Astraea turned, and blinked, as the hyena sent forth spores. Outrage flickered through him. Does she think I do not know..? Anger quickly bled into dark amusement, and he took several slow, graceful steps toward her.

She was ugly. A hideous beast, a scarred, malodorous mass of fungus and matted fur. His lip curled in disgust. Her gemstone, her element--she dared...?

Astraea came to a stop a few feet away, and his own fungus rippled forth across the floor toward her, rapidly. He intended to engulf her in it, to completely strip away all traces of spores and mushrooms that she might carry with her. To prove a point, as it were. Swarms of small, white growths swarmed over the hyena, carpeting her and rapidly leaving nothing but the black goop of decomposition in their wake, thickly coating her fur.

It might hurt a bit, he knew, as the more ingrained of them were torn apart. In a low and deadly voice, cold with politeness, Astraea spoke. "Did you think I would not notice..? That magic is my domain, beast." He raised his voice from the soft tone as he looked around at the others, but before he could speak, Rezik was blurting out--"Ha! Very good, Master."

From close by, the Collector snickered.

Astraea turned his red stare down on Rezik, glared for a long moment, and then turned away.

"Thank you, Aure. We will be back in two cycles--to reward you all, I'm sure." He glanced back only once, with a very slight incline of his head, and then moved on. He had other places to be.

The Collector, however, lingered--grinning, it somehow seemed, in the darkness of his mask. "Would you like to place your orders now-?" he asked, amusement in his tone. "Or would you like to browse my selection-?"

@Aure

Aure hummed - mentally - as Wilder opened her own thoughts to him, beckoning with a number of images of the strange, blue deer's awakening, his prior crimes; Rezik was a creature known for betrayal, murder, destruction. The little black cat was forlorn, having found another example why there was not a universal good in these caves, that turncoats lurked everywhere the eye searched. Hey, hey - thank you for showing me this. I have an idea for how we can deal with him... it will keep him from doing that while we 'protect' him. Outwardly, the wyvern rubbed his wing-claws against her shoulder, in what he hoped was a reassuring gesture, "you're good, Wild."

Within a few moments, Aure had a reason to be angry. Instinctively, he stepped forward, to stop the wave of fungi - he's seen this before - but it had already swarmed her, the stag's voice booming. He didn't know that Giggle had done anything, but he most certainly didn't think that she deserved such a treatment, such a warning. As soon as Astraea took his leave - with empty gratitude - the wyvern trotted over to his mother, calling to Eythan as he passed the gryphon ("talk with the Collector.")

He nuzzled his mother gently, cooing, "are you okay, mom?" Rezik could wait.

@Giggle @Aries @Wilder

fuck post order lmfao

Of all things -

Aure was sticking him, the ticking time bomb (well, not next to Aries), on Collector-negotiating duty. But, y'know, the situation was a little dire with Astraea's casting on their mother - yes Eythan would go so far as to say that Giggle was like a mother to him. Bright eyes hesitantly met the Collector's, the necklace still tied around the base of his tail seemingly heavier than before. There wasn't anything inherently cursed about it, but there were certainly other - artifacts that were bad.

And, Mr. Algol just gave him bad vibes.

Anyways... the gryphon plodded forwards, ears flicking forward and puffing up his chest. Posing, totally. "What've you got that's not some cursed-ass shit?"

Giggle swore, briefly, shaking herself and staggering back. In an instant all she had was black goop--the results of rotten-away fungus, and she felt violated. These were her children, in a sense--a garden she had personally cultivated over her own body, and now this bastard had destroyed them!

-Okay, maybe she'd provoked it, but still! He had no right, probably! The hyena spat and scratched, grimacing. In places it had stung, and she felt itchy as all hell--she desperately wanted to go find water, right away, and roll all of this off into mud. But it wasn't agonizing, it was just aggravating.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she hastened to reassure her son, albeit in an angry mutter. She looked around, eyeing the Collector suspiciously, and then Rezik.

"At least he's not a fucking cat," she said sourly, and then huffed. "I need to go find water, to wash this off. Give me a few minutes."

It sounded urgent enough--and it was; she had wounds, if small, into which the rotted-away fungus was now dripping. It left burning, scraping feelings all over her skin.

"I'll listen through Omen, and I'll be right back."

The bird, as if in confirmation, gave a brief and quiet call from where it perched on a stack of bones--as far from Eythan as it could get. Giggle loped off quickly, though she would, as promised, return in a few moments' time.

________________

ROLL THE BONES

@Wilder

Wilder sighed softly, a tightness releasing from her chest. She'd been worried that Aure would be mad at her for waking up Rezik after she'd seen him do such things, but he gave her, instead, a reassuring rub with his wing. That was nice. That was comforting.

But concern for herself melted away when...something happened between Astraea and Giggle. A blanket of fungi engulfed the hyena and she took a step forward with Aure, as if she could do anything. Eyes widened, horrified, terrified that it was going to hurt her or kill her for something Wilder hadn't seen happen. What had happened? She'd missed it, sending Aure the info about their ward. But, thankfully, she emerged unharmed, but clearly a little shaken.

Eythan stepped off to speak with the Collector and Wilder suddenly found herself standing alone near Rezik. She glanced up at him, her first instinct to give him a bright, genuine smile and say hello, as she always did with everyone, but the image of his face as he stepped through the Bonebound, her family, returned a moment later and she shivered, the smile that had been forming dropped away. Ears pressed back and she inched away, closer to Aure, unsure of what they were going to do about him, or what Aure had up his sleeve...or, uh, wing.

Aries stiffened as the stag suddenly approached Giggle, bearing a look of anger and disgust.Uh oh. Suddenly, a wave of fungus tore from the ground. It swarmed Aure's mother in a heartbeat, Aries barely had time to react. "HEY!" He yelled; half in protest towards Astraea, half as belated warning for Giggle.

The ram rushed forward to help, but the fungus worked fast. Thankfully, it left Giggle unharmed for the most part. Aries shot an angry glare towards Astraea. He stood his ground, deciding against cracking the deer's skull open- for now. Astraea technically acted in self defense, but Aries wasn't a technical gembound. It was only on the grounds that he hadn't tried to "purge" Giggle like he tried to "purge" Khloros that he held back, guarding the Bone Reader while Aure tended to her. He only lowered his head when it was clear that Astraea was leaving.

Aries caught sight of Eythan going up to the Collector and a smirk crossed his face. It was time to back up his totally-not-love-interest dealing with this slimeball. Aries strode up next to Eythan, puffing out his chest as well, staring down the Collector. Perhaps it would help Eythan feel a bit more confident. He wasn't afraid of some knock-kneed bone-creeper. The ram snorted puffs of smoke from his nostrils as if to show it. He narrowed his eyes and added. "And don't even think about double-crossing us."

"Listen to me."
Thoughts...

TAG: // OOC:

Rezik turned to stare, for a time, at Wilder. He seemed almost oblivious to all else, and once Astraea had strutted away, he spoke in a quiet hiss. "You tricked me. You made me think you were a Master--you and that foul dog. Do you know what a fool that made me look-?" There was venom in his tone, genteel as it might have been.

The Collector, meanwhile, waved one claw-fingered hand daintily toward Eythan. "Cursed-? That hurts, Eythan. Truly." Well, he didn't sound hurt, but his hands certainly clasped, dramatically, over where his heart might have been. "Have I not granted you power over life and death-?"

Aries, though-... the snort, the threat. The staring him down. The Collector turned toward Aries, leaning forward to meet his gaze, seeming to tower higher and higher until he loomed like a castle parapet over the ram. Darkness flickered and whorled like smoke, darkening the room around him. "Or what?" - and even his voice seemed to rumble, like thunder, through all of Canis.

It hung, for a moment, ominous and distinctly threatening.

And then he was himself again, sounding as though he were grinning beneath the hood, the cave bright and dry as he turned to Eythan. "Our good master Astraea has instructed me to provide you--assuming you complete your task, of course--with trinkets of your choosing. I think--three would be enough? Wouldn't you say? So tell me what you want, and I will look through my collection." Somehow, the word alone was slick and greasy, unpleasant with its implications.

@Aries @Aure @Wilder

Aure heaved a sigh of relief as his mother claimed to be fine - she wouldn't if she wasn't, Giggle wasn't a liar - and waved a wing towards Aries just before he left to back-up Eythan, a quiet "thank you" uttered in passing. Bright eyes didn't leave his mother for a moment, until she'd loped off a considerable distance away. Finally, he turned his gaze towards Rezik, ears moving back imperceptibly.

Any charge of Astraea's is not a friend of ours, he immediately jumped to, and with the concerns with status and dignity, Rezik seemed to be just as despicable on his own. The wyvern trotted forwards, taking a brief headcount of his people (no others had left or been taken other than Giggle) and moving in front of Wilder. Aure's tail wagged once. Having this one wandering around while they were 'protecting' him couldn't be ideal. Eythan would definitely wring the blue-bastard's neck within the day.

So, minimal interaction. Isolation. Shoving into a nook or cranny and forgetting about it. Aure inhaled, steadying himself, and offering carefully: "are you able to go into your chrysalis on your own? We can hide you in the Chambers - somewhere high-up and difficult to access, but we can't guarantee security all the time." It could totally be construed because of their small numbers, but the King just plain didn't want anyone to have to deal with Rezik. "We'd cover your chrysalis, too, with fungi as a deterrant." He spoke strongly, even as the Collector's voice cracked and rumbled and darkened the room.

He trusted Eythan not to fuck all of this up.

@Giggle (if she wants to post) @Wilder @Aries

Wilder widened her eyes and her mouth opened in a small gasp. She flinched at the venom in Rezik's voice and it hit her suddenly that he probably hated her. He...he really thought that she'd tricked him? She shook her head, voice quivering as she tried to speak. "N-no no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...to t-trick you. I didn't know you thought I was a Master, I really didn't, I promise." Eyes grew glassy as tears threatened to spill from her eyes. She'd thought he was her friend. She'd really believed it, but now he was utterly rejecting her for something she didn't even know she'd done wrong. Her own foolishness.

She sniffled and swallowed, trying to stop herself from bursting into tears. "I...I just saw you sleeping and th-thought that you might want to wake up. I thought you were stuck. Sorry f-for any trouble I caused you..."

"Somehow, I think you'll live," Eythan snarked back, albeit with less venom than before. The Collector had always been one of theatrics, and prior comments about his goods being cursed hadn't ended with anyone on a stake, so...

Ah, shit, well, except for Aries. Talons scuffled across the floor as the gryphon moved in front of him, head bowed low and loudly whispering, "okay, simmer down bud. We don't need to get ass-blasted or our tails in a knot or whatever over this, 'kay?" Crimson eyes fixed on the ram for a moment, and then Eythan looked back to the Collector with an almost weary sigh, "back to business, eh?" He didn't seem too keen on things not being cursed, still.

He did actually think for a moment, sitting down and scratching at his chin with a contented smile. It disappeared quickly, since not a single clear idea came to mind. There were some fantastical things, sure, but they were a bit unimaginable; the aforementioned pendant of life (and death) being one good example. All that came to mind was abstract and basic concepts - Eythan made a theremin noide to indicate as such. "I dunno, things that give magic? Can be used to protect? Hide? I dunno what all you've got in there," and here he gestured towards the cloak, some strange sort of hammerspace.