• Closed • [Creeksong Cavern] Perfection of the Visage

[Pig Boy]

The Mistral Woods was peaceful this time of year, and the creek flowed with a babbling song that carried as far as it emptied into the Zynyx River. It was an idyllic place, where nothing tended to go wrong. But there were stories of the Creeksong Cavern, of a couple that delved into it, only to find Imperfections of the Heart. The spirit of that cavern was said to be defeated, but what might have been left in its wake, that the couple didn't retrieve? They'd found the children they sought and rescued them. Yet there were mysteries yet to unravel in the cavern.

Several individuals were called to the Creeksong Cavern, in the depth of shadow, they heard a voice of warning, At the mouth of Creeksong, there lies a dream of Perfection.

So several were called, and whether they'd be answering that call was entirely in their court. Elowen had heard it in the depths of the forest, along a particularly shaded oak tree, with a large trunk. It called her to a place she knew as Creeksong Cavern.

She too might have heard the stories of Vega and Arlo, from Meira. No doubt altered through the arcs by the retalling and retelling, but Meira had known the stories, and perhaps they spoke eto Elowen then, when called by the shadow to Creeksong Cavern.

!	Message from: Pig Boy
	Heya this is a modded event for Elowen but I thought I'd open it up to two more players. First two extra characters to join are locked in once they post. Please don't message me reserving a spot. I will allow the first two to post (beyond Elowen). No reservations.

[Elowen]

Elowen was walking through the forest listening to the distant bubbling of a stream, knowing she was on the right track. Yet, her mind wasn't entirely paying attention to her surroundings, not in that moment. She was more preoccupied with the happenings of the past few trials and most importantly of just a few bits ago.

It all started slowly just a trial or two after she had successfully fed Pea for the first time. Her voice, without a change, seemed to bounce off surfaces, coming back at her, like words spoken into a bottle or a cave. And that happened in the Woods or her shack. But more concerning was what happened at the oak tree.

It was when Pea burbled above her that Elowen leaned on the trees great trunk and looked up. It was an old inhabitant of the forest with dense crown and many branches. And up there, she saw the sparkling silhouette of the Peaphoenix.

For some reason, Pea was sticking with her. He was still keeping his distance but she was giving him what appeared to be his favourite food and so she guessed that's why he remained.

Her harmless thinking was interrupted when out of the blue, the shadows around the tree spoke to her. Elowen froze, taking her hand off the oak, staring at it. At first she thought that someone else was in the forest. Perhaps some children from the village were playing around and decided to pull a prank on her. She looked around and saw no one, heard no one. She waited a little longer to hear something more. But nothing happened.

At the mouth of Creeksong, there lies a dream of Perfection.

What an odd thing to say. All she was after at Creeksong was Breathing Moss and perhaps some Stormflowers.

She looked ahead through the trees. Pea hopped down a few branches, looking at her with question in his eyes. She looked up at him, frowning.

Elowen did not like the idea of a prank nor the likely unavoidable interaction with other people. But she really needed the herbs. The villagers of Mistral started to seek out remedies and she couldn't possibly help them if her stock was low.

The girl gave one last sweep to her surroundings, steeled herself for whatever was to come and headed to her destination.

She arrived at the cavern bits later. Stormflowers were in full bloom, their purple heads swaying in the gentle breeze. She could smell them all the way and stronger so as she approached. There were so many this season! That in combination with the strange echo she heard earlier brought to mind a story Meira once told her about Vega and Arlo. She was hazy on the details of it but she vaguely recalled that they found something inside or maybe vanquished? Was that the dream of Perfection?

She approached the shadowed opening of the cave and looked around its edges. What would a dream look like to those awake? She spotted the Breathing Moss that grew right on the edge of the entrance and beyond it there were its luminescent siblings. She could have just harvested what she was after and left. Alas, Elowen stood still, staring into the perpetual twilight of the cavern, wondering, trying to remember what Meira told her exactly all those arcs ago.

[Azrael]

31 Ymiden 724

...a dream of Perfection.

Azrael was no stranger to strange voices at odd hours but most of time they weren't inside his head. He would have ignored it if not for that last part. Perfection. Both Syroa and Edasha would slap him silly if he didn't seek out this dream. He had to go. He had to explore. He bid his stone double Zaza goodbye, fearing the adventure might be too dangerous for him and then Azrael armed himself. A shortsword, his spring loaded dagger, and a bow across his back. One quiver of arrows on his hip and the most comfortable shoes he had. He didn't know where he was going, only that he was going. Creeksong Cavern. He'd find it.

As he passed out his cabin on the ship at the base of the Zynyx, intending to tell his crew of spirits where he was going, he found himself transported somewhere else entirely. "Ah!" He turned around but the door he'd passed through was gone. "Darn. That's going to seem rude." He turned around again to get a sense of his surroundings. There was a lot more green than he's seen around most of Rharne, but he spent a lot of his time on a boat or in taverns... and often both.

The Mistral Woods reminded him a lot of Melrath, but only because he'd come to associate Rharne with taverns and the water. Seeing trees was almost nostalgic. After an appropriate amount of reveling in nostalgia, Azrael noticed a path and began to follow it. Hopefully he was going the right direction to find this cavern.

Not long later did he happen upon what he felt must have been the Creeksong Cavern but there was already someone else there. He had one immediate, but fleeting thought. It would be rude if something brought me here just to say she looks better than me. The stranger was just at the edge of the cavern, looking in. She seemed to have been collecting something.

He realized he was armed and probably looked a little threatening, always adorable but threatening all the same. He held up both of his hands to indicate he didn't mean any harm and called out "Hello!"

[Winston]

One wrong turn...

It was one of those trials when there were mysteries around every corner, whether he realised it or not. Winston had been in Rharne now for longer than he'd ever spent there before, traveling back and forth between there and Scalvaris trying to organise his new bars had been a taxing process, but it meant meeting lots of people and exploring the nooks and crannies of Rharne had finally began to result in him finding his feet a little.

Currently he was hoping to find the feet of something he'd been tracking for a little while. Following other things always seemed a good way to get to places he didn't know about. If you followed things that usually didn't like being followed, you were often lead to places you didn't otherwise notice. He was heading in one such direction as the tracked seemed to end at a tree.

Looking up, he suddenly heard a voice calling him. He adjusted his

pack

and ducked back down, turning to see who it was. "Es et me? Ar wus dat voice jost in me 'ead?" He asked

Joe

and

Felicity

.

"What voice" Replied Joe, looking around for the presence of someone else.

"That's a yes then..."

Replied the Wisp from inside his mind

.

"Creeksong Cavern? Wasat?" He asked, to the empty space around him.

"Wiiiinstoooon. What did we say about the voice in your head?" Cautioned the Spirit like a tutoring parent reminding a child of the grave consiquences of doing silly things.

"Yeah-yeah. If it's not you, or Felicity, then it's not a good idea to do everything it says... Bot et's ova dere..." He said, looking over to one side of the tree. "Me cun jost take a peak."

"I hate to say it Winston, but I agree witht he talking head for once. Voices in your head are not to be trusted." Agreed the ghost sagely.

"Pffft, dat's rich commin' fram a voice... inside me 'ead." He chidded playfully, all to aware that they were both right. "Me jost gonna..." he began as some how, against all usual odds, he slipped and began to fall.

It was all he could do to keep hold of his stuff and his lunch as he landed and tumbled to the ground almost at the feet of a woman... Only a short distance from a... a man, in a place that definitely was NOT the place he was a moment before. "Ahhh!" He said... The man had his hands up... Which Winston mimicked in case there was any doubt. "Me surrenda also!... Spookie voice called yuh to de Creeksong Cavern..?" He asked, just in case they were either following the same voice or better yet, were its source.

All template credit, love and admiration goes to Pyrre Ej'qy

[Pig Boy]

The three strangers that gathered at the Creeksong Cavern intersected at that moment in time, meeting there and beckoned by a mysterious voice in their heads. Or perhaps it was from the echoes rebounding off of shadows. Either way, they were called, and in some cases expedited along their way to the place of origin. Elowen might have been alone in being the one who had walked all the way there, from her home in Mistral.

As the three conferred perhaps, and introduced themselves, greeted, whatever they would do, there was little else going on about the cavern. There was of course the glowing lichen, and rich flora that dotted the place. Enticing herbalists and chefs alike with whatever spices and medicinals might lie further in.

Elowen would experience a sense of curiosity beckoning her, from where this feeling came was her guess. It wasn't from herself, but the cavern seemingly, drawing her into the dark of it.

Winston would feel a curiosity all his own, as only he tended to experience. Although this curiosity was unlike the type that spoke to him like a devil on his shoulder. This curiosity beckoned him into the cavernous shadow, as if pulled by an invisible force.

Azrael would feel it as a desire, a wish for something sublime. His mortalborn Domain of Desire resonated strongly to it, almost unbearably so. He knew someone within wanted something, or that something inside was wanted. Either way, he may not need any convincing, even if he had the discipline to resist the pull.

After they were all done dealing with these feelings, and interacting with each other, a strange figure appeared at the mouth of the cavern.

It was a small boy, in plain clothes. His mop of hair was tawny, his eyes blue, and complexion fair. He couldn't have been any older than 10. Perhaps even younger than that. In his small hand, he held a shiny crystal, that had a light of its own, rainbow colored and magnificent. Winston would recognize the prismatic shine of it. It resembled a miragestone, but larger than any miragestone had a right to be. Clutched in the boy's small hand, it appeared stuck to it rather. For a moment, only Winston noticed that for a moment the small hand appeared larger, as if belonging to a man grown. Then it returned to its child-like size and form.

The child spoke out to someone outside the cave, though they could see no one other than theirselves. "You'll see, Uncle! I'll become a great enough wizard, that nobody else need die, or feel pain, or cry!" There were tears in the boy's eyes, however as he said it. "I"ll end all of it!" This said, he ran into the cavern. The light of the crystal followed him, and the group of three might be able to as well, if they wished.

!	Message from: Pig Boy
	Feel free to mingle and greet and react to each other in the first part of your post. You can each have up to two posts in this round where you confer and discuss how to proceed as well as make introductions. Have fun!

[Elowen]

Vega and Arlo. The names came to her suddenly. Two lovers. One foe. Some missing children. It was always just a rumour to Elowen that suddenly infiltrated the walls of the shack. Meira wasn't one for gossip but she did recount to story to her at some point when they were near the Creeksong. As with all information that Elowen wasn't required to know by heart, the story was told to her just once.

Elowen straightened and considered the cavern anew. Regardless about the story, could there be more inside than what she saw along the edges? Perhaps there were other mosses and lichens she could find. Or even a mushroom or two! It was during those musings that she heard the friendly 'hello' behind her.

Her heart jumped and so did she a little. The prank! She thought and looked towards the voice to finally behold whoever was playing a game at her expense. The initial scare turned into fear. Elowen may have been just a fifteen arc old girl who lived all her life in these woods secluded from people, but even she could recognized a grim situation when it presented itself. She had never seen the man before but she knew some of the weapons and none were a good news.

This couldn't have been a prank, then. It was a lure. And she had nowhere else to go but into the cavern.

Just as she took a step back, her foot crossing the boundary of light and dark, she received another 'shock delivery'. An animal fell at her feet. It must have fallen over the precipice at the top of Creeksong! It was a thin bodied collection of fur and things. She had never seen the likes of it. Never heard the likes of it!

What's going on?! She looked from the weasel-like creature to the man. This no longer felt like an organized crime but like a happenstance. Or so she hoped. After all, the man in the woods spoke Common and this talking...whatsits spoke it too. In the Woods, the shadows spoke her language.

Logic slowly crept back in, in the form of a few shaky breaths and a fierce frown. She was holding her satchel strap tight just to mask the shaking she felt from the inside out. She had still found herself in this odd situation and there was still no way out of it.

One task at a time, she told herself, giving another passing look to the two others. Who the heck are these two then? And from the treeline,

Pea

seemed to echo her thoughts and perhaps a pinch of panic that she was still feeling too.

Her mouth twitched, her cheeks flexed as she was working up the courage to speak to strangers, in a tongue she barely understood. "Why you here?" She said at last towards the man and the weasel. But it was a mere whisper as always when speaking to others. Though this time at least, fear made her keep her eyes on them.

[Azrael]

31 Ymiden 724

Azrael tilted his head with more than a little confusion when a talking ferret appeared near the feet of the girl at the edge of the cavern. Stranger and stranger every bit but still totally worth getting up for. Winston talked fast and Azrael nodded when the caudori mentioned a voice calling them to Creeksong Cavern. At least that meant he wasn't crazy. Then again he should have figured that out when he was suddenly pulled into the woods.

The girl seemed frightened which was fair but there was not very much Azrael felt like he could do about that. He kept his hands out so it didn't look like he was going to reach for his weapons and made sure to speak as calmly as possible to answer whatever question the girl had. He really just needed to get past her but figured moving closer would be frightening so he waited where he was. When Elowen asked why they were there, he said "I heard a voice asking me to come here. So... I did. The voice was strange so I have a sword... and a bow." He pointed to each weapon when he said what it was but never brought his hands too close to them. He decided to leave out the part about being teleported off of his boat. He had a feeling it wouldn't help the situation.

"My name is Azrael." He figured introductions would help ease the tension but he couldn't be certain. For the moment he just remained in place a little bit away from the entrance to the cavern.

[Winston]

Hell-yeah! (GONE)

Shuffling a little to sit more comfortably, the ferret smiled pleasantly. He'd spent quite a lot of time perfecting the difference between cute grin and threatening grimace, since most bigguns thought of him as some kind of rodent and so it was with very significant effort he deployed 'cute' to put the girl at ease and avoid encouraging an attack from the man.

"Me? Me jost gat teleparted 'ere me tink... Heard a voice an' gat dis add feelin' about dis 'ere cave." he said, gesturing towards the opening that seemed to be summoning them... Or so he assumed, based on his own experience.

"Me name es Winstaaan. Winstaaaan Milla. Me es an Alchemical Chef. Et's very nice tuh meetcha?" He said, as if to double check he was not on the menu for lunch.

As the man introduced himself, the ferret smiled again and stood, deciding that conversation was happening now and so one could relax a little. Usually, once conversation was going, the charismatic ferret was safe from harm. It was not always the case, but certainly the times that things had always gone the worst, had always been before they got the chance to succumb to his charm. "Oh! Cool! Yuh to? Well, et's jally nice tuh meetcha Azraal. Me do love meetin' new peepal an' going intuh caves alone es nat always a great idea." He considered the last, spider infested cave he encountered. "Yuh want tuh go en tugedda?" He asked them both helpfully.

Looking to the girl, who was clearly still pretty nervous, if not terrified, he smiled again and offered a tiny little hand in a gesture that everything was fine. "Don't worry, me don't mean any 'arm... Ef yuh need 'elp, me cun affa yuh fud an' assistance. What shud we call yuh?" He said, so producing some bread from his

pack

... Taking food from strangers in the middle of nowhere was probably a thing her parents warned her of as a small child, but he was a ferret and soon to be a friend... Though to be fair, he wasn't not strange.

It was at this point that a small child emerged from the cave holding a miragestone of all things. This triggered a range of emotions in the ferret, curiosity, surprise and suspicion among them. He'd worked with miragestone long enough himself to know all too well that they almost guaranteed that things were not as they appeared.

As the child made their way off into the cave, the ferret shrugged. "Oh! Quick!'" He said, not wishing to loose the boy before he vanished. "Watch out doh! Dem 'ad illusion magic, a Miragestone. Dis es prabably a trap." He said casually, with an odd expression of joy and excitement. If the bread was not taken, it was quickly placed back into his pack as he removed

his very smart and currently brown suit jacket and put it on

. Changing the contents of it's pocket to be that of a little bit of rock from the ground, it changed colour to match.

"Careful Winston. This is not normal." Cautioned

Joe

telepathically, remaining invisible to their new companions for now, as the ferret began to borrow Joe's ability to sense magic. He was able now to actually borrow his Diri's abilities himself, both allowing him direct access to the sensation of magic (15 foot) around him and also sparing the Diri the pain if it became too powerful.

While the other two decided whether or not to follow, Winston checked for tracks. If what they saw was an illusion, there would be no fresh tracks from the child... If the illusion was just hiding someone's true form, then the tracks might tell them more about who the individual actually was. If the tracks were both fresh and that of a child, he'd disturb them just to make sure they were not part of the illusion itself, before moving on.

There were sensations in life one was accustomed to feeling and those one was not and as some external force tempted Winston into the depths of the cave's mystery, he resisted the urge.

The Devil on My Shoulder
Intruder: What's in the cave?!
Curiosity: OOoooo, yeah, what they said.
Winston: Huh?
Intruder: Go in and find out what secrets it holds!
Curiosity: Hhhhaaaaaaayyyyy. That's my line!
Winston: Dis es nat narmal.
Intruder: There's nothing to fear here. I am just your inner child. Your curious nature. Your harmless sense of adventure.
Curiosity: Yeah, that's not me. There's nothing 'harmless' about this ferret's sense of adventure.
Winston: Yeah, agreed.
Intruder: You want to come into the cave...
Curiosity: UUUuuuuhhhhgggg... They are not wrong. I do really want o go into the cave.
Winston: Well let's go in den. Bot nat because dem are telling us tuh... Bot because we want tuh!
Intruder: Yes, come... See... Learn... Discover...
Curiosity: Oh... I was not expecting that to be the answer... YAY!

If he was going to enter a cave due to some irresistible sense of curiosity, it would jolly well be his own irresistible sense of curiosity and no one else's... that being said, it changed very little in the stakes of outcomes as the ferret launched himself into the cave, fueled by his own sense of curiosity, looking for traps, keeping to the shadows and listening for further evidence of the boy and his illusions.

All template credit, love and admiration goes to Pyrre Ej'qy

[Elowen]

The man spoke. And something about his demeanour was reassuring that perhaps she had been mistaken at first. He was not there to do whatever he willed and she was not helpeless simply because, there possibly was no danger present. At least not comign from him.

Her grip on the satchel loosened a little and instead the frown on her brow deepend. Voices and the cavern. That was one of the threads she could understand. Along with the name for the weapons he so helpfully pointed out.

So it wasn't just her that the shadows spoke to. She sensed some relief but then instant concern. Echoing shadows were worrying, but echoing shadows who were luring people to this cave full of myths...

She felt the darkness of Creeksong brushing against her back and she nearly felt as though it was tugging on her shirt.

Azrael, she repeated in her mind. Would his face be the first she would remember the name for? Given she had been looking at it for longer than any other face before, aside from Meira's.

Then it was the weasel's turn and he managed to ease Elowen further. Perhaps his success was due to the fact that he was an animal albeit a talking one. She nodded as she listened to his words but his accent and cadence of his speech made it difficult for her to understand everything.

Winston. She knew she would remember him. After all, this was the first time she had met a Cadouri though she did not know they were called that.

When Winston asked for her name,the girl blinked a few times, clearly trying to catch up with what was being said. When understanding dawned on her, she gladly told the ferret: "Elowen." Though she made no move to take the bread. She found it an odd gesture. Moreover, she had no need for it.

Moments later, she noticed Winston's gaze shifting behind her. She followed the line of his sight, thinking that he was looking at the riches of the cavern. Alas, she nearly jumped out of her skin a second time when she saw the boy not that far from her. She did not hear him come and in the cavern, steps should have echoed at least a little bit, she thought.

She watched, fascinated. And when the boy called out to someone, Elowen looked only to see empty space.

What was happening? Why was there a boy in the cavern? What was the crystal in his hand?

Where she was curious about the resources to be found inside Creeksong, now it was the boy who captured her interest.

A child. Like her. Like in the story of Vega and Arlo.

She saw Winston disappear into the shadows and she followed. Though not the ferret, but the boy. She had giving into the pull faster simply because she had grown complacent to danger in the Mistral Woods as it was almost minimal if one knew how to behave. And Elowen thought she did. During her progress, she would occasionally look around the stone walls at the various plantlife and formations wondering what those could tell her about what was going on.

[Pig Boy]

Two of the summoned entered the cave, while the third remained outside for a time, at least the moment. Azrael would notice the roar of notes pouring from the cave, from his Attunement spark which desperately seemed to want to explore. Yet the fledgling spark was weak, and unable to decipher most of those notes. They were far too powerful, beyond its ability to reckon with.

Still, the deduction must have been clear. There was something powerful in the cave, whatever it was.

A voice spoke to those inside the cavern, in their heads. Winston would hear it perhaps thinking it was one of his usual internal monologues. But it had a definite alien intelligence to it.

A scar is but a memory, but this one bleeds into the past as well as future. The voice was as an elderly woman, and youthful at turns. The two versions of the voice spoke in unison, giving a harmonious reverberation through Winston's mind.

Elowen would hear something else, but in the same sort of voice, Shot from Westwind, to Ywyngyll. A festering splinter in the Heart of Mistral.

Meira awaits you, a child. The voice insisted, You only need want her to show herself. And she will appear.

The tracks of the child, Winston would find, were not fake or illusionary, at least not as far as he could tell. Perhaps it was too strong an illusion for him to disrupt, or perhaps he didn't 'disbelieve' enough. Or maybe they were just real tracks? But they did appear to belong to a small child.

As he focused on these tracks, he'd notice another set. One of an older child as well, but different sized, bigger.

As Elowen followed the child, she had to dart past Winston, whose shorter legs carried him slower on the ground. She did indeed find the child at the edge of a large cavern opening, with many herbs all around, and also crystalline growths that radiated with a strange glow.

She saw another there, a girl about her own age, she was scolding the child. "You need to come back now, Tobias." The girl said, "Your uncle trusted me to watch over you, now we're going!"

Tobias' face screwed up in defiance, as he clutched the crystal to his chest. "No! Perfection promised me the magic I want! I have to go further, just a little further..." So saying, the child ran into the tunnel to the right. There were two tunnels, one to the left and one to the right. The left was lit by crystalline lights and herbs. The right was barren of light and life.

The teenage girl sighed, and turned on her heels. "It's dangerous, they all warned us not to go in here..." It was then she noticed Elowen. "Who... who are you? What are you doing here? It's not safe..."

Then she thought to herself, it seemed, and came back with, "Or maybe you can help me. Tobias is being impossible."

At this point, Winston would've come into the Cavern, and had heard everything as his ears were fairly sharp. The only trouble was, when the teenage girl talked, all he heard was a foreign language he wasn't familiar with. It was Gernevoir, Elowen would know.

Azrael would still be some ways behind them, unless he hurried through the cavern. If he hurried, he'd be able to catch this last snatch of conversation.

"I'm Meira by the way." She spoke in Gernevoir. As had Tobias when he spoke to Meira. "I'm the apprentice of Mistral's herbalist and caregiver."

Winston of course, would've long sensed (through his diri's power) the roaring magic radiating through this place. He'd never been in anything other than the vicinity of a minor fracture. This was a far more potent version of that, on a scale of tens of times stronger. He could only surmise he'd entered the foyer of a major fracture.