Continuation from Go Fetch, Fido

Taking a leisurely stroll didn't rank too high on East's priorities. Hard for it to when there came niggling reminders that every flower sniffed and petal idly plucked was at the cost of ignoring more important matters, such as the blood-spattered book held in his beak. While the events described within had occurred long before he'd ever been guided to knowledge of them, their main cause remained out there to be discovered in full. The written word in his possession might very well be the instruction manual for one's own demise, and who knew if others could simply stumble upon the methods mentioned there. Likely a hapless victim already might have if the particular specimen they now hunted could be found readily available in Cepheus's gardens or somewhere else on its grounds. A hazardous nibble, and grandiose visions could have driven an adventurous eater over a precipice, chasing after ambitions never to be fulfilled.

But, grim speculation aside, a certain humor could be found in his current task. Avoidance of taking a relaxing jaunt through manicured landscapes had only led to doing exactly that. Accompanied by an excitable, tail-wagging companion, he combed through the Palace's plants, brushing aside so many eye-catching ornamental varieties. Compared to vines creeping around marble columns and dark trumpet-shaped flowers stretching to better absorb the eerie lighting in this cave, his sights rested on a seemingly more mundane feature: simple white flowers whose consumption raised many concerns.

"So," he said, idle chit-chat the best option for breaking up the monotony of giving every garden resident a proper eyeball, "you come out here often by any chance? Can't imagine keeping books as your only company all the time when you can take a break from them and the dust once in a while."

@Bentley

Bentley was behaving very much like a dog on a walk. He bounded this way and that, tail waving behind him and tongue lolling as he stuck his nose into every patch of ivy and cluster of tall grass. He didn't feel the need to fill the silence with chit-chat, though he didn't resent it either; he happily took things as they came, as always. So when East spoke, he trotted over and kept pace, slowing his excited exploration so that he could speak.

"I come out sometimes! I can't-" The dog paused, here, then looked around sheepishly before leaning in with lowered voice. "Go to the bathroom inside," he explained. Not that the palace didn't have bathrooms, but it was less likely that Bentley knew that, or knew how to properly use them.

"And if I want fresh air! But mostly I stay inside and read." For all his apparent joy at being outside, it didn't sound like he necessarily came out all that often.

He glanced to East. "Where do you live?" he asked happily, eyes bright with curiosity. He couldn't remember if he'd asked that before--he sure hoped not. But he realized now that he'd been so intent on helping East with the book that he'd hardly talked about him at all!

@East (or let me know if I should GM post!)

No unkindness was intended, but upon hearing confidential relation of certain excretory difficulties, silent laughter shuddered through East's body. Feathers rustled as he broke away from his latest examination of a suspect flower's pale petals to peer up at Bentley's honest face, and he shook his head, emitting an amused sigh.

"I suppose that's better than the alternative." While he'd poked his beak into a few rooms, none had been facilities of that kind. Even if one were, doubtful he would have recognized its purpose. Growing up amongst rubble and fragments of civilization kept such a concept a well-hidden secret; advancements like plumbing might as well be magic compared to a simple chamber pot. "With a place all sparkled up like that? Be a right shame to get filth all over it."

He considered the prod into his personal life with dry humor. "Where I live? Oh, just a little somewhere far away from here. Lots of rocks, lots of empty space where there isn't rocks. And you don't hear from many neighbors unless they scream."

Endeavoring to be as gentle as possible, talons twisted the stem of the current plant candidate so its bloom could be better appreciated by both Gembounds. "Say, does this look about right to you? Seems a little too much on the round side, but maybe our artist liked to exaggerate how narrow these things are."

@Bentley

CRIME NOIR

THE FLOWERS

'At last, our dark hero draws close to the next step, or hint... or is it a tragedy...'

The voice sounded distant, and would be clearly audible to both Gembound. It was almost muffled, or tinny, unlike before: as though something were broadcasting it, rather than it being spoken aloud. Or maybe it was magic, somehow.

'The cunning creature had found his hints: but the corpse-sweet flowers stretched on, and on... Where among them would he find what he sought?'

It fell silent.

The answer was, though East did not yet know it, "off near the cave wall." The flowers stretched on and on, always similar but never identical. Some were indeed a little rounder, or slightly creamy in color. But eventually East would stumble upon a bobbing field of more sickly, wax-like flowers, ones that held a strange odor to them. Given the warnings in the book it might be unwise to draw too close, and yet... there was something visible, something lumpy in the dirt in the center of the patch.

East would need to decide carefully how to proceed.

@East

The mention of filth in the library had Bentley laughing, childlike, in amusement. The mental image was awful, of course, but that just made it funnier, and he pranced along with bright eyes and lolling tongue as he pictured it. He eventually sobered, gaze sliding to East as he considered what the bird had said about his home.

"Do they do that a lot..?" he asked, concerned. And then, hushed to the point of near-whisper, he explained what he was asking--"...Screaming?"

That sounded horrible. If that were the case he wanted to know why, and maybe if there was anything he could do to help. The flower was only a minor distraction, and even as he padded forward the voice spoke out around them.

Bentley jolted back, ears flopping and eyes wide. A sharp, startled 'boof!' escaped his jaws before he could stop it, and then he was swinging his head wildly around to stare off into every corner of Cepheus, trying and failing to pinpoint the Narrator's source.

Any joke in East's previous statement refused to make itself more apparent in an attempt to assuage Bentley's concerns. In fact, the low mutter of "not if they're careful" which followed, accompanied by a morose lifting of shoulders that sunk his head further into feathers, likely only served to illustrate whatever grim picture the canine had conceived of his living situation. Whether or not elaboration might have come, if he even bothered to share more beyond vague talk of emptiness and horrors, would remain a personal mystery between these two however.

It seemed the Narrator had decided at last that a significant narrative moment had been reached.

Far too used to these interjections by now to be rattled as his companion was, East tilted his beak to the ceiling, a knowing exhale leaving it as he adopted his stance customary when engaging with the invisible observer. To those outside of the loop, unaware of who had barged into the pair's conversation, the bird must've looked like he had abandoned reason somewhere high in the clouds when he began speaking to the air.

"Ah, I was wondering when you'd chirp in. Feeling under the weather?" he quipped upon noticing a discrepancy in the usual smooth vocals addressing him. "Don't strain yourself on my account. You may be sweet on me, but I'll survive just fine without my standard dose of hero worship, thank you very much."

Despite the ribbing given, the message had been received: his feet were on the trail, and all he needed to do was stick to it. Although, unknown to him, there still would be much distance to be covered before finding what he sought, the flower under scrutiny at present was abandoned in favor of plowing farther into the field. A sea of stems swallowing him, eventually just a chunk of smoky quartz bobbed over white petals; the gemstone hat turned then to regard Bentley.

"Right, I didn't mention my admirer over—well, I don't know where. Believe it or not, they come as a package deal with the book. I don't recommend searching too hard for them unless you like having eye strain. If there's a trophy for hiding, they've won it."

@Bentley

CRIME NOIR

THE FLOWERS

The Narrator fell silent for the moment; if there was some response it had to East's words, it did not voice it.

As East pressed forward into the flowers, vanishing into their corpse-stink (assuming the bird could even smell it), their effects became apparent almost at once. The world's colors bled together, the shadows at its edges coalescing into larger things. The mind would grant these visions meaning, finding sense in the senseless shapes, as a dreaming brain might do.

"Our hero presses onward, bravely disregarding warnings of the visions these flowers grant. Will he see his demise or his ascension? Will he see what happened to the one who came before? Will he find the evidence of the crimes he imagines were committed..?"

Silence for a beat, as the maddening pollen threatened to sink East's mind into full visions and hallucinations. "Will he realize that the flowers are at fault, or will he imagine his visions to be true..? Perhaps he will lash out, and end his companion. Or maybe... this is all a clue. Will he see monsters or guides, hints or nightmares..."

Bentley followed East, forging forward chest-deep into the flowers. He sneezed, twice, but he looked uneasy to begin with; all this talk of screaming neighbors, and then this disembodied voice, was proving quite unsettling.

Then the hallucinations: visions and nightmares reaching for him from between the stems of the corpse-smell plants. He yelped and stumbled backward, breaking free of the little sickly garden with a series of alarmed and frightened barks. He forgot East was even there, instead cowering and scrambling away from shadows, going so far as to roll onto his back and snap and snarl at some unseen enemy that he seemed to think was attacking him.

@East

First into the fire, so to speak, and not to mention with a smaller body to be hit by the flowers' mystifying power, for East the sink into the realm of nightmares was not a gradual sink but rather a fall akin to the floor dropping out beneath one's feet. White petals looming on all sides melted like candle wax and the dark spaces between blended with them. Blobs of light merged into behemoths, their great hides peppered by numerous black eyes and granted mouths agape and full of glinting fangs. Moving with the swing of his head as he searched for escape in what seemed a sudden ambush, these imagined predators prowled; the echo of dog barks, distorted by hallucination, served as the earth-shaking tread of their claws upon the ground.

Snarls directed attention to a colorful figure writhing behind the pale band of hunters intent on the taste of hawk. Body made of shadow and blood more than light, dangerous intent gleamed in its golden eyes while jaws bit about, seeking out a bite of flesh in a crazed, less organized manner than the other beasts. Taken aback by the ferocity on display, East stumbled back, halting at the remembrance he could retreat no farther due to being ringed in.

"Ben?"

No way to see him beyond all these aggressors. Best option was to find a route out of here and give Bentley his own opening to safety if he hadn't already sniffed an attack coming and fled. Doing nothing but stand and wait for the monsters to choose who enjoyed bird meat the most was a sure path to death. In fact, a faint whiff clung to him already, sickly sweet and certain as corpses decayed.

"Like corpses, huh?" he muttered. That description hadn't just been grim imagery to fit a cryptic warning after all. The idea emerging out of the haze began pointing out flaws in the reality presented to him: open mouths lacking tongues or foul breath, paws that left no prints where they stepped, and bodies that weren't nearly as whole as he'd once believed them to be. "Need to... reach clearer air."

A flap of wings and East launched himself above the field.

Note: It's supposed to be a roll to shake off the hallucinations. Accidentally phrased it to sound like it was to give in to them. Whoops.

@Bentley

'Ben?' The voice was distant, and served as a thread for his consciousness to grasp onto as he tried to haul himself from this nightmare. 'Ben?' An echo. 'BEN?' -It came with each heartbeat, his name roaring in his ears, over and over until it felt as though some unseen being loomed over him and bellowed at him with violent intent. BEN! BEN! BEN! BEN!

Bentley whimpered and cried out, scrambling away, but he only managed to work himself deeper into the plants. There he scrabbled on the ground, falling over again and again, unable to really hold himself upright.