Wilder settled herself down, leaving the weird illusion sitting there, and watched from within the shadow. There was a noise and she blinked, raising her head to look. Where they back? Had they returned? Perhaps something amazing had happened in there! She was about to get to her feet to check it out when the voices changed to shrieks of pain. Her hears flattened against her head and she crouched back, staring out with wide eyes. What was happening to them?!

And there he was. The Merchant, strolling down the tunnel as if nothing had happened. When he turned and stared right where she was, she knew that he could see them. However impossible it was. And...some thing was trailing behind. A monster. Some unnatural creature that made her so terrified, she could not move a single inch.

Black stepped out, but Wilder did not follow, staring at the two as if a single movement would be cause to destroy her. Why were they screaming?!

A thought occurred to her - perhaps it had all been a trick. Perhaps the Merchant had enticed them, sent them off to do his biding, and then killed them instead of giving them the reward he had promised. It was, perhaps, an extremely irrational thought, but it consumed her mind to the point where she completely believed that to be the case. This thinking brought on a burst of courage and she sprang out of the darkness, trying to look intimidating - fur bushed, ears flat, lips curled, but she was so obviously trembling with fear that it ruined the look. She didn't say anything - Black had, after all, already asked the only questions that mattered, and instead contented with her quite pitiful attempt at an angry spitting.

@Pallas

P A L L A S
the man who sleeps with a knife
is a fool every night but one

Pallas laid still on rock he was on as they waited. It wasn't long until faint noises caught his attention. At first, he thought it was the two of them. Slowly, he glanced back to them, until he could notice the muffling actually coming from past the barrier. They've returned? The linsang telescoped out his neck as he tried to look past the barrier.

He flinched as it came crashing down, energy flashing across each of them. Did he just kill them? Did they become the next batch of Gembound to run the course? Pallas could feel his fur bristling as he kept a straight face, dark eyes locking with the Merchant's as he returned. When the look turned to the shadow, Pallas shuffled in place, a glance offered towards the lurking purple beast.

He quickly turned his head. That thing could step on him and he'd die instantly. If he could sweat, he'd be drenched at this point.

Instead, he looked past them, toward Hydra. The barrier was down. Chrysalises were littered about the place. They must be hibernating, like those before. They must be becoming the new champions.

Anxiously, Pallas turned his head back to the Merchant, his mouth opening. "You're-" He began, only to cut himself short when Black spoke. The linsang turned his head to look at Black and the revealing Wilder, a pointed opposite to the calm demeanor of the canine. Pallas sat up quietly. Black had said what he was thinking, so he only returned his attention to the Merchant with a nod to Black. He had to know what was going on.

@Game Master Dark

The Masked Merchant stopped. He then--slowly--turned, robe shuffling as the mask itself turned to regard the three Gembound that stood in the tunnel behind him.

He began to speak, voice rasping, echoing, unhurried. "They are being... rewarded... for their completion... of their task. They will be... strengthened." The clawed hands opened, palms-up, and an eye--or was it a gemstone?--stared out at the Gembound, unblinking, from one palm. "Of course... all rewards... require sacrifice. And sacrifice... can be... painful. But they... will awaken... stronger. The why..." The eyeholes regarded Black, dull and empty. "Because they... wished it so."

Vargas paused, turning when the Merchant did. He was following Hag-rteho's lead; he'd been asleep for a very long time, and the Merchant, apparently, had been awake. For how long, Vargas couldn't say, but when the Merchant ignored the Gembound, Vargas assumed they had reason to be here. Now, one questioned the Merchant, and Vargas simply listened, at first, and listened to Hag-rteho's response.

He regarded the three with indifferent curiosity. Were they in training..? Young Overseers-to-be, perhaps? They didn't appear to be at all powerful. Then again, neither does Nemean, at first glance. He'd learned his lesson harshly with her.

Still, the Merchant didn't seem concerned with their presence here, and so Vargas lingered, hulking, waiting for them to finish whatever this exchange was.

Wilder, however, then hissed at him.

Vargas turned, peering down at her. There was another, in Hydra, who'd just a few moments ago done the same. It had been wounded, but its defiance had amused him nonetheless. Still, he had no idea as to the rank of these three, or why Hag-rteho was indulging them. He'd always been rather inscrutable--the Merchant's demeanor was the same for everyone from Master to Lesser. His tone did not alter regardless of whether he was addressing the greatest among them, or draining the life from a failed creation with but the briefest touch.

Vargas would leave this to him.

Black listened, pendulous ears pricked, with studious intensity. He did not like the Merchant's phrasing--his mention of sacrifice, and pain--and Black certainly did not believe that all rewards required sacrifice. He said so, bluntly: "Rewards do not require sacrifice. A reward can be merely a reward. But the dog thanks you for this answer." He paused, studying the Merchant. He wondered at his motives, and asked that, as well--"Who are you, that holds the power to change others, at will? Are you an Elder?"

Black then glanced back down the tunnel. Regardless of all else, they would need protecting--and it was clear that they weren't about to be protected. He immediately assigned this task to himself; he was a guardian, and protecting was what he did.

"I will guard them, as they sleep," he informed the Merchant simply.

________________

@Wilder

Wilder wasn't wholly convinced that the ones who had been screaming had been rewarded. That didn't seem fair at all. "But they already sacrificed," she protested in a voice traced with a faint whine. "They went into that cave! Why do you make them hurt more?" She didn't like any part of the answer that the Merchant gave her. Perhaps she had been foolish to trust him before, but not now. Anything he said, perhaps, she wasn't going to believe at all. "Nobody just asks for pain!"

She glanced towards the large creature and instinctively took a step back. It just looked...wrong, like it didn't belong. Never before had she seen something like it. "And what about you?" she squeaked. "Are you an elder? Where did you even come from?" She hadn't seen him go in, nor had any of the chrysalis been big enough to accommodate him.

@Pallas

P A L L A S
the man who sleeps with a knife
is a fool every night but one

Pallas only continued to watch and listen. Perhaps it was best not to speak back against these creatures, lest their power be used on them.

Though, rewards. Pallas looked towards the chrysalises with a judging eye as the Merchant spoke, ears facing towards him. He wasn't sure what to think. Sacrifice? Did they not sacrifice in the desert? Perhaps some escaped unscathed; perhaps the final blast was an insurance that whatever strength took hold. Instead of questioning, however, Pallas only turned to the purple beast, dark eyes studying its form. It was hulking, fearsome, but the silence offered by it comforted Pallas. It wasn't immediately aggressive, and thus the linsang didn't have much quarrel with him.

Black's questioning held solid ground. Pallas's tail found itself swishing side to side as he thought over the words from each party, watching them talk. However, at Wilder's outburst, he spoke: "Perhaps it's necessary for the... Strength? To take hold?" He looked to the Merchant curiously, eyes lingering on the Merchant's own. How odd.

At Black's declaration, Pallas nodded to him. They were vulnerable in those chrysalises. If it weren't for his tiny stature, the linsang would assist, but all he could do was sit around and ask questions.

@Game Master Dark

"I am... ancient... beyond your measure," the Merchant replied.

He then looked to Wilder. For a moment, he was silent, and then his masked head seemed to tilt, and tilt, turning too far to one side--impossibly, as though his head should crack off, as though his neck should snap. Perhaps, beneath that mask, he was an owl.

His voice, when at last it came, was somehow shriller and more rasping, like a wind through a glacial crevasse. "They must... reenter the stone... to change. To enter the stone... requires damage. It was... brief," he added.

To Pallas, the Merchant did not speak--but as his head twisted back to normal, his gaze met the linsang's. If Pallas were observant, he might note that there seemed to be no eyes at all within those holes--just dark and empty pits in the mask, and who knew what lay beyond.

He seemed, then, to be finished: he turned, and swept from the tunnel, his robe swishing over the sand.

The Masked Merchant will exit unless stopped.

The little cat was practically squeaking with fear.

Vargas still had no idea what these beings were, but to his surprise, they didn't seem to have a clue as to who or what he was.

"They were part of the trial; they've been knocked back into their chrysalises to be changed, as is part of their reward. It takes damage to do it; you do not know this..?" He eyed them, suspiciously, glancing after the Merchant and then forward once more. He took a step toward Wilder, sniffing, leaning his massive head far down to get a whiff.

"What are you? Why are you out here? Who is your Overseer?"

Vargas stared at Wilder, and then stepped back a few paces. "Elder..? Just how young are you? I am among the first, yes--... As to where I come from," he added, and his features twisted into a grin, "Well, I'd say--your nightmares." He imbued a bit of magic into this final word, and the tunnel seemed to whisper it from all its corners, the rasping murmur "nightmares" echoing softly, near-incoherently, from each crevice and rock, all around them.

Black considered all of this for a long moment.

If the others had agreed to the Trial, to its rewards and its costs, then he saw nothing to protect against. A fair, agreed-upon price was just that: a choice.

As to Vargas, he did not seem to grasp any implied threat. Instead, he spoke simply. "I do not have nightmares."

Then he turned, pacing stolidly away to the chrysalises, ready to dutifully guard them until they hatched.

________________

exit Black
@Wilder