Kaimana generally liked this room, but today she wasn't just here to skulk. She was here for business. For far too many cycles now, her own den had been a mess of stones that yet possessed life, and she had done nothing about it. Her urge to collect had only grown, and thus she needed space. So, what better way to force herself to start a project than to make her den practically unusable?

She had picked up stones by the sea in Fornax before. Many washed up stones, some with past lives, others without. The tempests in Fornax were but one explanation. The latent history of the land and sea was vast and unyielding, only recently made known unto the jaguar. Everything with Master Farina, Master Artio, the Black City... it all felt way out of her depth. But it still affected her. Oceans always do. No matter how old and expansive the sea is, it still finds a way to affect little mortal creatures, to influence them. When under the embrace of falling clouds, there is no spot of land where you can stand and be dry. All this to say, it made sense to Kaimana why there would be so many lost souls out there, and why they would have such varied ranges in design. They were old, they were new, they were mortal, and the waters came over them indiscriminately.

Canis was a different kind of mystery. Bones were on full display, telling the stories of the most recent form of each individual. There was no guessing game to what they were, but there was no hint of what had brought them all there, and what had cluttered them all together like that. In that way, it was an opposite puzzle to Fornax. Some might find that dubious, unsettling, something along those lines. Kaimana found it in intriguing, and probably still would had she known the full story.

The terrain would be a little more difficult to navigate than the sands of Fornax, but it wasn't Kaimana's first time. She would busy her mind in her search by wondering about the inhabitants of the area. Soon enough, she would find a good reason to drop by and bother them for more than just a conversation. Maybe two conversations! It felt unwise to intrude without something she could use to face the passage of time. Some excuse. She had been short of excuses lately. Perhaps that was her own creativity failing her in the moment. I mean, she didn't really need an excuse honestly, but it might be good to have one. Fun to have one. Excuses were fun, they were like lies but true! Kaimana wanted an excuse. An unexpected topic to visit with. An opportunity. She just hadn't seen one yet.

Bones in the bone piles clattered together, shifted uncomfortably, swaying to and fro with such unsteady ungrace. Perhaps it had been too long. Kaimana would need to practice this movement more often. She was almost certain to get little scrapes and bruises, nothing a little saliva wouldn't fix. Hey — that was a new development! For Kaimana. Who didn't really know enough about the Vita family to know if any of them had been there when the Black City had been uncovered. She could trade them some salve or something, but... hm. Why would they need that? Kaimana really had no idea. For the kids? Kids weren't really kids anymore, were they? Ah, well.

She scampered out of one bone pile and into the next, briefly stopping before the transition to check her limbs for cuts. See, navigating the bone fortresses in this haphazard is like a puzzle you solve with your feet. Rock climbing, but horizontal. Small wounds were to be expected, but with Kaimana's vigor it was easy for small wounds to open wider without proper caution. She didn't find anything — bone with stone, nor stain of pain. So she'd get back to trundling, wandering and wondering.

The wondering continued, but the wandering stopped as Kaimana caught a glimpse of bone! With! Stone! Easily accessible, with some maneuvering. She slowly slid it out from the various jaws and clutches of its fellow members in death, clambered out of the bone pile as delicately as possible, and placed it to the side. Her own assorted bone pile, full of the special few who had perhaps a chance at life again.

At this point, a minor question arose: should she check first, or collect a healthy sum first? And then, a slightly more long term question: how was she going to get more than one of these guys home? Well, the first she did not know the answer to. The second, we'll see in a moment. Kaimana supposed that checking now or later wouldn't make a difference, except that strategically, if it were not alive, she should know that first so that she could place it back and not worry about it. But then, why not just leave it out and check it later? That wouldn't restrict her movement. Then what about the serotonin rush? Which would be greater? This was silly.

Kaimana scrambled back into another bone pile.

Giving a new meaning to the title "a fisher among men". Men referring to the bones here. Not to say that all of them were or had been men! Men in the broader sense, in the sense that they were all men. Not humen, but... alright, it really is wild that there's English in these caves when most of the population doesn't know or care about what a man is. Kaimana is a jaguar. Let's continue.

Out she came with another bone and gemstone, finding this situation almost similar to swimming around narrow reefs underwater. Being able to exist comfortably underwater was one of the greatest gifts she had ever been given. It was now twice as impossible to get bored. There were whole new worlds under the waves that Kaimana had always wondered about, and could now get to know! Dang, why wasn't she exploring them right now? Oh right. Because bones. She doesn't think of them with any lesser degree of fondness. All of them were quite exciting to her, but she wasn't certain she had enough experience with anatomy to recognize the bones of all these creatures. Where in the body would they have belonged?

She supposed she should practice seeing things from Damask's perspective. That magical sensation... Damask had been right about magic. It still wasn't the jaguar's forte, but! She could learn certain tricks. Perhaps if she focused her eyes now, she could... not get stabbed by a canine tooth?

Well, she narrowly evaded the tooth, but at what cost? Kaimana would pause for a moment to lick at minor scratches along her limbs.

Soon enough, they'd begin to scab over, and thus she continued. Slipping clumsily out of one bone pile into the next, a thought suddenly struck Kaimana. An excuse kind of a thought! A thought that made her grin, and question how she never thought of it earlier. It could be done as soon as her next deal was attempted. And when would that be? Perhaps after five or six souls had been ensured. She might be here for a while, but it would be worth it. Five or six would clog up her inventory, and then she would have no choice but to start looking for prospective parents!

The train switched tracks and, as Kaimana idly prodded at various bones, she wondered how she would find them. 'I will need a meeting place, somewhere with foot traffic.' She slowly wheedled a clavicle out from underneath a skull. Nope. 'I'll need to draw attention... A display, or is a stash eye—catching enough?' Kaimana always missed the friends and family she had made who were now at rest in their chrysalises, but on days like these, in times like these, a ploy from Levi or a whirlwind idea from Comet would have been more than welcome. 'A stand I can decorate would be nice.' She'd have to include that in her deal. 'I'd have to set it up myself, though.' That would set up nicely for her excuse. Alas, poor Bonebound, she knows of you well.

A bone tumbled out from a pile due to her deliberate disruptions. Kaimana placed it in the pile and continued.

Perhaps four was enough. Perhaps five. Kaimana was feeling a little antsy to test them now. She made a quick compromise to get at least one more before then. Kaimana would take some time to lick any more scrapes before venturing back into the land of puzzles. 'I could make another bone fort.' Heck, she could go bigger this time. Make an entire ossuary or something. A pretty thing, unique, 'and entirely uninhabited.' Alas, it was unnecessary. Kaimana wasn't... well, she had time, but she wasn't in the mood for unnecessary just yet. The concept of moving towards a state she could live in again was far more exciting.

Scrambling through bone after bone, she nitpicked and chipped away, causing unsteadiness to shift the rest of every sleeping mass. Perhaps it was crude, a little ruthless, but a mass mild disturbance to recover what lives she could seemed fair, at the very least. There were too many angels at the judgement panel for Kaimana to be able to tell if they would all agree with her, but... she didn't need them to, really. That was her power, as a living being. A power she would lose in time. The rest of that thought felt more existential than usual. She snatched a bone with a gemstone steadily out from the base of a pile, causing much of it to slide down in disarray.

Kaimana found the patience within to seek out just one more bone before checking them all. Her mind continued its intricate web of planning, but it could only get so far before it needed more data input to continue the simulation. All she could provide was the menial stimulus of: puzzles. Puzzles were enough! Puzzles made her think of commissioning another game from Damask. Patience!

Barely making it out with her last bone without dismantling the entire bone empire, Kaimana wriggled and writhed back to her special little bone pile. Homemade, pawcrafted, dusty and yet pristine! Every piece capable of being fished out at any time. Truly, the work of a master tactician. A genius! Well, not yet. Patience!!

Kaimana began to spread out each bone into a neat little line in an order that only made sense to, well, herself.

Kaimana fought to wrangle the thoughts in her mind so that she might survey each one properly. This spell could be headache-inducing if she strained too hard. 'How should I attract the attention of the right people?' Thoughts like this still lingered, getting more needlessly complex the longer they were left unanswered. Data input incomplete, simulation cannot run, patience patience patience please! The thoughts were disruptive, but with persistence, Kaimana was able to make it work.

Eyes anew, Kaimana could see it: perfection! She could glean the presence of life from the stone. Studying the bone was unlikely give Kaimana all the necessary information to predict the previous form of the creature unless it were a skull, but it was far less of a gamble than the stone alone. This would be faster then, having less things to check.

Onto the next one. 'Polaris is a nexus for a lot of tunnels. It has been used for several gatherings. It's probably the best bet.' The train jumped tracks: 'What should be the policy?' Kaimana stifled movement for a moment and honed in on the bone stone in the middle of her spread paws. Another stroke of luck! This one, too, glimmered ever so faintly. Hold on in there, little buddy. 'They have to revive it at some point. When they're ready to accept the responsibility.' Kaimana herself had been, but she had also been surprised by the full involvement of the task. Not even a long fishing trip took so much out of her. 'They should have help. Would I offer that?' A genuine consideration, the answer to which caused a playful smirk to twitch at her lips. 'Perhaps for an extra price.' That was, of course, not at all what Kaimana was going to do, but wouldn't it be a funny little joke to let them think it? To see what they'd offer?

What did she want to receive in return, anyways?

'It will have to depend on who approaches,' Kaimana decided swiftly before the true librarian stashed away in her mind came to shush her. Next stone! Life crept and crawled throughout this bone patch. Kaimana was very fortunate indeed. Whoever these individuals were, why they were here... well, they would at least someday have the freedom to move out of the bone cave, someday. If they so wished it. Although Kaimana still wasn't sure if the body was preferred to the stone. Based on her own family... Alright, she couldn't keep doing this to herself. It wasn't just the lives of the dead she cared for, it was also the lives of the living! 'They have to want to take care of whoever hatches.' A genuine care. Kaimana wasn't up for writing specific laws and parsing definitions of terms. She expected, from her target audience, a capacity to understand the word for what it was, in all its power.

(The roll was supposed to be a Detect Magic roll. GM cleared on Discord that I can count it as barely successful.)

@Kaimana