Lightning.

Pride staggered back, flinching, losing his footing and going thudding back over the rock. Spindly legs flailed in the air, for a moment, before he struggled himself back upright. Worried eyes sought out friends--Aure, Mercurius--and then strangers, blinking past the bright after-image of the blast.

"Are you all right? Is anyone harmed?" He realized, after speaking, that he could barely hear his own voice.

For a moment, he lay flat, staring up and around worriedly--but the strange, transient storm seemed to be over. "What was that-? What happened?"

He looked to the rings; one more was opening. What-? Did someone do that? Or is it a warning, a trap? Perhaps it had been a test of its own. Maybe--

BOOOOM.

Pride, just coming to his feet, staggered back again, flinching, ears flattening toward his neck. This one, though, had been clearly Aure, and he stared briefly, indignant, at the hybrid and his lack of warning. He had the good grace to say nothing, however, simply gaining his footing and looking away with a grimace.

He shook his head, as if to clear the ringing from it.

One ring remained.

One ring, and this one pulsed with an energy--an otherworldly whisper--that Pride knew well. He approached, warily, and looked into its violet eye.

"I believe... this final center is the magic of the mind. My magic," Pride said quietly, still unaware that it... well, wasn't. "Try and be ready, please. I don't know what will happen." He closed his eyes, falling quiet now, and then opened them: and cast his mind into the stone.

He shook himself, a little, blinking: and then reached forward, abruptly pushing his muzzle against the stone, alongside Mercurius as the lion moved in. Side-by-side, white and white, touching stone. Magicka flared up, and out, this time: his mind slipped into the stone as it had always belonged there and in surprise he had to struggle to even pull himself free.

He'd felt, in that brief moment, a sort of empty repository: a something that was listening... waiting for his magic. But there were no thoughts in it.

"I think-" he began, voice hesitant and breathy--and then fell silent as the seal began to react.

Mercurius flinched at the sparks, claws gripping fruitlessly at the rock while the sudden storm raged - and he ultimately was not spared the fate of the others. He landed heavily on his back with a gasp, and could barely steady himself on his stomach with all the ringing. Moonlit eyes blinked clumsily a few times, peering towards the stag as his mouth moved, but no sound seemed to come out.

The storyteller plodded forwards, ears pricking forth uselessly. Just as his hearing started to return - BOOOM! Mercurius's wince was audible, even to himself. Ears pinned back, and he shook out his mane.

Pride's voice faded in like a gentle murmuring, just the tail-end warning caught. Mercy shifted to the side, moving so that he was behind the stag, waiting. And... nothing?

Magic of the mind, hm - ? "Perhaps this one takes... multiple casts at once?" The most powerful of these strange seals would surely be reserved for last? "Together, hm? Reaching in..." Mercurius glanced sidelong at Aure, before shifting out from behind Pride. "One - two - three..."

Into the stone.

The final, center seal glimmered a brief violet--so fleeting that onlookers might be forgiven for wondering if it had been only their imaginations.

The violet eye at the center then closed: a small ring of stone, like an eyelid, grinding closed around it. The twelfth seal then recessed inward, sliding to land with a thunk and a small plume of dust: and then the entire creation, all twelve seals, began to roll aside.

Stale, cold air swept forth: and behind lay the black mouth of a tunnel, lightless. Dust drifted with every twist of the door. It disappeared into the side of the tunnel wall, at last, and its loud stone-on-stone fell into eerie silence.

A silence broken by a voice, calling loud and raucous, impeccably-enunciated but rough and somehow vicious:

"WHO'S THERE? WHO? WHO COMES? WHO? WHO?"

@Aure @Seshat @Soumak @Un Poco Loco @Qisziux @Pip @Null @Ashtoreth @Dip

The crackle of electricity and the boom of thunder wasn't quite what Pip expected. She let out a small eep. Her tiny voice wasn't audible beneath the shouts and noises of other gembound. The most reaction she could get out before the blast sent her flying. The blast knocked away gembound more than ten times her size over, so it wasn't much of a leap to say Pip went farther. Much farther. She tumbled through the air, legs and wings grasping at nothing for purchase that wasn't there. She hit a crystal. Smooth, ungrabbable. Then another. Smoother.

The third thing she hit was a rock, with enough purchase for her to scrabble at. Pip felt like she'd been hit hard enough to leave an indent, and her carapace ached in spots. She crawled up, regained her bearings with a shake. She looked in the direction of the rings, feeling skittish about them. She'd been knocked far enough away that it'd take her a minute or two to get back. But, she noticed, the ring was glowing! And then another began to fade--the one at the center.

She wasn't close enough to hear the discussions, but as she heard the rumble of stone on stone she scrambled after the rings. Pip didn't want to miss anything. The tiny gembound managed to catch up, spiracles gasping for air. The last of the rumbling had stopped, the drizzle of stone and dirt coming to an end. It was quiet for a moment.

"How'd you guys--" She began, only to be interrupted by a voice, booming and racous. She shrank, arms tucked into her crystalline body. So loud! The noise--it had came from the tunnel. The dark tunnel where the rings had been. Pip had no concept of stranger danger, no concept that whatever came from the tunnels might've been more dangerous than the rings. Though a wiser gembound might've been more cautious, it wasn't Pip. Not today, at least. With a tentative step forward, inching closer to the tunnel, she shouted into its' depths, trying to match it's volume.

"Hi! I'm Pip! Why are you so loud? Did you put those rings there? They're really mean you know, they blinded a tr-a gembound and made my ears hurt. Are you nice, tunnel? Or are you a cat?" Pip was pretty sure tunnels weren't cats, but she could never be too careful. She could've been surrounded by cats and not have even noticed.

Pride flattened back his ears uncertainly, and took two steps back.

Silver eyes flicked warily to Aure, and Mercurius.

"I don't know what this is," he said softly--and then called out ahead in his politest tone. "My name is Pride. We are a few, out here--we did not know what this... door was, precisely. May I ask what lies beyond?"

Pride glanced to the other two, blinked, and spoke in a suddenly-rushed undertone. "What if it's a whole other section of the caves?" he said, struggling to hide his excitement; "What if there's miles of caves we haven't found--Gembound just beyond?"

He cast out his magic, attempting to summon up a wisp to illuminate the mouth of the black tunnel. It appeared--and then burst, a brief flash of energy that blasted into Pride, searing part of his white neck a coal-black. He swore and leapt back, blinking, and then glanced at his companions with a grimace.

Whoops.

Mercurius started as the eye closed, then the entire door began to roll out of view and expose the dark maw of a tunnel beyond. Then — there was a voice, demanding… names? Who's that second voice coming from… ? Moonset eyes gazed down at the talking crystal-mantis, squinting at the oddity of it for a moment before gently offering a paw to scoop her up and place her atop his head. Hat.

Pride voiced his uncertainties, and the lion hoped to assuage them with his quiet "I'll see if there are plants in there…" Yet, just as he began to feel out for them, he got caught up in the stag's thinly-veiled excitement. A warm smile traced his lips and he offered, "I hope…"

Ah, he should introduce himself, too — "my name is Mercurius… I believe none of us intend any harm, only to know; as my dear friend has stated."

Speaking of deer dear friends, Mercy gazed sidelong at the flash of magic and his companion's grimace. There was little he could do for it immediately but offer a slight frown and pulse of cleansing magic — sort of like a pat on the back.

Away the door went in a fluid motion, the churning a surprisingly welcome sound in his ears — and out came that voice. Aure tensed a bit more warily than his compatriots, if only for the safety of the children and smaller Gembound here. He was grateful that Pride was here to give a better introduction than he could. The Bone King merely introduced himself, "my name's Auré."

There was an attempt at a light, and he winced softly in sympathy for the stag.

Carefully, the hybrid tried his hand at his own magic, attempting to form a glowing sphere and send it gently bobbing down the center of the tunnel's length and illuminate it.

There was a strange shuffle, in the distance--a scraping against rock, like massive talons. And then, with no warning--no sound of feathers or flight--an enormous black shape hurtled out of the black and into the dim ring of Aure's illumination. Flaring green eyes were briefly all that was visible, and then the shape landed before them: fully ten feet tall and enormously broad, avian in nature.



It appeared to be an owl, in general form, although pitch black, with ragged spines protruding at seemingly random points in clusters. A thick pair of ram's horns, one cracked thinly along its length, jutted from its skull, and both beak and talons were wickedly-hooked and black. Shadows swathed it, and dispersed as it landed, staring down: inspecting the Gembound.

"WHO? PRIDE? MERCURIUS?" Green eyes flashed distastefully toward Aure. Ear-tufts shifted his way. "THIS ONE DID NOT SPEAK. WHO!?" A moment of disdainful silence, and then the creature looked to them once more. "...You do not know where you are, do you..?" A strange cacophony, a mix of hooting and cackling, erupted from the savage-looking bird. "You have found the Place of Testing; the Place of Ascension. Long has it lain dormant!" The beak clapped together thoughtfully, a click so loud it was like a gunshot in the enclosed space. "Those who are masters may come to me! Risk themselves. Test themselves. Prove themselves. That is Emuh's task; for I am Emuh! The Guardian of Transcendence!"

The shadows fled. Now a strange aure, hot and shimmering, flared over Emuh. The beast shuffled and turned away, a croak escaping it. "Now leave Emuh, and return only when you are ready to test yourselves. Emuh must prepare."

Emuh took flight, silent, vanishing back into the dark: and in the distance, lights began to turn on, one by one by one... Jagged pillars and seething creek, a flicker of flame rising up from nothing: the entire small cave at the end of the tunnel radiated magical power.

The Gembound have discovered a new NPC: Emuh; they have also unlocked Transcendence. They may now exit at any time, and visit Emuh in order to test themselves and attempt to Transcend.

@Aure @Seshat @Soumak @Un Poco Loco @Qisziux @Pip @Null @Ashtoreth @Dip

Green eyes seemed to appear suddenly, and then - a resounding ack! almost slipped out of Aure's beak as the massive bird stuttered forwards. Bright eyes tilted up to regard the immense being, ears pricking back as he interrupted softly, "I said... that my name is Aure." It was a rather weak interruption, though, given the fact that Emuh was plowing on.

His explanation of the Place of Testing - Ascension - and transcendence? was as brief as his presence, and off he disappeared into the shadows.

The Bone King turned to regard his companions with confusion plain as day on his features. "... does he... mean Masters, like... Astraea?" Surely... not?

Aure didn't wait for an answer, instead looking around the area, and blinking almost dumbly before taking off in sloppy, unbalanced flight.

exit aure unless stopped real hard