The storms and rain faded over the last cycle or two. The water level had only gradually lowered, and in places, eerie dripping continued to echo into pools that had not yet drained. Thick fog, too, still lingered--difficult to see through in places, deeper still in Cetus.

Cool winds had begun to blow through the caves, soft whispers, or rushes of cold that carried the dying, flame-colored fallen leaves skittering along the rock. Throughout the cave, deciduous trees were shedding their leaves: even Eridanus was a riot of fiery colors, skeletal tree limbs clawing at a misty sky.

The lights had dimmed in all of Origin: they grew lighter later, and darker earlier, and were never quite so bright as they had been through the summer. As a result the cave spiders had emerged, bolder than usual: spinning their webs thickly over gaps in the foliage and along the cavern walls.

Even here, in Canis, things were different. The cave was cooler than usual, and more damp, with its pools of stagnant water deeper and broader than usual. The grove that had been planted at its center had shed its leaves, its handful of trees starkly bare, its leaves tumbling with dry scratching over Canis' stone. It was darker, too, and the cave spiders had increased in number, attracted by the rats that scurried here and there: the webbing clotted many of the walkways and fortresses, an unpleasant trap for the unwary.

But there was something else at play, here, too... something that began in Canis. It started with a few of the bones of the Fortresses--twitching, stirring... as if something were tugging at them unseen. Soon it seemed as they they'd been moved, when no one was watching: piles of them in places they hadn't been before, or assembled as though laid back out as a whole skeleton, again.

How strange...

The 2019 Halloween event has begun! Thus far, nothing seriously strange seems to be occurring, though Gembound present in Canis are welcome to investigate the twitching of the bones.

She'd began to notice it after some time. She constantly trotted around Canis, looking for cool little bits of rock and bone to bring to her children as little gifts, trinkets, not that Regalia ever even paid attention to them. (Not that it was even ever home but that wasn't relevant right now.) Out of the corner of her eye, something moved. She paused and glanced over at the pile of bones to her left, but there was nothing there. After a moment, she continued on.

But it happened again and again and bones she'd walked by before were suddenly gone, whole piles shifted or spread out. Either someone was moving them all the time or there was something else going on.

Wilder had seen enough to not just go with the easier answer.

She left the little home in Canis that she'd made for herself one day with a particular intention of figuring out what the hell was going on. She trotted through the bones until she was at an area near the center of the caves were she'd noticed many of the bones moving. She grabbed at a particularly large one, intending on looking forward, to see if it would be moving soon and who, or what, was moving it, but nothing came to her head. No heat in her gem or in her paws. Disappointed, she set it down and stood up, a little bit at a loss of how to investigate further.

It'd been a couple of cycles since the family had gathered and he had found for himself a new purpose. When he could, he stayed with Mother, keeping her cave warm and dry, guarding with the others that wished nothing more then to keep each other safe. When he grew tired of staying still and warm, he stood and left to hunt for Mother. She ate many things and it wasn't difficult to keep her sustained.

He hadn't been back to Canis since he'd first left his birthplace, but with the increase in spiders and rats, he found himself wishing to return, if only to taste the flavor of Canis rats once again, and, perhaps, to introduce Mother to this same taste. He'd already caught one for himself and walked through the bone room biting down on the body, crunching through the bones.

He paused. Something had flashed in the corner of his eye. Hunter instincts had him turn to face it, and he just managed to catch a twitching bone, seemingly moving on its own. He changed his direction, not really bothered, but curious enough to investigate. He leaned down and picked up the offending bone. It was an old one, inedible, and there really wasn't anything special about it.

He passed the bone off to one of his secondary hands and turned, continuing on into Canis, attention diverted from his rat hunt, instead staring at the strange shapes that the bones made, how many of them twitched and clattered and moved. Something was happening.

For awhile, it almost seemed as though it were over. The lights grew dim, into "night"; a chill breeze, damp with the previous storms, whispered over Canis' stone.

Then, in the distance, came a clatter.

A skittering.

A quiet, click, click, click.

Should the Gembound investigate, they would find a single, small cave rat skeleton--gemless, by all appearances--hunched, its back to them. It seemed as if it were a living, breathing rat: sitting half-upright, another, larger bone held between its paws, its chisel-like incisors chipping away at its "meal." Yet there was no flesh to this skeletal rat: no old ligament or skin, or lingering fur. It was bone, and only bone, and a faint ghostly glow--phosphorescent in the dark--illuminated it very dimly.

@Wilder

Wilder's ears perked at the sound of the clicking further in the cave. She blinked and trotted forward, abandoning the bone she'd picked up a moment before. Perhaps it was someone else investigating. Or, even better, perhaps it was the one making the bones move! Maybe they were using some kind of telekinesis as a prank to freak people out. It was feasible.

However, as soon as the rat was in sight, she paused. At first, she easily mistook it for a living creature. It was the same shape and size and she didn't see them often - she avoided them when she could. But as she got closer, she realized that this was not the case. Not the case at all. Was it made out bones?

Once again, the possibility of telekinesis popped into her head but that...that wasn't right. She'd used that spell plenty of times and it never glowed like that. Plus, it would be quite the feat to be holding up the entire rat skeleton on its own.

She stopped a few feet behind the rat and her gem began to glow faintly. She closed her eyes, probing for any other spells being cast in the area. Obviously, the rat was one thing but...perhaps there was more nearby.

The clicking sound made the demon jerk with surprise. He turned with a low growl towards where the sound was coming from. It sounded like bones, but it could be a rat too. He was hungry and Mother was hungry. This could be a good opportunity. Besides, that was more important then some random mystery that he didn't care much about.

He stalked forward, still clutching the bone at his side, until he caught sight of a small cat staring at something that looked familiar. He instinctively crouched, a bit of shade falling over his location as he began to stalk forward. It was a rat, surely. It looked like one from this distance.

He noticed the different a little sooner then Wilder, however, but he didn't pause. A rat was a rat. He could eat bone and he was sure Mother would be able to as well. As he approached, however, it wasn't the fact that it was bone that was concerning him. It was the fact that it seemed a bit off-color. It took him a moment to figure out that there was something very wrong with this picture - that a rat shouldn't be walking around without skin or muscle or literally anything but bone.

But, honestly, who could blame him? He was a demon and his Mother was probably some kind of mushroom.

He glanced down at the small cat. She was focusing, eyes closed, gem glowing just a little bit. This did not strike him as odd, however - his gem glowed as well. He leaned over and whispered, "What are you doing, kitten?"

The skeleton-rat dropped the bone it was gnawing. It looked around--still not glancing behind it--and hop-scurried a few paces forward. It lifted up a piece of mud, audibly sniffing this over despite having no nose, or lungs.

Wilder would feel the strange veil of magic over the rat's immediate area: a whisper of strange magicka, of... potential hidden there. At her spell use, though--and at Azrael's--the skeleton seemed to sense them. It turned, sharply, dropping the piece of mud: and if skeletal eyes could narrow... It almost seemed that the black pits hollowed into the bone did so.

The skeletal rat bounded swiftly for Wilder...

@Wilder

While running away from Polaris, Zevruu had found himself in Orion. As soon as he realized this, he went into the nearest tunnel to get as far away as possible. He hadn't meant to go to Orion. He never wanted to go back there, or Polaris. It was too dangerous. Too many memories. Too many bad memories.

He ended up in Canis. He'd only been here a couple of times before. He didn't exactly like it, the bones creeped him out a little, but it was certainly better than Orion. Hopefully, nothing here could hurt him.

He looked around as he walked in, and immediately upon doing so, he froze. What was that? A creature unlike any he'd seen before. As far as he could recall, that is. Whatever it was, he was immediately suspicious and wary. He looked a little more and...Wilder. He recognizes that cat. Well, at least there was a friendly face. Especially in the presence of...that.

It's then that he notices they seem to be looking at something. A little wary, he goes over only to see...bones. Why were they looking at bones—wait a second—did those bones just move? He freezes, eyes wide, as he sees the skeletal rat bound towards Wilder.

"Speech" l 'Thoughts'

It was Omen who alerted her to something... off. She woke only blearily, and even after hearing the soft clattering of bones, Giggle at first thought that it must be a visitor clumsy in their movements, their footfalls scattering the bones as they walked. I'm coming; I'm coming, she thought irritably, not exactly at Omen but generally toward whoever it was disturbing the peace. Of course, she hadn't had a visitor in some time--but it seemed that the readings lately had been nothing but grim. Certainly not worth pulling herself out of a warm and drowsy nap for.

Not a visitor, Mother-Sister, came Omen's thoughts--tentative, uncertain, and translated from emotion and sense into words by her own mind. Brief imagery came to her: the bird was perched up high, somewhere, and far below she could see Wilder and some sort of large, black thing, and a cat--and a skittering bone-rat.

Bone-rat-? She faltered, stumbling with widening eyes, but then the rat was rushing at Wilder. Giggle blinked. She had thought that Aure had chased the cat out, though why she still wasn't sure. Apparently not, though--and apparently, Wilder was in danger. Or, at least, seemed to be; the somehow-animated bones were rushing right for her.

Giggle broke into her lopsided gallop, racing for Omen, her heart hammering in her chest. She wasn't far off, and after only a moment she burst over the small hill behind the gathering, bones scattering at her own approach. "What's going on?" she cried down, deeply, deeply worried.

She had never seen the bones rise of their own accord, before--or had someone risen them..? Was this some sort of desecration of Canis?

________________

ROLL THE BONES

It was a strange time to be in Canis, for sure. He'd been coming and going, tending to his garden--but the leaves in its trees, like those in Eridanus, were worryingly brown. He'd been afraid, at first, that they were dying--but tentative checks had proven them perfectly healthy.

They were, so far as he could tell, just... sleepy.

The noise from up ahead, though--that was interesting. It left him bounding toward the call he'd heard, half-gliding down a slope--then pausing with widening blue eyes as he saw what was going on. There was a small gathering of Gembound--and a... cluster of moving bones?

Bewildered and worried, the hybrid paused to see what would happen--and if his help might be needed.

{Table code credit to Madison, altered a bit!}