The Dreamer looked slowly to Wilder again. Her question seemed to give him pause, and he lifted his great hands, studying the shackles.

"I wonder..." he said softly, "if they can even come away. They are... uncomfortable... at times." This musing ended with his fists gently resting back on the arm-slabs of the chair.

"I dream of wherever... he shows me... Hag-rheto, in his travels." A slow, rasping inhale. He sounded almost... fond. "And I pass this to my... Shapers... and they make it a... reality."

He paused, and looked upward. "Yes... I would like to have... my chains removed. I would like... to see the sky... in more than Dreams."

Above, through the grate overhead, he could catch only the barest glimpse of that sky projection on the cave ceiling: overcast clouds drifting lazily, dull gray and yet--to him--a world away.

@Wilder

Tema would find a second plant: this one a very dark, dull navy blue-green. It was a vine with alternating leaves, relatively large and glossy. The larger leaves had asymmetrical holes dotted about them, as if to prevent them being torn apart by wind, perhaps, or to let light in to the lower leaves from above. Its effects if ingested were mild: throat irritation, gastrointestinal distress. But as an ornamental plant, it was beautiful.

@Tema

The Masked Merchant took the stones, and turned to study Fleas, for a moment. "You must give them your life... but I will ensure... that they take. I will... add this." He paused. "And they will grow... among the Shapers. They are... caretakers..."

_________

Fleas may cast Give Life on all three stones, but does not necessarily need to roll; all casts will be considered a guaranteed success. The resulting children will, upon request, be partially randomized or have features added to any existing designs that are oddly eldritch in nature, from the Merchant's involvement.

The costs of all three Give Life spells will be refunded in Magicka Market upon request, if they were not granted as rewards.

@Fleas

Less colourful, and less sharp than the other, Tema was hesitant to take it. Still, the plants here were unlike those she had seen before, and who could say what such an unassuming thing could be capable of? She took a cutting of it as well, resting a runner vine gently on her back to take root. Its leaves were what interested her. Perhaps it could be crossed with another plant in the future to allow a more beneficial plant to let light through in such a way? Assuming this one proved of no use, of course.
A shock of pain shook her from her imaginings, originating from her gem and spreading quickly. The usual tingle of her skin was replaced with a quick flash of searing pain, as roots grew and promptly died, erasing all of her hard work. Well, it wasn't hard work, but it was still irritating. Did she want to find new plants? Not really. She doubted she could even Host any, given how quickly the spell backfiring stripped her skin of nutrients. It in turn took hers, and it did not take long for a major headache to form. What a pain!
She wanted to get out of here, to stabilize and to... Well, to what? It felt like something was missing in her plans to build a home... She had to know.

"speaking" and corruption

/exit

Fleas nodded, watching the Masked Merchant grab the stones without much fuss. "Huh, no idea what a shaper is, but I'll take your word for it that they'll care for em once I revive em. Can't say I have much experience giving out my life, but I'll give it a shot." She cleared her throat, and turned her attention to the stones as the merchant held them out. Here went nothing.

The magic came with surprising ease. Maybe it was the assistance of the Masked Merchant, but she was relieved that the magic came without fuss. The first she nosed was the Cerussite.It felt important somehow. Whatever a "light of the desert" was she wasn't sure, but she felt like the cave'd entrusted it to her. The second was the Adamite chunk, and by then she could feel her strength waning. Then, after deliberating a while between Thelmar's stone and the Jacinth Hoof , she decided to revive the Jacinth Hoof. She wanted a little more control over where she put Thelmar's stone.


"When I speak"
When I think

Note that this stone delivery & revival is forward-dated to the date of this post.

The Merchant held the stones, and each flicker of magic from Fleas was met--and strengthened--with ones of his own. Black, wispy curls of energy that threaded into each.

What effect would they have...?

When Fleas had finished, he curled fingers around them, and slid the largest into his robes, turning back toward the Barracks without a word.

There he would plant them, there they would grow, and there--with or without Fleas' guidance--they would hatch and begin their lives.

The Merchant did not speak further.

The following three children will be born from this magic. However, Fleas' player is permitted to redesign them as desired, so long as some effect of the Merchant's being is present. All three children will, throughout their lives, give the impression to those who meet them that they're somehow touched by something alien or other: eerie, feral, or unsettling, though their personalities may be otherwise reassuring. Click images for full-sized.




Cerussite

This creature, in life, was a Javan Ferret-Badger: an Earth animal not so long dead. Revived, it stands about a foot and a half at the shoulder, with hints of Fleas' color, leg length, ear and snout shape, and eye color. It retains the facial markings, including pale blaze, of the Ferret-Badger. However, it is born with a small, open, collapsed section of its hip: a pale yellow Cerrusite geode. Both this and the main gemestone, making up its exterior nose, sparkle with brilliant diamond-like color whenever the light hits it. Like its stonegiver, this creature is widely omnivorous: it can eat just about anything organic, from eggs to fruits to insects to fish and meat. It is resilient, energetic and tough, with loose skin, as its mustelid parent; it will have a natural instinct to find burrows, hollow logs, or other 'buried' spaces to rest.



Adamite

This creature is a strange, cephalopod-like creature: a ruined amalgam of parts. Built for land, not water, it breathes air and its skin is rough and pebbled, very thick and hard to pierce. Suckers along the undersides are more moist, able to cling to surfaces; this creature is more comfortable on walls and ceilings than on the floor. Its mantle--holding one of many dispersed brains--is bulbous and heavy, and though it forms one 'head,' two withered coyote-like legs, attached to coyote hindquarters, dangle from it. These are nearly useless for ambulation. The maw at its center holds a second head, coyote-like, with the main, thinking brain housed within its skull. Five green eyes with horizontal, slitted pupils adorn its head. Its maw is long, extending back far along the jawline; the jaw itself can open to one-hundred-sixty degrees and is lined with many sharp teeth. This creature is generally sluggish but can move with startling speed when needed, its eight tentacles swinging it rapidly along walls and roof; a ninth tentacle doubles as a weapon, its Adamite stone forming a jagged, toothed geode as a 'hand' at the underside of its tip. Though difficult to measure, if this creature were dangled limp, from mantle to the tip of its longest tentacle it would be seven feet long. Carnivorous, this creature can fit through any space that its skull can fit through, and tends toward ambush predation.



Jacinth

This creature stands eight feet tall at the shoulder, or ten at the head. Dark brown-grey, striped and tipped with ragged black hair, it resembles some sort of towering antelope. A set of what might have been Whitetail Deer-like antlers atop its head eventually grow rows of thin, jagged spines; these can snap off and regrow if thrust into an enemy. This creature has four reddish-orange eyes with glowing pale pupils; four ears; four legs; and two tails. The hooves are cloven, giraffe-like; the tails end in tufts of stringy black fur. A spike of Jacinth protrudes back from its skull. This creature shows little of its lifegiver's essence, except in diet and dentition: it is omnivorous, with a jackal's jaw and tooth structure. Its nose is somewhere between an antelope's soft skin and a jackal's nose-leather. Whatever color it had has been faded out by the Merchant's influence, turning dark and dull.

@Fleas

Heathen

____________________________________________

Survival is awarded to the worthy

"He has been to a place like this? A place beyond the caves? How?!" Heathen could no longer feign disinterest, stepping forward to be better heard. "And you?" They turned to face Wilder directly. "You have been to... Vaa? Let? How?" He asked again, mind running wild with all it could mean for him, for his fate.

Heathen had always wanted power, in some way or another. He wanted to twist fate, to shape it, to mold the very caves in his image. He wanted... He wanted to be worshipped. If there was a world beyond the caves, he wanted to know it, to see it, to bend it. He would not stop at just Hydra, no! That was much too small a goal.

Ah, but it would be hard to get anywhere in this conversation if he did not offer something, some token of 'respect' or 'gratitude'. "Pardon my rudeness, Dreamer. You must not only be sore from the chains, but hungry? Here, allow me." The leopard made his way closer to the base of the throne, gemstone glowing faintly.

"Spoken words!" And thoughts Compared to actions!

OOC Notes:

@Wilder

Heathen

____________________________________________

Survival is awarded to the worthy

"Ah, the whims and whimsy of magic. I'll have to try again." He apologized with a deep nod to hide his scowl. How disappointing, to struggle in front of another with such an easy spell.

He called for his magic again, coaxing it as his chest lit up once more. This time a single banana formed in the Dreamer's lap, and Heathen stepped back again.

"Spoken words!" And thoughts Compared to actions!

OOC Notes:

At the mention of the merchant, she looked back at where he had been last. So he left the caves...? Wandered and travelled and all for the purpose of...what? Was it simply to create more dreamscapes to shape Centaurus? Or did he had other purposes to his travels?

She wanted to ask, she wanted to pry deeper and perhaps free the Dreamer here and now, but she remembered how he had so easily swept so many gembounds in their chrysalis after the Trials, with nothing but a wave of his hand. She had to admit that she was scared of him.

She couldn't release him, not now. She had made similar, hasty actions with Rezik and Reji and that hadn't turned out well at all. Her mistakes came from impulse and impatience. She had to be patient.

She looked towards the leopard, having momentarily forgotten she was there. "Y-yes. It's a long story. To make it short, there's a whole world on the surface. The caves are on a moon called Let. I was...pulled to the surface by chance. Or a mistake. I'm not sure. I saw the Vaa - it's a vast wilderness, mountains and forests, on the surface." And as she spoke of Let, and the Vaa, and that beautiful sky, she saw it in her mind's eye. Her eyes slid shut and she imagined it would form all around them. Magic taking illusory form.

She opened her eyes to half the illusion. The fields around them were a little blurry and transluscent, but the sky she had imagined - and remembered - was above them. The grate in the ceiling was hidden beneath the vast blue of the sky she remembered, clouds drifting in what looked like the distance.

"I'm sorry I...don't think I can release you, not yet. Not while he's around, I might get in trouble. But...I hope I can give you a little something. This is what the sky looks like, up above on the surface. So you can see it outside of a dream."

@Heathen

For a long while, the Dreamer--gently lifting the banana that had been placed into his lap--simply sat. He gazed upward, glowing eyes half-closed, taking in the scene that had appeared around him.

"The air is wrong," he lamented softly, at last, and Wilder would likely understand exactly what he meant: that such a beautiful sky, the images of forests, should come with a fresh, cool wind that blew crisply through one's fur. But this place was stagnant, dusty with age. "But it it good... to see. Thank you, little one," he added. He lifted his hands, consuming the banana with a slow push past tusked mouth, delicate despite his size; another "Thank you," was offered to Heathen.

The Dreamer lifted his wrists, eyeing his shackles mournfully. "And... I understand..." But again, there was sadness in his voice.

He took a breath, then, and spoke to them both, adding to Wilder's answers. "It is... as you see... many places, beyond. They are all... different. But this one is... as I remember. From the Dreams."

@Wilder @Heathen

Heathen

____________________________________________

Survival is awarded to the worthy

Heathen did little more than stare at the scene above, mind running wild at the sight of the illusioned sky above. It looked so far, much further than any cave ceiling. And there were more places like it, beyond the caves? There was more beyond the caves. And gembound from the caves had been there. He could go there!

"Forgive my sudden exit." He began slowly, backing towards the room's entrance. "I'll return, soon. Maybe then we will see about those shackles." He tried to catch Wilder's eye, nothing more than a clue for the other that he was going to investigate. "You will come back here, too, yes?"

He needed to know. Why was the Dreamer locked up? How could he get to the surface? Oh, he had so much to do. "Oh, Dreamer?" He paused just in front of the exit, thinking better of leaving without making sure that the other feline would not act before his return. "Do you choose your dreams?" It was a question he needed an answer too, while the Dreamer was talkative. Could he influence the cave through the Dreamer?

"Spoken words!" And thoughts Compared to actions!

OOC Notes:

@Wilder

The Dreamer blinked slowly, glowing eyes fading and then returning with the movement, like stars winking out in an eclipse.

He had not been clear, but that was ever a factor for one whose mind was half-lost to visions.

"Hag-rheto... travels the stars. What he sees... I dream. I travel... as I sleep. I see all... distant worlds. Peoples... creatures... Storms that sweep planets. Droughts that bake cities into dust..." He let out a very soft sigh, wistful. "He shows what must be Dreamed... here."

It seemed he did not choose, but that this Hag-rheto--if Heathen knew who this was--supplied his visions for him.

@Heathen