Now, more than halfway done with her task, Kaimana was wondering just how much life was left in this cave. Latent, needing the turn of the key in the cognition, the activation. And what would they do with their newfound freedom? For cycles and cycles, the other stones Kaimana had found had been sheltered in a similar darkness. She needed to make up for that. To give back what she had been given, pass it around.

The fourth stone was also gleaming with an inner life. It wasn't surprising, but did intrigue the jaguar. How had it gotten this way? What were their last moments? She supposed, with the assistance of her other check-up spell, she could find out. She would await the final stone bone to do so.

And here they were, reining champion fifth stone! Kaimana felt a blanket hope for them all. Her alignment of the bones was not a hierarchy, it was simply a map. Every destination was a treasure. Following the pathways, her attention finally settled on the last of her collection. She scanned, only to find... nothing. A slight sigh escaped her maw as she turned back to the bone piles. Was it worth another attempt?

The mildest of scrapes on her limbs were already scabbed over, likely gone. She wasn't sore, she wasn't emotionally exhausted. She supposed, then, that nothing was stopping her besides the room left in her den. Sometimes she felt like she understood him — Mister Collector, the method of travel she was planning to bargain on. They were both traders, so it wasn't a huge mental leap. However, the last time she had tried to request something simple from him, he had requested someone freshly murdered. At the time, she hadn't known what to do besides turn him down cold. Now, Kaimana thankfully had other ideas. Boundaries. Respect. Lessons learned best from children.

She padded back over to a bone pile, this time allowing herself the ease of not climbing around. She would fiddle through the stacks of bones like an archivist with their books, or a mathematician with their colossal calculating databases. Deft, careful claws mangled the order to receive the reward. Like a vending machine, loose it came, into Kaimana's waiting paws.

She padded back over to her bone map and laid it down according to the laws of her mysterious order. 'He asked for things that weren't mine to give or take.' Thus would be her policy. Honestly should have been her policy from the start, but living codes are learning codes; they must adapt with time.

Kaimana focused on this sixth bone, placing a careful paw lightly to its surface. The stone attached lacked any gleam of life. Kaimana wished she knew more about how it all worked. The transfers of the living, she could grasp by observation, but from latent to dead... 'How does that work? When did it happen? Where did it go?' Kaimana had to pause.

Naturally, being in the domains of life and death led to a lot of existentialism. That was why Kaimana had developed the strategies and philosophies she had developed. In many regards, the interest had shaped her growth and now defined her, like discoveries and legends written into each rosette on her pelt. Exchange and constant flow was a calming thought, an easing notion. Too big of a purpose and you would be suffocated by the grief of loss and the weight of responsibility. Too little a purpose and you would lose yourself in endless waters, drowning without sunlight, and you would try not to care. And you would fail.

But to say it was all just as important, part of an ecosystem... to say your death and your life were important to maintaining those very broad, necessary concepts? It worked for Kaimana. The larger perspective was what kept her level with the goal in many situations. So when she essentially asked herself, 'When does life fade? Where did my family go?' she expected her reflexes of the mind to settle the work and steady the heart. But it didn't. They didn't. They didn't. But when will they? They're still here. Sometimes it was just best not to think, and yet during that time it was also best not to attempt running. That was limiting. Kaimana didn't want to be sad in such a place as this.

To free herself, Kaimana would stoop her head down and touch nose to the lifeless bone. Now she would try a different kind of magic, desiring to know some part of this artifact. Whether it be in life or after life, some memory it possessed. Just to know if it would have wanted to free her like she could no longer free it. It was a request Kaimana made in the process of already taking action. Rather insensitive, not very kind. Reduced, in some capacity, by her turmoil and her ignorance. It was one of those rare occasions where she couldn't convince herself if it was alright. If she was alright. Kaimana sought ought a memory that she could let go of.

The first stone to catch Kaimana's attention was a clear moissanite—harboring Pupil-level (+2) magic—lodged on the inside of a skull's eye socket. The skull itself was just three inches long, somewhat canine-esque in shape with not so large a nasal cavity.

The second replaced part of a thin, hollow piece of bone that was fairly flat and triangular. Fledgling-level (+1) magic swam within the surface of the magenta pyrope.

A pink-and-green clinozoisite came next, attached to a small, equally as light and hollow, vertebra. Fledgling (+1) magic clung to it still.

Last, but not least: half of a pelvis about the size of Kaimana's own forearm with a rock candy-blue caledonite along its edge, hosting Fledgling-level (+1) magic within.

—
Kaimana's magic reached for the caledonite, grasping for what memory dwelled within the bone that had hosted:

Hot breaths filled her lungs, the sound of panting ever-present in her ears— Ah, but they weren't a jaguar's ears, were they? They were far too large, almost rabbit-like in their quality, but even longer. She also was not a biped with overly large forearms. The creature dashed over the bones, scarcely large enough to crest a hill that might have taken none at all for a jaguar. Glittering eyes glanced down a tear-stained snout, the soft beginnings of a plea bubbling from its lips. "Please, please, where is home..."

In wide, padded palms, lay a compass, pristine and new except for the crack in its glass face. The black arrow pointed due north, while the shimmering blue one spun wildly. "You're supposed to work... please, please, please— I'm begging..."

Hounds—the sort with a capital H—brayed in the distance. Their shadows gamboled closer and closer. "I don't know where your idea of home—safety—is," the creature whimpered at the inanimate object in their palms, "p-please tell me." Its voice broke, cracking at the edges as its resolve did. Shoulders shook, twisting as it hazarded a glance backward—

A dark shadow fell upon it, wrenching a strangled scream from its throat. The compass clattered out of its hands, and all the strange creature could do was watch as it vanished beneath the nearest fortress while teeth stole for its throat.

The vision would leave Kaimana to sit up abruptly, the creature's fluttering final breaths in her throat. But wasn't that bone fortress familiar... ? It still stood near where the pelvis had been, exactly as it was in terror's heyday. Untouched.

@Kaimana

A memory of recent death that was not hers. A memory startling but distant enough to turn Kaimana's sadness to a softer melancholy. Bones told stories of death, and 'death' was a very broad word. It could mean anything from a fade to a fall to a felling. It could mean betrayal, or the end of time, or a violent destruction. A mass destruction. Kaimana was acquainted with the concepts of many deaths, but this... Perhaps it had been unwise to not expect it. Was it truly surprising? No. Unsettling? I suppose. She didn't feel any guilt, per se. If anything, it only bestowed upon her a further sense of responsibility. Something along the lines of: I have to make it right. I'm the only one who can.

The compass would be part of that plan. Kaimana would clamber once more, shifting through bone after bone, looking for a different hint of a shine, a different guiding star. She would focus on trying not to get hurt. The bones themselves could be disturbed. Those without stones lacked that last whisper of true life, amounted to stone tablets of ancient art and history rather than any sort of eternal creature, and had no need to be held still in their eerily crafted positions. There were no monsters on business roaming this place anymore, as far as Kaimana knew.

The struggle would be greater than anticipated, and Kaimana would have to bear the agony of a genuine cut but! Her guiding star would be found, retrieved from the heavens. With tender movements, she would free it and return it to her pile. Before she tended to her wound, Kaimana would contemplate the device. All exactly as she had seen it. Monsters unconcerned with advancement, technology, magic... only determined to take that life, and most likely many more. The vibrant hue of the jaguar\'s eyes hardly reflected in the cracked and dusty glass of the compass, despite all the intensity of her stare.

'You did not save them. You could not.'

A soft paw pad tentatively attempted to wipe away some of the dirt.

'But now, you can.' "Do you know where home is, or safety?"

Kaimana wasn't sure what the words would mean to the compass, or why the compass had been addressed that way. The fleeting memory was her only frame of reference, and so she had little choice but to follow its actions to the letter. Would the question send that blue arm spiraling again? To where did that black arrow lead? Despite the confusion, there was a comfort in knowing that the endeavor would not be all for naught. If it worked, she might be able to use it, or give it to that who would revive the stone. If it didn't, it could remain a shiny keepsake of a past that someone else might find more value in. Kaimana would tend to her wound then, always making sure to keep one eye on the compass, in case of a reply.

The aquamarine hand had spun as Kaimana retrieved it from beneath a thousand years' worth of bones, though it stilled as she set it down to tend to her wounds; but, there was that bit of a command. A question it knew how to answer, and knew well: Home?

What little contact the jaguar had made was enough for the compass to seemingly know her subconscious idea of what home was: far from here, unknown, an anomalous concept now that she'd left it.

The compass's arrow spun once, and wobbled between two points—at Kaimana herself, and northeast, just a few degrees to the right of the red insignia at its top.

Identified Item!

Kaimana has obtained an enchanted item!

2 ★ Arrow of the Safe Haven A cracked compass with two arrows

☆☆☆☆★★ Arrow of the Safe Haven A worn compass with a cracked glass face and no chain. Its hinges are rusted and it's difficult to open or close. In addition to the needle that always faces a magnetic North (with inscriptions to indicate as much, of course!), there is an Aquamarine arrow that moves independently of it. ELEMENT: MAGIC LEVEL: 50 DURABILITY: 25 SPECIAL: The Aquamarine needle always points to what the holder perceives as "home", consciously or not. This may be a shelter, another Gembound, or something else entirely. MATERIAL: Glass, Bronze Alloy, and Aquamarine ATTACK: N/A ADDED: none WEIGHT: 1 EQUIP: Carried Currently owned by: Kaimana

@Kaimana

The arrow whirled about, then wobbled. Ambivalent. Was that the... to where did that arrow lead? Home. Safety. But it pointed, also, at her. Was it trying to say something? Kaimana swept up the curious object into her collection. She would have to experiment with this relic later. For now, she had to figure out less where home was and more so how to get there with all these things.

The next part of this endeavor would answer that question, if she could handle it. If he could handle it. What she would ask for was no small feat, and she would have reservations about what could be done to get it. This was the trade, in her mind — the puzzle of it all that made her head spin like a merry-go-round. She would find a way to fit these pieces together, or she would let her operation bust and live in a lonely, overcrowded den until she figured something out later. At least she had confidence!

- exit -