This thread is open to anyone, in particular members of Children of Rot or those interested in learning more, or joining us. Recent refugees from the Mother thread are also welcome to join in!

Much was on his mind.

Overseers. Masters. Secrets. Traitors. treason. Refugees.

The alligator grumbled. There was little he could do about much of this, and the Children of Rot were--rather wisely--keeping their heads, it seemed, buried in the mud of Cetus. -Metaphorically, of course. ...For the most part.

At least Aquarian always required feeding. Or at least, Dragon assumed that he did. He was ever hunting, piling the half-putrescent offering pile higher, hauling whatever Lessers had no stone to the pile to be eaten. They, at least, didn't rapidly congeal into black goo. (Though he'd often wondered if Aquarian would eat that too.)

The rot was hard to miss: a pile some six feet tall, at the moment, of rotting fish, cave deer, cave rats, spiders, bats, and unfortunate birds who had flown too low. Those at the bottom were more rotted than those at the top; Aquarian hadn't come in half a cycle or so to eat, and so it was rather... building up.

Dragon picked up the thick, slimy, pale cave fish he'd brought over. He eyed the top of the pile; it was too high to reach, himself. Not without leaning on it and knocking half the bodies off. With a grunt he called upon his magic. It took some effort--and it wasn't a grand display, as it often was; but still, the flowing draconic wings and horns appeared in their wispy glory, and a moment later he was flapping into the air. It was a heavy, vertical flight, rather silly all in all, but it served its purpose: the alligator laid the fish atop the pile, and then lowered himself to the ground.

When he was finished, he looked around the swamp. It was misty; it was dark. It was as it always was. But he'd had news, here and there; perhaps it was time to call upon the Children, to share his knowledge with them and to ask what they'd learned in turn.

Nothing better to do, he thought, with the mental equivalent of a grunt.

He turned, then, and bellowed, as loud as his bass vibrating alligator roar could carry: "CHILDREN OF ROT; are there those of you who can HEAR ME!? The offering pile must be tended! And I WOULD HAVE WORDS!"

Among the many that kept their head in the muck, Merrow was a prime example. She had spent cycles upon cycles growing fat and content in the murky waters of Cetus, occasionally bringing a kill to the pile, but much more often forgetting her fellows. She was an independent creature by nature, and truthfully, perhaps too simple to be capable of treason. Depending on the day, she didn't remember her brother, or her fathers, or the rest of the Children of Rot.

Many of Dragon's calls had gone unanswered in the past, Merrow's interest taken up by wrestling a cave deer into a mud pile to slowly devour over the next few hours, or by napping, or merely completely unheard by the negligent little gremlin that shared Dragon's blood. Today, however, happened to be different. Today, the call had come when she was thinking of bringing something to the stinky pile (which she at least always remembered not to steal from, lest something big and terrible come and eat her instead), and so the six foot long furry lizardbeast came wriggling up through the mud.

In her teeth, she had the leg of a dragonbat nearly half the size of her own body, her long, powerful tail pushing her along the mud as she slapped her way to the pile with her wings. She could fly with her prize in her mouth, she thought, but it was much more fun dragging it along. It definitely wasn't too heavy for her (it was.) As funny as the sight of her trying to flap about with a big ol' bat in the way of her would have been.

Her black, beady eyes glinted at Dragon and her flat pink nose wriggled as she hauled her catch over to the pile, before using her snout to shove it up against the corner of the rotting meat. She wasn't going to bother with stacking it up all nice and neatly-- if she were Aquarian, she would probably flop over the pile and roll around in it, so what was the sense in making it all perfect if it was just going to be ruined? She snorted, sticking out her tongue at the disgusting smell. She loved this big, stinky pile almost as much as she loved her own father.

... considering she forgot he existed sometimes, it was hard to say how much Merrow loved anything. "Whadda'yelling about, pops?!" She screeched back at him, rolling away from the pile with a dramatic flail of her tail, plopping into the nearest mud puddle and stretching out her wings.

@Dragon

Dragon was heard, bass roar carrying high above and deep below. It tilted its head to and fro where it was currently choking down the half-rotten remains of some drowned cave deer - it was free food. Pinpointing the call's source, Phlegethon tossed its head back, neck rolling and swelling to house the carcass. Swallowing in a few snake-like motions, the slimy creature gurgled and edged closer to the shore in pursuit of more delicate hoofsteps heard earlier. Without a single sound, the top of its head surfaced. Listening. Feeling...

Ah, there - !

Like a python, it darted forwards. Neck extending to its full, elastic length, Phlegethon felt its jaws clamp down on nothing but baleen. A soft, reverberating waaa! clamored down its body, jaw cracking open slightly to watch the marsh strider vanish deeper into the reeds. Out of reach. It would have to come empty-mouthed.

The texture of its skin alternated between rolling and bubbling, but the dark shadow of it was persistently moving towards Father Aquarian's rot-pile. Running aground, it stretched its head upwards, nodding first to Dragon with a glistening red eye. "I am here." Phlegethon's gaze swept the grounds and the top of the pile, before falling upon the yammering little creature. She barked a brief series of words, the only discernible one being 'pops'.

Which, it imitated smoothly with a slight staticky vibration. "Pops?!" Lowering its head, peering at the creature, it asked, "Dragon-child?" There were multiple?

The alligator slowly turned, peering off at the arrivals. His children-! His own children! Pleasure spiked through him. And something else-... Something he even had to examine, for a moment. There was deep relief at seeing Merrow, but also outrage, a sort of father's humorous anger.

"Merrow! Where have you been?" he asked, and any outrage he might have felt at his oft-wayward child was mostly usurped by amusement at her self-sufficient lone behavior, her randomly turning up now, her brazen-ness! He tried to refrain from laughing, instead stuffing the bulbous end of his snout into the mud, for a moment, as if deep in thought. When he'd sufficiently composed himself, he spoke further.

"Hrm, yes. You are brother, and sister! Half-ways. I have produced you both," he added proudly. Now, Dragon wasn't actually sure that he'd made Phlegethon. He'd given Nox a bit of stone, and then some vaguely Nox-shaped children had appeared. Maybe she'd used other rocks, but if she had, Dragon had never considered it, really. They were his kids.

Then again, he'd been known for adopting just about any child that came his way.

"You have both been gone for some time. There is much happening in the caves... much that might affect our survival! The Masters are demanding respect; Hydra has opened, and many have been sent to struggle for their survival in the deserts beyond. They have sent an Overseer here to question me, to ask about the Children! We must be very careful. I wish to ask you..."

Well, it was definitely an information-dump, but at least he was getting to the point: "We will feed Aquarian today. But should we ask him of this-? Whether he will aid us, should they come for us?"

Dragon had fretted over this. He was in two minds. On the one hand, it was best not to rely on the serpent--but on the other, if he did agree, he could be very useful for a trap or the like, particularly if the Masters weren't aware of his betrayal. If it was betrayal-? But what if simply asking the question changed his loyalties again?

The alligator had fought with himself over this question, struggling with it for almost two weeks now. He'd at last decided that, as it involved all the Children, he may as well ask their input. If anything should be a group decision, it was this.

He just hoped that more of them turned up.

@Phlegethon @Merrow

Khloros came in quietly. He was thoughtful, lost in himself, as usual--but he'd heard the call, and seen the burst of blood-colored magic wings in the mist above the Heart.

He hoped it wasn't danger--he was of no use, now, for combat. But it didn't seem to be: as he emerged from the thicker trees, he could see the creatures in the reeds ahead. There was no danger that he could see--unless Phlegethon was danger, but it didn't look that way.

He paused some yards off, and caught the tail end of what Dragon was saying.

"Have you told them what lies beyond Death? What these caves truly are?" he asked, softly, approaching the rest of the way.

In retrospect, it probably wasn't the sanest-sounding way to enter the conversation--but it was all that was on the black horse's mind.

"THAT'S RIGHT, BUD!" Merrow screeched as a freakish, black sludge monster came forward all familiar like, clearly acting like one of the Children of Rot. Hell, she didn't remember who all was involved with her weird, marsh family. As long as they stunk like the swamp, y'know, what did it matter? Unless they tried to eat her fam, or whatever, then she'd tear them limb from limb. "You're looking at the one and only!" ... Okay, except for the fact that Dragon claimed they were brother and sister. (Not to mention her actual, legit brother, Imp, and who knows what other freaks of nature that Dragon had sired.)

She snorted, raising her flat nosed bat snoot into the air as Dragon rambled on about a load of deer shit. Something about a cave, and Masters, and a Hydra, and a bunch of other nonsense that didn't make any sense. At least he finally returned to some semblance of a point; Aquarian! Yes, she had brought him a might fine chunk of meat.

And then a stinky black horse came out of the mist, talking about... "What?!" Merrow squealed, "Are you all saying we're in a frickin' CAVE? Does this look like a cave to you! Y'all have gone bog-headed! This is OUR swamp! Swamps ain't caves!" Since when had everyone gone completely mad? Yeah, there were caves, out a ways from the forest, but they didn't live under a rock. They had sunshine and rain and all that, and trees didn't grow in the tunnels. They obviously couldn't be in a cave. She vaguely remembered scrambling around in the rocky caverns, and they were nothing like home sweet home.

Merrow snorted, slapping her tail in the mud noisily. There was only one way to get a point across, and that was to be loud and obnoxious. "I! Don't! Know! Who you! Are talking about!! And I don't care!"

Honestly. "Aquarian gonna protect us," she snorted again, abruptly wriggling through the mud over to Dragon until she could start trying to slap him with her tail so he'd pay attention to her, "and we're never going to die! That's our whole thing, isn't it, Pops?"

@Dragon @Phlegethon

It had been cycles since Sekith was last seen. The dragon-like hallowed-caller Nox-hybrid was more a wild animal than a sophisticated gembound, but his self-awareness was there, and his strong sense of curiosity.

And it was this curiosity that drew it to Dragon's bellows.

The knarled branches above the carcass pile shook as a pitch-black figure slunk through them. Like a monkey, it made its way down, jumping from limb to lib until he reached the bottom of the canopy, then, wrapped its long, prehensile tail around its perch and hung upside down. A large, single red eye blinked open and looked around.

"Phleg." It croaked, acknowledging its brother's existence when it saw him.

Sekith gurgled and pointed its muzzle down at the pile as its throat swelled. The slimy, half-eaten remains of a picked kyte slithered from its beak and dropped. This was its offering to Aquarian.



(Haha Dragon watch out)

Septiezal could taste the putrid stench of the rot pile with every flick of his tongue. Blegh! When will Aquarian eat that? If not soon, then all of that prey would have gone to waste. Then again, Aquarian seemed to not mind the taste of rot. "Through here," He glanced back to the eel-creature, who didn't seem bothered by the overwhelming stench of decay.

Septiezal slithered into the hollow. Dragon, who sat atop the towering flesh-mound, was in the middle of a conversation with what he presumed to be his daughter, judging the bat-creature's by the alligator tail. Septiezal shook his head at her stupidity. He felt some of his brain cells die. Of course we live in a cave! Multiple, in fact.

He coiled himself and waited until they were through. "Uh, Dragon." He said, raising a claw. "Dragon,.. I think there's someone here you should meet."

__________________________________________________________

"Listen"
Tag: @Dragon || OOC:

SQUELCH
For the first time I'm thinkin' about tomorrow

Squelch slipped carefully through the underbrush as he followed Septiezal to Children of Rot's supposed meeting place. The stench of death didn't hit him until he entered the glade and a sour looked crossed his face. It came from a six-foot pile of rotten, pickling prey, which one, fat, scaly gembound sat atop. There were others here.

But no Reji…

Squelch wasn't sure to feel disappointed for worried. Perhaps both.

He glanced around the area observing its members and noting possible escape routes just in case things went south. Septiezal seemed nice enough, but serpent would have to forgive him if he didn't trust him yet. For all he knew this could be a trap and he could not afford any confrontation at the moment.

Squlech sucked in a deep breath to calm his nerves when Septiezal mentioned him. He sat up and flared his fins a bit, and looked around. "So.. this the Children of Rot..?" His eye flicked to the rotting carcasses. "I can see why its called that." He added, hinting at the smell.

Phlegethon peered down at the creature, head swaying. "Two and many," it hummed lowly, almost teasingly, "there is Imp." Where had that one gotten of to? More mischief? If only it had known. As Dragon claimed they were siblings - perhaps not by stone or life - it corrected, "three and many."

But, as Dragon began to speak, it listened carefully and dutifully, as it always had. Out of respect and a small modicum of fear - for a majority of the rot-children were fire-breathers and one spark could mean an explosive end for all of them at once. It wasn't easy being a living, breathing can of gasoline and strange goop. It hummed at the mention of an Overseer, awaiting an opportunity to speak. Just before the alligator asked them his all-important question, Phlegethon interjected, "was it the Overseer Vargas? We sparred for a breath - neither of us were victorious. He would not issue commands to me and said that I looked the old ones, that we may fight side-by-side." The last point seemed odd enough to include.

Ignoring the flat-earther in its stead, Phlegethon hummed over top of Merrow: "there is not blackness in Death?" It thought briefly of the many Lessers (and possible Greaters, in its youth) it had consumed over the cycles. Slime going slack against its body, the dark behemoth shifted in place. Hearing a rattling voice, another Nox-child, Phlegethon's head spun. Cracking open its jaw and inspecting, it hummed. "Sekith. Brother-rot-child. Come," and it stretched out its head - offering a perch.

It only briefly eyed Septiezal and the strange new arrival before pressing on; "Father Aquarian must be tested," it began, though hesitated at the strange harshness of the words, "we do not know if his loyalties will change." (As far as Phlegethon knew, there had been no documented case of the great serpent's upholding of his end of the feed-me deal.) "When the Masters come and demand his. The Betrayer is only one, yes?"
@Dragon