At least the Bone King was honest.

Shaking and losing his lunch, though? That was out of character for anyone. Mercurius was hardly as experience a healer as - say, Oliver - but he could provide a minor flush of magicka: bacteria urged towards the poor hybrid and his unsettled gut (even as he had suspicions that it wasn't a symptom of physical illness.) Hopefully, the brief, refreshing cool of it would be grounding.

Dip moved closer, fingers moving deftly through his feathers, perhaps not thinking the right thing - but her sympathy was there.

Pride looked completely out of his depth, plodding forwards with a wish to help but unsure of how to. Mercy hummed softly, considering - and murmured to him softly, "could you find something cool to the touch, Pride? A gemstone, perhaps? Small enough to grab, not too smooth."

Meanwhile, he slunk forwards, pressing closer to Aure and huffing until bright, unsteady eyes stared hard at him. "Good, look at me. Do you feel the ground under your - claws?"

Eyes dilating. A mute shake of the head. No.

"Look at it, move your claws a little. Feel it."

Pause. Head turning down slowly. The shuffling of claws.

"There - there's someone... petting you, too."

Gaze twisting back, wide-eyed at Dip.

"Look at me again, okay?" (Aure did.) "Can you tell or show us what happened, or do you need time?"

The world slowly faded into focus, like the exposure of a polaroid - emerging from a brief... whiteness. Mercy'd brought him back, if on tentative conditions.

Aure wasn't sure why, but having his feathers smoothed down was reassuring. The rhythm of it was easy to focus on. He might've even leaned into it a little.

"Can you tell or show us what happened, or do you need time?"

His beak pulled into a hard line, brows furrowing in that moment of consideration and - "y-yeah." Caves, his throat felt completely swelled shut. He swallowed down rising bile, ears almost permanently back with a prolonged wince.

Y-yeah he could... show them.

A wing stretched out weakly, gesturing for Mercy and Pride to come closer, and maybe for Dip to lean over further to see - he didn't want to broadcast the imagery for... everyone here to see. There were children. Magicka flowed feebly, and he closed his eyes as if he could escape from reliving that brief nightmare by ducking behind the curtains.

The scenery played out like a lagging, patchy - soundless - slideshow, bright at first and grim by the end.

As soon as it ended, he let out a ragged sigh: "I - consumed them with my magic."

@Dip

Something cool..? Pride glanced around, a little quizzically. He could conjure up a mist, perhaps, and pull the stone through it..? He concentrated on that, first. Water vapor coalesced, and he pushed a chosen stone--smooth and mostly black--into the center of it, and waited. It cooled for a moment as the water evaporated, and he picked it up carefully in his teeth while it was still wet.

The stag carried the stone over, setting it down between Mercy and Aure, not quite sure what he was meant to do with it; and he didn't want to interrupt. By the time he arrived, the light-clothed imagery was beginning.

That it came soundless--that was merciful. Had the agonized screaming come through, Pride might have lost his own lunch, or even bolted. As it was, it was horrific enough, and he swore softly--unusually, and only reinforcing how terrible it was--and turned away. Only after a moment staring off at nothing did he gather himself, and he pushed his terrible thoughts (Did the Masters do this-? Why did they create these rings, this... thing? What if that fate awaits us--what if this is part of this... puzzle, of sorts? But there was something more important, now, and the stag, grimacing, turned back to Aure.

"I'm sorry. That is-... that is terrible," was all he said, softly. Sympathy, empathy--but he'd leave the rest to Mercurius, who was far better at these things than he.

@Mercurius

There was a loud noise, painful. She skittered back, hunching low to the ground, before something ground again, then retching, vomiting, voices. What was happening? She wondered, and approached slowly, lights flashing before her, but they were too large for her to make sense out of them.

A wilting rose unfolded, and she rose upon it.

Pride returned with a stone, and the storyteller nodded appreciatively. He pushed it gently towards the Bone King, rumbling, "ground yourself with this, if you must." The texture and coolness, hopefully, would help the worst of this episode subside.

Though, Aure seemed well enough to offer the grim visual that the ring'd offered him. It was a patchwork series of memories, fleeting but certainly enough. The stag swore at his side, while Mercy was simply - harrowed by it. Ripped apart, reduced to - that... he frowned, horrid things formed these caves, these rings. What lies past this?

He'd meant to direct another pulse of cleansing magicka to the bird, but it was caught in that faint thrum of disgust, and it was twisted into a unfamiliar spell and aimed at the equally as alive-seeming ring. It stopped short as Mercy's breath caught in his chest, and he turned back to the young King.

Instead, he offered Aure his gentlest words, "it's not your fault. That... is a wretched thing to have witnessed - and it should not have happened, but... ah... perhaps you carry them with you, now - or perhaps you have freed them from such a painful existence."

Aure sat again, drawing the stone closer to him in one talon. He fondled it some, turning it over on the ground, but ultimately decided that, as nice of a gesture as it was, it did not help. It wasn't as tangible as the fingers carding through his feathers or the close warmth that Mercurius and Pride were offering as they huddled to watch; nor the focus and light that his wisps brought.

The young King reached into his stone, and a phosphorescent glow winked into existence before his eyes. Wonderful, safe, secure.

Mercurius's words were, at least, reassuring in some part. It helped Aure settle that rattling breath of his, bringing himself closer to that steadfast King persona. "Thank you," he offered softly, and at last wormed out from underneath Dip's assurances.

He swallowed. "If - horrible things like... that happened to make these - rings..." he thought aloud, forcing his feathers to smooth down, "I'll pull myself together. I'll be ready."

@Pride

Pride listened to the two, and turned back to the rings, grimly thoughtful. Mercurius was better than he, regardless, at comforting and the like. Pride, though; his mind had turned back to the puzzle, or the test, or the lock or the door or whatever the damn thing was. How had this happened-? Who had done it, and why; what atrocity was worth this sort of thing?

"I wonder why it is here. Why do such terrible things merely to create--whatever this is?" Pale eyes narrowed in thought as he studied it. "If you were right about different types of magic being needed for the various rings--and I think that you are--which one would this be-?" It was half thoughtful, as if he were just thinking aloud; he certainly wasn't intentionally interrupting Aure's terrible trauma.

@Aure

Lights.

Mercurius smiled gently at the wisp as it manifested, then at the hybrid that conjured it. "You're welcome," he rumbled, voice ever-so-soft and reassuring.

Back to the rings - "I do hope that it is anticlimatic." Wry humor, completely borrowed from his cervine companion. Mercy watched out the corner of his eye, appraising the young King's state as conversation moved back to the rings, and hummed, "This one seems - alive, as well." Perhaps not pulsing with a heartbeat or certainly bone, but alive. Crawling with that sour sort of infected scent.

"But, are we to cleanse it, move it, consume it like the last... to -" the lion hesitated. What was it that I felt before? Moonset eyes traced the ring's figure. A particularly powerful thrum of magic - one that he would reserve only for healing in the future, coursed through him, and he more purposefully aimed it at the ring. It ebbed out, and he hummed softly in wait for... whatever effect was there.

The grey-green ring, cool and porous, was not living in the same sense that the last two had been. And yet it seemed there was some form of life to it. Those sensitive to prokaryotic magic would feel a buzzing from it, without even reaching out to feel it: a thrumming throng of life sprouting up throughout the ring at Mercurius' spell. It proliferated, thickened, a film of bacteria coating the ring: which then lurched into life, grinding and rumbling into place.

Pride examined this ring closely. He wasn't sensitive to prokaryotic magic, not in the way that Mercurius likely was, and so to him the ring just seemed to thicken, to slick with slime, and then to move. Puzzled, he glanced at his white lion friend.

"What was that?" he asked, quizzically.

He looked at the next ring, and exhaled in thought. So they were doing them in order-... and this one was just--rock? Stone? Was it broken, perhaps; was it missing an element? Or were they meant to move it, somehow-... or.

Actually.

"I think that this one may be rock. Earth, stone," he explained, slowly. It didn't occur to him to sprout gemstones along its length; to Pride, who had no list of spells and elements, gemstones were wholly separate from plain, strong rock. "And earth magic is... highly-destructive. Please, stand back, because if this backfires or fails it might be deadly."

And then he focused, concentrating on the rock and its ring. He was a skilled magicka user--of that there could be no doubt--but changing the epicenter of an shattering blow to the earth to the wall should be near impossible. Hopefully the ring itself--if he were right in his guess--would aid them in this.