TRIAL OF HYDRA - DARKNESS

ROUND 1 - INTRODUCTION

He woke those who slumbered with a sweep of one robed arm. One by one their chrysalises cracked and spilled them free; and as a whole he led them, as if in a spell, through Canis toward Tunnel P. One--a tiger--tried to break and run. A blink and one might have missed it, the Merchant vanishing, reappearing beside the flash of striped pelt, the tiger collapsing, a sudden spill of oil across the rock and nothing more remaining. Fleeing was unwise. The Masked Merchant kept on as if nothing had happened, as if he himself had not raised them and that cat from children; and these he took to Hydra's entrance, to join the rest of them who had gathered.

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The yawning mouth of hydra was blistering heat and blinding light, with scattered sand sweeping in from time to time. To one side, Master Vargas waited, at his feet a pile of Baubled items: cloaks and pendants, collars and rings, stones, and more.

The Masked Merchant stepped past him, and the waiting Gembound, and toed the line of Hydra. From his cloak he drew forth a frost-slicked black gemstone, perhaps a foot tall, and this he held up toward Hydra's light. A quiet crack, and smoke began to seep forth, and out over the sands. The Merchant spoke, then, his voice rasping and breathy. "You gather... for another trial... to prove yourselves. Your goal... is to survive. To do this... you must find... the torches... and light them... to guide your way." The crystal he had held had dissolved, now, into nothing, and in Hydra, the light began to fade.

Blinding light fell away into dim dusk, which dropped, over the ticking seconds, into darkness. The winds fell gradually still. The heat seemed leached away, a strange and unnatural cold emanating from the cave, frosting the sides of the tunnel. For a moment, in the distance--along the ridges of the Dunes, and out through the Marshes--the Gembound could see figures in strange silhouette: tall, dark, and distorted; somehow wrong in their shape. Yet before anything clear could be made out, the darkness had become complete: a total, pitch blackness engulfing Hydra. It was so still and cold that every shuffle, every breath, seemed deafening; even Tunnel P was dark, so that the pile of baubled items, and the few glowing eyes here and there, were the only light provided.

"Take... a light. And take... this." A twist of one hand, and a large, phosphorescent blue-green wisp appeared. It cast a pool of light in the area beneath it. "This will... guide you... to the first lantern," the Merchant explained; "The creature... which hunts... consumes the light. Now go... and prove yourselves."

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Thus begins the third Trial of Hydra: "Darkness." Gembound may use this round to prepare, to investigate their surroundings, or whatever else they see fit. The Trial will begin in earnest next round. Gembound may take any Baubled item they wish from the pile and take it with them into the Trial. If characters investigate the light, will find that the more light sources are spread apart, the dimmer they become: if several lights are all together, the single pool of light is strong, but split apart each light shrinks, and shrinks... as if only so much light can be present at once in Hydra. As if something is darkening it.

@Pumpkin @Owlface @Orenstein @Rainstorm @Kini-yolotl @Simon @Styx (Mango, Hera) @Morganite @Charles @Puck (Usingizi, Quartz) @Nassir (Howl, Elyon) @Warrior (Black, Fireheart) @Sora @Ifrit

Once-Overseer, Now-Master, waited.

There was, to those who knew him, a distinct unease; he did not sit with his usual confidence, but rather a tenseness to him.

It would be a good trial, a hard one, certainly--but the risk of this thing's escape was great, and even with his newfound powers he was unsure that he could contain it if it did break free. If they made too many mistakes-...

He'd barred Orthoclase-Alpha from going anywhere near this trial. Death was almost an inevitability here. This was a feeding, more than a test, though these poor fools didn't know it yet. He looked them over, quiet.

Survival was paramount; it always had been, for Vargas. Fairness hardly factored in. And yet... And yet, did they even have a chance, here?

"We will be watching," was all he told them, gruff.

But that was a lie, wasn't it? Once they were gone, beyond the dim splashes of light here, they would be swallowed by the darkness. And Vargas doubted he'd ever be seeing any of them again.

When Rainstorm arrived to the cave of Hydra, not knowing how dangerous the place exactly was. Though it was clear when the area was bathed in darkness, they couldn't see a thing. Rainstorm liked to call themselves fearless, and they were, but not being able to see made their feathers ruffle and their feet carefully move forward through the place. Tapping down, feeling if there was anything in front of them before continuing each time. Though they were only able to feel the sand under their claws.

Sand wasn't fun for the bird to walk on, though they couldn't find their way back. There was nothing when they looked behind them. That was terrifying. But the bird carried on. They kept moving through the darkness though it seemed to go on forever, until there was a voice and some light coming from one area. Torches? They had to find torches? What was a trial? It sounded extremely dangerous - but the bird couldn't leave now. They would listen, watch, and then keep going. They ignored the wisp for now. That would come later - the guide. Guide them to the first lantern.

The first thing the bird did, was go to the place that did provide some light. Many glowing items littered the place - Rainstorm wanted to take one. So they did. A ring, that glowed faintly, though enough for them to hardly see anything. It fit around their neck, though not choking the bright blue bird. This would do, for now. Surely the lantern would emit enough light so they could find it? And then there was the wisp.

Rainstorm should have had half the mind to question what was going on - but they were more curious than anything. Even if it meant facing their death, there was no way to turn back now, the darkness was too strong for them to see anything within. They wondered if anyone else would show - or if it would just be them finding this lantern to restore the light.

Puck arrived in tunnel P shortly, gazing at the entrance to Hydra with batting eyes. His attention for the phoenix trio had been short lived. Yet long enough to inconvenience any who thought he'd help. He'd left soon as he'd heard of escapades elsewhere. The eerie crystal, and the subsequent darkening of Hydra should have given Puck pause. Fear. Any reaction other than the one he showed. The curiosity of the young. One not yet fully aware of the horrors of the caves.

They took a few, cautious steps towards the entrance, giving the Masked Merchant a sidelong glance. Puck wondered what was out there. What was in that dark crystal. Then, the tunnel darkened. He realized all the greaters here could not see either. Could be scared, even. Within the darkness, no one could see that Puck grinned. Puck could scare the others. If Puck could catch the darkness, Puck could take it for himself! Make other caves go dark, and scare the gembound there. "Puck will do," He said. Puck turned his attention "Puck is not scared of the dark like silly lessers."

Puck's eyes widened as he gazed at the various items, all softly glowing. His paws sifted through the various items. And then, they stopped on a ratty gold cloak, shimmering softly. Unaware of how to use a cloak, the monkey tied it to the base of a horn. Puck's tail wagged like a cats as he took in the remaining items. And then, dragged as many as he could away, using his body as a shield against Vargas' radioactive eyes. As if line of sight alone would cause Vargas to forget about the items.

A glowing bracelet, Puck slid down his tail. A pair of gems in each paw, and one in the mouth glowing faintly. The fact there were no immediate repercussions had Puck feeling Sneaky and Devious. As if he had outsmarted or out-sped Vargas. Puck darted off, eyes on the blue green wisp. Hands and mouth full, Puck still attempted to grab at it, hands passing through. Consumed with the idea his greed had angered either Vargas or the Masked Merchant, Puck was tickled.

Usingizi didn't know why she was here. But she knew she didn't want to be here. She came from Canis. A decently warm cavern, filled with water and bones, and followed the tunnel, expecting the sand to lead her to more water. As sand normally did. But not this sand. It just grew hotter. There was no scent of water at the end of this tunnel. Each direction smelled the same to her. Dust and heat clouded her tongue.This place was hot. So much hotter than Cetus. It burned her belly scales no matter where she slithered. She spotted the Masked Merchant, and was almost relieved to see another here. She could ask them how to leave the cave.

"Excuse me," she began, and then ended, words taken by the darkening sky. She almost felt a tinge of relief. The dark meant that soon the burning would stop. And it was. Quickly replaced by a strange chill But she saw something out there. Beings out there. Bodies strange in a way she couldn't place. Usingizi tilted her head, trying to get a better look. Discern what was so...so strange about them.

The dark engulfed the cavern before she even finished turning her head. She expected her eye to adjust, so that she could see them once again. But as she waited, the adjustment never came. The cave and the tunnel stayed this unnatural void. Did they live in that cave? Maybe she could ask them the way out. She flicked out her tongue, tasting the air. Trying to glean some bit of information, some explanation. The only thing she could process was that it was cold. Having no sense of direction, no way to figure out the way back, she ceded. "I will participate." She said softly.

If only to find a way out. Perhaps those out there would know. She slithered her way to Vargas, or rather to the pile beneath him. A long tube of scratchy, glittering pink fabric caught her attention, and she nosed her way into it, and stuck her head out the other. It gave her some comfort. Like sleeping in a log, or an abandoned lesser burrow. Cozy and warm. It would keep her belly from the sand, whenever it decided to heat up once more.

"Who..." She paused, trying to find the words. "Are gembound out there? I saw..." She trailed off. Usingizi didn't know how to explain what she saw. Would anyone believe her? She retreated, sticking only the tip of her nose from her tube of wool. She concentrated her magicka, summoning a decent sized banana. It bounced off her nose, and she flicked her tongue out, tracking it by scent. She opened her jaws, and began the process of pulling it down. She swallowed the relative morsel with little struggle. Spots on her head began to sparkle, flowing down the rest of her body in a wave. Soon the anaconda became a white and green disco ball.

Alpha'd gone around the caves and spread the word of this Trial - even if it'd been barred from participating entirely. Hydra wasn't a proving ground, not this time.

The orthoclase padded up to Vargas's side, sitting a smidge further from him than it usually did. He was tense, and it was cautious as a result. It glanced up and down at his vague silhouette in the darkness, then the Gembound as they picked through the trinkets and baubles. There was barely a shuffling of claws and quills as it settled to track their faces and the vague outlines of their figures.

If the light returned - and there was no incident - it wanted to see which of them emerged from Hydra.

Its eyes widened, seeing its mother stroll up and take something; she was armed with a new-looking, freshly-sharpened halberd and sturdy-looking shield (though the top seemed to have a two slats in the top for no apparent reason.) Quills pricked, stiffening entirely on its neck and refusing to go down.

Why are you here? It'd purposely not gone to Monoceros - for the conscious reason of dragons, of course, but also...

Alpha swallowed, biting down the urge to voice its question and distracted itself with cataloging the rest of the faces, minus hers.
Don't mind Alpha on the sidelines...

Ru had heard of a trial, another time to test their strength. Ru wanted to prove to the masters that the previous had been a fluke. To gain favor in their eyes again. The last trial had been a show of embarrassment for them. Ru would not be a failed champion. They had hatched from their chrysalis a pair of cycles ago. Left to wonder, in horror, when the masters would come for them.

They had sat in the same spot each day, waiting. No masters showed up. Either to punish them, or force them to endure another trial. They feared that they had been abandoned as a champion. But Ru would prove themselves, even if the masters had given up hope. They waited at the entrance. They spared a glance at the trinkets beneath Vargas. Rewards, perhaps?

Ru's eyes passed over the gembound gathered. None were particularly large, or looked prime to survive. No repeats of Asimona. No fellow champions. All fresh. Ru flexed the scorpion tail at their back. At last, the Masked Merchant arrived. A strange black crystal in hand, and young looking gems behind him. Ru watched, curious, as the Merchant raised the strange, black crystal to the sky. Ru squinted. The crystal began to dissipate And as Ru watched the sky darken, their heart sank. The sudden darkness, the chills. Seeing Hydra like this dredged up memories. Conversations and overheard whispers from a pair of champions long gone. Old even for Ru's standards.

Ru gasped. They shifted on their hooves, fighting off the urge to flee. They would have given anything to not arrive at this Trial. What were the odds. Did they dislike Ru so? This was their just desserts. Their punishment for their performance. These other gembound it pitied. Clearly new. Unprepared for this. They wanted to protest. To flee. All bad in the eyes of the masters. Instead, their muzzle a tight line, Ru walked towards the pile of baubles, and took one.

A ring of metal, with a pale, glowing banner that trailed. Ru stuck their tail through it. Ru would at least leave an impact. At least it could give those here some small comfort, before their own time came too. "Stick together." Ru said, preparing a spell. Their words felt like a hollow bit of advice.

Something unusual had been skirting the marshes in the last few days. He'd smelled it, through flared nostrils, and he'd seen--in the distance--the Masked Merchant's unwelcome shape out there once or twice. He'd been lingering, then, rather closer than usual to Tunnel P, after having warned every Hydra dweller he could find to sit tight... that another Trial might be underway.

When the darkness fell, he'd reached out his senses. Seen the heartbeats, far in the distance. Raced here, his white form at first bright in Hydra's blinding light and then, as time crept on, ghostly in its falling dark. Tail like a banner, mane like a flag, he'd rushed past black silhouettes--deformed, distorted, surreal--that had vanished when he'd turned to look at them. The most worrying part was clear: they had no heartbeats. Alarm had spurred him onward until he skidded to a dust-plume halt just outside the tunnel mouth.

Oh... oh no. A whole crowd of them, clustered there, the Merchant and that Vargas beast overseeing them, again. Horrific memories clamored at his mind and he winced, prancing back.

"Again-?" he cried, in disbelief; "You're coming here again? After last time? Stay away. Don't come here. You make it terrible, and dangerous; you don't need to hurt yourselves!"

There was something about some of them that suggested that they would not listen. That they might not have a choice. And Warrior was loathe to dart back into the sudden inky midnight behind him alone. After a few moments watching them, he exhaled a sharp breath through his nostrils and decided to do his best to guide them, for now. He had only caught the tail end of it--the 'lanterns' and what have you--but he knew his way through Hydra. Maybe... at least a little, he could help.

The lights--those might be worthwhile. He had no abilities with lights. So he leaned down over the baubled items, a soft muzzle overturning a couple to clink and clatter down the pile, and then picked up a small band around his horn. It took some maneuvering to settle it in place but when he'd managed, he had light. It was right in that blind spot before him, too, or it might've even been blinding. "I'll do my best to help you all," he offered, "But you really shouldn't be here."

A moment's pause, and he realized--with rising horror--that he didn't recognize a single one of them. What had happened to the rest..?

horse stock: colourize-stock.deviantart.com

The Black Dog arrived in slow and measured strides, not far behind the Merchant. He listened, silent, the tall black halberd clutched in one hand, the black cloak draped about him. Its hood did little to hide his scarred and blinded eye, or the blue one that stared, fixedly, at the various creatures present. The whispers and the creeping black smoke that drifted with him did little to actually hide him, either, instead marking him as distinctly different from the rest.

At the Masked Merchant. At Vargas, and the Orthoclase. And at the others. When the Merchant had finished speaking, the corruption gripping Black twisted up around him. His vision went dark and for a single, painful moment it felt as though something was trying to prise his fingers from the halberd's haft; he gripped on and disregarded it as best he could. The whispers trickled into his mind, as they always did. They were warning him of danger, urging him to go into Hydra, promising dark rewards and, in the case of one voice, a meaty bone to gnaw on. He half-consciously tried to pick what made sense from what did not (for example, a whisper directing him to drive his spear into Vargas' eye, or another insisting that the rock tunnel walls were quite edible and tasted of meat). As he did so, the rest of his mind lurched through what brainpower remained in an attempt to make sense of this situation.

"There is a trial," he concluded, at last--which, he now remembered, was why he was here, why he'd come here. "The darkness comes. The Dog will bring his own," he went on, his single good eye drifting to the tunnel mouth as his vision slowly swam back from black. He felt certain that if shadows were the threat, that he was most equipped to protect them all; "The Black Dog is Void," he "explained."

He'd been told (in some detail, after he'd questioned it a great deal) about the Trial. Fools, in his mind, but some of them (from what he'd been told, too) had little choice but to attend. To win their survival, and perhaps their very freedom.

That was why he was here. From what he'd gathered after questioning others, only a handful had died ("only," but it was what it was) in the previous two that other Gembound knew of, and only through a slew of both bad luck and a lack of skill. He himself had proven more than powerful with his flame, and so he had come to try and lend protection. If he was to be one of the guardians of the Seven, he may as well start to live up to that title, after all. He knew that Nassir was coming, too--a leopard he'd only met once--but he didn't know the cat well enough to guess whether he might be useful in combat, or as a mender, or whatever the case may be.

Flameglow eyes roamed over those present as he assessed them each in turn. The Merchant--something other, something wrong, as the 'black dog' was; cloaked in black cloth and in some magic, he felt, alien to him. Vargas and Orthoclase-Alpha, both equally alien, in his eyes. And a scattering of average-looking creatures--some distinctly... tall, he noted (staring up at Ifrit) and others smaller, individually appearing nervous or pleasant or oblivious to their potential fates.

This will not be easy, he thought to himself, and struggled to come up with a plan. He'd need to keep a light, first and foremost--two, in fact, if they were on offer; and so Fireheart stepped to the pile of baubled offerings and picked a loose, light chain, some form of jewelry (he thought) that he tilted up with his snout. He let it fall over his thickly-furred neck, and then stepped back, focusing on his magicka. A wisp flared up beside him, and rose, bobbing close by--and he noted that rather than phosphorescent in hue, it was now a brilliant ember-glow. Interesting. But he had little time to think about it.

Next, he'd have to choose where to walk. It would likely be best for them to travel together, he knew, but should he lead-? No; he didn't know Hydra at all. Let the horse (he thought) or someone else familiar lead them. He could, perhaps, take the rearguard, or simply walk alongside. Or, if at the center, he could reach everyone easily enough--and his light would be more useful, there; but he might get boxed in and prevented from acting quickly, if needed.

A flank, then. He'd take a flank. Fireheart wound his way up through the rest and peered out into Hydra, wondering what had brought this dark.