The Collector had told her to wait a few hours.

Being the coward she was, Mossie had stayed away from the Shadow for several days.

But she knows she must face her god head-on, one day or another. She's sacrificed so much--

(Or not.)

Nonetheless, the search for purpose has been hard-fought, scrabbled for tooth and claw. She is not one to dither, a and so Mossie goes on a hunt. When she catches the scent of a Walleye Rabbit, somewhere from the forum, she can almost believe the caves are guiding her paws towards what needs to be done.

The rabbits are flighty, she knows, so when she finally catches sight of it she doesn't hesitate before leaping close enough to send out a burst of soporifc spores.

@Wilder


It staggers on its paws, before crashing to the ground.

Success.


She picks it up in her jaws, before walking over to the altar and laying the rabbit at the base of the statue. Her claws unsheathe, pricking at the rabbit's soft skin. She can feel its lethargic heartbeat under her clawtips.

"Here goes nothing," she mutters to herself, so focused on her grim task she wouldn't notice any intruders. "Just one sacrifice, and you'll have all the knowledge you ever dreamed of. No biggie."

In constant wanderings, Wilder commonly found herself back in the room of stars (although she knew they were not truly stars - the real stars were much, much farther away). But this time her journey was halted by...a strange sight. An altar, of some sort. Black stone, massive, rivaling her in size. A statue sat above it, although she couldn't quite make out what it was where she was standing.

There was movement and Wilder quickly found a spot to hide so she wasn't seen. Something about this was strange and she flicked out her magic just to be sure that this wasn't some strange force of Order or Chaos. If anything, this could be some kind of strange corruption-related deal, but the creature that was striding forward was...normal looking. Actually quite like her, but where Wilder's coat was like raven feathers, the other's was like the morning sun. She did not, at least, sense any strange radiation from the cat.

She crouched over her paws, eyes watching with sharp precision. Perhaps if Mossie looked up and looked close she would be able to see a pair of fuchsia eyes peering out from the shadows, watching her work with curiosity...and a hint of fear.

She couldn't hear what she said, but the way she gripped the rabbit, the expression on her face, the altar...she had a feeling that blood would spill in a moment.

@Mossie

Mossie's ears lay flat against her head as she stares down at the sleepy rabbit, flanks barely rising and falling.

She was weak. Not only was she incapable of killing a creature who was literally born to die, she couldn't kill a rabbit. A prey animal.

But even the violence of the hunt had disturbed Mossie in the weeks following her mistaken vision. She'd been hardly able to stomach prey, and her ribs showed sharply through her dull pelt.

She glances up, scanning the shadows for some excuse to delay--and nearly jumps when she catches sight of bright pink eyes staring back at her.

"H-hello?" She asks, claws tightening on the rabbit. "Who are you, and why are you watching me?"

@Wilder

Wilder flinches when suddenly their eyes connect. Her ears flatten when she realizes she'd been caught - augh, why didn't she know any spells to help her hide better?!

The game was up, but at least she took a bit of comfort in the hesitation in the other cat's voice. She wasn't some ruthless sadist or whatever, sacrificing out of madness or killing without reason. At least...she hoped.

Slowly, she crept out of her hiding spot, sending a mental signal for Vaati to stay where he was as she approached the altar and the other cat. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude." Instinctively, she began to channel magic, to slowly release pheromones into the air that would keep her safe from the other, to stop any hostility before it began, but her nerves made the familiar hollowness deepen. It was like a void in her, sucking away all attempts at magic.

She didn't step too far from her hiding place, still unsure about this whole thing. She nervously glanced at the altar again (she realized now that the statue was of a gargoyle - how strange) before looking back at Mossie. "I was just...curious. About what you're doing here."

@Mossie

Mossie, always too trusting, relaxes entirely at the other cat's words. Her fur lays flat and she slowly backs away, trying to make herself seem as nonthreatening as possible.

Curious. She can understand that. That's what got her into this whole damn mess, after all. She heard that's what kills cats.

"You're fine," she assures the raven-black cat. "Not like I've got a reservation for spooky rituals on this place or something."

The rabbit twitches under her claws, making a feeble meerping noise. She cringes, ever so slightly.

"I'm looking for knowledge," she explains. "I was told that this altar could help me connect to an entity that knows things about these caves if I spilled the blood of a Lesser upon its stone."

Mossie's brow furrowed. "And there are so many questions I have that nobody else seems able to answer."

@Wilder

Wilder watched carefully for body language and was relieved when the other relaxed and followed her own movements - calming and becoming nonthreatening. She slowly stood up more confidently and walked closer, tail raising as she let her curiosity take over and leaving the anxiety behind. She still felt unsure about this whole thing - the black stone and the knocked out Lesser were...concerning, but she, too, always thirsted for knowledge.

She chuckled a little awkwardly, the words "spooky rituals" sending a weird note through her system. At least the other was...self aware about what was going on here, but she wasn't exactly happy that something like this was happening in the first place. Rituals brought to mind sacrifices and pain and promises sealed and words made chains. She stopped a few feet from Mossie, her eyes now observing the unconscious rabbit.

"Ah...I see. Who told you this?" Who would have that kind of knowledge? She wasn't so familiar with the Chaotic forces running rampant through the caves, so she was unsure if there really was some kind of entity that would actually appear, but strange things seemed to live in the walls and the air of this place that she didn't doubt it was possible.

Still, it could be dangerous, and the forces were no joke. She looked back at Mossie, suddenly concerned for the other, tail twitching nervously. "Be careful, though. There's...powerful things in these caves." A sudden decision steeled her nerve for a moment. "I'd like to watch, if that's okay. If something happens, I have magic. It could help." Even though there was a hollow emptiness in her that was eating all of her attempts to do anything was something that she kept to herself, for now.

@Mossie

It sure was a relief the other cat wasn't gonna try to beat the shit out of her for dubious witchcraft crimes. Her gaze still seems wary, but it's not like Mossie can fault her for that. She knows the whole situation, and she's still shaking in her metaphorical boots.

Her pelt warms self-consciously as the other cat responded to her awkward attempt at a joke, before staring at the rabbit. "The Collector," she said with the faintest hint of a growl. "To be frank, I don't trust that son of a bitch as far as I can toss him, which is not at all. To clarify."

Her eyes found the gargoyle again. "But there's a power radiating from this statue, and if I don't try I'll spend my whole life wondering if it were true."

Mossie blinked. "Watch me? Oh, sure, if you want. If it turns out there's nothing you can do and I die horribly, you can have the gemstone collection I've got hidden in my fluff."

Finally, after she moves the rabbit back to the altar and raises her left paw dramatically, she strikes, slashing the rabbit's carotid open. She's covered in a light spray of it and flinches, but the rest bathes the altar.

@Wilder

Blood sprayed across black stone, and for a moment, it seemed as though Mossie's instincts were correct: that she'd been tricked. Silence, the drip-drip-drip of crimson liquid as the rabbit twitched and gasped its last, filled the silence.

The little black gargoyle statue, long-necked and bare-breasted, stared at her with empty eyes... until those eyes, like distant coals igniting, began to glow. They began with red, red as the blood that had been spilled, and then shifted cooler, darker, until they were a smoldering and eerie violet.

The blood atop the altar began to blacken and sizzle, hissing, a rancid smoke rising from everywhere a drop had touched the stone.

Black smoke boiled around the statue, obscuring it entirely but for those two violet spots: spots that now expanded, rising with the smoke, forming something far larger and more ominous. The shape that formed from the churning cloud towered above both cats, some seven or eight feet tall, broad-shouldered and hulking. But it was vague, bar those two violet eyes: humanoid, but monstrous without form. The hint of arms swept an afterimage of black as it turned; a few puffs might have been a horn or ears. They were staring into blackness, into Void, given form.

Its voice rolled from this storm like thunder, a grating echo that reverberated through the rock underfoot.

"I TOLD YOU, DEMON STAR. I TOLD YOU, YOU WOULD NOT BIND ME-" and it boiled forward as if to leave the altar, smoky claws reaching for the cats--and then jerked, twisting with a growling hiss. Eyes flicked down, visible through the back of its 'head,' and found the chain tethering the gargoyle's collar to its wings. A howl of dismal rage went up. "NOOOOOOOOO!"

It appeared to fight, for a moment. To thrash and twist, violet lightning sparking through its form. At last it went still, and turned, a bitter hatred in its words as it focused down on the pair before it. "IT SEEMS... THE SHADOW CANNOT COME THROUGH YOUR CONDUIT IN TRUTH..." The sound of grinding teeth echoed, despite this beast having none: perhaps this, then, was a conduit to another plane, another place? A place where the Shadow had many teeth indeed...

"THE GOD OF TRANSACTIONS--THE DEVIL OF THEM. RAAAAAARGH!" Another twist, a scowling thrash. "MAKE YOUR DEMANDS, THEN." A claw thrust out, pointing down to Mossie's tiny form. "AND AS THE DEVIL HAS DECREED... I WILL MAKE MY OWN."

@Mossie

It takes everything in Mossie not to turn tail and flee at the Shadow's indistinct claws lunged for her. Even as it stopped short, howling with the rage of its binding, she still didn't feel quite safe. Still.

If she backed up now, if she showed weakness to this beast...

Something in her told her not to. So she takes a deep breath and stands up straight, looking the thing directly in its violet eyes. Mossie shoots a quick, warning glance at Wilder. It's still not too late for her to back out.

"Greetings, Shadow," she says, dipping her head in a show of respect. "I seek knowledge from you, first and foremost--knowledge about the caves, but also knowledge on life in the caves-- and how to create new forms of it."

Terror gripped Wilder at the rising shadows, the black smoke that rolled off the stone and burst into the air. A squeak escaped her jaws as she shied back, crouching low against the stones of Orion. Wide eyes watched the creature (is it a creature? or just a mass of energy or a formless entity?) towering before them and wondered what in the caves the Collector had given this poor cat to play with.

She wondered at the chains from the gargoyle, and at the anger of the entity at a supposed imprisonment. She blinked. This was not...this wasn't some deep force of the caves, was it? How would it be imprisoned if it were? Or was the Collector simply that much more powerful then any of them could have guessed?

Curiosity took over the terror and she tentatively threaded her magic forward, careful not to let it be sucked into the emptiness, feeling stronger already by the thread that opened between them. She was careful not to be obvious about it, so as not to distract Mossie from her mission, but she wanted to learn more about this creature - what it is, what it's thinking, where it came from.

Why it's been chained in the first place.