Wilder flinched at the voice that suddenly whispered in her ear and whipped up, finding herself face to face with wow, a really big guy! But that wasn't important right now. Her detection came up with something really strange. A mysterious force that was surrounding the area, magic that she'd never encountered before. She raised her head, sniffing at the air, as if that would do anything to help. "I'm checking to see what kind of magic is around..."

She broke off as the rat came bounding towards her. She didn't move, just watched the bones curiously as they approached, trying to reach forward with her magic and touch its mind, if it even had one. The magic fizzled and died before she had a chance to do anything though. Perhaps it was a stupid idea, but she took a step forward towards the rat as it got close, wondering what it was going to do. Maybe it wants a hug?

Azrael watched the rat as it turned to face them. Or, well, turned its body to point at them. He doubted it could see. After all, it was bones. Bones were food and shouldn't be moving. As it came skittering forward, Azrael huffed. He prepared himself to do something about it, chest beginning to glow and burn, but Wilder was doing nothing. She was watching it curiously. He looked down at the kitten and cocked his head. Maybe she was doing some magic. If she was, he didn't want to interfere and instead, stepped back, crouching and raising his arms, ready to take action if she was put in danger.

He glanced to the side as others appeared. Another cat. Some kind of....four legged mammal of sorts and a black dog with wings for arms. Nice. Perhaps they had more info. "Bones are moving," he grumbled to the four-legs that had called out. "Impossible, yes, but happening. Have you seen any more?" He asked this last question to the other two, still keeping the eyes in his left palms focused on the rat.

The bones, wreathed by the faintly-phosphorescent glow, for a moment looked like they might drive right into Wilder and attack.

Instead, however, the amalgamation paused, sat upright, reached forth its tiny bone-hands, and tried (quite unsuccessfully, of course) to pry Wilder's gem from her face. It held no real strength to it; it simply, apparently, wanted something shiny.

@Wilder @Zevruu @Giggle

Faintly, Zevruu was aware of some others approaching. But he couldn't focus on them. Rather, his eyes were glued to the rat as it ran towards Wilder. And they widened upon seeing her do nothing even when the bones came up to her. He watched as it paused before reaching up with its tiny hands, still made of bone, and...

Was it trying to pry her gem away? Was it capable of such a thing? He didn't know what to do. Should he try to stop it? It didn't seem to be very successful, so maybe it would be fine? He was hesitant to touch the thing. In fact, he didn't even want to be near it. He looked up, realizing there were now more gembounds around. He maybe faintly recognized at least one, but he didn't put any thought into it, instead backing up, away from the rat, away from Wilder, away from whatever creature stayed near the black cat. Away from everything.

He didn't leave. Not fully. He wanted to see what would become of everything without being so close to it. He just stayed behind, watching everyone warily.

"Speech" l 'Thoughts' | @Giggle

Giggle's eyes narrowed as the bone-thing leapt for Wilder. For a moment she tensed, maternal instincts driving her to intervene, but the bones did nothing; they simply sat back, prying at Wilder's face, though it didn't look like anything that ought to be outright painful.

"Magic?" she parroted, glancing briefly to Wilder--then back to Azrael. He wasn't one she'd seen, before; he was bulky, black, but seemed to be friendly enough. Wilder's bodyguard, perhaps-?

With a mental shrug she looked back toward the bones. Wilder had spoken of testing the magic, but hadn't explained, and Giggle didn't entirely trust the little cat. She extended out her own senses, testing the air. To her surprise, she found magic there, but-... "This is no magic I've ever sensed," she grumbled matter-of-factly.

She paced forward, more closely, sniffing at the rat--but it smelled only of old bones, and nothing more.

________________

ROLL THE BONES

Oliver shrank back a little. Azrael was intimidating, and Giggle--with her loud, hoarse, deep voice and brash attitude--even moreso. It wasn't that he was afraid of them, exactly; just that his general anxiety warned him of just how outmatched he was, here.

The fight in Eridanus still lingered in his mind; the knowledge that violence could break out in a heartbeat.

The hyena's words brought him back to the present. He focused, for a moment, back on the rat-bones. Quiet, he crept forward. His magic, like Giggle's, reached out; so long as he was here, he may as well be helpful. He expected a buzz of bacteria, the sense that the rat held some sort of life. But he felt nothing.

"...It's definitely not alive," he reported softly, rocking back to sit on his haunches. "I mean--I know that sounds stupid? But I mean it has no life to it. I just checked, with magic. No sickness, either--nothing." He paused, watching it, then added--"But it's still acting like a rat? Like, trying to... I don't know, collect shiny stuff?"

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

When the rats stopped in front of her, Wilder couldn't help but be a little nervous about what it was going to do. After all, she was basically throwing herself at its mercy to do what it wanted for a few seconds. She knew that if anything bad did happen, the Gembounds around her would probably jump forward to intervene, and she wouldn't exactly take it lying down. So she waited for a moment, tensing, but it only reached forward, grabbing at the heart on her cheek.

She giggled, flinching back. That tickled! She batted at the rat bones unconsciously as it scrabbled at her, a flick of her magic reaching out to grab the skeleton and push it away. Not too far, just far enough that its tiny claws couldn't touch her. She panted from her laughter and looked around at the two Gembounds that had appeared. She didn't recognize the dog-thing, but the other was Giggle! "Hi, Giggle," she purred. "I checked its magic too! It feels like there's magic all around here." She glanced around, as if looking for someone else that was using magic, but there was nobody else there but the five of them.

Azrael watched the rat carefully as it tugged at the kitten's gemstone. One of his hands came up to stroke at his bear thoughtfully while another hand opened out to gaze closer at the rat from the eye in his palm. He glanced over at the dog that had spoken and let out a snort. "Did not think it alive. Rat bones do not have life in them. It must be magic." He went silent as he watched its strange behavior, trying to collect the heart shaped rhodonite from the kitten.

A thought occurred to him. "Perhaps it is like the golems. They cannot think, nor are they alive, but they are reanimated by magic and hunt it down." Inexperienced as he was with his own spells, he couldn't confirm or deny this himself, and so was out of ideas on how to figure out what was going on. He was a brute built for strength and combat and hunting. He glanced at the others, how they were using their magic to get to the bottom of this...and he was overcome with a surge of jealousy. I want spells like that too. But he shoved the thought away for now.

Out of curiosity and out of a loss of what to do next, he reached forward to grab one of the bones from the skeleton, aiming for on of its legs. A femur, maybe. He wondered if it would resist his attempt to grab it in any way.

As Azrael picked the femur from the rat skeleton, something rather strange happened: the entire skeleton went with it.

The bones remained anatomically arranged, as if Azrael had picked up a rat who was wholly invisible bar its own skeleton--though it was very much only bone, and the strange glow that flickered around it.

The bones fought, struggling, and the tiny skull whipped around, chisel-like teeth driving for the demon's hand.

@Zevruu @Azrael

Zevruu was still wary of everyone, including the bone-rat. But as he listened to the others talking, and the rat as it was pushed away from Wilder's gem, he couldn't help the flicker of curiosity. It grew and grew until he simply couldn't take it anymore. Slowly, one paw step at a time, he walked closer.

He got there just in time to see the big creature pick up one of the bones...only for the rest of it to follow. He frowned. That was...odd. How was it doing that? How was it connected? "I...I don't," he faltered, "I don't understand." His brows furrowed as he watched it, trying to make sense of this. He's been in these caves for so long, why do things continue to surprise him?

"Speech" l 'Thoughts' | @Giggle