[PurpleXVI]

Lorath

With the disconcerting sound of the water serpents echoing behind him, Lorath splashed through the water, desperately trying to reach the stairs before he was reached by his pursuers.

Waterlogged, with limbs and lungs aching, he was at the stairs scant seconds later. His shield had snagged on something as he ran and been dropped a few steps back, now invisible in the dark water, but probably easy to find later provided nothing stole it.

With shield lost, he felt exposed as he prepared to face an attack from below, but the attack did not come from the direction that he was expecting, nor from what he was expecting. It was, in just about every possible way, a surprise.

Bursting forth from the water below him and to his right, an amorphous, multi-coloured blob struck him and clung to him. It seemed impossible to dislodge it, and it's colours shifted as he struggled with it, ringing out with a loud clang as it struck the stairs. Though the water made it feel slimy, the creature had an odd, non-aquatic feel, rather like moist leather.

It was a fight Lorath quickly turned out to be on the losing side of, the thing maneuvered it's way unto his back and wrapped itself around him, all of his struggles only seeming to get him further entangled in it's grasp. Just as all hope seemed lost, however, the assault's viciousness abated, and he realized what it was he being beaten by: A very large and angry cloak intent on being worn.

The thing had a hood, which it had flipped over his head, effectively blinding him, and a pair of sleeves that it had managed to force his arms through. Despite this revelation, however, there were still some worrying facts. For one thing there was the faint, yet persistent, dry breath hitting hte back of his neck, the sudden drowsiness that was afflicting him, and the way in which the cloak seemed to adhere to every bit of open skin it could get into contact with. It was already sticking tightly to his neck and he could feel it tearing at skin and hair as he gingerly tested the connection.

Oh, and judging by the splashes, the water serpents had taken the chance to reach the foot of the stairs while he was otherwise occupied. He could see their serpentine shapes preparing to rear out of the water as he recovered his oversight of the situation.


Ulik, Evon

The only entertainment that reached Ulik's ears from Lorath's direction was the clang of steel being dropped on stone, so while the elf was probably still alive, he was clumsy.


Anne, Gan, Bas, Tamora

(For the moment I'll assume Anne is dumbstruck by her surroundings, nods politely and follows everyone else.)

With evident relief, Balth lead the group away from the chasm again, as it was darkening, seeking somewhere away from the ash to camp had seemed like a decent idea to everyone. Whatever weird creatures dwelled in the ash could easily be hungry, and what was freezing at sunset could leave them all with frostbite by midnight.

They easily found a place that was far enough away to still have some heat, while not taking them too far off course. Though the ash continued to rain down softly, it was a thin layer, and some of the jungle's heat remained. Nothing disturbed their rest, and by morning they awoke to an amazing sight.

As the sun rose towards the sky, so did bright crimson sparks from the depths of the chasm. They streamed up on the wind, circled for a few minutes at the top of the ash haze, growing brighter by the second, and then headed downwards again, so incandescent that they left burning trails in the air as they fell into the chasm. It was hard to tell if the rising things were pure fire or weird animals, but occasionally when two got too near each other, they seemed to correct their courses, and there was, as the group watched, some underlying system to the way they moved, as though some intelligence was guiding them.

Eventually they managed to tear themselves away from the view and set out. Anne had been unable to suggest one way around the chasm which was better than the other, so the group decided to circle around northwards. Whether the southern route was faster, they didn't learn, but they did learn that the chasm was massive in length as well as depth.

It took them almost a day and a half just to reach the northern end, and by then they were well off course. It was hard to tell whether a southeastern route would still take them to the cliffs or somewhere else entirely.

Tamora and Gan noticed a few oddities about their new friend Balth, despite the fact that he claimed he had never been in the area before, he showed an uncanny knack for finding easy routes through the heavy vegetation. Sometimes he even came upon overgrown trails that only required mild work to clear compared to the surrounding trees and vines. When he wasn't taking the lead along with one of the two, he tended to throw all sorts of questions at the group about their homeworld. He seemed interested in knowing everything, but never pestered them, always stopping when they got tired of his questions or refused to answer them.

Almost three days after reaching the chasm, passing through terrain that remained much the same, moist and overgrown, though it grew hillier the farther southeast they went, the group crested a rise in the jungle and saw what was their first clue that they were headed in the right direction still. Still a good distance off, but rising above the jungle, was a wide, flat mesa. It was as though a section of the ground had simply decided to rise until it's white bedrock was exposed, lifting plants and earth above it.

It was another day before they got there.

The jungle seemed to get wilder and wilder the closer they got to the cliffs, and the animals bolder. Several times, jaguars and other large cats would stalk them for several minutes before apparently losing interest. Other times it would be reptiles, their scales rasping against the undergrowth as they slithered between the towering trees. One group of seven snakes, each almost as big as a member of the group, had just broken off their pursuit when they stumbled out into a clearing.

Above, in front and to their sides, the mesa towered. They had no way of knowing if it was the Cliffs of Drriam, but they had definitely found something. Extending in a belt about twenty yards wide, the jungle was clear all the way around the foot of the mesa. Not hacked away by tools, or eaten by animals, it simply didn't grow. The only plants were moss and a soft covering of short grass.

But that wasn't the main attraction, the white cliff face was. All along it were deep carvings, each shaped like a human body, like tunnels into the rock. They all went so deep that the end was impossible to see, even in the bright noon-light. It was possible that they went all the way to the other side of the mesa, so deep did they seem.

All of the carvings looked similar, like the silhouette of a human facing the rock with legs apart and arms stretched straight out to either side from the shoulder. There were subtle differences, though. Differences in height, build or something as minor as the shape of the head.

"How strange," commented Balth, probably speaking everyone's mind, "Is this what you all set out to find?" He approached one of the carvings while he spoke and looked inside, as if trying to gauge it's depth.

As Balth spoke and examined the carving, each member of the group had noticed one carving that looked different from all the others to them. One that captivated them, one that seemed important to them. Somehow, springing from nowhere, they knew that it was their carving, that it had been made for them. The carvings, or possibly tunnels, if they lead somewhere, seemed strangely hypnotic to their "owners."

[ 02-18-2007, 08:58 AM: Message edited by: PurpleXVI ]