Oh for the love of - why was it ALWAYS this stupid, dank, muddy, insect-infested, gems-forsaken place?!

She had been humiliated by a mere Gemling in Cetus. She had been trapped like a prey animal in Cetus. And, although she (luckily) didn't know it, she had made a fool of herself in front of the one Gembound she might have considered a friend in... you guessed it, ALSO CETUS.

She was getting out of here RIGHT NOW, Pelt decided, smacking the cracked remnants of her hibernation chrysalis with her tail. The dull amber fragments flew in a graceful arc into the mist, landing in the water with a distant splash. If she could just - figure out which way was which -

God, why did the mist have to be so thick? Pelt squinted into the distance, willing something besides endless trees and mud to come into focus. Her eerie black eyes flicked from one space between the trees to the next, but the forest grew thickly here, and there was no telling which direction was the right way out. Cetus was huge - she could wander randomly for a long, long time without finding her way to Pisces or Polaris.

When in doubt, call for help, then. Gembounds mostly tended to be benevolent, in her experience. Even her encounter with that damned snake had gone sour because she'd struck first. If she could just--rein herself in a little. Not attack anyone this time. Then things would be fine. "HEY!!!" she shouted. "Anyone there? If you get me out of this nasty cave, I'll catch you a fish!" Nothing like the promise of a reward to encourage interest, right?

The gemstone shattered.

Pelt's voice rang out, loud at close range, but muffled into silence by the fog mere meters away. And then there was nothing, only eerie quiet.

The calls of the insects were absent. No Hallowed Callers loaned their haunting cries to the mist above. Only an empty husk of a swamp: water, fog, mist and the skeleton grasp of the trees, with Pelt emerged at the bottom.

Was she alone? It might almost feel like the world had died, gone absent and silent in her absence. As if she were the last living thing remaining. Who knew how long she'd been asleep?

@Pelt

You know, all things considered, this wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Which, okay, that might not have been saying much considering Pelt's low, low opinion of Cetus. But as terrible as this room was, at least the insects weren't bothering her today. Caves, she hated those miserable little things.

The leopard seal waited for several moments, peering through the mist and listening for any signs of Gembound. But she could sense no one coming, and even the Lessers were silent. No one was here to help her, it seemed. Should she try to make more noise? ... and not that she was complaining, but where had those degenerate insects gone?

Well, she hoped not all of the Lessers had disappeared, because even if no one was coming to claim that fishy reward she'd so generously offered, Pelt herself was feeling hungry. Might as well go hunting. With one last glance through the clinging mist, Pelt dove beneath the surface in search for some tasty cave fish.

Splash. The sound echoed in the eerie silence, a repeat of the sound the shattered gemstone had made as it fell away. The massive seal slipped beneath the surface with ease, but the water here was shallow, black, murky. Visibility was dim.

Yet almost at once she struck something--something pale, fleshy; something white, something hung with stringy bits. It was torn meat, a massive fish of some kind drifting from left to right across Pelt's field of vision. It was half-obscured by the silt in the dark water, but clear enough in its skeletal structure: the bones were hung with white meat.

A ruby gemstone glinted where it hung in the ribs of the fish. Strange: this was a Gembound, then, albeit Lesser. Pelt would likely be aware of how quickly things with stones decayed.

This was therefore fresh.

Something had just torn this fish apart.

@Pelt

Almost immediately, she noticed something large and white drifting through the murky water. It was large and torn up already, but it was also dead. Pelt twitched her nose at it in disdain. She didn't need to take advantage of some messy eater's kill! She was a leopard seal: massive, lithe, and most of all she took pride in her hunting abilities. She had no need to feed on scraps, thanks!

Mostly, though, she was rather offended that whatever killed the fish hadn't stopped to offer her help. The carcass was clearly recent, so they probably hadn't wandered that far, right? Also, what kind of barbarian didn't clean their metaphorical plate and left their scraps floating in the water to decay and make this cave even more nasty -

The fish kind of explained the lack of aid, though, the more that Pelt thought about it. They had just caught a fish, and they were clearly also more than capable at hunting fish, so perhaps they had simply not been interested in the reward. Pelt resurfaced, thinking. She'd need something better to garner interest, something unique.

She concentrated hard on the dull amber in the center of her forehead. Not her area of specialty, perhaps, but everything had its uses. A small but vibrant banana popped into existence. There was something undeniably fabulous about it. Bananas weren't part of her usual diet, but Pelt decided she might eat this one if no one came to claim it. She had, after all, earned it herself. "NEW REWARD!" she bellowed into the mist. "A fabulous magical banana!"

An eerie silence followed. A few bubbles rose from disturbed gas at the bottom of the murky channel, and a small flock of Hallowed Callers abruptly burst from the branches overhead, fluttering away in hurried silence.

Anyone with any measure of survival instinct might realize that something was not quite right...

The marsh water rippled a few yards away, almost seeming to gurgle.

@Pelt

Silence again, apart from the flapping of the Hallowed Callers' hasty retreat. Pelt followed their path with narrowed black eyes, then whipped her head around when the water began to ripple very close to where she was floating. A thrill ran through the leopard seal, and she grinned despite the sense of danger - or perhaps because of it. Whatever this Gembound was, it was large enough to call the massive fish from earlier prey, just as she was. Finally, a worthy opponent in the hunt! Our race will be legendary!

Or it would be, if only someone was around to watch. Even the birds had fled. That is why they will never become anything more than prey. They do not have the mettle needed to test themselves against others, and thus improve themselves.

She backed away from the source of the ripples, but not too far. What kind of race would this be if she had too big a head start, after all? "So," she said, more for the dramatic effect than with any expectation for a response now, "Interested in the banana, after all?" Dark eyes glinting with excitement, she flung the sparkling yellow fruit upwards. It spiraled through the air, though not as high as she would have liked, before plummeting back down toward the water. Meanwhile, Pelt tensed and lashed her tail, preparing to swim.

The attack came suddenly--a rush through the water beneath, the momentary stirring of silt and then gnashing rows of razor fangs aiming for Pelt's underbelly. A powerful tail propelled it for her, and then it twisted to vanish back into the dark, if it could...

The Redbelly was massive, though nowhere near a leopard seal's size; it weighed perhaps some four hundred pounds. It was swift, stealthy and vicious, and ever-hungering, and it knew Cetus's channels as its home. Pelt had, perhaps, disturbed at its feeding and it was cunning in its strike: here then gone, an attempt to tear through her underside or worse...

Pelt may attempt to avoid the Redbelly's strike, or choose instead to attack the Redbelly in retaliation. If it connects, the Redbelly will tear through the skin and blubber layer to muscle, potentially causing quite a bit of bleeding.

@Pelt

The murky water suddenly rippled more violently then before, and Pelt knew that it - whatever it was - was coming. As she twisted away, she caught a glimpse of rows of yellowed fangs rising from the silt before she was facing the other direction and couldn't see her opponent anymore. How annoying not to have eyes on the back of one's head. And she was sure that the creature's sudden motion must have stirred up more sediment, too. Wonderful. Even dirtier water is just what Cetus needs, isn't it? Caves, she couldn't wait to get back to the clear waters of Pisces or Polaris.

She didn't attack for now, striving instead to swim away and put some distance between herself and her opponent. After all, even predators wanted to avoid injury. One could hardly hunt while freshly torn up from some swamp horror. She slowed after a few moments to cast a glance back at the attacker. Surprisingly huge - for a fish, that was. Oh, this will be a worthy challenge indeed.

Teeth gnashed down, missing the sleek spotted pelt and instead striking tree root, where one of the ancient ones' gnarled wood extended into water. Bark was shredded in that brief instant of contact, the entire root torn clean through, floating up to the surface and bobbing there...

The Redbelly had turned in a green-silver flash, its massive bulk darting with startling speed back into the murky darkness.

The water roiled in its wake.

Pelt had a moment to depart--or if she chose, could attempt to find and attack the fish before it got too far.

@Pelt