It was not the first time storms in Fornax had brought upheaval--had brought long-forgotten things roiling to the surface, drifting gently to the shore. Whether sinister memories of an unknown age, or mysterious clues to a puzzle as-yet unknown, Fornax's blackest depths still bore their secrets.

A fierce storm raged through the Great Furnace. Surging breakers roared over the islands, wholly submerging them. Thunder crashed, and lightning flared in blinding flashes through the dark. Rain poured down in torrents.

When the storm cleared, come morning--when the water receded, and rain-soaked peace again reigned--the seas had again left strange gifts.

A small piece of stone, worn slick, etched with strange markings. A length of black chain, snapped at once end, lay washed up some distance away. And several strange, bloated-looking purple fish with one large eye apiece lay dead along the shoreline.

How strange...

It'd been a good while since he visited fornax, he doesnt think he has for several cycles. he'd of course heard of the strange happenings in fornax in passing, mostly from other gembound, though when he caught word of the massive storm, he HAD to come see it for himself.

padding closer to the shoreline, he let out a slight gasp as he looked at the stuff on the beach, immediately wanting to of course touch everything, examining the fish and the stone. he looked at the chain, but paid no mind, he already had some of his own.

In his travels, Daryl finally comes to Fornax, it's his first time and there's a lot to take in. He wastes no time looking around and exploring carefully, his treasure in his mouth the whole time.

As he explores the area he comes to a shoreline, littered with rocks, some more strange than others, and a long black thing, but his eyes catch sight of several somethings large and brightly colored and he carries his treasure, clutched tightly in his jaws, towards one of the things.

It has one eye and that unsettles him, but he doesn't let his guard down and carefully, slowly, sniffs at it.

Just remember, darling, all the while. You belong to me.

~ ~
~ Idiot who said it

At some point she had noticed the ground was beginning to rise, gradual at first she supposed but she hadn't noticed it then. Only when she could see the incline on her ankles and the way her breaths were coming out in pants as she galloped around did she realise that wherever she was going was not the same place she had been.

Sounds of anger had reached her ears as the cub leant against a wall trying to catch her breath, great, thunderous roars and brighter flashes than she had ever seen before. In her folly of wanting answers she had edged herself to the cave's entrance, eyes wide with wonder as she watched the fierce weather. Pelt becoming drenched as she stood there, reclining down to a lying position with legs over her head as she waited out the storm outside the cave. Only when it was over - she had fallen asleep out there so woke up only when the quiet was more startling than the thunder - did she dare to venture inside. She was not used to the heat, her body telling her in its great pants that she was supposed to be somewhere colder.

The land was strange, so much water that was much larger than she, the cub was even unsure if she could swim or not. Which was not helpful when she was still quite wet from the stray rain that found her in her wait outside and her paws, naturally splayed so found balance everywhere, could feel the horrible texture of wet ground sticking to fur.

Her eyes though, as usual, could not focus nor settle upon one thing. Moving from walls to rocks to water to something moving. A large thing moving. She was not sure what she was looking at, her mind quite unable to process almost everything about it. It took a miniscule of a second for her to realise strange was interesting and had to be known. The cub ran towards the other gembound, stopping every now and then to shake herself before starting her run again. Only when she got closer did she notice he was looking at things, very weird things thrown on the ground as by a spoilt child, discarded and unwanted. But she wanted. There was someone else too, looking amongst the things. She watched as they focused on the stone and whatever the one eyed thing was, completely ignoring the chain which made it all the more fascinating to her. With no need to speak to them the cub edged around the strange things and towards the black chain, pouncing on it and covering it with her body as if she could hide it from everyone else. "Mine now." In her excitement to claim the chain, her head flicking between everyone to make sure they don't come too close, she felt something flare in her chest - of which she merely put down to glee at owning something - reaching out with inexperienced ghost fingers, whether from her mind or heart she could not place, to the chain she had flopped upon.

In her time spent in the ocean with Orarian, Glaive'd learned many things — the most relevant of those things was that she adored storms. While she wasn't capable of staying underwater indefinitely, the surging breakers and currents made for difficult swimming. It was a challenge she often didn't have the chance to engage in. On another positive hand, typhoons typically stirred up Fornax; they dredged up food for the surface-feeding fish, shifted the ocean floor around (revealing rocks she hadn't been able to get to before!) and cast a myriad of strange objects onto the shore.

The whelp bobbed to the surface with crocodilian ease, drifting along with little but her nose, crest, eyes, and sail visible. She cut through the (temporary, at least) straits, propelling herself along with a whip of her tail and push off a drowned island. Magicka reached out idly as she fixated on the crowd on this stretch of shoreline. All Gembound!

Glaive scanned them another time as she heaved out of the shallows and into the open air. Her figure was still very pudgy, but some of that stored fat was starting to contribute to quite a growth spurt and helping to bulk her legs out. Snout lengthening, too, the spinosaurus gravitated right for the oddly bloated fish — everyone else was preoccupied with other trinkets.

Right before leaning down to take a bite out of it, she remembered: manners. It was dead-silent as far as conversation and she suddenly couldn't take it anymore. Communicate! Talk! Glaive lifted her head and crowed, "my name is Glaive — it rhymes with Cave! — welcome to the Ocean! Usually, nobody comes here after it storms." Nice conversational hook.

She dove right into one of the fish, then, using spear-like teeth to tear off a hunk of flesh. They'd likely been dead for a while, but free deep-sea fish was free deep-sea fish.

Haven had come here seeking the warm heat that radiated from the tunnel. Being cold-blooded, the warmth was something she sought out to regulate her temperature, she'd unfortunately been on the cold side since hatching, so the notion of possible danger was outweighed by the temptation of comfort.

But she wasn't so dumb as to leave her companion behind, of course.

Haven swooped through the air, noting the warm bodies below as she circled above, riding the warm updrafts from below as she waited for her companion to join her.

"Electrum,", she called out behind her, "What are they all doing?"

She aimed her head down, noting the vague shapes on the shore, and the people below flocking to them like birds to seed. She couldn't see the treasure as they could, and so merely thought of them as items of vague importance, judging by how many were trying to take one for themselves.

@Electrum

Effluvium was not there for the storm. No, it had come after. Drawn by the scent of food. Of fish. It had dragged its mass of flesh from Cetus to Fornax. It did not care for much but the smell of food. New, rotting mass to add to its own. Its eyes spotted the fish, and it broke out into a charge. It ignored the other creatures and items. Save for a baring of teeth at those also investigating the fish.

"Mine!" The juvenile horror roared at them. It snapped up a fish in its' jaws, and made to grab another.

He'd been forced to leave--to shoulder his way from the cave exit (and, with a suspicious glance at it, past a sleeping snow leopard cub). And there he'd waited, leaned against the wall, the scraps of cave deer pelt he'd used as a belt and waistguard hanging dampened by storm. His makeshift spear he shifted to and fro in one massive hand, uncertainly.

And then, the storm had cleared.

Sergei had returned to Fornax about when the rage had reduced to a drizzle; now, it was clear, pale, and other Gembound--drawn, perhaps, by the sounds of the storm--were filtering in. For his part, Sergei avoided them. He thought he'd seen the lizard-thing once or twice--the one that toddled around with its long snout and weird fins--from a distance. The rest were strangers to him, and he stayed away from all of them, unpleasant memories lingering; but he didn't entirely leave them, either. Small, dark eyes watched from beneath suspiciously-drawn brow, but he was here alone for so often, and so long, that (though it made him uncomfortable) the company was novel.

The spear came down, eventually, to testingly impale one of the strange, dead fish; to lift it up, so that he could prod his claws at it in some confusion. Then, he took a bite.

What was this thing, and where had it come from-? Sergei lived here, and he'd never seen anything like it.

Sniffing and eating things that had washed up on Fornax's shores after a storm had never proven wise in the past. Shengxiao and Daryl would find themselves, after a few moments, a little woozy; synesthesia would occur. They might feel sounds, or smell their sights; their senses' input would get a little... mixed up, lasting at most a few moments.

Those who ate the fish--for now, Sergei, Glaive and Effluvium--would find the effects a little more intense: powerful, brightly-colored, psychadelic hallucinations. They would not necessarily be unpleasant, but they would be strong, lasting several minutes and likely proving confusing, at best. The fish flesh itself was white, beneath the purple scales; a sharp, aged taste to it, but like the hallucinations, not necessarily an unpleasant one. The fish proved rather bony, though, with dozens of hooked, long, thin teeth in their mouths.

Akaari, however, would have a different experience than the rest. The touch of her possessive belly across the chain, the brief spark of magicka she provided, granted a vision into her mind. It was as though she fell away, sinking beneath the shore and down into Fornax's ocean, color fading until she was lost deep beneath its lightless depths. All around her she would see structures: alien things, monumental and angular. Pillars and spires, labyrinthine in their construction, lay all around her in the quiet dark: and light, violet in places and in others a bright and toxic green, flashed and flared across sigils etched into their surfaces, providing the only light to see this city--which stretched as far as the eye could see. She was some sort of beast, now: a vast, serpent-like fish, held in place by several long black chains bolted to several of these pillars. Purple, one-eyed fish schooled past in the darkness, and those eyes glowed green as they glanced her way. "This one is potent," came a voice, deep and gurgling, just behind her--and Akaari would know that they were discussing her, the fish-creature, her long black body writhing against its captivity. And then, the vision faded.

Who knew what the other objects might show, in turn, should she try it-?

@Shengxiao @Daryl @Akaari @Glaive @Haven @Effluvium

He froze as his senses were jumbled, seemingly going into auto-pilot, brief fractions of forgotten memories and feelings shoving their way into his mind in an instant, wobbling as he struggled to understand what was going on. he backed away from the objects almost in fear, eyes blank, whining in protest as he hid his muzzle under his hands. "oh, oh i don't like that.."