E P I D E M I C

This was his next stop. This was where he would spread the plague through its most natural vector: the rats. He didn't know this, not logically--but something in him knew that the tiny things, the dark things, what-scurried-through-shadows, would be the best messengers for what he must spread.

It was a matter of finding them, first--catching them. He had found what looked like a bit of carrion, after some searching. Now he waited, watching, staring down at the meat in utter, eerie stillness. He did not blink; he barely breathed.

It took hours. And when one at last did come, it was a single rat--one scrawny, plain brown thing. He waited--waited until it had surveyed the area with twitching whisker and flicking ears--but it didn't see his dark form looming just overhead. He was blurry, to it--tall, like the trees--and his odor was merely that of the rotting meat, and sickness. Khloros did not smell like a predator.

Catlike, he tensed--and when the rat was well-absorbed in ripping its way through gristle and meat, he sprang forward, as quietly as he could, trying to press one hoof down against its tail before it could escape... or snatch it up in his flat, pus-slicked teeth.

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

((Ooc note - see this link for details on this plot, or feel free to post 'blind'!))

His hoof slammed into mossy dirt, and the rat turned, springing to flee--only to find horse teeth snatching it up by the fur of its back. He barely caught it--and he was sure he bruised it more than he'd meant to--but he had caught it and that was all that really mattered.

With a snort, he closed ghostlight eyes and focused on the sickness that brewed within him, the death that he carried at all times.

Nothing came. Perhaps it was the rat squirming in his teeth, but he found it hard to focus. He stood there, snorting softly, and tried to concentrate further on the disease.

Not this one? Is this the wrong one? I will try once more, and then find another, if it fails again.

Or, perhaps, someone would stop him before he managed.

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

Khloros tightened his jaws' grip on the rat, though not enough to puncture it. He kept his eyes squeezed shut, ignoring the frantic squeaking and the scratching of tiny claws and teeth over his soft muzzle.

Serve death, as I serve you...

The plagued horse felt the magic draw forth, this time, surging into the rat in a trickle of illness and death. It would go... it would flee among its brethren and spread the gift that he had offered it.

Carefully, delicately, Khloros set the rat down; it recoiled from him at once, squeaking as it scampered in a few terrified bounds off over the moss. As it vanished into the darkness beneath a patch of ferns, Khloros lifted his long head. His eyes were open now, and he stared after it, feeling the bacteria still welling within him.

It is done. Or rather-... It has begun. The end of the final cycle is at hand. It will be broken.

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

big paws leapt across the trees deftly, barely shaking the branches under his delicate steps. he had been living here for almost as long has he could remember, alone--he had grown to know almost every inch of the jungle. he had lived a lax life in the trees, sleeping and eating whenever and wherever he pleased, rarely bothered by other gembounds. perhaps his magic skills weren't at their peak, but they had improved enough to grant him ample tools to tease and trick anyone who ventured below him, and that was enough.

and so when the flagrant putrid scent of rot crept its way into his nose, rui knew someone was here, and he was really not even keen to play around with them honestly, he just wanted that awful stench to leave with them.

the jungle disposed of its waste quickly and cleanly, and this was most certainly a stranger. they had worn out their welcome the moment they had decided to stink things up.

with his keen sense of smell and direction in the jungle, it wasn't long before rui found the source of the unfamiliar rot. being up close to the scent made him want to turn away and vomit, as if he might ingest some awful disease just by breathing even this high in the branches, but this awful creature needed to leave.

the jungle cat dipped his head and let darkness shroud his body before leaping to a branch just above the source of the stench, within range for his low, crackly voice to be heard without much effort, but a safe distance up in the tree branches, camouflaged further by his spots and stripes among the leaves.

looking down, what he saw was... revolting, to say the least. it was as if the massive creature below him was already rotting away, a walking corpse. rui wanted to spit all the vile adjectives he could use to describe the creature as if it would somehow expel it from his mind, where all its awful nooks and crannies etched their way into his memory like a scab waiting to be picked. the only thing that stopped him was the terror that joined his revulsion and froze him in place for a few moments.

he remembered suddenly the screeches of rodent distress he had heard moments before, and anger was added to the growing list of emotions rui was currently feeling. this thing was touching the rats?

after taking a moment to compose himself, rui let his throat begin to click and chatter, beginning as a crackling growl and quickly growing into something akin to the loud rumble of a motor, angry and threatening. this was different even from his regular "spooking random gembounds" growl, his anger and disgust manifesting themselves as something of a scream. it ramped up the volume of his motor-like growl, all at once a scream of anger and an otherworldly threat befitting the title of a miniature jaguar.

"vermin, plague!" yelled the ocelot from the trees, crawling back and forth across branches to displace his own voice. it helped with the spookiness, he thought. "you are not welcome here. you have damned yourself spreading your vile germ upon my forest." it had taken a lot of practice to hone that foreboding forest spirit voice!

"i don't know what you are, but you ought to take your sickness and go. I bring you the gift of mercy; this is your warning." the growling returned then, loud, and then quieter, as he waited for a response, pacing across the branches like a caged tiger. occasionally he would jump across a branch, essentially circling in an irregular fashion the plagued horse beneath him from high above in the trees.

notes: rui is too late but still grossed out
tags: @Khloros

"speech."
others' speech.
image by emammal on flickr, edited by me.

Rift had been watching from the trees, silent, his body hidden behind the plants. At first, it had just been a nice day and he had been peacefully relaxing. But then an awful stench had poured into his nose and he leaped through the trees, trying to follow it from above ground. It was hard to see through the dense layer of leaves, vines, and undergrowth, but he finally managed to find a good spot where the creature had stopped. He watched with curiosity and disgust as the horse bit down on the rat before releasing it. His whiskers twitched as he sniffed the air. The rat had the same strange plague as the horse.

He narrowed his eyes, wondering what he would do next. Should he stop the rat? Or confront the horse? He didn't know what they were doing, but he knew that the smell had no place in Eridanus. Nor in the caves as a whole.

With a quick thought, he whispered to his paws, "Stop the rat. Hold it down." before leaping from the tree. However, the magic didn't spring into his landing and he felt no shuddering in the earth as the tree roots or the vines followed his command. Disappointed and slightly fearful, Rift realized that it was probably too late now. He did not know how far the rat had gone and he wondered if his power reached that far.

Instead, he stalked up to the horse, his tail pointing out and his ears slightly back. "What are you doing here? And what have you done to that rat?"


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"Speech looks like this."
Thoughts look like this.

tags: @Khloros
notes: here

SEBASTIAN

Sebastian had followed Rift.

He hadn't let the older Puma know. He'd just been curious, after all. Where was the plant-mage going? So he'd put his soft paws to good use, trailing the puma. He'd been careful to put his instincts to good use, paws gentle on soil and little noise to be found.

It was harder for him when Rift began to leap through the trees, but he'd managed it, using the soft soil and plants to his advantage, muffling his footsteps.

He'd nearly fallen over at the sudden, strong stench of rot, and it had appeared Rift had felt the same.

Horror ran through his chest at the sight of the horse, looking not unlike a rotting corpse. Bile rose in his throat, and he grimaced. But he could make out Rift's words and, seeing the elder's magic fail, he raced forward to act in its stead. His throat burned as he released a mouthful of superheated air, aimed at the rat, before spinning bristling at Rift's side.

"I'm speaking..."
'I'm thinking...'

Khloros turned slowly, not showing any emotional reaction whatsoever. The fear he'd felt at Veil's predatory behavior was dulled, now, and with the voice above he felt mostly... indifference.

It had begun; there was little to fear, now. He stopped, after he'd shuffled to face the voice, and stared upward toward it like a statue--unmoving, unblinking, barely breathing. There was no twitch of tail, or flick of ears--no flare of nostrils--as might be expected from a normal living, breathing being. He listened to Rui's words, considered them. Mercy... It does not know what it says.

Then a second voice, before him.

Khloros shuffled to face this one, pus-slicked hide glinting in the dim light. This time, there was a dull fear--this thing was death, a predator, a thing-that-ate-him. Some long-distant instinct knew this, but a moment later it was forgotten, pushed away, in favor of listening.

There were two, to answer, and so he chose to answer them at once. His voice came hollow, and rasping, and he began to stalk slowly toward Rift in turn, as he spoke.

"I am offering mercy," he wheezed. "This cycle reaches its end. There must not be more." His tone itself--despite his ragged voice--was quiet, calm, almost gentle. Peaceful.

Yet the way he stalked toward Rift was not. He drew upon his magic, gathering it, gathering power, drawing it up within him. Nothing answered, however; not yet.

They have no idea. They have no idea the hell in which they are trapped. They must be freed.

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

@Rui @Rift

[tagged mature for kinda graphic language? just to be safe]
the chirp of a young cat's voice pierced rui's ears; good, he supposed, since he had no plans to touch that awful thing and infect himself with whatever diseases it kept in its thin skin. a young puma; he appeared to be an adolescent, which was doubly good because he'd be much more likely to be able to knock around the bigger creature.

unfortunately, the darker cub behind him did not appear to be as developed. pity for him, but mostly pity for rui and his jungle, which was just at the mercy of this shambling thing and he couldn't hit it with magic or anything and he didn't want to touch it either! god, this sucked!

"ugh, shut up," growled the voice, its obvious annoyance a hard turn away from the careful flatness it had previously held. "just because you're depressed doesn't mean we all wanna die. some of us like living here. let your illness finish off that shambling body of yours and fuck off if you want to die so badly." his words were harsh, but his thoughts were clearly honest, laden with his exasperation.

"you think you're special and destined for something great? the only thing you were destined to do was crack out of whatever murky rock you came out of. i've seen creatures like you. think you're part of some divine, someone had a plan for you. walk with some empty purpose like you know just what you're here for. no one would have created us just to die, that's such a pointless waste of energy." the ocelot's growl crackled beneath his words as he spoke. "find a reason to live or go lie down and die somewhere else. whatever awful shit happened to you is just going to happen to another kid tenfold if you go spreading your disease like a canine with worms dragging its asshole all around the tunnel floors."

rui hissed in contempt. how he wished he could do something about this; all the time rui had spent spying on gembounds who wandered through his territory had left him with little actual experience with their characters, sure, but sometimes it was easy to tell when someone would be just happy to walk all over you because of how highly they thought themself.

he felt powerless, and angry, and this whole time he still felt like turning around and vomiting. this sucked, and the only thing keeping him relatively calm was his inability to believe his life could really be turned upside down just like this. surely someone would kill the rat. he hadn't seen where it went. but surely this would all be stopped and end up fine. he wasn't one of the people with the shitty lives. it just didn't happen. this would all turn out fine.

notes: apologies for rui's language!
tags: @Khloros @Rift @Sebastian

"speech."
others' speech.
image by emammal on flickr, edited by me.

Rift bristled when he saw Sebastian arrive. He didn't want him to be here! What if he got sick? What if they ended up fighting and he got hurt? He wouldn't forgive himself if his best friend was injured. But, then again, it was too late. He flicked an ear and glanced at Sebastian. "Did you get the rat?" Hopefully he head, or else they would have to track it later. And he would rather have it dead now.

Anger pierced Rift's stomach at the disgusting horse's words. "What?" her snarled. "You think you can decide for everyone if they live or die? You think you have the right? Who do you think you are?" He was going to say more, but then there was another cat, snarling and hissing everything that he would have said had he had the words. He looked at him with surprise at the language he chose. Perhaps not exactly what he would have said, but he guessed that they got the message out better, if not a bit dirtier. He nodded with agreement and turned back to the horse. "He's right. You don't have the right to be spreading whatever's wrong with you all over the caves. It's not right and its cruel." He narrowed his eyes with anger and let his claws sink into the earth. He would call the plants to support him, but he feared for their safety near this diseased horror.


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"Speech looks like this."
Thoughts look like this.

tags: @Khloros @Sebastian @Rui
notes: here

Khloros wasn't aware that the tiny cub had intercepted his plagued rat. He had no idea it might be dead, or stopped. In his mind, when it had vanished beneath the ferns, it had gone to safety, and his plague was spreading--but in truth, the cub had thwarted him.

His full attention was on Rift. He'd listened to the words of both cats, but most of those of the creature hiding in the darkness of the trees merely confused him. What is... depression? Does he not understand? Why does he believe something happened to me? No; he does not understand.

And still, Khloros stalked toward Rift, closer with every step. The cat hadn't moved away. He spoke, even as he drew on his magic.

"Have you not seen the bones of the long-dead, where they hid in the darkness? They huddled from what comes. Have you not seen the empty throne, and the huts where they huddled? Have you not seen the carvings, to warn you? Again... and again, they bring our souls back here, they torment us, they test us, and then, they kill us. This cycle must be brought to an end, or we will be trapped here forever. But..."

With a sudden, violent explosion of motion, Khloros rushed Rift, trying to slam his body into the cat's, trying to spread his plague to the cougar himself. He tried to make contact, to hurtle sideways into him, to slather him with his gruesome fluid-slicked hide. Even as he did this, he spoke.

"...I do not expect Death to be welcomed with open arms. Even when it brings mercy."

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

@Rui @Rift @Sebastian