Garnet-Delta was on the wings, sweeping above the others at an easy glide. Hemlocke was not far off, similar, and occasionally they would signal to one another-- thus far, there hadn't been any danger. It felt like things were about to change, however.

It paid mind, but everyone-- everyone-- was on high alert. Its thoughts kept circling back, distantly eyeing Master Vargas at the center. Ever since its first training session with him, Garnet-Delta kept thinking about the task set before it. The weight of one of his worries was gifted to the flying cat, and it was determined not to let him down.

It knew that its kin had the ability to sense heartbeats. Master Vargas alone would be on the look out for certain, it didn't have to worry about creatures that lived and breathed. Despite that, there could have been other dangers, lurking in the shadows; hidden holes of black that dropped into nothingness, fungus that blended in to the crevices, rocky constructions of magic that did not feel. It didn't have extensive knowledge, but just enough wariness to know that not all danger bled.

So its eyes adapted, the aching bright of Draco made all the more blinding, but it forced itself to look anyway. Peel back the shadows, and catch what details tried to hide in the contrast. Nothing would sneak up on their group, and nothing would catch them unawares. Not while it watched on above for the Unknowable.

Just beside Selenite, Zoisite scurried, tailing after... Overseer. They were exhausted, having recently shed, but the migration was important. Zoisite had never gone so far, none of them had. They wanted to crawl up on their-- Overseer, and rest, but no one else complained. They kept their head down, watched the floor, and for the most part, missed much of the sight seeing. When the group slowed, they peeked-- rooms of mirrors and glass, lush forests, streams that Labradorite ravished in-- but otherwise, they only kept track of the change of terrain under foot, and kept aware of where its hatchmates and... Overseer... was, and stuck close.

Things changed when they entered Draco. Master Vargas stopped, warning them to have caution. The very earth seemed to breathe underneath, and Zoisite raised its head to peer at the surrounding darkness. There were bright pockets of things, but everything that wasn't bright was coated in a thick shadow. Perhaps it was the general unease in the air, but Zoisite's quills clicked under their belly as they read the room.

... it was too dark. Glowing yellow eyes blinked, and despite the wary exhaustion in their body, their magic reserves were plentiful. They exhaled through their nostrils, as a pinprick of light joined them at their side, growing into a bright, golden ball of light that cast away the shadows... at least, near them. They sent the miniature sun dancing around Selenite and their Overseer, shuffling closer to the small cluster they made in the larger group.

"What's the Hive," mom? they asked, craning their head further to stare up at the towering Overseer, hoping it knew what they didn't. Another blink, and they drew the glowing orb closer to themself, looking toward Selenite. They stood still as a statue, waiting for someone to say to what they were going to do next.

They wanted to send their sunlight down further into the darkness, to get some idea of what was going on, but the threat of danger kept them from sending their magic down into the heart of the room. Better to wait until Overseer told them it was safe.

She had been left to listen through thin walls as the Womb churned to a halt, blood flow stilled and gone stagnant. The silence that followed stretched infinitesimally, for she'd been put into this bed that was never meant to be hers for the end of an age. Raw chaos bled into every ounce of her fully-formed being. It drip-fed her vivid sights of destruction and ruin, mayhem and rot.

Crystalline cities shattered in an instant, the sky torn asunder by toxic lightning, His will being imposed on existence in beautiful, beautiful destruction. Her at the forefront of it all...

Oh, she had hungered to go...

If only the Caves hadn't gone quiet, hadn't thrown her into centuries of blackness.

They'd laid her here sixty-six thousand cycles—five thousand five hundred years—ago; beneath the ever-changing Black Spire. Here, she remained dormant within her Oilstone. Here, she gorged herself on those visions once more. Here, she waited.

Their formless tread as shadows hid the jagged points of the passage walls, their omenly murk overhead yearning for the Voidlight: a miasma of entropic biology, Totum, the halves of souls. So long spent locked out, then unalive, then split apart, they forgot the meaning their wholeness once attached to this place before now. Dark and brutal fossils clustered on the doorway and nestled into the walls, like projectile splinters spat from a driven spearhead. Cradles carved into the stone the size of titans. Chaotic energy breathed in and out of the lungs of this room and nourished its heart, that gleaming, dripping crag. The reservoir that called. Totum clicked and sighed gutterally, a lion's grumble of contentment basking in rejuvenating sunshine. Only the sunshine was darkness, and the warmth was searing atomic division. They crawled closer.

The infinite microcosmic movements of their wards stirred air that had not been stirred in millenia, bringing back to life every mote of decay. Each of Totum's gnashing mouths salivated the same oil that collected underneath refractions of light from the crystals. Their eyes vivid and neonic and shifting beneath their unstable vessel, absorbing, admiring. This was home. In some way, it never was, but in another way, it was the only home they ever had, and they were grateful to return. If Lord Dhracia trusted anyone to reclaim this womb, it was Totum, if only because Totum's loyalty necessitated them being alive and not being drained by distance from their Origin. Unlike Tamulus.

The Leviathan prompted their attention. Behind, the others tested the palette of the Voidlight. They heard voices, their questions:

What is this place?

Why are we here?

What's the Hive?

And Totum paused, lapsing out of fixation on Memories and Origins. “This is the mitochondrial eve of your chaotic substance,” Totum replied, their masculine and feminine voices drawling and cutting in harmonious unison. “This is one of the many places where it begins.” How many others were out there, clawing their way out of dormancy? How many others had fallen apart, collapsed in on themselves, outgrown themselves until their hosts burst with Valkhounds?

They thought of what Mary was destined for and felt nothing for those she might condemn.

“This is where all such beasts like yourself are designed by the Masters and incubated. They presided over this womb: Astraea and Tenzin, Tamulus and Enki, Artio and Farina, myself--and Jupiter, before she and Tamulus grew to disdain their work,” Totum hummed, observing the room once more. Their eyes consistently returned to the oily spire, magnetized by that unending energetic compulsion to aggregate. “Hive is the antithesis of creation and destruction. Hive is the perfect stillness that settles your mind--and the sourceless echo in that silence in his voice. He had afflicted the golem between Polaris and Ursa, and he has been gnawing away at you all, tapping the tumult from your heads.”

Surely some of them had felt it, whoever was within range of the Hive's spores when it spread from the golem. Most of them were strong enough to dispel the mold, but even Totum could still feel his presence threatening to crystalize inside their consciousness.

“He's here,” the Warrior said suddenly. Totum's head whipped around, feeling it--feeling it in one self, and then the other. They searched, and: there. Toward the far wall. There was a chrysalis throbbing with life--fertilized by magic in the wake of their arrival, or overcooked, supersatured by years of neglect? It felt old. And it was under threat, being eaten away.

Totum uttered a noise of disgust and ambled cautiously toward the chrysalis. “We suggest you stay back,” said Totum over their shoulder.

Any beast inexperienced in dispelling the Hive ran the risk of imbibing his spores. But perhaps, by watching, these Chaos Forgers could learn.

- THE LEVIATHAN -

Vargas eyed Totum, and then glanced back to the others. Wary, but ready. Cautious, but confident. Whatever Totum saw, they themselves seemed sure: and Vargas, for the most part, trusted its ancient judgment.

Still, he moved to the front of the rest of them. Sidelong, pacing a little away, ready to intercept... whatever might next come.

Totum's words and explanations came as nothing new: but Vargas was reminded, in them, of the pairs. A brief and wholly unexpected emptiness struck, if only for an instant; would he have a partner in this-? Or would his creating, his leadership, remain ever alone, ever atop that little pinnacle beneath which the Chaos Forge churned?

He didn't know--and now was not the time to think about it. His mind, his attention, his gaze, all went to Totum: and there it remained, bar a murmur to the rest.

"Observe," was all he said.

Posting order unimportant!

@V-Chaos-Two (Kethri) @Orthoclase-Alpha (Hemlocke, Selenite) @Garnet-Delta (V-Zoisite-One) @Garnet-Epsilon @V-Labradorite-One @Ruby-Beta @Khavur

Chaos-Two stepped back when Totum appeared, standing right behind Vargas' leg as they watched and listened, the Master's voice like multiple at once. Vaguely, they wondered how that even worked. Multiple mouths, multiple throats- just plain magic? Chaos magic?

They stood up on their hind legs, nearing six feet tall, now. They were taller than Selenite, than Zoisite, but not larger than Khavur or Labradorite. They doubted they would be, but if they were honest, being big wasn't a priority. Except for right now, since they wanted to see.

Though they didn't think it quite through. They couldn't see, of course, so they just sat back and listened, disappointed in their own lack of sight for once.

”Observe.”

Well they would certainly try.

kethri !

Kethri watched silently from where she stood beside Doctor, shuffling her wings gently as she looked around Draco, fascinated. What an amazing place... dark, gloomy, and damp. Good for skin, she supposed. The perfect place to do her work uninterrupted (unless one of the children got curious).

Having nothing to say and less to do, she sat herself down and sighed, daring to lean against Doctor, trying to get weight off her claws. But she said nothing and didn't dare look at him, ashamed of her own weakness. If he pushed her off that would be fine. Just a bit of relief was everything.

Garnet-Epsilon

Epsilon listens intently to Totum and, at the suggestion to stay back, they do so, backing closer to the entrance and letting Master Vargas come between them and the threat, but they maintain the best vantage point they can of the chrysalis that pulsed in the distance, and they tug gently on their magic, hoping to muffle their presence, both to whatever lay before them, and whatever this Mother thing was-

Yes, Totum had described what Mother stood for, but the hybrid wanted to see what form this negative Order took...

Maybe eventually they could make themselves useful in rooting it from the caves.

Observe, indeed.

Alarmingly, their magic almost stutters, tears apart from the blanket of safety they've attempted to weave, but it holds, and you could only tell they were they if they moved, or sneezed- lets hope they don't sneeze.

It felt the beating heart of something within the cavern. Something....multiple? It couldn't tell, but then there it was. The master that Vargas had said would be here. And as Vargas commended them to observe, so Beta crouched down and backed up a few steps, eyes watching intensely.

Yet in its head it wondered. Enki? Artio? Farina? The names were alien to its ears, as most likely alien to the others. It didn't know what was going on...but that wasn't important. It didn't need to know. It just had to observe whatever was going to happen, just as Master Vargas ordered.

The words were big. Perhaps too big, and Nidhogg did not know them.

This, of course, made the serpent frustrated--which, in turn, made him angry. He hissed briefly, then bounded a few paces after Totum--not past the others, no, but until he was just alongside, just behind, Master Vargas. (And here, Nidhogg paused, to glare suspiciously sidelong up at the Leviathan.)

Nidhogg lifted his head as Totum finished speaking, spines bristling in a defensive reflex against all those big words. "WHAT'S A MITOCHONDRIAL EVE?!" he demanded, first, a half-shrill sound of desperation. Somehow, the words were echoed perfectly. "WHAT IS A CHAOTIC SUBSTANCE?!" and then, higher-pitched, he repeated: "WHAT'S A MITOCHONDRIAL?!"

Before Vargas could stop him (and Nidhogg dodged away before any attempt was even made, preemptively), he went on: "WHERE WHAT BEGINS?! WHAT'S AN INCUBATED? WHAT'S A TENZIN? WHAT'S A TAMULUS AND AN ENKI AND WHO IS ARTIO AND FARINA? WHAT'S AN ANTITHESIS? WHAT'S AN ECHO? WHY IS IT SOURCELESS? WHAT'S SOURCELESS MEAN? WHOSE VOICE? WHAT'S AFFLICTED? WHAT'S-" "Tumult" was probably next, but now Vargas had snagged him, and was holding his mouth shut.

Nidhogg writhed, like a dog whose muzzle was held, before falling sullenly still. His voice still emitted, muffled, still shrill and protesting.

"WHMRHMR?" he asked.