Astraea paid no mind to the rain, however Nemean let out a snarling sigh and pulled the cap of a larger mushroom over her head. Her body curled away from the drizzle as Astraea continued to follow the Merchant and the Overseer. A childish "Aw man!" sounded from her when the Matriarch fell. They were aiming for high ground, a good view.

"Replaced..." he started, chewing on the thought. "Hm, such that, it is another's there." He was watching his hooves as he climbed. "Everything had gone silent, asleep; and so They came to wake us with the intention of—" Nemean was slapping his face.

"You're gonna leave out the BEST part?" she squealed, pointing to Astraea with a summoned, giant hand. "They rose this guy first, as... as THIS." She howled with laughter, curling back up under the mushroom while Astraea stared onward with thin, tight lips.

"Yes," he nearly growled. His eyes rose to meet Vargas. "Despite Their efforts, the nest is still our own. It just needs some work." Astraea shifted his attention to the Gembound. "And so, it is good to have you back."

Nemean huffed and sputtered. "Our own? With uglier creations," she added.

It occurred to him that there were no longer any active pairs. Tenzin had severed their own bond. Jupiter and Totum were ready to kill each other, still; and the others? Dead or still asleep. Well, except for... "Nemean," he quested, flicking an ear. "You are still opposed to working with Aquarian?"

"UGH, I'm trying to ENJOY MYSELF," was her violent response as she clonked him on the forehead.

"No worries, I'm quite alright!" Agate squawked, talons clutching a long flight feather they had managed to snatch. It seemed like a fair enough trade, and though it stung, the feathers on their rump had no purpose but looks.

They did their best to pay no mind to the Overseers. As long as they stayed well ahead of them, it would be fine.

The cockatrice raised their head high, beak parting in the closest thing to a wry grin they could pull off. "Agreed. Let's keep it moving," they chirped, spreading their wings and taking flight after the trail of smoke. They had no fear of the charred smell, as they knew in their heart that they were a creature of fire themselves.

Unfortunately, it had been a long time since they had been in a situation where they were surrounded by smoke; immediately they found themselves in the thick of it, disorientated-- and like a canary in a coal mine, their lungs burned and their eyes watered.

"What are they burning?!" The champion complained, coughing on the smoke as they forced themselves further ahead. As long as they stuck with their companions, they knew a bit of ash in their lungs wouldn't kill them-- it would just be a minor setback, surely?

agate is attempting to stay with ru, asimona, opal, etc

Lapis Ninety-five

Oh, you fool, there are rules, I am coming for you
Darkness brings evil things, oh, the reckoning begins

After catching her breath, Lazuli paused for a moment and looked ahead. She had come quite far; almost at the labyrinthine maze standing between herself and the dead marsh. She had faced it before, but she would need to think carefully before facing it again. One wrong move could mean the end.

After a few moments of thought, carefully picking through all the tidbits she remembered, she raised herself up and took off. She plowed ahead, galloping into the maze of rocky formations standing between herself and the dead marsh, rapidly growing more confident as she regained her sense of the terrain around her.

---

"Speech."
"Thoughts."

Quartz Eight-Six-Zero thought he was a goner. He had just about resigned himself into his fate when a voice caught his attention. He looked up and saw the vulture heading towards the sound, though its talons scraped against a rock.

With the vulture no longer coming after him, he breathed a huge sigh of relief. And not much longer, the vultures began to fly away, now circling them and calling out. He paid them no attention, turning to where the rock was.

There, the tiny little lizard lay. It was the same one he had been ready to save earlier if needed. And now she had saved his life. He smiled softly down at her. "Hey. I'm Quartz Eight-Six-Zero. What's your name?"

At that moment, he heard someone else speak. Looking over, he could faintly see the figure of the Masked Merchant and...someone else. He didn't remember much about the big purple monster, but he knew one thing: it meant trouble.

As he turned back to the lizard, he winced. He'd completely forgotten about the wounds he'd suffered from the vulture, adrenaline keeping his mind off it. But now that he wasn't in immediate danger, it seemed he had time to heal a bit. He felt the magic flow through him - a mostly foreign feeling - and felt the pain begin to subside.

Now, there was one last thing he had to do. He needed a trophy. Looking around, it wasn't long before he found a couple of feathers that had probably fallen from the vulture going after him. He grabbed them.

With a trophy acquired, he turned once more back to the lizard. Around him, he could see others moving on and also a bit of sabotage, it seemed. He frowned. The trials were no place for sabotage. They just needed to survive. What was the point in doing anymore than that? He shook his head lightly.

"Are you okay?" he asked the lizard. While others might move on, he intended on staying behind with the lizard to make sure she was okay. It was the least he could do, really, considering she had saved his life.

Amazon cowered beneath her rock as the loud screeching of the vulture got closer and the scraping against the rock began. Her heart jumped in her chest and she closed her eyes, willing for it to go away, hoping it would leave when, finally, the area around her went silent as the vulture departed. Carefully, cautiously, she peeked out and saw the face of the champion she had saved smiling down at her.

She was a little frightened by his appearance - he was big and she'd never seen anything like him before, but thankfully he already seemed to be gentler then the others. "I'm Amazon," she squeaked back, crawling out from her little hole.

She looked up with a bit of surprise, eyeing the wounds on his body. "Yeah, I'm fine, what about you?" She glanced towards the smoke still billowing from ahead and the other gembounds disappearing into it. "Well, we better catch up. We don't want to get left behind." She scuttled forward, glancing back to keep pace with him. She felt a little more comforted that she had an ally now.

Amazon is staying with 860

And the shuffling had begun. Sabotage, help, alliances forming and--likely--disbanding. The Gembound were starting back down the cliff-side, trophies clasped in teeth and claws, trudging down the switchback trail in the rain, or gliding to the canyon's foot. At the bottom, the vulture that Yoosung had burned lay twitching and dying, blue fire consuming its skull. "They performed well... against the Matriarch," the Masked Merchant said.

The Merchant led the way along the top lip of his mesa. He was positioned back toward the Dead Marsh, back the way the Gembound had to come. But there was no way up here, not from their side; they'd have to brave the labyrinthian narrows that led through to the other side, passing beneath his vantage point. He, Astraea and the others would have a clear view of the Gembounds' passage through, at least at first.

As the Gembound began to wind their way through the passages far below, the Mechant raised one hand, and gestured. "Another test," he explained, his voice empty. "A new one."
_________________
As the Gembound worked their way through the narrowest part of the Crucible--high-walled with overhanging rock and little shelter to the sides--what had been a light and fading drizzle shifted to a surging downpour. The rivulets of water pouring down the rock swelled into spraying waterfalls. The heavy rain would make it very difficult to fly, a thick, roiling fog threatening to blind flyers and send them crashing into canyon walls.

From behind them came a quiet roaring. A wind, followed by a sound of churning...

The threads of rain gathered rapidly into streams, which collided into an overwhelming mass of water that cascaded down through the canyons behind the Gembound, pushing brush, dirt, boulders, and dead trees up before it. The groups faced a flash flood roaring down at their backs--difficult to outrun, near-impossible to swim through, rising a dozen feet high in the narrowest portions of the canyon.
_________________
Round Four

Gembound passing through the Crucible's canyons must roll to avoid being swept up by the flash flood. Those failing may be caught in the relentless surge of thick mud, possibly drowning, struck unconscious by rocks or wood, or dragged beneath by its sheer force. Communication will be made difficult by the roaring of the water, and visibility greatly lowered by the fog and the rain. This is not something that prior Champions will have previously faced.

As before, this will be the first of two rolls for survival. Due to the nature of the flood and the lowered visibility, aiding others will be more difficult, putting rescuer's lives in danger. Those who fail both rolls and are not successfully helped by others will perish. The speed of the water will also spread the group out further, altering placements more dramatically for those who survive.

Rolling a critical fail will inflict a severe injury and cause the character to fall farther behind. Please post & roll only once. If Successful in your roll, clarify if your character is moving ahead or attempting to locate and stay with their current group.

Click to view current placement rankings.

1. Garnet Five-Seven-Nine
2. Lapis Ninety-Five
3. Yoosung, Reseda, Desert Rose Thirty-Five, Labradorite Five-Four-Six
4. Shango, Amazon, Quartz Eight-Six-Zero, Imp, Asimona, Quartz Five-Two-Four, Styx, Opal Three-Seven-Six
5. Agate Two-Three-Six, Mayngo

@Yoosung @Amazon @Shango @Opal Three-Seven-Six @Quartz Eight-Six-Zero @Labradorite Five-Four-Six @Agate Two-Three-Six @Desert Rose Thirty-Five @Lapis Ninety-Five@Garnet Five-Seven-Nine

Vargas padded alongside the Merchant, gaze slipping now and again toward the distant Gembound.

"'They?'" he asked. "The-?" but he was cut off by conversation. At Nemean's protests, and her tiny fists pummeling Astraea's (strange) new head, his reptilian lips curled into a faint grin.

Before he could say much, the skies had opened. Drizzle turned to sheets of hammering rain, droplets hissing where they hit the hotter patches of Vargas' skin. He growled, irritably, and shook himself, glancing upward.

"Your doing..? I hate it," he stated bluntly. But then he realized what it meant. Vargas crept to the edge, peering downward, trying to catch a glimpse of the no doubt struggling Gembound far below. His visibility was mostly hampered by the fog and the drenching downpour, however. Nemean will not be happy that the show is obscured to her, Vargas thought wryly, extending his own predator's senses out to keep a somewhat more... sinister watch.

"I can see them," he narrated, mostly for her benefit. "They are going in... and here comes the water. They have nowhere to go," he added, a grin in his voice.

Imp swivelled his head around at the strange and distant rushing sound. The vulture talon was still clutched in his jaws, complete with black-scaled toe, and so he couldn't really open his jaws to say "Hey, guys, what is that?" Instead, he just listened for a beat, one wing-arm lifted slightly into the air as he paused.

It was only when the first frothing lip of water came surging through the narrow canyon that he realized. The vulture talon was tossed back into the space between his molars and his cheek, and this time he called out.

"WE'RE GONNA DIE!"

It was not a very helpful shout.

He turned and began to try and bound ahead, flapping where he could, but the fog thickly-filling the ravine made it damn hard to see where he was going--and an instant later the wall of muddy, debris-filled water caught him from behind.

Imp went tumbling head over heels, jaws clamped firmly shut and eyes squeezing closed against the tide. He scrabbled for purchase--and for a moment he was carried by it, his head out of the water. He saw other Gembound caught in it--flashes and glimpses--and then a black, dead tree log floating swiftly by. He scrambled for it, trying to get ahold of it, to pull himself onto it.

It was a terrifying moment, an instant full of fear and thrill when he felt his life hanging in the balance of whether or not his claws would gain simple purchase on the wet-soaked wood. But a moment later there he was, straddling it, riding down the floodwaters--and his jaws opened up, the talon safely tucked away, so that he could again shout at full volume.

"YEAAAAAAAAAAH!"

It was probably mostly lost to the storm.

Imp is advancing.

Labradorite Five-Four-Six rested for a mere moment, catching his breath and licking his wounds, but his ears pricked upwards as he heard his brother speak. With the rain pouring over his fur, he lifted his head and stared out, trying to squint through smoke and rain to see the Overseer.

He bristled, quietly, and got to his paws to keep going.

Desert Rose's offer to fly with him was a tempting one. He didn't want to put too much pressure on his own leg, knowing full well that it might get worse. But... "No," he murmured with another glance to the Masters and the Overseer, the bright-blue fur on his back standing on end. "I don't want them to get the wrong idea."

To be branded a failure was, of course, the wrong idea. Vargas would eat him. The Merchant would crush his stone into dust, letting it join the sands of the desert. If it were even desert-sand, that is. "Come on," he quietly urged as he started weaving down the ravine, only to hear a distant rush of water.

He thought he was imagining it for a moment, until he heard one of the hybrids screaming about death. He likely wasn't wrong, and Five-Four-Six wasn't going to stick around to find out if this new prophecy were true or not.

Forgetting the dull, throbbing pain raking his shoulder, Labradorite Four-Five-Six broke out into a sprint, half-running and half-leaping to where ever was the most stable, where ever he could reach in time to get himself to safety. Whatever the hell was coming he didn't want to be a part of-- his survival instincts were kicking in and it was time to get the hell out of dodge.

He'd managed to stay out of the flood for now, at least.

Labradorite Five-Four-Six is moving forward.

DESERT ROSE THIRTY-FIVE
here's to my yesterday

Thirty-Five raised his head towards the sky, seething with anger as the downpour increased. Damn the rain- even if it felt good against his heated skin, it was washing out the protective sand he kept trapped in the crevices. A faint snarl found its way across the dragon’s lips as he experimentally opened his wings, shooting a glance back at Five-Four-Six.

No good. Thirty-Five hadn’t flown in rain before, and the longer he waited, the worse the sheets became. He’d have to climb down.

Thirty-Five offered a nod towards his brother at the refusal of his service in understanding. His head, water dripping over his many antlers, rose to stare through the thickening rain at the troupe of Overseers. Mild contempt took over Thirty-Five as he turned away. He shouldn’t acknowledge them- he’d just get nervous and upset. Right.

The dragon took in a deep breath and stretched out his limbs, his scales flaring as he prepared for the next leg of the challenge. Five-Four-Six was already scaling down the side when Thirty-Five peered over, picking out a way down to the dusty floor below, small beads of water picking up in intensity as the streams coalesced into a roaring river.

That’s not good.

Thirty-Five gulped, taking in the frothing and rising waves. His brother was making it, and he had to move quick before the Overseers caught up.

He only grit his teeth and took a leap into the canyon, his eyes focused onto a prominent ledge along the side. The torrent of water from above pushed him down as he shot out his wings, attempting to glide from his position.

He barely made it. Thick claws scrabbled for purchase on the melting rock, powerful wings flailing in the air as he scrambled up onto the ledge. Thirty-Five’s heartbeat hammered in his chest and ears. Even the river was drowned out by the pure adrenaline rushing through his veins.

Nothing like this had ever happened during the trials. This was new, too new. The dragon flared out his wings as his scales lifted from his skin. He had to urge himself to breathe as he hyperventilated, blue eyes mirroring the rising rapids below. He was frozen in place. He could taste the metallic blood he’d eaten moments prior on his tongue along with rising bile from his stomach. It was not a good time to have eaten something.

The sound of cracking rock broke him from his panicked concentration. A shudder- a snap, below him, rocked his stance on the ledge. The dragon yelped in fear and moved to immediate action, sprinting along the side of the thin walls, sandy rock giving away at each footstep. The ledges were getting thinner and he had to constantly leap from wall to wall, trying to outpace the unending waves of water. He had to go. He had to survive.

Desert Rose Thirty-Five will be advancing.