ATTIKIAS
violence for violence
is the rule of the beasts

Hard rock wasn't something Attikias expected to be lining the floor. He was used to the disgusting waters of Cetus and the dirt of Eridanus, both soft against his uncalloused feet. Here, pointed stones dug into the skin, digging and working its way in.

Attikias hated it, but he pressed on. He had a mission to do.

His path started from the curtain of plants leading into Eridanus, spear leading the way through the odd structure of the tunnel. He hadn't been this way before; caves, he hadn't even been out of Cetus or Eridanus, and he wasn't going to come back to the former any time soon.

He'd gotten used to the stone against his feet at the carvings came into view. A confused face took over his features. It was curious, as if other creatures were alive, trapped in the rock. Were they the rock?

A dark hand passed over the depictions as he slowed, head turning to this odd wall. He'd never seen something like this. He traced through the features of a particularly interesting one, the form capturing his thoughts.

It looked like him.

The elf's hunt was pushed to the back of his mind as he squatted down, still tracing the figures with eyes and fingers, propping his spear against the ground. There were depictions of all manners of things, many he couldn't really wrap his young brain around, but they were absolutely fascinating. His tail curled about his feet as he filtered through the heaps of information stored in the stone.

Vargas' pace was swift, though unhurried: the athletic stride of someone with too-long limbs and long experience in using them.

He was on his way to Polaris, and relieved that, at least, these tunnels had remained the same. He would hate to get lost in his own domain. And--

Vargas faltered; there was something ahead. One of these "Gembound," no doubt. It was crouched, dark-skinned, a hand against the carvings. It reminded him, very vaguely, of one of the Masters--but it was different enough that it wasn't worth a mention. It had a tail, for one thing, if he was seeing that right. Now, the more important question: what did it know? Why was it here? He'd learned from Aure that the old ways were essentially gone, but just how gone he did not yet know. Had things changed throughout the cave? Or were there only certain places exempt from history?

"What are you doing?" he asked, now pacing forward again, making no attempt to hide his rough approach. There was no threat of violence in him, but he seemed indifferent to Attikias, for the most part--bar this impersonal curiosity. "Why are you here--and what is your number?"

@Attikias

ATTIKIAS
violence for violence
is the rule of the beasts

Attikias's head swiveled at thumping sounds of something heavy. Footsteps; a gait? His hand tensed about his spear as he used it as purchase to the ground, lifting his bipedal form up straight. Mis-matched eyes scanned the scene as he swung his weapon forward. He had to be prepared if something came sprinting down the tunnel into him.

He was grateful when something didn't, though the appearance startled him nonetheless. Whatever this was was nothing like he'd seen in the caves. It was large, arguably kind of monstrous, and purple. Why purple? It wasn't the most hidden of colors; it seemed rather intuitive to be purple. Then again, the elf didn't decide to be dark. He would certainly decide not to have weird dangly bits like whatever this thing had, though.

Attikias's whip-thin tail flickered as he stood straighter, the beast's words reaching his pointed ears. It didn't seem to want to attack, but that movement set a rock in the elf's gut that threatened to push into his throat. Still, though, Attikias retreated his stick back somewhat, eyes narrowing. If this thing didn't want to look like a threat, he shouldn't be one to give it reason to be one.

It took him a beat to think up an answer. What was he doing? Nothing important- he certainly wasn't doing his quest. Still, the demands passed through him and his face straightened to emulate a stern adult, nevermind that he was still a child.

"I'm looking," he stated simply, looking back to the carvings along the wall. His eyes lingered before turning back to this thing before him. Was he supposed to have a number? Hopefully his response would answer the second question as well; he didn't feel comfortable with this prying the other creature seemed to be participating in.

Realizing he'd hesitated for a bit, looking over the other before him, Attikias blurted out "2" in response. He had absolutely no number. Still, it was best to play along with whatever this thing's demands were instead of risking his life- he was supposed to have a number, according to it. The thought that this was some test set his spine tingling.

@Vargas

Vargas was about to respond to the "looking," to quizzically demand further information, when Attikias' second answer came.

"Two."

He burst out laughing, briefly--amused, hearty. "TWO!" he echoed, and leaned over to glance at the stone.

Ahh, he recognized this one--a rarer mineral, which in one form had created only thirty-six testees in his time. And of those, only one had survived--the penultimate, and one he'd seen fairly recently. This creature looked nothing like that one, though, and its gemstone--though he knew it was of the same make--was in a different form. Silky, hard, a milky-pale rather than twisted petals. Even in this form, he'd rarely seen this gemstone, and to his vague recollection there hadn't been more than thirty or so of these, either. "Well-! A little low, but perhaps not as far off as you could be," Vargas admitted. "You would be around thirty, I think. I am Overseer Vargas, and it is my task to eat the weak and test the strong. So long as you treat me with respect, you will not need that stick," and here Vargas nodded toward the spear.

He then turned his attention to the scenes carved into Tunnel I. "These are what you are looking at? Tell me--what about them interests you?"

@Attikias

Rift had asked him to follow the watcher, and so he had.

Their prints were odd, only two where he was used to four, and oddly shaped as well. He had little worry that he wouldn't catch up, and so followed at a steady trot, conserving his energy in case there was a fight.

And what he found... well, it was odd. A... well, he'd consider it a monkey? looking thing, dark in color with a stick in hand. They were in Tunnel I, looking at... something. But it was the other creature that got his attention--absolutely massive, and brightly colored, it screamed poisonous and hunter. His fur stood on end, and he found himself flashing his teeth, though he bit down the snarl before he could give himself away.

He slowed to a stop, crouching down into a stalk and holding himself still, intending on watching before stepping in.

@Attikias @Vargas

ATTIKIAS
violence for violence
is the rule of the beasts

It seemed two was a satisfactory answer. Maybe? The laugh unsettled Attikias even more, his expression turning to the more wide eyed and doe-like in a sense of minor fear.

The feeling only grew heavier as this beast leaned closer. It felt extremely unnatural; no fur, nothing like Attikias had hunted in the caves. Instinctively, he drew his shoulder back away from the creature, his teeth clenching painfully. A sense of dread washed over him as he was inspected - anxiously, his own head turned to inspect the gem, striped with lighter whites and certainly not intricate.

He could feel his throat clenching as the creature - Overseer Vargas, a mouthful of a name - spoke, yet he defiantly straightened back, locking his eyes with his nostrils. Those seemed like eyes, right?

His spear drew closer as his tail swayed behind him, the whisker-like appendage's tuft drifting through the rock on the ground. The casual mention of eating the weak caused a ripple to wave over his suede skin. He wasn't weak, thankfully, but a cautious eye looked over Vargas as he went on to mention testing the strong.

Attikias repressed a childish 'it's a good stick', biting his tongue lightly and loosening his grip on it. Well, at least this beast was smart. His expression returned to a taut seriousness, as if he was tasked to be the stern dad in a game of house.

At the question though, the elf paused. His head turned towards the artwork on the walls. With his face relaxing again, he pointed his spear towards the carvings, following the lines of particular beings. "A lot of these have people who have two legs and not four. There's some-" he traced around a canine-like creature running, attacking?- "that look like things I've seen before," he explained.

Squatting again, his attention shifted fully to the wall, his pointed his spear towards a more upright creature in a separate depiction. It was doing something, holding a small tool like the one Attikias had in his hand, yet it wasn't threatening. A large sheet of flat rock laid in front of it- to those knowledgeable, it could be assumed it was weaving.

"Some things I haven't." The elf's eyes lingered. "I want to know why I look like the things I haven't seen." He glanced back towards the Overseer. "I haven't seen anything like you before. Maybe if I look here I'd find things so I can see them before I see them, so I can see people here like you," he finished, reaching a light palm towards the weaving figure. "Why are they here? Who trapped them in stone? Do you know?"

There was the childish mind resting in Attikias. In truth, he had millions of questions, but he had to look old, mature- he couldn't be a serious hunter if he worried about things. That's not what hunters do. Though, he couldn't resist. This odd, number focused creature carried himself mature, and if what he said was true, he was an advanced hunter.

Maybe hunters didn't have to just… hunt.

This one, though, certainly didn't notice the feline approaching, too fixated on the wall as his apprehensions of the older being fell away. Despite previous concerns, he felt almost safe with this hulking creature over him. Despite the mention of eating people.

@Vargas

Vargas either did not notice Sebastian approaching, or did not care enough to acknowledge him. His gaze continued to rest on the child--despite the child's, in turn, stopping at his nostrils--and he listened curiously to what it had to say. To hear the inner workings of this new, strange generation was... bizarre, at best.

He looked to the carvings, studying them briefly. Oh, he recognized some of what was on there--but whether this had been done officially, or unofficially, he didn't know. Given the anger about the rest of the cave's carvings, he suspected the latter, but he had no way of being certain.

"You all look different from one another," Vargas responded bluntly, almost (but not quite) impatiently, as if dismissing all of whoever this "you" were as unimportant--and varied. "It is how you were made!"

At Attikias' mention of trapping the figures in stone, though, Vargas snorted brief laughter. "They are not trapped in the stone, no more than we are. Though!" he corrected himself at once, swinging his head back around to peer at Attikias closely. "I suppose, in a way, you are. And now in another way entirely, we all are. But whoever did this--" he added, turning to prod a long, hooked claw into the lichen-coated carvings--"was not responsible for trapping anything."

"But to answer your question more clearly, some were built for a special purpose, and some were not. I do not know who created you. If you were born only now, perhaps no one. Perhaps someone, and you slept! You could perhaps seek out the Masters, and ask them. I'm sure that if they had a task in mind, they would want to point you toward it."

Though if they did, surely they'd have been there at his hatching? -Or did they just not care, anymore, at all?

@Attikias

ATTIKIAS
violence for violence
is the rule of the beasts

The elf's eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly at the bluntness of Vargas's words. Yes, they looked different, but... Well, Vargas was different. Attikias didn't really have an issue, himself with being different, but that wasn't the intention behind his words. A brief frown took over his face as he glanced back. His head tilted towards his gem slightly before turning back to the figures.

"I... Don't understand," came from the humanoid's mouth as he glanced down, trying to process simultaneously being trapped and not trapped in stone. Did he mean the caves? A brief glance to the ceiling brought light to the figures above, the young child standing back up to look to the ceiling.

As Vargas continued, though, Attikias returned full attention to him. The creature's words of demanding respect echoed through his skull. He still had no idea that the holes on his snout were nostrils. He gazed at them with intent, until a faint blink brought his eyes up.

Wait, those were eyes? A shiver ran down Attik's spine, conveyed by a spasm flick in his tail. Well. Okay... Then. Shaking his head, he focused on the eyes instead, trying to decide which pair to even look at.

A special purpose... Attikias glanced to his spear. "Did someone make you for a purpose? Wait- you oversee- then, you make sure people do their purpose well?" He spun the thoughts through his head, bringing up his other hand to fiddle with the leather straps near the end of the weapon. "Why would someone born now not have a creator when people born before don't? Are the Masters busy?" The elf took hold of his spear around the leather, looking back to Vargas in the middle of his face. If he can't choose a set, might as well pretend he's looking at both.

"I uh, my task is hunting. It's what I do. It's why I came here; I'm hunting a bad person, someone named Blackberry. There was also someone named Jayberry they mentioned. They have weird names," he rambled, his hand drifting down from his weapon. "I don't know what they did, but someone wants them hunted, so I'm hunting. They're going to do something called a trial? Maybe this can be like my test, hunting these people. That way I'm strong and a good hunter, and Overseers don't have to eat me."

Perhaps he wasn't built for hunting, though. He had hands, yes- hands for holding weapons, perhaps? But why shouldn't he just have claws, or stronger legs, or wings like he'd seen the bird things have? He didn't even have good teeth to bite through tougher meat.

He kind of sucked in the natural hunter department.

His eyes drifted down along with his head as he fumbled with the leather, retying a particularly loose bit in a rather unconventional knot.

@Vargas @Sebastian

This was... interesting.

Whether he brought back what his Brother wanted, information on the goose, he felt Rift would be very interested in this. The conversation was enlightening, although Sebastian wasn't the most intelligent Gembound, he tried to put it to memory, slinking forward a step, tail lashing.

He felt as though the monster--for that was what he saw it as, a monster, he had never seen anything like it before, had no name for it--was talking circles around the child, Sebastian as well, his words dancing in Sebastian's head. Built for a purpose? The Masters? Trapped in stone? A move to shake himself, but he halted the movement before he could give himself away.

And then... there! What he'd been searching for. The cub was not working for the Bloodberries, but against them, seeking out Blackberry and Jayberry as Rift had asked. But... this was a child, and he feared for his safety. Claws kneaded at the soil, and he twitched his ears.

@Vargas @Attikias

Vargas' eyes widened a fraction, in surprise, at the child's mention of being a hunter. He seemed to understand most of what he was being told well enough, but he couldn't have understood the sad irony of what he was saying. And the one who could have taught him, the one shaped most like him, a traitor. Or rather--the one shaped most like him who styled herself a hunter, at least.

Ahh, well.

"I am also a hunter--an Overseer for those who obey, and a Hunter for those who do not," Vargas explained. "I can, perhaps, teach you what I know--but your strengths lie in other places than mine. Mine are speed, savagery, magic;" he explained, attempting to fade, as he did, into the shadows in a swathe of blackness. He stepped to one side, into a half-crevice between two boulders, the darkness seeming to embrace him. It wasn't complete, this time, however: his eyes and nostrils--even the interior of his mouth--still gave off that acidic green glow, faint beneath the purple-black.

"But you have these," he went on, reaching out an impossibly-long arm to try and lightly tap one hooked claw against the child's upper arm. "There are many things you can do with arms, and hands. I have no need." Vargas twisted his own improbable limbs, bringing up the three hooked claws on either side. "Mine are weapons enough and are not suited for the sort I have seen your kind wield. But here," he went on, turning.

The shadows dissipated from his form as he looked down, drawing his claws through the thin sand that coated the tunnel's rock floor. One long, sweeping line, in a curve; one more slender, straight, between its ends. "This part was wood, strong and pliable. This part," he went on, pointing first to the curve, and then to the straight line, "was tendon or cord, tied tight to each end. I do not know the details of how they were made, but if you pulled the tendon very far back, it would launch anything placed against it very far. Usually a stick with a pointy end, or a gemstone added to that end," he went on. It wasn't the best description of a bow and arrow, but then the Overseer himself had never had to use one. He wasn't sure exactly how it was made, either--how the wood was chosen or treated, or the string--but surely it'd be enough of a starting point for the child to work with?

"As to your other question--yes, I think the Masters are busy." Bluntly-said with no mention that he himself had been asleep and really wasn't sure. "Now, child, tell me of your prey. Which Master--or Overseer?--has sent you on this hunt? Who is it being hunted; and what have they done?" It was almost like the old days, he reflected; no one had been strong enough, dangerous enough, to warrant their own personal hunt in... almost forever. After the initial spate of rebels, there'd been those slinking in the dark, cowering, hiding--nameless masses not worth their memory. But this? Was it a true prey, a deadly one--or, more likely given the child's state, a simple practice run? Had someone--Nemean, perhaps--sent it to hunt a weaker creature, as a test? She might send him after Aquarian on a test, unless he'd won her favor, Vargas reminded himself, amused.

His gaze then fell to the stone at the child's shoulder. Though he didn't know the young one's name, it occurred to him that this one might have trouble with a bow if its mobility was so limited. Ahh, well; time would see if it were useful, or not.

Of noticing Sebastian, Vargas still gave no sign. Perhaps he was so secure in his own power that he did not feel the need to look over his own shoulder; or perhaps he knew, and simply didn't bother acknowledging.

@Attikias