Kalama sucked in a breath preparing to shout at Imp.

"I have an approximate knowledge! You just went in here and did," she paused again, beak open. "Iunno, something Fuck dumb, probably! How else did you survive?"

Kalama hated a lot of things, but most of all she hated the thought that Imp, her rival could've fought more than her.

"You haven't fought more stuff than me! Ive fought half the caves by now!" Vargas? She wracked her brain. Who was...wait. The giant purple monster that was there in the beginning. They were massive . "I--I could totally beat Vargas! I could do it! I'll do it when we get back! When I win." Yeah, she would win. All this pain would be worth something. There was no way she would go through all of this and not win, right? That's how worked, she was the hero. Heroes always win.

think "speak"

Kalama is attempting to continue moving forward

Virgil heaved a sigh of relief as her hooves hit solid ground again. Many times over had she slipped and nearly fallen down onto the ice - but their careful, measured steps granted them the fortune needed to pass.

And here they were - all together again (someone was missing, who is missing?) and standing before an immense door and four pillars. If any others were investigating, the bison shouldered past them to do a little looking of her own. Her blood-slicked left side spotted on the snow as she did, moving towards the second.

There was a bird ("like that big 'ol bastard..." she murmured to herself) overturned, droplets carved beneath it and dripping into the curved line. Icy eyes moved up, finding the same line carved onto the door.

Well... what could go wrong, right?

The bison shuffled to the side, twisting slightly and letting the slash down her side drip into the bowl - quite near the rim due to the depth and wideness.

Virgil attempts to just... let blood drip into the second pillar's bowl and not die/pass out from blood loss.

The agate was fine. Desert let out a woosh of a sigh in relief, unable to catch himself before he did it. They were fine.

He blinked, briefly, at the proposal. Wasn't he supposed to be the one to ask? Shaking his head before giving the faintest of smiles, he nodded to the cockatrice. "I agree." As he flapped, drifting, now, he turned to where the glow was. "I haven't seen it either. It's mirrored by something with one of the groups." His tail flicked back, though he wasn't able to see where he was indicating.

The glow dulled as he neared the door. Wide wings flapped as he settled in, looking over the glyphs and- 'The key.' Footsteps from behind drew his attention to the arriving group. That fox still held it in her mouth, and it looked like she was struggling all the while.

In turning, his eye caught the reflection of one of the glyphs around the door in a pillar, and his mane stood on end.

A bleeding bird, hung upside-down before him. 'A familiar sight,' his brain supplied as it dredged up memories and- No. Huffing and shaking his head, he looked to the other statues with an air of weariness.

Each held their own instructions, and when he settled on the last, he drew together an image of all of them. The bowl and the... Blood? An eye. Feathers- or a wing?- and... An antler. 'Use your head,' Vargas's words echoed. His head- or his antlers? Carefully hopping through snow and plowing his way closer, he stared up at the looming sigil. Sharp eyes turned quickly on the rest of the group, scouting out the beings filing in.

He didn't remember anybody else having antlers.

Would they have to sacrifice for this, then? Drawing his face up in a brief flash of anger, he let the grumble run through him before he grabbed at his head, no explanation given.

His old antlers shed, but these had always stayed. "Everyone, I have an idea." He looked to the others, prepping to snap off the antler not protecting his gem unless any objections came his way. He wouldn't give to the rest, but- this was the one task given to him. Others had eyes, blood- and he had no feathery wing to donate to the line glyph. The large herbivore had the same idea as him and he nodded to her. "We've got to give up part of ourselves to save the whole."

Well, if one was already sacrificing, he'd join in too, sucking in a breath before jerking the bone up to crack it off. A sharp cry escaped his gritted teeth and tears welled in his eyes as a sharp 'snap!' echoed from his body.

His sacrifice was read to be made. Blue blood ran down his fingers as he curled his wing-fingers into his shoulders, drawing himself away from the pain lashing out through the sensitive horn. The goal was never to survive, but to do this dark magic, this incantation and self-demolishing to progress in the world. It wasn't anything new to him.

His eyes dulled as he dropped the antler into the bowl, heated blood pouring behind his ear.

With that done, he promptly shoved the damaged part of himself into a snowdrift, giving a brief but loud groan of pain. Alright. Calm down, Desert, you've had worse. You were literally stabbed in the mouth, remember? You're fine, you baby.

Drawing in a deep breath, he emerged from the now blue snow and looked over the rest, watching for reactions and breathing hard. "Alright. Okay. We need-" He winced as the sharp cold set in to the exposed flesh. "An eye. First off- or something like that. For the one bowl." He began to cradle the side of his head now, holding more snow up to it with his wings. "And feathers. If y'all wanna cut off a wing, go for it. We can't go any further unless we do this." He briefly glanced at the snow he'd been holding up to see if the bleeding was slowing- as it was- and he continued to apply wet pressure to the area.

cw for amputation

With this moment's respite, Hargrave shuffled away from the crowd, towards a spot where the snow was shallower. She dug at it for a few moments - against her better judgement - until at least some bare ground was visible. Fiery eyes glanced over her shoulder at Null, brows quirked mildly, asking quiet permission to set her for a moment. Granted it, Hargrave carefully guided the fox to the ground, looking her over with no small amount of concern (and a dread crept in again, though she wasn't sure what the source of it was - door or internal disorganization.)

"Let me help," she murmured softly, sitting back with a grimace, long tail stiffening in the cold. Pointy ears tilting back, she clenched her jaw - oh, her ears hurt when she did that - and worked at her magic, something perhaps intended to be destructive in other purposes but...

The Gray Hare's face screwed up into a grimace, forepaws igniting with a severe heat that inadvertently scarred over her frostbitten toes. Tears pricked at her eyes, no more than they already were through the other bouts of pain that lanced through her body with every step. Hargrave rumbled softly, trying her best to be reassuring as she lowered one to Null's bloodied jaw, ears bracing back against any inevitable pained noise.

Next, she looked at the mangled forelimb, frowning softly as she offered, "does it hurt?" A mute nod. "I think... I can cut it off. So you don't have to deal with the pain. I don't think we can fix it." Null hesitated, but put on a solid grimace and offered the mangled limb. Hargrave herself swallowed, ears pinning fast against her skull as she watched her paws move only from her periphery. She tried to drown out the pained cries as she tried to amputate Null's limb at the elbow, burning through flesh and scarring it over.

She tried not to think too much about the acrid stench.

When all was said and done, Hargrave took some notes from Desert and hurriedly swept some snow overtop, like an impromptu ice pack.

Grave's just not being helpful to the rest of the group but is cauterizing Null's jaw and using the residual heat to just like. Amputate her front right leg.

Palefur arrived at the cave first, the strange blue glow notifying her to its presence. She padded forward towards the pillars, giving each of the inscriptions a withering glare. Of course they would pull shit like this on her. Taking a single look at what was in front of her, she amassed that she'd have to wait for the others. She didn't have that stupid blue thing (damn it, she should have known that would be important) and she figured that the pillars were asking for sacrifices. She certainly didn't have feathers to give and like hell would she be giving up an eye.

Scoffing, she turned and paced in front of the bowls, waiting for the others to arrive. She doubted that just one sacrifice from her would be enough.

As they trickled in one by one, Palefur watched them all with a careful gaze. She opened her mouth to explain the situation, as she'd figured out already, but Desert-Rose beat her to the punch. Annoying, but whatever. She nodded. "Yes. It wants sacrifices from each of us. Feathers, blood, eyes, and claws." Which is why she was a little confused when the dragon snapped off a bit of his antler. "I...I'm not sure that's what it meant but I'm sure the sacrifice will be noted, anyways."

Which came to her sacrifice. Blood or claw. It would probably be better to sacrifice blood, as that wasn't as permanent as a claw, but if she gashed herself too good then she would weaken herself for whatever was coming next. Then again, tearing out a claw would be painful and could severely limit her mobility if it hurt too much.

She made a decision and stepped up to the blood bowl, climbing so that she was standing on the edge of the stone. She lifted a leg and bit hard into the thickest part near the shoulder and let the blood drip down into the bowl in front of her. She cringed at the sting, and as soon as she felt there was enough, she scrambled off and immediately began licking the wound. It was bleeding more then she'd planned.

cw for eye gore (italicised)

Lyra held tight to Virgil as they crossed the river, heart beating wildly and almost stopping when the bison slipped. Her jaw was clenched tightly until they were finally on solid ground again. Virgil didn't look like she was doing that great so Lyra immediately jumped off her back and looked up with worry. "Are you okay?" That gash looked nasty and it took her until the bison swung around to let the blood drop into the bowl to realize what was going on around her.

The pillars were menacing and each made her stomach quiver nervously. They each had to give something up? Her long feathered tail swept behind her and she glanced back. She could give a feather, sure, but they weren't...they weren't really wings. And others were already giving to the bowl of blood.

Instincts screamed that she should do the safe path. She should just give herself a cut or rip out some of her feathers, but she remembered a lot of things that Winter used to tell her. To be kind, to be selfless. She would hurt so others wouldn't have to hurt instead, carrying pain so that her family wouldn't have to feel it either.

Her breath picked up. She was really going to do this, wasn't she? She doubted anyone else was willing to give up a piece of their sight, but she had a feeling that they'd need to put something in every bowl. Swallowing thickly, she stepped up to the bowl and sat back. "I'll do this one," she whispered. She raised one of her bird-like claws and gulped, trying to steady herself. Her limb paused about halfway there against her will and she took a shuddering breath.

She would do this fast.

All of her strength surged against her own instincts and managed to get her claws to her face, quickly stabbing into the area around her left eye, pulling the eyelid out of the way, and inserting sharp talons into the socket. She froze up at the uncomfortable pain, but forced herself to stay steady as she finished the job - she gripped with her claws and ripped outwards, tearing the eye clean from her head.

She couldn't help it - she screamed as blood poured from the wound and the eye fell to the ground. She immediately reached up to cover that horrible wound with a foot, trying to stop the blood from flowing too heavily, but a piece of her mind still urged her to finish her task. She took a second to cry and quiver before a trembling claw reached forward, grabbed the eye, and placed it in the bowl.

She retreated, then, towards the snow, as the dragon had done, and pressed her face into a snow-drift, turning the white a startling red color as she sobbed against the pain. She hoped that it was all worth it.

She wasn't sure how the river held up, but Shida somehow made it across with Ivory intact. She breathed with relief as they made it to the cave along with most of the others. She glanced around, a sense of foreboding overcoming her. Did dad really go through something like this? He hadn't said anything about a cave like this when he talked about it.

She glanced at Ivory while the others were talking about sacrificing, giving up parts of themselves. "This is some crazy shit, huh?" Because it was seriously wild - this was some dark magic bullshit and Shida didn't like it at all. But still, everyone was already sacrificing parts of their bodies and Shida wasn't going to be left behind.

Clenching her teeth, she stepped towards the bowl labeled for feathers, turning to her side and grabbing a couple of the biggest feathers on her wings. She considered just ripping the whole thing off, as the dragon had suggested, but she wasn't suicidal like the dog that'd ripped out an eye. She quickly tore out some of her feathers, cringing at the sharp pain, making sure to only grab the biggest feathers to keep the bleeding to a minimum, depositing what she'd gotten into the bowl. There were some streaks of blood on the feathers that remained - guess she didn't do as clean a job as she thought before.

Oleander

Melt all your art and drink the paint

She was just following behind warrior. That was supposed to keep her safe, right? He knew were to go, or, at least, he was stronger then her. Better then her and she could follow him and survive. The rumbling sound alerted her and she looked up just in time to see the snowdrift cascading down from the sides of the ravine. She cried out and tried to get out of the way, but she didn't have a chance to react.

As the snow buried her quickly, she felt heavy blows as rocks rained down as well. She squeezed her eye shut and waited for it to be over. She was going to die here, wasn't she?

But, thankfully, it wasn't so as Warrior came galloping in to save her, his voice making it through the snow. He was digging her out, somehow, and she whinnied with terror, trying to push through as well to escape. She gasped a breath of air as her head emerged and then the rest of her body followed. She scrambled to her feet, a slight dizziness taking over as a trickle of blood ran down her head - probably from the rocks. "Th-thanks Warrior," she gasped.

She followed after him, still winded, still in shock, until they arrived at the cave. She watched a little blankly as the others began to gave up pieces of themselves. She got enough cognizance, however, to realize that she probably should to and staggered towards the blood bowl, where she thrust her bleeding head over top and let the blood steadily drip into it for a few moments.

Imp flapped along, shivering and grumbling, his ears at least keeping him oriented to Kalama below. He was reminded again how his lack of vision wasn't even as bad a handicap, now, as a lack of fur; the broad swathes of soft leathery hide had been fantastic for dispersing heat, and were awful for retaining it.

Luckily, he had aggravation--in the form of Kalama--to keep him angry enough to flap on.

"It was hot, last time," he told her, annoyance in his tone. "And instead of one giant fucking worm, there were loads of angry littler ones. Not little, but littler. We had two guys die just on the way over the sand--where we are now," he went on. "Worm got one, a giant bird tore another one's heart out. They had a giant queen bird. I rode her up over the canyons," he added, smug pride in his voice.

Followed by depression, sudden and sweeping, tempered in turn by bitter anger. He'd never surf a matriarch again, and why? Because some fuckhead Betrayer wanted his eyes as dice. Fuck her.

Irritated, the hybrid opened his jaws, dropping low near Kalama to blast the air around them with brilliant heat, for just a moment.

He said nothing about sharing this with her, making no mention of it bar a muttered bitching of "It was better when it was hot."

But... he may as well warn Kalama of what else might happen. He briefly racked his brain as he basked in the short-lived warmth, thinking. "Last time there were nasty floods, too. And everyone was trying to kill each other. There was a swamp, and people almost sank. It was gross," he added. "Nemean tried to kill some people there. I hope she tries it again. I want to eat her," he added darkly. Not that he could. But... you know, he wanted to.

Ivory stood, panting, sides heaving, glowing eyes dull. The world roared through her ears--or was that her heartbeat? She'd caught up with the rest, now--found them in the canyon, her own group slowly filtering in. And the real world, reality, now slowly bled in through the cracks of her mind-shattering fear.

They were alive--at least, she couldn't tell anyone missing at first glance. They weren't doing well, though. Some of them had bad wounds. Grief trickled through her--and shame; she'd fled, she hadn't thanked them for helping her, she'd hardly been any use whatsoever, herself.

Ghostlight eyes sought out Hargrave, and the large white beast began to slowly pick her way through the crowd. She wanted to thank her, but the wolf was busy--busy treating oh, Caves, she's burning it off a black fox's wounded leg-...

Ivory turned sharply away, nausea rising in her throat. Eyes settled on the puzzle, on the pillars, on the glyphs. Pieces already lay in the some of the bowls, blood, and Virgil-... Virgil was bleeding, staggering. Ivory blinked and swept closer, worry swelling in her. "Are you all right?" she asked quietly, coming up alongside the bison, offering her own shoulder for her to lean on.

At that moment someone screamed, and Ivory swung her head to look. It was the white canine-ish creature... tearing its own eye out, and Ivory balked, jerking, with a startled snort. What the hell?! she thought, that fear returning in a tide. Had she missed something? Some horrible compulsion--is that why they were all bleeding, sporting fresh wounds, burning-

What if I'm next-

Trembling, nostrils flared, she turned wide eyes to the pillars, and began to understand. She must have just missed the discussion of what the glyphs meant-... She shook herself, blinking, looking to Virgil again.

Ivory had very little magic, but what she did have was inherited from a long-ago grandfather she'd never met, and swam with mastery over the body's invisible inner workings. She reached it out, squintingly unfamiliar, and--shoulder still offered to Virgil--offered her her magicka, as well.

"Here," she offered, quietly, feeling horribly ineffective. "It's not a lot, but..." "Maybe it'll keep you alive."