horizontally across their surface. Its weight might not be enough to hold them down for long, but at least he could try.

"The mystery deepens. A book, a notebook--a journal?--left abandoned, but by who? What is it written on those pages... and why was it left behind?" The voice was deep, quietly mysterious, and seemed to come from everywhere at once. It seemed to take no offense, or even notice, of East's personal conversation.

This, even as East successfully laid his metal scrap across the pages. This stopped the paper from flipping this way and that, holding the book in place. And here, East could examine it: could see scratched writing in some strange unknown script, and crude sketches that didn't quite make sense. A series of concentric rings, an arrow pointing to its left, and down; a little box with scribbled circles ringing it. "What does it mean..?" the narrator asked. "Undoubtedly, this would require further investigation... but where to go next?"

This question was left hanging, a tantalizing hint in the air: that there was something more to come, even if the "where" and "when" were not at all clear.

@East

"Yes, where—and your who, what, and why as well." For all the narration's independence, it might as well have been part of a dialogue for how easily East picked up from where the other left off.

Considering how the "next fella" he'd mentioned in passing had manifested as a disembodied voice, a more dumbfounded reaction wouldn't have been amiss. Perhaps he actually was. But other than a tremble of crest feathers, too slight to be caused by the wind's playful touch, and an inquisitive head tilt while his talon traced over incomprehensible drawings, strong emotion was as foreign to him as the untidy scrawls upon those pages. A hint of bemusement crept into his voice, but nothing more.

"Almost a complete set there. You've got a how, which, and when to go with it?"

The stranger, mysterious as the mystery itself, had fished all the questions straight out of his stream of consciousness. Every interrogative they'd caught on a hook and reeled into the open air for the tunnel's listening pleasure. The thoughts were common enough, but the detached sense of knowledge behind their delivery wasn't. It gave the impression of a being playing games, asking plenty and dangling a whole bundle of answers just beyond the bird's reach.

Normally, he'd peck the clues loose from such teasing fingers. Against an invisible force though, without clear motives, one might want to take a more careful approach than that. Who knew whether their other hand hovered at the back of his neck, prepared to crush any impertinence from him between deceptively indifferent observations of the act.

"Anyway," he said, shrugging, "can't know where next until you know where before." He lifted the metal scrap at an angle so that the wind could help flip through a few more pages for perusal. Then, once it was set aside, a foot closed the book to its front cover and pinned it shut. East leaned over, a critical eye searching for telltale wear and tear. "Journal... What sort of journey would a journal have had?"

An odd situation to talk to nothing, only for the nothingness to begin talking past him.

"'A how,' he says, and 'a when.' Smart questions. Hard questions. Where could he find answers, after all...? In this dusty old book? Or was it, as he said, somewhere in this book's old journey?"

As East inspected its pages, its cover, the Narrator continued. "It seemed our hero was the cunning sort. But would he have what it would take to follow this story through... to its end? -Or maybe even to its beginning?"

The inside of the leatherbound notebook--its pages--were a series of four carefully-sketched images, four of which had written entries after them. Each set of writing was slightly different, as if noted by a different writer.

The very first page was the set of concentric circles, the arrow pointing down and left. The scribbling that followed took up a number of pages, each their own journal entry or set of notes--it was hard to tell without access to the language in which it had been written.

A few pages in, there was a new sketch: a carefully-dyed image of white flowers, like bells along towering stalks. They'd be very beautiful flowers by most Gembounds' estimation, delicate and pale.

A great deal of writing is found after, in sharper, darker lines than that which came before. There's a few sketches of tunnels here, and caves--a gray-blue cave with a waterfall, crossed out, as well as a sketch of a towering forest and one of thick jungle with X's crossed through both. The last sketch is a narrow, rocky path with water running through it. This page is stained with old brown spots. This entry ends--or maybe the next begins?--with a carefully-inked image of what looks like a ritual circle, its tall stones dyed bright red and the surrounding stone pure white.

The writing after the ritual circle is different. Its script is more flowing, thinner--and the entries here have no sketches, only narrow, sweeping paragraphs of elegant and incomprehensible words. Another few brown stained dots embellish the last few lines. The final image, some thirty or so pages in, is a sketch of a series of towering black stones, with careful sweeps of Oily color through them--inked pink and green. An arrow points down, to the left and bottom of this cluster of rock.

This is where the notebook ends--no further writing, only the image and then... dozens of empty pages.

"Would our cunning investigator begin at the beginning, or skip to the end-? Everyone knows that the wise would do the former... more to do, more to see, more to learn. Then again, there was always romance in the impatient, that tragic heroism in the one that rushed in headfirst. But he wasn't done, yet--maybe there was more to find..."

...for now East was pinning the book closed, examining its cover.

The notebook's cover was old, thin leather. It was ancient, by all appearances: worn and weathered, battered, the leather's edges battered and frayed white. Oddly, despite having been found in an open, rocky tunnel, the journal was faintly gray with something that looked very distinctly like dust.

Mysterious...

East has begun a Whodunit Adventure. He may invite along anyone he chooses, of course. His own actions will determine how this story pans out. Investigating all leads before moving to the last will provide much more mystery, maybe more answers, and more preparation; but East may also choose to skip straight to investigating the final journal entry if he so chooses.

@East

At its held angle, the metal scrap proved to be an imperfect tool even more so than when laid across the strange book's pages. End pressed with only the slightest application of force against aged paper, the entire length bowed like a sapling would to a violent gust of air. It trembled within East's grip, and if the present breeze had been any stronger, the cloth-wrapped piece might have blown out of his talons and far from reach. Luck was what kept the precarious arrangement intact.

An unwitting accomplice to knowledge's pursuit, the wind pushed the pages along, the speed at which it did so fluctuating based on whether or not the scrap was being lowered back into place. Writing meaningful to East as random scratches of dirt passed by in a blur, the markings' sole distinguishing feature the varying sharpness of their valleys and peaks. Images went by slower, easier to comprehend than symbols whose meaning he'd no idea of.

The first and second images were a curiosity but warranted not much more than a momentary pause. The series of sketches following after them evoked greater interest, the sights depicted a mixture of familiar and far from recognizable.

It was here, pondering over the crossed-out caves amongst the compilation, that a low and disbelieving exhale responded to such bold description of himself.

Hero? Flattering, but hardly accurate.

"Oh, that all depends," the hawk murmured. Vision sharp in the dim surroundings, his gaze raked from side to side and climbed up to where carved creatures observed, ever unbreathing and silent. Searching for a shudder of movement amongst their ranks or a glimpse of life hiding in the shadows below them. "Does a voice have a throat?"

His own constricted as he returned to the open book, a second look bringing to notice the flaws upon the sketch he'd left: stains speckled the rendered rock and the water cutting through it. Spatter from the genuine article perhaps. At least that's what his initial assumption was—its reappearance at the text's end brought forth other possibilities, ones that caused his shoulders to tense and him to lean in, trying to determine whether the brown spots had always been such and never before been tinged a rusty hue.

When he at last finished, the cover settled into place and examined as well, East straightened up. Without a figure to lay eyes upon, he resigned himself to directing his thoughts at the wall the journal had been abandoned beside.

"A hero's decisions are as good as their storyteller's. Their identity defined by the words behind them, I'm sure you understand. So which ones have you reserved besides cunning for your cluechaser?"

In what manner did they intend their puppet to dance?

"Our hero," continued the Narrator, smooth as butter: "spoke to the walls, musing on this predicament." Oh, it was rule number one: the narrator didn't speak to the hero. Didn't address them directly, no; that would ruin the entire effect!

-But, perhaps simply down to East's clever wording, the mysterious voice was enticed to spill a little more.

"A hero, he said," (the voice was paraphrasing perhaps a little poorly) "-is as good as his storyteller; but one would ask... what's a storyteller without a story? What is a narrator, without something to narrate?" -Too much said. The voice had toed that line, even breached it a little, that line that must remain inviolate.

"It proved the cleverness of this bird's mind. He was no ordinary investigator. No, this bold fellow, stumbling upon the evidence, he was a cut above. It would be interesting to see where he might take these clues. Clues that had left others clueless, lost, or pushin' up daisies." The voice fell silent--but had that been a hint of excitement that East had wheedled out of it?

@East

The Narrator wove their words. He listened. Then once silence gripped the tunnel again, a low whistle rose out of it, not the melodic perfection of a songbird but a rough, appreciative sound. "If these walls could talk... with you around, an awful lot."

A head shake. Smugness, teasing and admonishing at the same time, edged his tone. The meaning couldn't be any more obvious than if it'd been spoken outright: Careful there. I thought you weren't supposed to give the game away. Not that he necessarily objected to what almost could have been addressing him instead of speaking over him.

"Stumbling's a bit much, I'd say," East rejoindered, a glint in his eyes. "More of a meeting with an old friend by the name of Chance, leaving behind pieces for me to pick up."

Ruins. Bones. Creatures in varying stages of rot, varying degrees of gruesome. This new find just happened to be a little more unique than those, an entire personality attached to its cryptic pages.

He surveyed the book again, withdrawing his talons from their resting spot on the cover. Other than the four-toed print left, not a speck of leather binding was untouched by dust. Age was worn into its surface, beaten into every crease. Whatever hazards it might have encountered, in the care of however many owners it had survived them all. And that same voice might have crooned over their shoulders as well.

The eagerness of his invisible observer possessed a contagious quality. As if they were on a shared wavelength, a similar urge vibrated in his feathers. However the sensation was not as pure, tinged by suspicion and hesitance. Rubbing toes together, East considered their friction and, though he lacked the magic to do so, couldn't help wondering at setting the entire affair ablaze. To let the ashes settle and see if the voice from nowhere—or rather somewhere?—kept their breath.

Due to mutual interest, he decided to play the role he'd been cast in. At least until the potential risks outweighed the reward of satisfaction.

"Pushing up daisies. Doesn't sound pleasant. Can't be any worse than tromping on them." Not that he knew what a daisy was. All guesswork, him. In an exaggerated show of caution, he shifted weight. Tipped to one side, a foot turned inward, revealing the dust accumulated on its bottom. "Let me shake this off, and I won't even bother touching the ground."

Circles within circles. Representative of what exactly, he had no clear idea. But his stone-walled world held a couple decent options, ones that'd require venturing either forward or back, journal in tow. He threw a glance in both directions before choosing promptly.

Was it the right place or time to start? Only the other fella knew that, and there was no guarantee of anything certain from them besides their entertainment at his success or pending failure.

-Exit East

"Chance, he said--he thanked Chance for his luck, but how much of it would prove to be fate..?" The Narrator's voice dropped to a near-whisper, a closing few words for this prologue. "And what winding road would Chance, or fate, lead him down..?"

There was no rejoinder to East's other words, no response to his other musings.

Instead, the Narrator fell silent; it was up to East, now, to push this story along.

@East (for visibility)