ORDER VS CHAOS

SANCTUARY

The tiger rushed to and fro, his hide a striped flash of ivory and obsidian streaks. He shouldered into a pile of bones, pushing them upward. He then lowered his head for an instant, the gemstone atop his skull blazing pink. A blast of energy cascaded bones skyward, and they clattered down into a pile, forming a barrier. More rose and clattered there, moved by the shove of energy from his stone.



Teosar spared a look around. "The horse speaks the truth," he agreed, grim and loud. "Not all of them are bad," he added--and wondered, for the first time, where Jupiter might have gone. "But most of them would see our deaths for not falling in line," and ears pinned above fang-bared, wrinkled lips.

It began to spatter rain, but Teosar's attention had slipped to the small canine cub--sad, but he could do nothing for her right now. And then--to Wulfsige, and his tone gentled. "Your magic--it is the new Spire's, yes?" He'd been told little, but his point was clear. Perhaps the hybrid savior's powers only worked in proximity to their source. "Teach. Keep trying," Teosar urged. He looked, for a fleeting second, haunted--as though a hundred deaths were flashing behind his eyes.

A blink dispelled this, and he turned away. He was alongside Tourmaline in an instant, using fangs and claws to shove up more bones where her powers shook some free, aiding her attempts. "Order," he called back to Aethereal, "is not kind. I do not know much of it. But if Chaos follows no rules... Order requires that all be within its strictures. That which is not, must be destroyed." Rigid lines. Cubic shapes. Perfect Order: not a thought allowed outside that structure. A glance her way, with furrowed brow: "I know nothing of a Mother."

The fear in the tiger's eyes was a terrified determination, one that swelled as his gaze found Raoshar. Another child. "I woke from one of their wars into another. This must end," he growled, pushing up another bone.

In the distance, something clattered--like a reaction to the falling bones, an echo, but more rhythmic.

Something was coming, and it was not a falling bone...

---

The sensation of Detect Radiation has been faintly introduced by Wilder, but Wulfsige is being asked to demonstrate his use, specifically, of Detect Radiation. Should he fail for a third time, a GM should be tagged to post. Gembounds in this thread are being encouraged to build barricades, camouflage the hiding space, and gather supplies.

New characters may join this thread at any time.

@Aethereal @Wulfsige @Astéri @Tourmaline @Relic @Wilder @Khloros (Coyote/Oliver) @Raoshar

The clattering of something distant echoes in Tourmaline's ears. They're all running on borrowed time, if Teosar's fear is anything to go on. They need to hide, to avoid whatever approaching beast's wild eyes.

Tourmaline throws herself against the bones, trying to push them so they hide the doorway she stands in front of. Come on, come on! she hisses to herself, struggling against bones so big when she's so small.

Teosar's help alongside her is welcome, and she looks up to him. "If they find us, I will fight. I may be small, but I've been honing my magic. And I won't let the others get hurt if I can help it," she declares.

Relic looked on solemnly, absorbing what information she could - which wasn't much at that moment. She empathised, partly, with Aethereal; She had known the Forge, though her interactions with them were brief. She had helped them, sunk her teeth into what she thought was a common enemy. Had that been the right thing? Should she have left them to quarrel with the serpent, let them destroy themselves?

It didn't matter now - they were all in this mess together. They'd have to hold their ground, protect those weaker - She glanced at the two children that had joined them in refuge. Relic didn't think herself particularly motherly, but the idea of such fragile creatures at threat stirred her. She would do her part, follow behind. She shook herself of hesitation, following behind Teosar and Tourmaline in their efforts to fortify their hideaway.

Mimicing their movements, Relic pushed and pawed at the collection of bones, attempting to fortify the area with barricades - she moves around the two, but not quite their exact location, hoping to cover more ground. "I will fight too - I have no magic, but I have my teeth." She spoke grimly - ideally none of them would need to, but the likelihood of that happening... She wasn't so sure of.

But no words could stop the pointless clattering of bones coming free, the barrier falling apart as she build it. She looks to the rest of the crowd - hopefully they could assist.

She had eyes, at first, only for Astéri--when he came to her she went still, listening in silence. Though not everything he'd said fully registered in the fear and chaos, a few choice words stuck with her.

The monsters were dumb. She'd be okay. The others would protect her. And--they needed help?

Coyote summoned up her courage and gave Astéri a nod, the determination of a young pup seizing her. "I will help!" she practically squeaked. She was afraid, yes, but she'd help! She'd do her part in bringing bones to the defenders! She had a job now and she could actually do something, and be useful... His attempt to refocus her from terror to concentration worked wonders, and a moment later she'd rushed to Raoshar just after seeing his brief nod. So he looked kinda scary, but apparently he wasn't one of the monsters, and she tried to speak to him--though her words tumbled in confusion. "'m Coyote. Gettin' bones to help. Wanna come?" She nodded back, and then rushed past Raoshar to demonstrate.

Teensy jaws closed over a bone far too large for her--some large femur or other--which, as she dragged it back, looked comically oversized between her teeth.

Coyote did not notice that other, larger Gembounds were shoving bones a dozen at a time, or moving entire piles with magic--instead she determinedly dragged this one single bone, over the course of a solid minute of readjustment and twisting and yanking with her entire body--over to Teosar. She dropped it by his feet, looked up at him with a wag of her tiny tail, and then bounded off for another.

She was helping!

@Astéri @Raoshar

Food-... Food was next. If they were to be caught here for some time (and were they?) food was important.

Oliver's little basket held a few seeds he'd planned to plant in the garden, but--maybe here would do.

He scuttled back to a point at the rear of the defensive positions, far enough away it wouldn't be in the way, and began to scatter them. Canis was... mostly rock, but plants (with enough motivation!) were sturdy. He'd seen the way the roots of weeds could split stone. It wouldn't be easy but it was doable. What was it I had? he thought, the maddening urge to do and help and serve almost overwhelming. There was a static to his thoughts, a frazzled inability to focus--yet he was focused, if only on this one, single thing.

It was like his vision had narrowed to a single point and everything outside it was hazily indistinct.

Oh. Melons, I think, and apple, but that'll need to be a whole tree. That'll take time. There were some weeds and grasses, too.

He focused, afterward, setting the now-empty basket aside and planting feathered wing-hands alongside the broadly-clustered seeds.

Oliver found, at once, that there were far too many plants to grow them all to full size--and it was exhausting. It felt like someone was draining him away. Undoubtedly he'd be unable to stop; the compulsion to finish the job was intense. But now there were grasses growing in a sheet across a patch of Canis rock; melon vines curling amongst a pile of bones; and a fruit tree's sapling, shivering in the drizzle and half-grown.

"This will grow into food, soon," he assure the others. He didn't seem to notice anything more--not the cub, nor Teosar, nor the attention cast Oliver's way, toward the strange source of his stone's magic. It was still part... natural, as Wilder said, yet more and more the alien radiation encroached upon it.

Oliver didn't notice any of that. But he looked at the food he'd half-grown so far, and smiled.

It hurt. It hurt to see how the others reacted with fear when they spoke of Mother. The little cat's frantic warning, the old tiger's stern explanation of Order's unforgiving stricture. Aethereal realized, with a sinking feeling, that she was afraid. Not just because something was coming and they might have to fight, but because the Mother that had given her a home as a hatchling might be coming to kill her right now.

Will she really try to destroy me? she wondered. Will she remember me at all? Will she try to talk to me, or try to kill me on sight? She knew that she was obviously a being of Chaos. If the wolf had reacted with hostility as a neutral party upon seeing her, how would Mother and Order react?

Hey, came the gentle, yet firm touch of Scars against her consciousness. It was less words, and more of a general feeling. An attempt to comfort and reassure, yet also a push to action. A sense of urgency. They needed to act now, before this something reached them. A very practical, Cave Rat way of thinking. It was a good reminder, and Aethereal sent the Echoing Grey a warm wave of thanks through their bond.

"I'm going to bring back some food," she announced, and darted outside the fortresses. While she hid behind a pile of bones, Scars scampered into a small clearing, lifted his head, and called out a startling imitation of a Pitch Rat's hunting call. Immediately, beady red eyes peered out from behind every stack of skulls and bones, and huge, dark rats began to swarm toward them. While Scars darted back to safety on Aethereal's shoulder, the Valkhound waited until the swarm had gathered into a group and gotten close, and then sucked the very air from their lungs. A chorus of whispers rose around them as the lights flickered and the rats choked and writhed, and she could hear their alien voices singing sadistic joy in her mind until the Pitch Rats finally died and she let the spell go.

She gathered up the dozen-or so bodies and ducked back into the fortresses to bring them to the Gembound sheltered there. "I brought rats," she announced, beginning to sort them into two piles. Most were gemless, but the one or two that had visible gemstones-- "Is anyone hungry at all? Eat these first, or they'll turn to Oil. We can save the rest for later."

Clatter, clatter. Astéri's ears prick at the distant sound, eyes going wide. For a moment, panic threatens to overtake him; for a moment, he seems so much smaller than he really is, shrinking in on himself, a kid again. He has seen monsters before. In the depths of the Black City lay a kraken, huge and toxic and crushing. In the Deathmatch, he saw creatures of all shapes and sizes striving to rend each other bloody on the sand; what makes a monster, if not something which kills and revels in it?

There is a monster—or, monsters—coming closer. Fur bristled with fright, Astéri shoots a glance around to all those gathered; all those who are now frantically repurposing the bones of the dead to protect them, to save them from the Hive.

He has to keep them safe. He has to help them. If the monsters of the Hive get here, if the monsters of the Hive are determined to destroy and reshape and take their very minds from them—

—he has to say he tried.

It's this thought that brings him back to reality, sets his paws to running before he's even fully back, darting quickly out of the safety of the barricades while there's still time.

Astéri's been burned by his own magic enough times that he knows he has to be careful with this. But if there's ever a time to use this spell, it's now; eyes narrowed in desperate concentration as he focuses, haphazardly tracing a pattern outside their little sanctuary into the stone floor. He takes a deep breath as he paces, reaching for his inner fire, telling it: please, please work. Please keep us safe.

The fire inside him wells, but it doesn't come. Astéri stares a moment at the floor in terrified desperation, waiting for perhaps a second surge; but the stone in his chest rests cold, and he shakes his head and huffs, tail lashing.

He'll do what he can against the monsters when they come. He'll put himself on the front lines, if that's what they need. But he can't linger here any longer.

He darts back inside the fortress and forces himself to keep his head high. The little coyote he'd spoken to earlier is dragging a bone almost too big for her mouth towards a nearby dragon, and his heart both warms and pangs at the sight.

He'll die for her, if that's what he needs to do to protect her. It'll be a kinder fate than what the Hive would probably do to him, anyway.

The stallion hardly knew what to do. His magic--that of pestilence and disease--had been taken from him, perhaps when he'd initially failed his mission. Maybe, he'd often thought, it had been given to another.

But he'd been remade--and words had been made his 'weapon.' He'd tried to spread that word, still did so even now. That, however, would not help protect the suffering children here from physical attack.

The only thing he could think of doing to defend would be to physically fight--and to that end he decided to rise up, to use one of the few magics he could still wield to prepare an attack. If he got himself high enough into the air, he could dive for whatever was coming--kick it with the force of a falling thousand-pound stallion.

Wings uncurled, ethereal gold, and lifted him a few feet into the air, bringing him to a point above the opening of the defended area--and then, abruptly and without warning, faltered. For a split second he looked like some black-and-gold avenging angel, eyes fierce and nostrils flared. Then, Khloros was tumbling wingless to the ground in a hefty thud, landing on his back and flailing there, hooves striking at the air as he struggled fruitlessly in slippery bones and dust to right himself.

It left him right in the path of what might be oncoming attack.

horse stock by venomxbaby on deviantart

Around him was chaos- not the kind he was sworn to fight against, capital "C" Chaos- but a frantic scrambling to strengthen their defenses in the face of the rapidly encroaching threat. He stood, reeling from the twice backfire of his own magic. He was filled with a sort of desperate determination, born of frustration and self-directed anger. This MUST work. They MUST be able to see the enemy. They CANNOT win.

"Listen," He began, eyes flashing, the slightest hints of a snarl creeping onto his muzzle. "You must listen, and you must learn." He grasped for his magic, deep in his skystone, his personal spire. He dug his teeth into it like it was a rabbit that may run away at the soonest opportunity. "You will SEE. The magic, the spark. The radiation. Order and Chaos and all that is Natural. You WILL see. You MUST." This was less so teaching at this point and overt demands- although it was unclear if he was addressing the crowd, himself, or both.

The Sight bloomed, uneasily and faulty but THERE, and he could see radiation buzzing in a way that was, finally, not completely overwhelming. Elements of natural order nestled in close, speckled with one or two strange signatures he couldn't parse- the bird-dog and the horse. And beyond, like a crashing wave a crystal, was Order. Chaos bloomed like distant explosions, but it was too far to parse other than it's Presence. "Order is nearly upon us. Get the weak into safety. The strong will fight." He would pace along the barricade's edge, staring unceasingly in the direction of the closest Order signature- was was surely the coming threat.

Wilder's ear flicked with alarm when she heard the distant clatter. Something was coming and it was getting closer and closer by the second. Wulfsige confirmed her fear and she bounced forward, clambering above the barricade. Whatever was coming, she would help to hold back. Hopefully her and Wulfsige's combined knowledge would help the others learn the same sense. At a quick message of thought, Vaati began helping to reinforce the barricade with and bones and rocks he could roll over.

Wilder, meanwhile, stood on top of the bones and focused her magic forward, to channel into the ground, create spikes of quartz pointing outwards at any approaching danger. But her racing heard and unfocused mind let the spell release from her hold. She shivered as she lost it, eyes wide at her helplessness. Of course, when she needs it, her magic must fail her.

Shit.