After the creatures gather, the Visitor smiles to them all, having waited in silence for a decent crowd; it sweeps its arm out, palm-up, showing them a new door that leads out into a snow-covered forest, though the dark of nighttime clutches its trees.

"Hello, hello, and welcome," says the Visitor, standing before the doorway. "Let us embark."

It steps through the doorway and into the snow. The opening then grows, becoming so large that it engulfs the room and those within until they are all standing in the forest, though now the Visitor is nowhere to be seen, only a voice to be heard...

"Welcome... in this winding forest, through these fallen leaves and the scattered remains of winter, you find yourselves among the mysteries of a forgotten folklore... allow me to weave this tale with you, a respite from the lives we live, to explore the unseen, the unknown, the unlived..."

They begin in the snow, swathed in the blue of moonlight—and they know it is moonlight, despite having never seen or felt moonlight before, nor will they ever, past this moment... they venture forth, a band of mismatched monsters, through the trees where a million tired eyes watch them from the shadows. There is an emptiness to the forest: there is no wildlife. As they press on, the narrator's voice whips past them as the breeze picks up and they are compelled to move forth.

"In the dead of the night, in the night of the dead, fresh lives have entered the Palewoods: in the daytime, its trees are the baleful tinge of seafoam, like that of a lifeless body. Here in the nighttme, the trees are aglow with ghastly afterimages, shifting and shimmering in their rooted prisons."

They come across an overturned wagon with the corpses of two horses laying in front of it: their midsections are torn asunder, eaten by scavengers, and fresh snow had piled and frozen on top of their remains.

"Scavengers?" the narrator says, "but where have they gone?"

There is a fellow trapped in the wagon. He hears the approach of the party and bangs against the frosted window, it is loud and startling and sudden: "HELP ME! LET ME OUT!"

"He begs," says the storywiter, "he pleads and he sounds exhausted, as if he had already accepted his death, and the idea of continuing now is tiring. But he promises the treasures and goods within his wagon if they help to free him. It is strange. The horse remains are quite old, and everything in the forest is frozen. How has he survived? Perhaps he is lucky. What shall you do?"

POLL EVENT: FREE THE VOICE?
Cast your votes here!

> YES: help him out
> NO: leave him in there

Next post: May 16th
No new characters may join this event.

If there is something Alek knows, it is what fresh prey looks like. The aquatic dragon is entirely a carnivore, after all.

These dead horses, they are not freshly dead. There is something wrong with this situation beyond the obvious. "Something is not right," Alek murmurs. More than one thing, actually. This location is so very empty of its natural prey, scavengers, or predators.

Alek liked to win. There was a choice to be made here in the story, and he did not want to make the wrong one and lose. So, he attempted to listen for subtler notes in the yelling, to attempt to see beyond the frosted window. Listens to the pleading and begs. And he tries to assess.

He could not figure out a thing from this. While his parents would recommend caution, they would also want him to be kind. Yet, kindness to strangers does not come naturally. Alek is a predator at heart.

"We... We should probably free him," He voiced with clear reluctance despite his actual preferences. Pride was here, after all, and his parents would definitely be hearing about it if he suggested they all ditch the voice to die of the cold.

She gasps in amazement as the room turns to forest, one that seems to also be covered in snow. It was different from the white stuff that covered the trees of Eridanus, those had been stringy and strange. Snow was a kind of whiteness that looked soft and inviting. But it was also cold. Sakhira bends down and takes a small bite of the stuff, and was surprised to find that it simply melted. It tasted like water. Interesting information.

But her attention quickly returned to the voice of the Visitor, who had now disappeared. Sakhira attempts to understand the words being spoken, and takes a liking to the prose. This was something she could learn from, add to her own speech. And then there is another voice, one of someone who was trapped inside of a wagon. How she knew it was called a wagon she did not know.

Sakhira took a few moments to assess the scene, but it didn't take long for her to nod in agreement with Alek. "Yes, we should free him." She wanted to understand what had happened, ask him questions. After all, he seemed to be the victim here. Why wouldn't they free him? It was always good to help.

Before the story began, he observed the rest. There were some he knew--and these, Alek and Casimir in particular, he greeted in muted tones. "Hello, Casimir. Ahh--good to see you." It was good to see so many strangers, too, he thought. At times, the life within the caves felt stagnant--as if many had drifted away to sleep the cycles in their stones. But it seemed that, for now, things were thriving, and this pleased him.

Then they were in motion: the world pitching and shifting around them, a doorway opening into an ever-growing forest. Pride stepped in, ears flicked forward, fascinated. This was a story, it seemed, and he crunched through the snow (Mischief alert on his back) with the new beauty of moonlight dappling his white coat. "Ahh-... beautiful," he breathed, staring up and around with appreciation. It was an ominous place, yes, but nonetheless he'd never seen anything like it!

...The wagon, though. The dead horses, as he stepped around to them, concerned him. His silver eyes flashed to the wagon's window. "-Was that being keeping slaves?" he asked, puzzled. Or had those horses been friends, allies, helping him along-? He reached for his magic, only to find it gone, and that was... concerning. Pride had always relied on his magical power, on the honed immensity of it. Without it-... he was just a stag. No, he corrected himself firmly. Without it--he was his mind, which was every bit as keen as his magic. He could survive this.

More importantly, he'd need to keep the others--and especially his family--safe.

He picked his way to the horses, examining them more closely, grimly. Frozen, old, as the voice claimed. But... they could always use caution in releasing this being. Surely if this were a trap, it wouldn't need us to free it from its cage? His reasoning was tentative, but he could find no real fault in it--though he did cast a wary gaze at the shadows of the forest around them. Those who had as yet spoken seemed willing to risk releasing the voice. "Watch for ambush," he warned, making his way toward the wagon's door.

red deer img credit - dan seagrave

Lumut could feel, almost at once, the dampening of her magic. She knew that Five Seven and Two relied upon it for communication--and so this journey would likely render it mute.

She approached the moving house after its gentle nudge, attempting to swing with a long-armed lurch up onto the roof, patting its shingles with a reassuring, hollow thump. Her lip twisted this way and that, thoughtful, as she looked around at all the strangers--and at the curling fingers of the branches, the frigid air and the brush of frosted moonlight. "Forest," she muttered to Five Seven and Two. She then patted it, again. "Magic is gone, here. If you can not speak... it is all right." Reassurance: she'd understand it, stick with it, either way. Even in the crowd that journeyed with them. "Many. But not enemy."

Other than this, Lumut made no attempts to interfere. She observed, but she simply sat atop the house, going wherever it might choose to take her. She felt that they should release the one within the wagon--but since others already seemed to think so, she saw no reawson to speak up.

@Five Seven and Two (for visibility!)

She looked over them, made tense by the crowd, an electric shock of dislike curling through her. Too many was the mantra likewise repeated in her mind, as it was--unbeknownst to her--in that of the walking chicken-footed house. But it was too late to back out now, and she found that unsettling disquiet prowling along her nerves.

Cats--too many of them, now. And a few that looked like Pride, with antlers; were they all his kin? And--oh. One of the drones. Giggle almost laughed, and her sardonic mockery was thick in her voice as she blurted impulsive insult. "Do the slavedrivers let the Hive wander, now?" she asked, and it wasn't exactly hostility in her. She was pissed that they'd dirtied up Canis, yes. She didn't like them, much, though she didn't bear them the hatred that those idiots of Chaos seemed to, either. But it was mockery, nonetheless, and the old hyena seemed oblivious to any danger that Juggernaut might pose her.

Ahh--but now here came the story, and Giggle's attention was drawn away to the unfurling scene. To the dark and sickly forest, the cold snow underfoot (ugh), the shining moonlight (what was that? -it was beautiful). And, of course, the wagon and its horses.

Giggle didn't peg them as Greaters. She assumed them to be dead Lessers, and anyway, who cared; it was free food, right? She paced over, sniffing at them with interest, and attempted to take a bite: to wrench cold flesh from bone. Why let meat go to waste-?

Her eyes, thought, cut to the wagon and its voice, and then to the forest, wary. It was only now that she found her magic blocked, and a guttural growl escaped her--but she caught herself before asking the rest if they'd felt the same. If they hadn't--if it was just her, or just her type of power--she'd be screwed if the likes of Juggernaut found out. "Careful," was all she warned, glaring at the wagon.

"Hello," Casimir replied with a dip of his snout, taking a few steps closer as though Pride could shelter him from the vast array of strangers. He may not allow himself to shuffle off to a corner or lag behind, but he can at least find comfort in the familiar among the strangers.

The adventure began as they stepped out of the white into the pale blue moonlight, and a curious wonder washed over Casimir. If his brothers were here... It was a shame for them to miss out on this; would Pride be able to paint the story in the same way? Even his magic did not seem capable of such great creations. It was as though they had walked out into another world... How was such a thing possible?

Casimir shuttered against the cold, fluffing up his thick coat. His ears twitched forward, listening to the Visitor's strange voice echoing through the darkness. The Palewoods... It sounded dreadful, and the suffocating silence of the woods was painfully unnatural. That was the first sign that his instinct had been correct, that this would not be a peaceful, pleasant story.

His eyes widened at the carnage, and he drew closer to the corpses, paws trembling. They had been dead for a while, judging by the snowfall, but the healer in him was desperate to turn back time. His stomach dropped down into his toes as he came back to his senses, and he cast a silent glance toward Pride. Slaves... If that was true, the poor creatures, at least they had passed on.

At his father's instructions-- though not aimed solely at him-- his ears pricked and he turned, eyes sweeping the clearing's edge. The spirits that seemed to linger in the shadows stared back at him, but he only raised his head higher. He wasn't frightened of mere tricks of moonlight. His back turned to the trapped, he watched the dark branches with a focus that didn't particularly help anyone.

It seemed Fahl's question would not go without answer. The sudden speech from the mysterious stranger who had up until then been eerily silent jolted him in place, but more startling was the transformation that the white expanse around everyone underwent. Pale trees grew where once only emptiness had been, and the ground became powder-soft. Plunged into a state known vaguely as nighttime, a familiar chill needled at his scales. The search for warmth came instinctually, life in Pisces having rendered such action a necessity to ensure comfort there.

He reached for the spark of magic dwelling in the depths of his chest and withdrew nothing, a darkness left in its place.

This was the start of his troubles, any security he might have possessed in that moment torn away by the lack of his greatest strength. The continuing of the tale worsened matters as a horrifying parallel drew itself out before a crowded audience. Sympathetic comments filled the air as much as words of caution, yet the single noise he could focus on was of his own heartbeat, its hammering frantic enough to carry to his skull. The wagon and its trapped passenger—faceless, the frost coating the window obscuring all but his voice—could be imprisoned by circumstance as much as by another's will.

Surely this forest was devoid of life for a reason. How then had this being escaped it for so long, outlasted the horses outside? It reeked of power he no longer had, reminded him too much of eye-snatching sprites and punishments not nearly as eternal as he'd hoped. But what could be done when the safest option might be the most unfavorable in the eyes of others?

"Wait," he forced a rasp out past a tightly clenched throat. Every inch of him stood rigid and drained of color. "If he has been stuck for this long... he can remain a while longer. Explain the circ—um—stances. How he came to be here."

If it was as he feared, the explanation would be lies designed to evoke kindness. But perhaps some details would be shed anyway about the desolate nature of the woods looming here.

The six-eyed stare of Alek did not escape the drone's notice (little did). His mind shifted uncomfortably under it, despite the clear difference in size and threat. He did not want to be found out; he wasn't sure if he could muster words to his defense. Few creatures held the Hive in high regard, he knew. They were rarely given the benefit of indifference, unlike Chaos. That same anxiety flared in him as he recognised a ruddy brown shape amidst the crowd - he prayed the hyena wouldn't notice his presence, though the chance was slim.

It noticed the feeling of connection from somewhere below, its sigh of relief silent as it recognised the shape. Though one of its lesser known family, it had one ally here at least. A tendril twisted down in invitation, I can carry you, if you wish - though its spines provided plenty of natural holds already. That way they could keep their distance from that cat that worried them so, though it could not understand why. She was tiny, even compared to Juggernaut's bulk.

But it was wise enough to understand that not all danger is physical - especially as Giggle addressed him as hive. It let the comment pass unanswered, though two eyes stare the old dog(?) down. Hopefully the warning would be recieved clearly.

Two more entered before the story began, the void shifting before them. The winter scene brought him peace, the emptiness promised him no threat. The corpses left behind were old, withered. The sudden sounds from within the carriage did not stir him either; His gaze swept over the wary crowd with skepticism (Pride's comment about slaves seemed to bounce off his brain, for some odd reason).

"It is cruel-" It began, in its deep growling/hissing/chittering voice. "To leave it longer. It must be... Small, to fit. No threat. Not with me." It began to move its way in front of the crowd, to further communicate its intentions. Today, it'd have to treat these creatures as family, and protect them as such.

Based on preliminary poll results, an additional post:

Fahl's question makes the wagon shimmer, and though it seems a majority would like to free the voice within, the curiousness of circumstances reveals that the wagon is sealed by talismans and sigils; they were hidden, disguised as streaks of frost and ice, but now they shook free of rime to show themselves.

"And so it appears that whatever is inside was sealed there on purpose," the narrator says, and it was almost as if it sounded uncertain in its voice. "It is a good thing, to question... Maybe you should leave him."

"NO!" cries the voice, "IT HAS BEEN LONG ENOUGH!"

Next major post: May 16