Cocytus had let the river carry her east before. That way had led her through Cepheus to Pegasus, but what lay in the other direction, to the west? It would be good to find out, she decided. Maybe if she followed it, it would lead her to a new room, and she'd see if it would be a good one to make her home in.

As long as she stayed close to the shore and avoided the eddying currents, it was not terrifically difficult to move upriver. It was slower than swimming east, true, but Cocytus was not in any particular hurry. When she came to where the river split into two (or, if you were looking at it in the direction it flowed, where two rivers merged into one), she found that a crumbling wall had been built in the middle of the river.

What was more interesting than the wall, however, were the wandering creatures that dotted the landscape around it. They seemed to be made of pure gemstone, not flesh and blood, but they moved on their own like a living creature might. She cast the spell to detect magic, but it was a halfhearted attempt. How could these creatures be anything but magic?

The golems were formed of stone. But this stone was animated, it seemed, by magic: the nearest glimmered in Cocytus's magical sight. And there was something else, too...

...Ahh! Two of the stones making up the nearest golem's body were more alive, more magical, than the rest. How strange...

@Cocytus

Truly, these were wondrous creatures. They were formed of stone, but magic let them move with more verve than any lone lost soul could. Bodyless gemstones by themselves could only move at the whim of the cold, uncaring world. They were swept up in the current and buried beneath sediment, or they washed ashore and were passed by without a second glance from most Gembound. But united, these aggregations of magic and souls could choose their own fates.

"Hello," Cocytus said, approaching the nearest golem and stopping a few feet away. "It is wonderful, that you have a life of your own, and without flesh and blood...! Can you speak? I am Cocytus, and I would like to..." There were so many things she would like to do, but how was she supposed to put them in words? She wanted to learn about these golems, to know of their stories... and she was sure that each golem must have many, for they were made of many gemstones. She would like to call them friends. But did one simply walk up to someone else and say "Hi, I want to be friends with you?"

"... to be friends, if you would like that too." Ah, screw it. What was the worst that could happen? Remembering the Rainmaker's fondness for mushrooms, Cocytus attempted to coax a few of the white-capped fungi to the surface near her feet. But nothing came - either their mycelia did not extend to here, or her magic was on strike again.

She'd been hanging around Polaris a lot. And, thankfully, she'd been growing into her glasses- perhaps not a lot, but it still helped.

What didn't help was the fact that she'd taken to pacing about the cave, following old tracks and pathways that might as well have been eons old. She liked it. No, she somewhat loved it, tracing her paws through claw prints and stalking the scent of freshly passed lessers.

Except, what she didn't expect, was a being approaching the larger ones. She hadn't had a chance to interact with them before- they didn't speak, as far as she knew, and she wasn't one to go up to someone and just ask how their day was if they didn't talk. But here, Cocytus was talking, and Cerilaine was lonely, and so she padded closer.

From this distance, she couldn't hear what the alligator was saying, the sounds coming through too muffled. Were the golems talking back? Cerilaine squinted, tilting her head down to look over her glasses. Hm. No- she trucked on, tail held as level as it could be as she kept her head high. "Hello," she piped up once she knew she was in hearing distance, which was probably a bit closer than necessary and in the alligator's space. Not personal space, no- but definitely not the distance you'd want a stranger, that was for certain.

"I've never seen them talk," she added in unwarrantedly- but, it was worth the knowledge. "Or move much, for that matter." She sat back like the know-it-all she was (in truth, she didn't know much) and adjusted her glasses with one paw, watching the rocks and alligator and all of it. "Maybe they just need someone to talk to."

Would they stir for someone's voice? Clearing her throat, she shuffled in place before stretching out her neck. "Hello?" She hesitated after she attempted the greeting to the golems, ears shoved forward.

The nearest golem paused at the voices. It froze, for a moment, and then slowly turned, a grinding of rock accompanying the movement.

It seemed to... face them, though it lacked a face or indeed any visible sensory organs whatsoever.

Then, beginning very slowly--as if to build momentum from its stony stasis--it began to rumble toward them.

@Cocytus

Cocytus smiled gently at the young cat that joined her, showing a mouthful of messy white teeth. "Hello, friend. Amazing, isn't it, how the amalgamation of souls becomes powerful when united like this? You'd never think it possible from a single stone." Was this what would have happened to the Bayldonite, she wondered, if she'd prayed to the Spire to grant it magic instead of asking the Rainmaker?

"Do they not talk to each other?" she continued, turning her head back to watch the golem. It was turning toward them! And it walked! Powered by magic, she assumed, instead of muscle. But what was muscle but born of magic? How else could the Gembounds' fleshy bodies have been built? They were all powered by the same thing, in the end.

Her attention on the golem now, Cocytus tried for a fungal gift once more. This time, she called for the fungi that glowed, not the ordinary white caps she'd tried for before. A special gift for a special being. A small cluster sprang from her front feet– not very many of them, but at least it was an improvement from zero. And if she practiced enough, someday she could become as powerful as the Rainmaker. Then she'd be able to breathe her own life into the lost souls she found.

@Cerilaine

The golem's speed picked up. It was... difficult to call it a "run," given the grinding roll of boulders. But it was hard to call it anything else, either, when the thing was barrelling toward them like a train.

It showed no signs of slowing, and it would reach them in a few seconds' time; any survival instinct Cocytus had might suggest that now was the time to flee.

@Cocytus

The golem, it seemed, was very interested in her gift of glowing mushrooms. Where as before it moved slowly, now it barreled toward her. It was getting close, it was absolutely massive, and it was not slowing down. A spark of panic flashed through Cocytus' mind; she was flat, she realized, and small, and being stepped on by something so large was going to hurt a lot.

"Whoa!" she cried, making a sideways dash out of the stone beast's path. "Don't step on me!" Does it know its own strength? she wondered. "Can you speak?" The golem didn't have a mouth, or anything visible to make noise with, but then--magic. It didn't have anything to see or hear with, either, and still it knew when she had spoken.

The golem lumbered to a halt where the alligator last had been, giving no sign it had heard or understood.

Instead it slowly turned, this way and that, before seeming to hone in on her again: and then it began another heavy, boulder-grinding rush her way.

It did not seem to care that it would crush her if she didn't move. In fact, that might have been its intention.

@Cocytus

Again? Cocytus realized in a moment of startling clarity that it wasn't the mushrooms that the golem wanted; it was her. Once again she was scrambling to get out of the way, trying to form a rudimentary plan as she did so.

The river. She could swim, but could golems? She hoped not. If she could get to it without being crushed, perhaps the golem would abandon its chase or sink in the water. But even as she scrambled toward the water, she wondered why the golem was acting this way. It was only gemstones, a conglomeration of souls. Why did it--

Realization struck. Did it want her stone?

"You can't have it!" she gasped. "That'll hurt! Wait until I'm dead!"