Zevruu barely noticed as others approached. He was too busy looking at the ruins. It was darker, and not just from the dim lighting. His eyes were narrowed as he tried to look. At the words of the large lizard, he finally looked and saw many had crowded around. "Looks like it." His words were short and crisp, and he turned back to the ruins.

It was then that he heard a voice. Distorted, it echoed around the area and startled him. Then something brushed over his fur and he bristled, claws sliding out. "Who's there?" he growled, hearing a faint jumbled whisper in his ear as well.

Barely holding back a snarl of frustration, he cast his magic out. It took some work, but soon an orb of light appeared.

"Speech" l 'Thoughts'

The small fox said not a word, but simply stood in the doorway looking out at the crowd of gembound that had gathered. They spoke of dreams and visions, but their fur was not in the same state as her. She had thought the dreams to be a side-effect of her unexpected hibernation, but if it was shared by the living then it had to be something more.

Had this room always been so dark?

Miru's ears flattened as a surreal scream interrupted the impromptu meeting, hackles raised in silence as her crimson eyes darted around. It hadn't come from within the building, or at least she didn't think it did. The only thing of interest here was her discarded shell. Another glance outside- the others had heard it too and the smaller of the two cats was lashing out rather severely to it.

Lights. In this dim space that wasn't a bad idea. Perhaps she could assist in fighting back the darkness.

"I wonder." she spoke aloud in response to the shaken creature's question, stepping out lest they see her and believe her to be responsible. Beneath her fur a glow was beginning to manifest- soft and blue in contrast to the fur's natural red hue. The white fur of her underbelly barely did anything to stop the magically produced rays, casting a pool of light below her as though she tread upon a watery surface. "Could the eyes of death have followed us from the dreamscape?"

---

Though my thoughts are my own
"This is my greatest tool to hone"
Tags:

Dread glanced to Zevruu as the cat growled "Who's there?" Apparently deciding that it was asking their names, he responded.

"I am Dread," he answered, and then immediately asked--because the strange little furry red thing's question had piqued his interest--"Does Death have eyes?" He pondered it only briefly; the concept was beyond him and thus quickly dismissed.

The dragon lifted off with a beat of wings, but rather than fly away in what would have essentially been the middle of a conversation, he landed a few meters further on--perched atop one of the ruined buildings, peering farther in. He was still quite close, however--just on the outer edges of the ancient city.

"Perhaps it hunts in dreams!" Dread said, then paused. What, exactly, was "it?" And how would hunting in dreams help anything? One couldn't eat real food in a dream.

He shook himself, the way a dog shakes off water, trying to rid himself of this foolish, errant thought. Prompted by his own brief shame, he snapped his jaws open and let out a loud, shuddering roar that rang through the ruins. It wasn't a threat, more a... distraction. He was yelling to hide the fact that he'd said something stupid.

@Aries

OF WISPS AND WHISPERS

ORION - In Nightmares

As Reign's spell backfired, there was a strong sense of wrongness. It was as if bad luck hovered, as if something controlled his destiny. He would fail. There was no way to win this. He was trapped; he would be ended, here, followed and hunted to the ends of the caves until at last he fell in shadows, nothing but fear in his heart, alone in the cold. A soft laughter echoed in his ears, an icy breath, mocking to its core.

The ruins themselves echoed strangely with Dread's roar, the sound careening off into the rubble and fading, seeming to distort, and change, like a dozen voices wailing into slow silence. The light from Zevruu's orb seemed oddly muffled--the light itself bright enough, yet the shadows clung to it, creeping in, so that the bright pool ended abruptly only a few meters to either side. It would take effort to remain in the light, and not to touch the surrounding shadows. Miru's blue glow, too, seemed to stop abruptly not far from her. The shadows almost seemed to be giving off their own not-light, draining the magical glow at its edges.

Reseda, however, would see none of this--not at first. To her, the ruins seemed to grow darker, and darker; they grew towering and ominous. She went inside, wandering the crumbled roads, peering into pitch-black doorways, an unfamiliar fear mounting in her. A shuffle came from just behind her, and a sharp pain at the back of her neck. At the same time--and yet separately, as if in another room, another window, another reality--she saw a dark figure far ahead, unaware of her presence. And a third reality: Reseda fleeing, the rest left behind, silent as they fell. Strange, stray ghost-lights flickered all around.

She awoke to reality.

@Reign @Greed @Zevruu @Dread @Miru @Aries

From the day we arrive on this planetAnd blinking, step into the sun

As he used his Magick, things seemed to go wrong. He shuddered, cringing, wanting to run and run and run, but refusing to. His head twisted, surveying the area, as a laugh echoed in his ears, but he couldn't see where it came from.

The other cat spoke, first, asking if someone was out there. Then was the fox, and its question made the fur on his mantle stand on end. But, surely not? It was only a dream after, even if it were a shared dream. The massive, large winged lizard boomed his own questions, and Reign said "Perhaps it does." there was no reason to discount it.

Something was very wrong here, the lights were muffled, the sounds were wrong. The cheetah's ears twitched, and his tail flicked and, getting an idea, his crown gleamed as a blast of thunder boomed.

@Greed @Zevruu @Dread @Miru @Aries

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

There's more to see than can ever be seenMore to do than can ever be done

we burn the brightest

in the dark

It took awhile for Aries to traverse down the Cliffs, but when he finally came down, he saw five gembounds gathered at the ruin's edge. As he limped towards them, he stretched his neck forward and called out. "Hey! What's going on here?" He had reached them at the tail end of their conversation, only catching the dragon's words. "Why is everyone here?" Aries golden eyes, clouded with concern and curiosity, glanced at each of the gembounds as if trying to piece together their stories. "What... hunts in dreams?" Saying that sentence sent a chill down his spine. I was hunted in my dream...

The ram turned his head towards the ruins. They looked... darker than usual. Aries was not the most observant gembound in the cave, but even he could tell something was off. One thing was for sure, a part of him did not want to go in there, but the other half told him that he must.

"Listen to me."
Thoughts...

TAG: @Greed @Dread @Miru @Zevruu @Reign // OOC:

Zevruu's skin prickled at the sound of Dread's roar echoing around the cave. He was only partially aware that the dragon had introduced himself. He didn't particularly care who these gembounds were. Just more nameless faces he may or may not see again. They had long since stopped mattering.

The light from his orb was muffled, the darkness seeming to close around it. He let out a frustrated huff. He'd never seen anything like this. He couldn't see very well. While he'd grown used to the darkness when the lights had gone out years ago - welcomed it, even - this felt different. Then, if he wanted to, he'd been able to use magic to see. But now he couldn't even do that.

He was only half-aware of what was being said around him. He snapped to attention however as the cheetah let out a thunderclap, causing him to jump at the loud and sudden sound. He glanced at him, eyes narrowed slightly, though he didn't say anything.

"Speech" l 'Thoughts'

"Whether such eyes are literal or figurative, the hunter in dreams does seem to have set its gaze upon us." she responded absentmindedly to the fierce winged lizard of Dread, gazing downward at the pool of blue light around her. She had woken up, right? Something about her magic wasn't quite right. Something about the world around them wasn't quite right.

Usually a predator would back off as its targets gathered in enough number to fight back. Are even the six of us so small as to be no threat?"

Not only that but whatever encroached upon them seemed to be aligned with the darkness itself. Her light and the light of the smaller feline held it just barely at bay and laughter in the emptiness seemed to mock their feeble attempts.

It is indifferent to our efforts. "We have to stick together, move away as one."

She wasn't going to fall so soon after awakening to the world again! With a deep breath the fox willed as much magic as possible into her stone. Theirs would be the glow to push back the darkness!

Indeed the blue glow did increase in intensity, but like a shattering bulb the spell broke with an audible pop, sending Miru hurling to the ground as the backlash hit her like being punched in the gut.

The light was gone and with it her protection against the unnatural shadow.

---

Though my thoughts are my own
"This is my greatest tool to hone"
Tags: @Greed @Dread

The vision unfolded in front of Reseda's mind and she went through it blankly, calculating, thinking of what it meant, what it was telling her. She could not recklessly charge through the main door of the ruins, that would only get her killed. But perhaps if she found a way to sneak around the back of the creature, she could take it out. Or maybe just hold it to see what it was. But she would not run. There was no point in running now. She wanted to know what this was and she would know.

The others seemed terrified and, for once, Reseda did not blame them. It was dark and there was something there, something that had actually haunted all of their dreams. While she did not feel that fear anymore, she could sense it in the air as she flicked out her tongue. "We cannot charge in to face this thing. I have seen it. If we do, we will die. So, perhaps..." She trailed away as an idea came to mind. Yes, this would work much better.

She took a deep breath and, upon her exhale, released magic from her gem. The familiar spell manifested around her and a copy of her, seemingly flawless in the darkness, stepped away from the real body. She backed away as the copy moved forward, following the path that she had seen in her vision. Going straight into the ruins, straight into the darkness, straight towards the monster.

The dragon remained silent atop his perch, peering into the shadows uneasily. There were others arriving, still; they flared out their magics, and something seemed to tamper with it all--half of it appeared to fail, to backfire completely.

His long, slender tail lashed slowly behind him, and in a moment of insecurity he drew it up to hang over the stone on which he sat--to keep the gem at the tip in sight and protected. The last thing he wanted was some magical monster tearing his gem from his flesh while he wasn't looking!

"Is this magic?" he demanded abruptly of the others, looking to them. "I had a voice, not far from here, speaking into my mind! I could not get it to go away. Is this magic?!"

His words and tone were bluntly demanding--not aggressive, more oblivious to niceties--and he was, for now, less than helpful.