V-Chaos-Two entered Leo, expecting a raging volcano and a mighty forge, and was pleasantly surprised to find sand under their feet. They walked forward and sniffed, smelling the sea and hearing the water lap against the shore.

"... This is Leo, right?", they asked softly, dragging a hand through the white sand and feeling it fall through their fingers.

They trotted forward through the said, and approached the water, leaning on their staff as they felt it lap over their hooves. Weird... it was so nice. From the vague picture they could see, it certainly wasn't the awesome forge he'd originally pictured.

"I believe the volcano is that way," they said, pointing up towards the glowing mountain in the distance.

Sigh, hiking. Their worst enemy. At least they had Alpha to carry them should their legs give out, which would be horribly embarrassing.

"Sentinel," they said, "Come."

They relied on their sighted companions a bit more than they wanted to, but with the cliffs being the first obstacle to overcome, they'd need all the help they could get. At least, if Alpha complied.

@Orthoclase-Alpha @The Sentinel

He was some six feet tall, now--half-grown and incredibly gangly, and showing no signs of growing out of this. Like Chaos-Two, the Sentinel half-hobbled, because he--for whatever reason--mostly refrained from the quadrupedal gait that might have come more comfortably. He insisted, too, on carrying the oversized, cursed polearm that had belonged to his stonegiver; maybe this was why he walked upright. He never explained, and hadn't been asked, but at least from up here he had a good view of his surroundings.

And, to most Gembound, they'd have been incredible surroundings, indeed: the white sands of the shore meeting the glittering surf, the islands rising in fog ahead beneath the cries of the wheeling seabirds. The Sentinel looked distinctly out of place, here: a black vertical streak to mar a bright, pleasant landscape; yet somehow he seemed to fit, too, as if every nice place needed its creepy hidden underbelly. As it was, however, he spoke nothing of it. He simply observed the landscape in silence, ghostly blue eyes travelling over it.

Chaos-Two's question set one ear to jerking toward him, and the Sentinel eyed his guardian sidelong. This, he calculated, was a question for Orthoclase-Alpha, and not for him, and he looked back ahead in silence. One hand settled the butt of his weapon's haft against the sand, and he leaned some weight down its length. The weapon towered over him by some three feet, but he didn't seem to mind. He just stood there, in silence, as yet offering... nothing to the conversation. He was here to watch, and learn; and he'd do just that.

"Yes," the orthoclase'd responded blandly. Dull eyes flickered around the place, quills prickling in faint anticipation. Its knowledge of this room was cursory at best; when the Forge was making its move, Alpha had not bothered to commit it to memory. A vague description was all it could've offered of the place: white sand, some big mountain, and a lot of water. The very picture of paradise, but so wrong in the same way that Pegasus was: unfamiliar.

Yet, having thrown itself into these circumstances without quantifiable reason, Alpha barely acted on it. It peered off in the direction of the undergrowth, and then the sky, but found nothing worth adopting a fighting stance for—not even the large, dragon-shaped silhouette gliding over the open water. The tension did not leave its shoulders.

At least the sand beneath its feet was somewhat familiar.

It was not the burning, callous-forming kind, though.

The Sentinel was there, too, on some business the Overseer had already forgotten (why am I forgetting—) and hobbling along in stride, clinging to that halberd. Alpha couldn't stand looking in its direction, and instead refocused its sights on the open water.

At Chaos-Two's pointing, it jerked away and stared up at the mountain.

In the interest of making this quick, the monstrous hybrid took the lead with another dry answer, "yes. Follow." The other two might face trouble with the nearing sheer cliffs, but at least it wouldn't have to be walking along after two of them. Chaos-Two did their best, but they were still blind and slow-walking, and uncertain in these new surroundings. At least they could follow nearer shapes better.

Without waiting for much of an answer, Alpha started to shove its way through the undergrowth, stomping and clawing down a path for itself and its followers. Right to the point, tunnel-visioned on one objective and not feeling much else.

... yeah, that's the current state of mind.

@V-Chaos-One

V-Chaos-Two lingered on the waters, wanting to dip their hooves into it at least once, but they had work to do. This was a business trip, not a vacation.

They turned back to Alpha and got going, their ears perked up and attentive, listening to various birds fly overhead, feeling things crawling under the sand, shells crumbling under his hooves. It was nice, here, and they suspected that it would be enjoyable to spend time just relaxing under the warm lights above, the ocean lapping at the shore with a soft bed of sand beneath them.

They made after Alpha, making sure Sentinel kept close, tempted to just plop the creature on their shoulders and carry both his own staff and the halberd like hiking sticks. They could make good time if they pushed themselves early while the pain didn't burn so badly in their joints.

Their eyebrows raised after a moment, a flicker appearing in their mind. They had the perfect idea.

"Overseer," he said, "We'll meet you at the top of the cliffs, Sentinel and I. I have a shortcut."

Chaos-Two picked up Sentinel by the armpits, their staff held in their jaws. Golden wings spread from their back and armor appeared on their head, shoulders, arms, and legs. They looked mystical as they took to the air, wings flapping hard to get both them and their charge up onto the top of the cliff, the greatest obstacle to overcome.

They landed gently and set Sentinel down, their wings folding up and disappearing. They shook themselves out and snorted, lowering their staff and leaning on it again.

"Hm. I've never had to wait before," they said, "Normally I'm the one trying to keep up."

@The Sentinel @Orthoclase-Alpha
Note: got perm from Dark to pick up Sentinel

The grip on his arms was solid, and his own grip tightened around the halberd in his hand. The magic of Chaos-Two interested him, however. It was golden--beautiful, though the Sentinel had little more than passing interest in the aesthetic wonder of it. His was a more practical nature, and through his mind ran a wonder if the cycles of life and death held this sort of magic in their balance.

Could he call upon the same-?

As he was set down, a second pair--blue, wisping, matching his eyes and flickering like fireflies around him--coiled from The Sentinel's back. And though Chaos-Two let him down, he hovered, a foot or two off the ground, silent as he stared at his caretaker.

He had learned something, then, and he spoke nothing of it, simply absorbing the knowledge as his own. He felt instinctively that it was another sort--but the same; from a brother-source to Chaos's own.

"It is good," he told Chaos-Two, at last, and then turned--hovering there, oversized halberd in hand, to watch for the Orthoclase's arrival.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

The orthoclase half-turned over its shoulders to stare indifferently—and found itself briefly blinded by the shimmer of golden feathers and Chaos-Two's departing form. Putrescent green eyes narrowed, watching the figure grow smaller and smaller, before (presumably) alighting somewhere along the cliffs. Incandescent wisps danced along the undergrowth, conjured by its smaller charge.

Alpha huffed indifferently, and set itself to forging a path through the greenery. It didn't trouble itself much with making a trail, now that its shadows were gone; instead, it shoved aside every frond and leaf and let them ricochet back into default position. Anything that would have been tailing it would've been smacked in the face at least a hundred times.

Once at the cliff base, it grumbled softly. Quills rattling in overly exhausted irritation, it hauled itself up a number of footpaths and shelves that ought have been too narrow for it. There were a few near-misses, and some slips down onto another passage, but... well, it made its way up.

It heaved itself the rest of the way up about ten feet away from Chaos-Two and a hovering Sentinel. Toxic eyes fixed on them, and the exertion burning its lungs (too much) was briefly forgotten. A sharp inhale—though it sounded more like a panting wheeze—prefaced its monotone, "wait for an answer before you fly off."

Especially if you were a walking target and essentially blind.

Regardless of that snipe, the Overseer just set its sights back on the mountain, paving a path through the wood with a low, "follow me."

@V-Chaos-Two
so what if it's been nearly a month--

Chaos-Two watched Alpha approach, an ear flicking. Outwardly they looked indifferent, but they were watching (or rather, listening) the Overseer puff, head cocked. Yes, Chaos-Two would be winded after a trek like that, but Alpha shouldn't have been.

Their head cocked and they looked at Sentinel before advancing forward, ears high on their head, "Overseer. Are you ill? If you are then we can simply return another day."

They used their staff to guide their footing, leading with it first before walking after it to ensure there were no obstacles to trip over. As they looked up to the volcano, they realized the walk was going to be a lot harder than they initially anticipated. They'd just have to endure for as long as possible.

Curse their broken body.

@The Sentinel

He looked to Overseer Orthoclase-Alpha. He would not have noticed the wheezing, himself, but now that Chaos-Two had mentioned it, he took note: observing, briefly, the heaving flanks of their Overseer. He said nothing, however, opting instead to voice acknowledgement, obedience, that might have seemed like brown-nosing were it from anyone less practical than he.

"It will ask, in the future," he assured quietly, despite the fact that he hadn't been the one to initially take off.

He set himself down, now, and bent to the task of helping clear a path through the underbrush. He did not quite know where they were going--or, more importantly, the way. And anyway, Orthoclase was mostly barging foliage aside. It was taller than he, longer, but he held a long halberd: he pushed it out and ahead, struggling to keep the branches from thwacking back across either Alpha, or he and Chaos-Two's faces. It was a sort of half-assed machete, at first, but the thought was there, at least. After a moment, though, he seemed to get the hang of it: and Alpha might find the branches skillfully swatted out of its way as it progressed, the foliage smacking back into Sentinel instead of into itself.

Other than that, The Sentinel plodded forward without complaint, obedient to his betters.

@Orthoclase-Alpha

exiting due to inactivity