Asimona was panting hard at this point. She had been flying for a long time with few breaks. But she had to get to Canis as fast as she could. She had to keep going, had to get there as fast as possible before the memory became too distant to remember. It still felt clear in her head. Well, clear enough that she could remember.

It had taken her a few days to make her way from Polaris, into Orion, and now to Canis. Finally, here she was. And it was no more pleasant then before. The air was cold and damp and, although she was built to weather the cold, this still sent a chill down her spine. She had grown some since she had last set foot and the bones crunched easier against her feet. She hated this. She didn't want to spend any more time here then she needed.

She looked around, trying to find the place that she had observed the runes and, after a few moments, found what she was looking for. Carvings, ravings of a madman. Strange runes that were eerily familiar. Yes, they weren't exactly the same words, but they were obviously in the same script of the runes that had appeared during the magicka competition.

She raised a claw and carefully ran it through the carvings. They were strange, unintelligible. She needed to know, she thirsted for the answer.

"But you will never know..." She heard the dragon's voice whisper behind her and she growled. She didn't have time for him right now.

"Shut up," she snarled as she turned and walked right through where the voice had come from. She needed to find someone else that knew. There had to be someone in this cave that had a clue about the runes.

She walked from the wall and began to shout, her voice echoing in the walls of Canis. "Is anyone around? I need help with something! I have questions!"

"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags:
notes: I'm looking for the Loremaster or anyone who knows about the runes!
If anyone wants to help Asimona figure out this mystery, feel free to hop in!

Giggle flicked one large, round ear, and huffed. Questions. Someone has questions. This was her domain. Surely it was someone coming to ask the wisdom of the bones, to see their future read within.

With a groan she stood, shaking out her coat thick with matted fungus, and turned to lope slowly down the stone path toward the calling voice. Overhead her familiar let out its haunting cry as it winged overhead, and fleeting imagery of the cave below, through its eyes, flitted half-seen through her mind.

"WHAT IS IT," Giggle called, voice hoarsely masculine. "I am here, I'm here..."

Yet when she found the stranger, she found them looking not for her bones, but at the wall. And she could not remember if she had seen this one before. She narrowed dark eyes, looking her over; she shook her head rapidly, as if to clear it, then shook it again.

"You, have I seen you? White-white, like the bones, the bone that was not a bone but was a snake, the Egahi-thing, but I think I have seen you but I do not remember you. What do you want? What do you need? What do you seek?"

She paced closer, tiredly unafraid, watching Asimona with an inscrutable gaze.
________________

ROLL THE BONES

((ooc - Giggle knows about Loremaster, and also where she usually is, BUT I don't know if we can find her because I BELIEVE Madison must DM her? But Giggs can at least show her where! @Asimona ))

Asimona heard the bones clattering as someone approached. She turned, slightly anxious if they were friend or foe and sighed with relief. It was Giggle. She had met the hyena once before and she was certain, however strange and mad she was, that she would be able to help. She wondered if she was as old as the writing or if she was the one who had done it...

"Giggle, oh I'm so glad it's you. You might be able to..." she trailed off at Giggle's words, confused. It hadn't been too long ago, barely a cycle, since she had spoken to her. She guessed that she was perhaps too old, or too crazy, to have a decent memory. "It's Asimona. I visited you once before. You called me white like bone and like a snake that time too. I asked you for answers and you cast the bones for me. You told me that the things I see and hear would be a gift and that'd I'd rise through my pain." Yes, she had said all of that, hadn't she? But, the way Asimona saw it, her 'gifts' had brought her nothing but pain, anger, and violence. However, this was not the time to dwell on that, even if the red dragon's presence tickeld her spine and his voice laughed faintly in her ear.

She turned towards the wall. "These runes...do you know about them? Or...do you know someone who would know? The same kind of runes appeared in Polaris and a voice spoke in everyone's heads. But the words were strange and distant and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make them out. But I remembered seeing the runes here, so I came straight here."

She looked at Giggle, her tail swinging with excitement and anxiety. "So...can you help me? Please?"

"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags: @Giggle
notes:

Words went through her ears and her mind, and faint stirrings of memory rose with them. The dragon, which had been screaming at the air. At nothing. Crying out at voices only she could hear. Like Giggle did, at things she saw, which only she could see--though hers, at least, brought her comfort.

So that is why I did not fear her.

The hyena considered Asimona's words, glancing off absently along the western wall. She remembered a son, long-lost: Bones, the painter, the painted. He who limped, splashes of color in his coat and splashes of blood on the wall. He had spent time with her--the many-eyed, the other-lame, the purple thing with black spines and much knowledge. The one Giggle had, before her madness, longed to speak to--to glean answers from. Now she had some faint feeling that the Loremaster's knowledge did not matter, that whatever she had to offer was material knowledge--and what Giggle knew came from beyond. From the life-and-death, from the black void-with-eyes, as reviling as she now found that place. From past, bones, from future.

Still, if the carvings were what Asimona were after, then Giggle thought of Loremaster first. She might know of them, of their history and of their meanings.

With a flick of one round ear she turned, moving into a slow, shuffling lope down along the western wall. One question picked at her brain, bit at it like a vulture over bones, and she spoke it roughly.

"What did the voices say?" And almost immediately after asking, she remembered Asimona's answer--that they were too strange to understand. "What did the strange-words sound like?"

She wound her way past the boulders where she frequently hunted--and past the wall where, long ago, Bones had painted his work. She glanced up at it, as they passed: a dried-to-brown portrait of a vast, three-headed dog-beast, long-tailed and staring down. Warmth touched her memories, her heart, briefly: another of her sons, Kerberos, painted in blood.

How she missed him--the Guardian, the friend, the child.

"There is one of the Old Ones," Giggle rasped as she trotted, turning her attention back forward. "She is purple and spined and has too many green eyes, and she cannot walk well but Bones spoke to her often. She awoke again, in the bones, and she knows many things."

Hadn't Giggle meant to seek her out, once before? To speak with her?

"I will stay with you. I want to stay with you. I want to hear what is said," Giggle decided, glancing sidelong at Asimona. Or would the dragon send her away? Would she ask her to leave, and deny her the knowledge?

She came to a halt a bit before where the Loremaster usually sat--or where she used to, at least. Giggle had not been here in nearly a year. Or had it been more? Two? She was unsure. Perhaps the Loremaster was no longer even present. Perhaps she had died. Or maybe she still lingered...

"...Just ahead," Giggle rasped.

________________

ROLL THE BONES

@Asimona

Asimona was relieved that Giggle remembered her. This would be a little awkward if the hyena had no memory of her and she was treating her like an old friend. However, at her question, she shook her head as she tried to remember what the voice sounded like. But she couldn't. It was like whenever she tried to remember, the pieces flew away from her grasping mind, as if she was trying to catch smoke. "I-I don't know. It was indescribable." She wished she had something more helpful to say, but there was really nothing. She felt like she was stumbling around in the dark, lost, confused, and completely alone.

She almost missed Giggle turning around and only realized that she was leaving when she heard bones shuffling. She looked up and wondered if she wanted her to follow. But, then again, she didn't seem like she was leaving her behind. So she slowly followed behind, her head low and her tail softly waving. When Giggle looked to the side, she looked to and felt her stomach flip. A drawing, no, a painting, crusted brown, of a huge creature staring down. Was that dried blood? What had done this here? What would think painting with blood was fun? She turned away before she was sick and decided not to comment on it, as Giggle was staring at it fondly.

She listened to the description of the old one and a shiver went down her spine. Sounded like a monster. She didn't know why she was so scared, but something about this room put her on edge. Her magic began to creep across her body instinctively and layered a protective sheet of ice on her skin. The cold was comforting and she took a deep breath, feeling her heartbeat steady a little, as if ice could protect her from a nameless threat that lingered in this cave.

She nodded absentmindedly at Giggle's request to stay here. It didn't even cross her mind that she could turn the hyena away. There wasn't a reason to - whatever information she learned she was going to share anyways. She wondered if this old one held the answers she was looking for. If she was as knowledgeable as Giggle said, then perhaps she would know what the runes meant.

She looked up and around as they got closer to where Giggle was leading her. "Where is she? Is she here? What's her name? Perhaps we can call for her."

"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags: @Giggle
notes: putting in a gm request

An echoing, breathy wheezing rasped out of her as she sat slumped against the western wall, gazing lazily into Canis. She had hauled herself up to look at something, became annoyed, began to bark snarky comments about it, and then realized nobody was around to hear. It tired her out, and now she had forgotten what it was even about. Lorekeeper rested in exhausted fashion against the wall now, trying to remember what had set her off. Her eyes blinked slowly and lazily; oh well.

Her large ears twitched at the sound of voices. She swung her head around, wondering if the Gembounds had come back to visit her for another story.

Giggle padded over, claws clicking over stone, vaguely eyeing over the Lorekeeper.

She looked the same as she had before. Good. She has not died or the like, then, I suppose. She was, by all appearances, still lame. Abruptly, bluntly, Giggle asked--perhaps rudely, and lieu of an actual greeting--"Can your walking be fixed?" The words were blunt and hoarse, the tone masculine. It didn't occur to her to greet the creature, or to introduce Asimona, no. The Lorekeeper was here. The Lorekeeper would always be here. She was a fixture, as was the rock and the bones.

Though... she had not always been here.

Giggle turned her dark gaze back to Asimona. "This is she. She will not hurt you." The hyena then dropped roughly to her rump, sitting and waiting to see what the two would discuss. Omen circled once overhead, giving her haunting call before landing nearby, picking at the bones.

Why are we here, Mother-sister? came the bird's thoughts--an absent sort of questioning, translated by Giggle's mind into coherent words.

To speak with her. Giggle's answer was a calm focus on Lorekeeper, and the one-red-eyed black bird turned to peer briefly and curiously at Lorekeeper's far-more-numerous green eyes before going back to the bones.

________________

ROLL THE BONES

@Asimona

Asimona sucked in a breath at the sight of the creature. Giggle had not told her about all the eyes or the lame leg or the...strangeness and alien nature of this thing. She had never seen anything like it in the caves. It looked vaguely canine, but not like any canine she had ever met.

She didn't really want to approach, but she had to remind herself that she had come all this way because she had to know. What were the runes and why they had shown up in Polaris. And what the voice was. It disturbed her and could prove a threat to everyone. She couldn't have that.

She took a deep breath and nodded to Giggle. "Thanks," she rasped. It was all she really could get out now. She stepped forward, her head slightly bent. She had become accustomed to doing this when approaching others. Her size made them uncomfortable and the last thing she wanted was for this creature to see her as a threat. Once she was close, she sat down and blinked slowly. "Hello," she said slowly. "I'm Asimona. I was told you might be able to help me with some questions I have. I need to know what the runes on the wall mean...and who put them there, or, really, any information about it to be honest. Do you know anything about it?" Her tail twitched anxiously. Did this creature have the answers she was looking for?

"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags:
notes:

Her five eyes blinked at the hyena, a cackling snort coughing from her lungs. This Gembound had been there when she awakened from her chrysalis, and she was not healed then, was she? "No, Seer... my body... failed... and so... my legs are... like this." She glanced at the dragon's wings. If she could fly, then she would not need to walk. But she could not fly. Her lips pulled back into a strange smile, the green of her mouth glowing and bright. "One... copes." It was easier, perhaps, when her friends were still around.

The hyena was a resident of Canis like herself, and so she did not believe it would lead chaos to her; but the dragon was somewhat unsettling, as Lorekeeper did not have a good history with dragons. "This fiend... a dragon..." she rasped, sucking herself closer to the wall. "Asi... mona..." The air around it was cool, and it did not display the size or color of dragons she considered beasts in the past. Instead, it reminded her more of Tenzin. Perhaps it was a child of Pisces rather than that of Aries, but she could not tell.

It requested knowledge of runes on the wall. The long ears of the canine twitched, but there was no specified location. She would happily delve into a story, but the request was too vague. "What wall?" she breathed, her head tiredly lolling to the side. "What... room?"

Asimona flinched when the creature pulled back from her. Was she that scary? She always tried to be as less intimidating as possible, but she realized that it was sometimes a little difficult. But she was still a little nervous out herself - the glowing green mouth was putting her on edge, despite being a source of fear herself.

But then it asked her that question and annoyance bubbled in her. Didn't it know the wall? To be fair, it wasn't asking as if it didn't know what she was talking about, it was asking for specifics. Were there other places that had writing like the wall? She turned and pointed back where they had come. "There's a wall over there, in this room, Canis, and there's strange runes on them. The same kind of runes appeared in Polaris not three days ago. Do you know what they mean?" She turned back and slowly let herself slide to the ground so that she was sitting on the ground, her tail curled around her side. "If you have a story, I'd love to hear it."

"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags: @Game Master CJ
notes: