Canis found him panting, already nearly through Orion when the Collector's voice rattled in his brain. Ah, that familiar voice- and one he was thinking about meeting with, maybe? Well- why else would he come to Canis? For the gems? Blah, dumb Attikias.

Well, the trip didn't hurt, and he was on his way anyways, unaware of his adopted daughter already bustling about in the treasure-filled cave. However, when it came to the vision Attikias saw, he barely noticed anything but chaos. A scroll flitted by his feet, and he grasped at his newly tattooed arm, recoiling as it drifted by lazily. Huh.

"Hey, what's this about?" He called out, hand fluttering to the new bag on his side, the amulet dangling from its strap and clinking against the urn sequestered inside. "Is this the same person that set up tho- Wait, no," he stopped himself short, putting his other hand to his lips. Well, whatever this was, it was something alright.

The sound of clattering drew his head up, and a certain wooden thing was careening towards him. His first instinct was to draw his spear and dodge out of the way, but- No, he could absolutely take this opportunity! Giving out a clipped yell, Attikias leapt when it came close, aiming to drive the weapon into the wood of it to get it to slow the hell down.

At the last moment it swerved and the elf landed squarely on the ground, getting a taste of bone dust all up in his face. "Damn- hey, slow down!" He called after whatever it was, sputtering as clouds of dust struggled to get into his eyes.

Electrum

The booming, cave-shaking call had nearly scared him half to death- but the fact that it was words from another Gembound kept him from completely panicking, and he surprised even himself as he urged Haven to explore with him.

The two had wandered out of Pisces looking for easier food, or different food at least... if he got fish slapped one more time he was going to... do something drastic. What, he wasn't sure of yet, but it would be bad!

…

Anyway. Moving past his ego getting smacked around, he followed the dry air and echoing calls and chaos into a room full of... oh stones are those bones? He doesn't know how he knows the word, or why its bad, but seeing that many bones makes him shiver, and throw up his sailfin in discomfort.

"Haven... it's all bones in here... it looks like others are fine walking all over them, so I don't know if this is a super important place? But its creepy. I don't want to be here-" one of the fluttering papers slaps into his face, as if mocking him, and it soars away before he can recover enough sense before spluttering, ".. long. Maybe we can get a cool thing and make our way to our home?"

Taking a good look, he eyes the scrolls up on the ceiling- the few others going for them making him squint once more, blue pupils tightening as he tries to make out how they're held up.

"I'm gonna find a way up there, to the roof. There's stuff hanging out up there, and it doesn't look like its moving." He slides his tail along Haven's side, as if showing what way he's going as he takes a few steps. "I'll come back to help you if you want, okay? There's fluttery things, some... I think I saw someone open a box, but then they started yelling so be careful... and then there's this thing with lots of legs going around, I'm sure you can hear it. If you want to try and catch something, go for it. It seems like its a game anyway, right?

With that, he waits for a reply, bunts Haven's head gently with his own, and takes off, loping across the ground and attempting to find his way up the walls- to no avail. Every time he seems to get a foothold with one paw, the other three seems to slid free and he hits the ground a number of times with a series of increasingly loud thumps, eventually ending with him snarling in anger at the wall.

As a full grown dragon, this call would rumble like thunder- but as is he sounds like a pissed off monitor lizard mocking a cat's yowl- in short, not very intimidating.

@Haven

Haven had totally not been paying attention to anything when the call had rung out, and had flopped back over and ignored it until Electrum dragged her dramatic butt towards the noise instead.

"Aren't you the one always saying to go away from the weird noise?", she'd asked, before they'd arrived in Canis.

Her head had swiveled around, trying to see what in the Seven Hells was happening before Electrum had gotten whacked with a piece of... something. It sounded like a wet leaf.

"Bones?", she asked, and sniffed at the ground, "Weird. I'll see you soon, promise!"

She took off at a dead sprint and spread her wings, flapping hard, shaky in her movements, before straightening them out and gliding instead. She focused on the sound of legs- too many, in her honest opinion- and aimed for it, lower legs extended like a bird of prey's as she swooped down and... missed. Fantastically.

To be fair, she couldn't exactly see the thing, but she did hit the ground face-first, despite aiming feet-first, so that was less than optimal.

Haven got up and shook herself off, and waddled forward like a very angry chicken before taking off again, trying to chase the thing down. Why was she the one running after the moving thing she couldn't see? Why wasn't she the one climbing up the walls trying to get the immobile objects up there? When she was literally a climber?

Electrum had some serious flaws in his planning.

@Electrum

Somewhere in Canis, the Collector stood hunched over, giggling softly, struggling to keep it from becoming hysterical guffaws. With his magic he could watch them--the chaos that unfolded as some Gembound tumbled after the sled, some attacked it (and here he was both surprised, and rather appalled; he hadn't intended for anyone to die today) and others just generally fumbled about. All at high speed, all hilarious.

Some were successful in their tasks. Take Rainstorm, for example, who barely managed to snag a scroll from the massive, careening sled. Algol wasn't entirely sure what the bird could do with it, but they'd found a diagram depicting several types of boats--made with treated wood, or hollowed-out logs, some wrapped in leather--and both sails and oars. Or Aran, who'd safely snagged his glowing orb and made good his swift escape (probably wise, really). Dip he paid close attention to. She'd gotten the tea! Good. And now she was reaching up, pulling a scroll down from a low-hanging stalagtite--one of the last. That one, he knew, explained how to create cement, by grinding shells, or porous rock, and combining the powder with clay and water. It had a few different methods, but the Collector wondered if Dip would actually be able to do all that much with it. Ahh, well; the game was random, that was rather the point of it. Garnet-Episilon grabbed what he considered one of the more important advancements--one of the ones that a few others relied on, in fact. It was a small cup of salt, with a paper card sticking out of it. This paper's diagram depicted how to refine rough salt by first steeping salty stone in water, then evaporating the water, leaving behind the salt. And Volta, with an admirable display of agility, snagged another scroll. Ahh! He particularly liked that one: a diagram showing how to build a kiln to heat temperatures to extremely high levels. Alongside it, rolled up within, was a bonus diagram showing sand being melted into glass, and blown into shapes, a window among them. The Gembound would make good use of that, he gauged--assuming Volta thought to share.

And then... there were the failures. He enjoyed watching them just as much, though Attikias he watched more grimly. Of those trying to catch the sled, Nemo and Haven both missed badly, potentially falling and getting a tad scuffed-up in the attempt. Neither, he gauged, were too hurt to try again. Eythan tried to flip the heavy chest, but it well-outweighed him; still, the strong rock that he gave it sent its lid (and far too many wooden teeth) snapping shut on nothing. The Collector laughed at this a little too hard; it was a good thing he was muffled, and invisible, or even Eythan might have heard him from even this distance. Electrum was leaping and failing to snag the last scroll, and Attikias...

Oof.

The spear drove into the wood, and the sled turned, all the legs scrambling and skittering on the ground. Normally it was a shy and frightened thing, but Attikias had attacked it-! Harmed it! ...And now it struck back.

The sled, weighing perhaps six or seven hundred pounds, with half that weight in the dozens of legs alone, wnt careening for the humanoid. It was a clumsy thing, and if it hit, it would likely only knock him aside; it didn't seem to have aimed very well.

And for the rest-? What remained was a single scroll, dangling tantalizingly above Electrum, and a few final items hidden on the sled, and in chests around the cave.

@Rainstorm @Aran @Dip @Garnet-Epsilon @Volta @Nemo @Eythan @Attikias @Electrum @Haven

Nemo

Clattering to the bone scattered floor in a heap of feathers and talons, he lets himself roll and hop back to his feet, staggering a bit to catch his balance from the ungainly landing.

Flapping his wings to further stabilize himself, he feels a bit of rage and embarrassment build in his chest- how stupid to miss that giant target! So, he winds himself up to leave the ground, stretching his legs so that he has full room to bring his wings down- but the nearby thump and subsequent recovery of what looked like some kind of cave bat on steroids, but was obviously a Greater makes him flap and take off in alarm.

The other Gembounds recovery and angry hissing cry makes him take a second of pause, but honestly! He agrees! They've got to get this box thing with legs, no matter how angry it gets at... the blue Greater over to the side. Maybe he should help.

It's not just because he's blue he swears.

So, still mid flight, he lets out a kind of shriek as a battle cry, diving at the sled one last time, hoping to either strike the thing and draw its attention, or at the least knock more things off of it for other Gembound.

"I'll strike at the front- you aim for the back!" Nemo hopes the leathery other can hear him over their respective chases, but he can say he tried.

Electrum

Yeah he's usually the one who says no to weird noises, but he feels secure in his decision to follow a voice, not a noise thank you.

After a few seconds of his temper tantrum- he's an actual child cut him some slack- he hisses and claws his way up the wall, fins pinned flat to his spine and feet and finger joints gripping desperately at the stone as he hauls himself up and after the scroll.

The hissing and noises of irritation he hears from his hatchmate across the caves makes him whip his head around and lift his ears- and the anger and determination written in the lines of Haven's body makes him pin his ears right back against his head. The other had recovered nicely- and he's glad for that, or he'd be in a lot more trouble.

Oh. Oh dear. I owe Haven for this. Big time.



Electrum throws himself off the wall with his hind legs and tail, reaching out with his wings and jaw open as he lunges at the scroll, sliding under the item but feeling it brush his fin, so he twists his tail and makes a grab at it as a last ditch effort.

The bird was able to grab a scroll - one that depicted things they didn't quite understand. Some, strange thing made out of trees it looked like. Hollow and floating atop... water? Some kind of long stick things, and hides used as something attached. It was weird - but maybe someone else knew what it was? Maybe they could ask after the weird leggy thing went away! Hopefully no one tried to take it from them.

Rolling the scroll back into a circular shape, Rainstorm wrapped the string used to keep it closed around their foot, making sure it wouldn't come off before choosing to attempt one of the chests instead. Maybe that would show something different.

Something cool, or maybe something scary.

Haven was getting a bit desperate, claws scrabbling at the sleg as she tried to land on it. She rose up higher, soaring above, before closing her wings, her claws extending to grab something to grab and fly off with. She got closer and closer, jaw clenched in anticipation.

Aha!!

She scraped something that seemed to be a little weighty, something she could carry with a bit of struggle, but she grabbed it nonetheless and made off with it, wings flapping as hard and fast as they could, the thing she'd grabbed weighing her down.

"ELECTRUM I GOT IT!!", she yelled out, trying to get out of the way of anyone else nearby, using clicks and the heat-sensitive organ in her muzzle to get back towards the tunnel she and Electrum had come from.

She was panting like mad as she drifted lower and lower, struggling to stay aloft, but she kept straight and steady until she got to the entrance of the tunnel, and flopped to the ground, before quickly returning to her prize, spines raised and the plates on her neck clacking together threateningly at anyone nearby. She wasn't giving up her hard-earned prize so easily... even if she ended up being alone.

The coyote slammed into the sled with a startled yelp, muffled as he found himself holding a roll of... parchment? Something like that, cool! He dropped it, pinning it beneath his paw and trying to parse what was on it, something with trees and boxes? He didn't really understand but maybe one of the other Bonebound would?

The sled was still going, and so he took off after it again, scrambling to keep up as it turned, Very Much Determined as he bolted after it.

The sled whirled, Nemo successfully attracting its attention. It was not, with its dozens of humanoid legs, particularly agile; it stumbled to one side, skidding, a few of the legs briefly folding with the strain of the sharp turn.

Electrum snagged the last scroll: a long parchment, once unrolled, depicting various types of pottery and how to create them--including a brief example of heating clay on a hot fire.

The chests were far too heavy for Rainstorm to open alone; yet the one they tackled opened of its own accord, the lid lifting and tilting back. Strange... Out popped two items, landing neatly on the floor before the pigeon. The first was a small cup of sugar, which spilled only a little; the second was a paper detailing how to refine sugar from nectar, honey, or fruit.

Haven snagged something rather small: a silver needle with a long piece of thread threaded through its eye. This was stuck through a half-sewn pair of silk scraps, laid end-to-end, clearly woven from spider-silk. By studying it, the art of sewing and stitching would become clear. Though it would probably be easier to someone who had eyes.

Ischium missed his mark entirely, indeed; and lucky for him (and for Attikias), the sled was now distracted by the flapping Nemo. Otherwise, the coyote might have had a very bad time indeed.

Two items remain in chests in Canis. One remains atop the sled.

@Nemo @Ischium @Haven @Electrum @Rainstorm