[PurpleXVI]

Lorath

Lorath managed to bring himself out of the water and back through the doorway he had come from. Whatever was approaching seemed to still be coming, but it wasn't another above-water wanderer like him, for his infravision revealed nothing but cold stone and cold water.

It wasn't until he looked underwater that he saw what was coming for him. They arrived through the open doorway opposite the one he'd been headed for before he discovered, the hard way, that the floor was missing, writhing and twisting like a nest of snakes, which was very much what they resembled. It was impossible to count for sure how many there were, but at least a dozen of the weird things were headed straight for him.

Some were smooth in appearance, like giant leeches, others were scaly and a few even had fur, the only uniform thing was the way they moved and their length, each was about four feet in length. It was hard to tell what they wanted with him, but doubtful that they just wanted to be hugged and petted.


Ulik, Evon

Evon's selfless act of sacrifice, testing the water so his best friend of all time, Ulik, would not have to risk life and limb, turned out to attract nothing horrifying and/or carnivorous to the general location, leaving Ulik free to conduct his studies in peace... For a few minutes.

The corpse he had shoved off the pillar bobbed in the water for a few seconds, decomposition having left it slightly bouyant, and then sank as water filled it's various cavities. Ulik could clearly see it sink through the illuminated water, landing on the floor among the globes, dislodging several, sending them rolling until they impacted some of their brethren and then neatly splitting in half along their seams.

Something unfurled itself from the confines of the first globe that broke open, at first it was compact, then unfurled itself to something shaped not unlike a manta ray. It had no constant colour, but was rather covered in shifting patterns. The thing spent a few seconds circling the pillar, apparently getting it's bearings, and then sent off in the direction Ulik had come from.

The next, and last, two that were opened, revealed very similar things. Each was shaped like a tube with a series of tentacles or ropes coming forth from, while the other end was closed and twisted almost like a handle. The tube itself was white along most of it's length, but the tip was a bright crimson, like the tentacles. Rather than leaving, it seemed as though they sensed Ulik, and decided to stay for lunch. The two things patiently began to patrol the waters below the pillar.


Anne, Gan, Bas, Tamora

With the general mood apparently in favour of continuing, Balth didn't argue in favour of a detour any longer, instead he put his height to good use, taking the lead and wading a path through the ever-deepening ash for the others.

By the time they reached the source, they had spent another few hours walking and, even through the ash haze, they could see the sun nearing the horizon. By this point they were all so covered in ash as to resemble gray statues, and it reached almost to their knees.

Ahead, the vegetation dwindled to almost nothing from one moment to another, revealing a short plain that extended farther than they could see to both their left and their right, but only another twenty yards ahead. There, it was the ground that suddenly became nothing, as they saw the Chasm of Choking Ash ahead of them. It was a ten-yard-wide gash in the ground, constantly belching freezing ash into the air, and it had no apparent crossing points.

As they got closer, though, they could see that there was more to the Chasm than just a perpetual ash rain.

Just a few yards down, the chasm began to widen, rather than narrow, revealing that the entire area under them was a massive cave. Weird protrusions of either ash-covered rock or solid ash cris-crossed the depths, giving it the appearance of weird undersea coral or a web that a hundred spiders had worked overtime on, at cross purposes, resulting in strands and archs going everywhere.

Occasionally something could be seen to move down below. There were large, humanoid shapes that seemed to swim through the ash at the far bottom, and smaller shapes that moved too fast to be seen, but which flew above it, weaving and dodging around the ashy spurs and beams.

No particular features seemed to distinguish any parts of the chasm, except for one thing: Almost directly below them, at the very bottom, nearly completely hidden from sight by whirling ash and the "natural" geography of the place, was something glowing. It was the dull, sullen glow of dying embers, but almost the size of a house. Despite this, however, the wind and ash that emerged from the chasm was the coldest they had yet experienced in the area. Anyone who looked into it for more than a few seconds found their face numb and their hair frosted with rime.

"There's something you don't see every day," was Balth's only comment about the place, "And if we don't get out of here I'm willing to bet it's the last thing we ever will see. There were things moving down there, can you imagine how horrible anything that can live in such a place must be?" He shuddered, though it was hard to tell if it was from the thought or from the cold, "If you people are serious about trying to get across, or are going down, I'll find my own way around and meet you on the other side."

He looked at Tamora's bird, which seemed to have become extraordinarily subdued in the cold. A bit earlier he had told her that it was an "Erdlu." A herd animal like the Kank, but generally not rideable, "Your pet doesn't seem like it's doing too tell either, why don't I bring it along?" As if on cue, the erdlu let out a mournful "bawk."

[ 02-16-2007, 02:05 AM: Message edited by: PurpleXVI ]