The infected rat had collapsed. It wheezed and sputtered, drawing in rapid, shallow breaths as it fought death. Valeria just watched, observed. She clung tightly to a stalagmite. Up there she was safe from the rats deathly touch.

The garnet gem on her chest glowed with magick. She watched with intrigue as the violent bacteria ravaged the rodent's body. It made its lymph nodes swell, gangrene had taken hold of its limbs, turning them black and shriveled. The poor creature smelled awful. It was decaying before her very eyes, and Valeria did not know how to cure it.

Whoever, or whatever, conjured up this bacteria new their magick. It frightened her, yet she admired it like an inspiring artist admiring a masterpiece. She was witnessing her potential, and it was horrific. It was a potent disease, carefully crafted, and it could spread easily through contact with bodily fluids and skin. Here it was, threatening lives of the cave's denizens. By now, the death had been too high for it be ignored. Valeria was racing against the clock.


"Listen to me."
Thoughts...

TAG: @Umbra // OOC:

Salvation was perched safely on a gem high on the cave's wall. Caliante had gotten them up there and had attached them to the crystal before letting Salvation back in control. He was getting better at this, hanging on for dear life. Well, actually, he didn't really hang on at all. It seemed like their claws wanted to be latched on and he didn't have to do anything.

You're doing great, Sal, Caliante whispered encouragingly. Salvation gulped as he looked down, still terrified that he was going to fall. But he trusted Caliante and if she said he wasn't going to fall, then he wouldn't.

But then there was movement on the ground and he completely forgot about his fears. He looked up towards the ground and focused in on a small rat stumbling through the cave. It was good that he was the one in control, he had the best eyesight out of the three of them.

It seemed to be in a lot of pain. Salvation cocked his head and wondered what was wrong. "Should we go check it out?"

Rusty scoffed. "Of course! What, are we just going to hang up here forever? I'm starting to get bored! Let's go do something! Even going down there and staring at a rat is more exciting."

Salvation was about to released himself from the crystal when he felt a wave of doubt from Caliante. He hesitated. "What's wrong?"

I don't know, there's just something...wrong. I don't think we should go near that thing. Salvation was about to agree with her when Rusty broke in again.

No! Go on down! I'm bored! What could happen, its just a rat?

Salvation was conflicted. Should he stay safe and trust Caliante, like he always did, or take a leap of faith and go down? He frowned and shook out his head, trying to make a decision but he was so indecisive!

We're going down. All of a sudden, Salvation felt his feet release from the gem against his will. He screamed and opened his wings, flapping randomly, trying to slow their sudden fall towards the ground. He didn't manage to get himself airborn, but it was at least enough to stop him from slamming down as hard as other times. It still knocked the wind out of him, though.

He found himself not far from where the rat had collapsed and his nose began to go to work. Slowly, he pushed himself up so that he was on all fours and began to creep forwards, catching a weird, unnatural, and very disgusting scent from the mutated creature. Oh no...what is wrong with it?

"Caliante." "Salvation." "Rusty." "Crack."

@Valeria

Suddenly, there was screaming. Valeria's heart nearly jumped out of her chest. A black form fell from the sky, its wings were clumsy. Her jaw dropped in horror as it hit the ground with a thud. Valeria cringed. That sounded like it hurt. She gasped as worry began to fill her tiny body. Oh no! Are they okay? Did they break something? As she got a closer look, she noticed they were shaped like her, but much bigger.

Quickly, she scrambled down to the formation's base when she noticed something that turned her blood to ice. They had landed near her test subject, and too make matters even worse, it looked like they wanted to touch it.

"NO!!!!" She screamed.

Valeria flung herself off the stalagmite and glided swiftly to the crawling, black creature, landing in front of it. "No! Don't touch it!" She exclaimed, briefly unfurling a webbed wing as if to hide the rat from view. "It can make you sick!" The little bat's eyes black eyes were wide with fear. She didn't want to be responsible for making this outbreak worse.



"Listen to me."
Thoughts...

TAG: @Umbra // OOC:

Salvation was getting closer to the rat, inch by inch when, suddenly, a creature flung themselves in the way. With a cry, Salvation stumbled back, quickly losing his footing and smacking down on the ground. Stunned for a moment, he felt Rusty budging for control. However, he smashed back at him angrily. "Stop it, Rusty, today is my day."

Then stop being an idiot, Rusty growled, Fight that thing, it pushed us!

"No it didn't, I just got surprised is all," Salvation retorted. He turned towards Caliante to ask her to settle the debate but she just pushed him away. Stop asking me to settle your shit.

With a huff, he ignored any future outbursts from Rusty and stood up, not realizing that he had been having, what would seem to Valeria, a one sided conversation for a few moments after being pushed down. "Why'd you have to do that," he whined. "You scared me! I was just trying to get a look at it!"

But he would have gotten sick? He leaned over so that he was looking over the bat's shoulder. The rat did look pretty sick, but he had no idea that sickness could get passed along. He had never bee around sickness and had never been sick itself. His ears twitched nervously. "Uh, what's wrong with it?"

"Caliante." "Salvation." "Rusty." "Crack."

@Valeria

The other bat startle her almost as much as she startled them. Valeria gasped and went to help them up, when she was stopped by their strange speech. It sounded like they were talking to someone.

"I-I'm not--" She paused and looked around. Where was this Rusty, they were addressing? Valeria didn't see anyone else but them. She turned back to the black bat and cocked her head, confused, and a little concerned. Oh no, they must have bumped their head really hard!

Suddenly, the other bat began to address her, or she thought so. Valeria wasn't sure. "Um.. I'm sorry, I just don't want you to get sick is all." She explained nervously. She turned to look at the sickly rat. Amazingly, it was still clinging to life, but Valeria could tell by its waning blood flood that its heart was failing. "There's a terrible disease going on in the caves, and that rat has it." She pressed towards the black bat, hoping to usher them away, despite her small size.

I might as well tell them how to avoid it. She thought.

"You can get it by just touching it or any bodily fluids it leaks." She looked up at them. Her face was grave. "Its almost always deadly..."



"Listen to me."
Thoughts...

TAG: @Umbra // OOC:

Salvation didn't really take notice of the ushering movements of the other bat and he stepped back without really thinking about it, receiving a defiant hiss from Rusty at the back of his head. "Sick? What's that? Is that what the rat is? All bleeding and smelling funny?" It certainly did smell pretty gross. He wondered if he would smell like that if he caught the disease.

He tilted his head curiously. "Hmmmm, could we fix it? If there's a kind of plant that it needs, I can grow it. So if anyone gets sick its no problem, right?" He didn't quite understand the concept of getting sick and what it would take to cure a disease like that. He had no idea, but he was on edge as he felt Crack's dominant presence staring at the rat with interest.

He ignored it for now and instead moved his gaze to the smaller bat in front of him, realizing that he was, in fact, still talking to it. "Oh, um, hi, anyways. I'm Salvation. What's your name?"

"Caliante." "Salvation." "Rusty." "Crack."

@Valeria

She smiled meekly at Salvation and said. "I'm Valeria, nice to meet you." Valeria sighed, drooping sadly. She looked tired. "Unfortunately, there is no cure, not yet."

The rat's breathing rattled, as if fluid accumulated into its lungs, then all at once, it faded and the rat grew limp. Valeria gave a disheartened sigh, sensing its blood growing still. "It's dead." She said flatly, then mumbled sadly. "Poor thing..."

Valeria shook her head and returned her gaze back to Salvation. "I've been, studying it." She confessed. "I need to know how it works, then, maybe I can make a cure, but so far, results have been..." She snuck a glance at the dead rat. "Not so good."



"Listen to me."
Thoughts...

TAG: @Umbra // OOC:

Salvation was about to respond to Valeria, when, all of a sudden, he felt himself be tugged back, violently. He was thrown far back into the Inner World along with the other two and shut off from the controls.

Crack blinked as it took a second to adjust to control before realizing that it would need to mimic Salvation if it wanted to go unnoticed. It tried to put a thoughtless, stupid look into its face and brought up what it thought it's voice sounded like. "Oh no, that doesn't sound good! I hope it doesn't spread to the rest of the caves! So, um, what can you tell me about this sickness? What can I look out for?"

"Caliante." "Salvation." "Rusty." "Crack."

@Valeria

Valeria was usually oblivious to the atmosphere, for her attention was always drawn to mirco world of bacteria. Luckily for Crack, she did not notice a thing.

Her eyes lit up at "Salvation's" questions "Well," She began. "I like to call it the, um, bubonic plague!" Valeria smiled, spreading her wings like she was presenting something grand. "Because it, um.. causes buboes on your skin-- nasty pus-filled boils, if you didn't know--" Valeria couldn't contain her excitement. No one ever asked about her work, other than Gabriel, that is. She didn't realize how odd it looked, being giddy about a killer plague, but it was pretty neat. "Oh! It can also cause your skin to rot, usually in the paws or lips and nose! If its bad enough, it can cause your insides to BLEED! I've seen it pretty bad cases with rats, leaves bruising in weird places. I mean, you can get really sick! Like, full blown fever, vomiting, fatigue. Its not a good time. There's also this other strain that attacks your lungs, and guess what?" She leaned in closer. "You can catch it just by breathing around someone sick. There's another that can also cause the cave deer to go blind!" She sat back, grinning brightly despite her dark subject. "Pretty neat, huh?"

"Listen to me."
Thoughts...

TAG: // OOC:

@Umbra

Crack widened its eyes as Valeria spoke. It couldn't believe how easy this one. It would have to do this more often. As she spoke, it stared at her with great interest, hiding the hunger in the back of its mind. It would not do well to have her finding out about its desires.

"That's so interesting! And you found out all about this on your own? That's so cool! It sounds really painful, though, I'm happy you stopped me from touching it!" As it said this, it wondered if it could somehow have picked up the disease harmlessly from touching the rat.

It felt Salvation's consciousness begin to punch at the walls in the Inner World and Crack knew it didn't have a lot more time before the fight for the controls began. It wasn't its day and if Salvation attacked now, especially backed up by the other two, it would not win.

"Caliante." "Salvation." "Rusty." "Crack."

@Valeria