[Cobalt Quest] Spreading Your Wings (Avi)

[Gossamer]

Timestamp: 15th of Winter, 509 AV Location: Silkwater Lake Purpose: Caiyha Encounter Silkwater Lake was a place teaming with life... usually. It was one of those remote high mountain pools that was fueled by a natural artisan well rather than snow runoff or inbound streams. In fact, the upwelling of clear water was so pure and fierce at times that the water of the lake in the spring tended to bubble a little in the center, giving it the look of rippling silk. Most of Silkwater Lake was bedrock on the bottom with only a little soil lining the fringes giving it a marshy appearance to soften its fringe. It had no outlets and no inbound streams. It literally sat by itself in a grassy clearing on the edge of the treeline high up in the Cobalts. And normally it was abundantly full of life. Deer grazed in the grasslands on the edge of the wilderness, and songbirds clung to the edgewater reeds, calling out for mates and dancing in bright coats of plumage. Rabbits fed in the shadows of big trees, tantalizing predators from above. There were insects and squirrels, and to those with the knowledge and ears to listen - the constant murmur of trees. At least, thats how it normally was here in this isolated mountain paradise. Now, however, the clearing was eerily silent and the water had taken on a slightly rusty hue. It looked like rainwater that had dripped constantly into a rusted bucket, hopelessly loaded with iron and poisonous if brought to the lips. Only it didn't smell like iron or poison, and there were no dead corpses around. It just looked like someone had chased all the wild things away and taught the trees to sing sad songs just for the fun of it. The silence was staggering, unnatural, and the water's hue threatening. Something was wrong in the clearing - desperately wrong - and someone flying from above could easily sense the wrongness of the place.

[Avi]

OOC15th of Winter, 509 AV.

Silkwater Lake.

Avi had seen it before, the first time she had been blown to Sylira with Zulrav's assistance. Even then, from that brief glance, the Kelvic was enthralled. She certainly approved of the region - if it was all like that, she was going to love it. The colours - the overwhelming abundance of colours! As incredible as the south of Taldera was, this was something else. It was warmer than she was used to, of course, but oh, it was beautiful - while Avanthal was seemingly suspended in its frozen, glorious, splendor, the sheer life that grew and thrived here was very, very different.

She had decided to go this way deliberately, to go back and see if again. Normally, she would take another route, instead of going back the way she had come, to see new things, to see more. She was an owl - she could fly. Land paths hardly mattered, after all, when the skies how you traveled. But still, flying gave you another view that landwalkers did not see.... in both directions. She was getting an early start to go back home, and spend some time there before come back to Syliras - she had promised Nya she would be back for the Fire Festival on the 46th. The season was still in its early days, as far as she was concerned, and that meant that with a good margin of time for suitable exploring, spending time at home, and coming back to her new friends.

As the massive bird climbed the skies, she circled back in shock, doing a double take. She couldn't believe that this was the same lake she had flown over in the tail end of fall. Avi circled around again, straining her hearing, listening for anything but the silence. Where had everything gone? Why was there nothing here? What was wrong with the water? She circled around the lake, getting lower and lower, trying to see into the depths of the reddish water, getting as close as she dared to it without touching it before landing on the bank, becoming human once she hit the grass, and searched for a stick, or a reed, something she could dip in the water and see what the result was before coming as close to the edges as she dared, sniffing at it, and testing the water with her reed, checking to see what the water was like.

What was going on here? This was bad. This was very bad.

[Gossamer]

So close, the stench was nearly overwhelming. The water smelled like rot. It was as if something had died and tainted the water. As she circled closer, she noted a dark form in the water at the water's edge. It was completely submerged, but not in deep water. It was almost as if it had died near the water and then the waterline had climbed higher as the snow had melted during Syliras' unseasonably warm winter. The water then looked like it had flooded the corpse - for it must have been a corpse - and the resulting rot had tainted the water. The corpse was indistinct and rather ugly - stretched out almost like a squid would look under the water. A small orange outlet of water flowed from the lake at almost the beginning of where the corpse lay in the water.

One comforting thing was, that while all the vegetation looked sickly, there was some still surviving. Dark fish darted in the water as Avi circled it, but there was something off about them as well. Was... that ... extra eyes? Yes... one darted closer as she landed and shifted, and she could see the alien form of the sleek silver fish sporting tentacles around its mouth and a third eyeball on the top of its head. And as she landed, she saw something else... something fainter that she couldn't see from above. Nearby, there was a faint line etched in the earth, an elaborate circle that reeked of arcana and unused djed.

A stick wasn't hard to find at all. Retrieved and inserted into the water, it yielded nothing but the fact that the soft mud bottom near the surface was covered with an unholy looking scum. The stick didn't smoke or steam or instantly discolor. The water looked and smelled completely undrinkable, though she could see it looked a bit clearer out further where the bottom was actually bedrock.

Also, she'd note that further down the lake there was a small grotto with a stone bench and what appeared to be an old alter with wild roses climbing up a stone trellis a little distance from the lake waters on a stone outcropping where the soil fell away. The symbol on the alter looked like Caiyha's. It looked completely disconnected to the situation currently affecting the water.

[Avi]

Avi was used to the smell of burning seal oil, and the less than pleasant smells that came from tanning and the preparing of leather, but this smell, this decay, this odor was enough to force her to gag. Avi didn't eat carrion, and she didn't care for the smells of the dead and rotting. She hunted her food fresh, after all, and in the north, food often froze before it would spoil. Naked though she was, she had no cloth on her to cover her face, so her free hand would have to do. She fanned the air in front of her face as she crouched at the water, eying the strange-looking fish, and the scum clinging to the end of the stick. That was just disgusting, and seven or eight steps beyond 'unhealthy'. She knew one thing, and that was that there was no way she'd even want to catch that fish, much less eat it. She studied the end of the stick. That made sense - if the bottom was filled with some kind of poison, and that had coated everything, that would definitely account for the lack of life here.

She got up from where she had been crouched at the side of the water, and covered her nose, walking along the edge of the lake towards the biggest disturbance. That was definitely a corpse, wasn't it? Had someone climbed up here and sacrificed someone? Or gotten themselves killed with some magic they had done up here, and spoiled the beautiful purity that had been Silkwater Lake? Or maybe someone, or something else. Who knew? She would check out the corpse first. Maybe she could get a rough idea how long it had been here by how soft the flesh would be... But water tended to weaken such things, and Avi didn't want to ruin the water any more than it already was. Gods only knew what was wrong with the body. It could be putrid, filled with bile and rot and contagion. Puffing her cheeks, badly in need of some more air, she left the side of the water, exhaling and sputtering as she walked away from the water, and went to investigate the circle, still carrying her stick.

She knew nothing about magic, really. But she did know that the last time she had flown over Silkwater Lake, none of this had been there, including the circle. And at least, over here, the air didn't smell quite so bad. Avi stepped lightly over to it. Her animal instincts said to get out of here - every part of her was saying that. Get out, get out, get out. But Avi was a predator, and if she felt she was at the top of the food chain, she had better do something to fix the links below her for those that came after. Using her stick, she began to disrupt the circle on the ground. Best to break it up, get rid of it, and see just what happened from doing that. "Someone tried to ruin your Lake," Avi lifted her voice to carry towards the direction of the altar, "but don't worry, Caiyha. I'll try to fix it."

[Gossamer]

Upon closer inspection, the corpse looked... 'alien'... as if it didn't belong. Well, of course it didn't belong in the water, but it looked like it didn't belong on Mizahar. Well in a state of advanced decay, the thing looked like it had staggered from where the circle was (there was scuffs and prints in the sand) over to the water and had died. It had no snout but rather a beak like a parrot, a body that could best be described as a dog, but instead clawed and naked and looked rather pig-like even with the death bloat.

And it was definitely tainting the water. Poking it with a stick revealed the bloat, and gave her an estimate of less than four or five days in the water. If she really tried, she could probably drag it free of the water but it wouldn't be an easy task nor a clean one.

Investigating the circle revealed the tracks she'd already noticed - leading to the water - and a scuffle by the circle itself. There was blood everywhere around it, and a faint pair of tracks leading away as if into the cover beyond the lake. Other than the etched lines in the sand, a white powder that somehow reminded her of salt, and the marks of the combat, there was nothing else of note. The tracks leading off into the brush could easily be followed, but the brush explained why if there was a second person - either dead or alive - she hadn't seen them from the sky. Disrupting the circle did nothing, but it was easy enough to remove. And if she wanted to get a tree branch from somewhere with leaves still intact she could easily use one as a broom and sweep any evidence of the tracks and blood away.

Oddly, she didn't feel any fear. There was no sense of being watched. There was only the sense of a lake dying due to something it had no part in.

[Avi]

Avi puffed her cheeks and returned to the corpse. It always came back to this, didn't it? It was bloated, putrescent, disgusting. There was no other answer - the thing had to come out of the water. She had never seen or heard of anything like it, and it reviled her and annoyed her predatory senses. Just that feeling of something being off, something being so wrong with the ecology irked her considerably. Grimly, Avi dressed quickly, pulling on vest, boots, and her heavy-duty mittens for the north. If she had to, she would make new ones once she landed in Avanthal if these ones proved ruined. Sealed and proofed through they were from the elements, she had no idea how well they would hold up to whatever mucus and sludge that would ooze from the disgusting cadaver.

She put her weight into it, trying by seizing the front limbs and trying to haul the corpse backwards, gripping it as best as she could with her protective mittens, hauling and heaving and pulling until it was a little further away from the water, enough that she could burn it once she found some tinder. She tried to get the slime off of her mittens with sand, rubbing them together over the beast to see if it would come off. Either way, the mitts were laid on the sand nearby as she went to go see about the remnants of the circle, kicking more sand over it and into the salt and blood, sweeping and scuffing and shuffling until it was rubbed out before heading into the brush.

She had to see if there was another here, even if she didn't sense that she was being watched. As good as her senses were, there was always something, someone better. She could gather tinder in a little bit, and create a fire. Her eyes and ears were alert and wide, taking in as many details as she could, looking for anything disturbed to indicate a path... or possibly another corpse. If there was another... might as well burn them both rather than leave them here. Who knew just how badly the other was contaminated if it had come in contact with the monstrosity poisoning the water?

[Gossamer]

It was unfortunate that the gloves were ruined being used to drag the corpse out of the pool. It was too deep, for one, for Avi's hands to be protected without water going into the gloves as she heaved at the corpse. She had to wade in, splashing up to her knees and leaning over to grasp hold. It was heavy, and bits of it broke off as it came free of the muck it was resting in. But luckily for Avi the water added some buoyancy and the corpse wasn't as heavy as it looks once she heaved it free of the mud. Once free of the water, the thing stank to high heaven and began melting in the direct sunlight as if the very glow of Syna's smile was toxic to it. Wisps of steam came off it, adding to the slightly burned sulfur smell. Avi could feel her gloves all but melting as well, as if the flesh of the thing in the water now dissolving on the bank was nothing she'd ever see and definitely not of this world. It had no marks on it to indicate what killed it. And it had no sign of tramua or immediate cause of death other than the fat that it was indeed dead. Bloat had altered its shape, but there were no signs of small fish having nibbled on it.

The circle proved easier to destroy. It was just a sand work drawing, made from the shore abrasion and then added too with more sand that had been tinted with pigments. Five minutes of scratching and scuffing in the sand had the thing completely destroyed and any evidence of it having been there completely gone. It had been a large circle, one made up of multiple layers that appeared (from what was left before Avi destroyed it) to have been complicated and perhaps incredibly time consuming to create. Sand drawings to begin with were rare, but one as intricate as this could only have been achieved by a master of sorts. The question was - what sort?

Investigating the brush proved bothersome. The brush was thick and had to be forced into. It was the type of brush rabbit loved for it provided ample protection to the denizens while keeping outsiders out. But there was recent sign of passage, if Avi could read it. Broken branches, torn fabric, and eventually if she followed the course of where something large had forced its way through... a corpse.

The man was big. He had a sneer on his face even in his death, as if he couldn't believe he was being killed. He looked arrogant, bold, and even careless. His corpse had indeed began to swell and flies mingled around his body, especially around a gaping hole that was either why he'd died or evidence of someone recently feeding upon his now-useless flesh. Where the scene of his death was pretty much ended her forward progress there the brush. It looked impenetrable from that point on and was probably the reason he got killed.

Beside him lay a pack that looked to be full of books and supplies. A sword lay drawn and bloody nearby. It already showed signs of tarnish and perhaps even corrosion being out in the weather uncleaned. He had a medallion around his neck that gleamed with gemstones and another small pouch hung down from his belt. Avi could feel free to rummage through the gear or leave it if she wanted.

But before she could actually decide what to do, there was a low angry growl off to one side. Something lay there, eyes gleaming a luminous yellow in the shadows of the brambles, and growled at her. Either protective of its kill or defending its territory, the thing laying beneath the bushes looked identical to the thing she just dragged out of the water. It was misshapen, grotesque, and looked something like a pig - a large one - or a dog only its mouth was a parrot beak. It had razor sharp claws that looked deadly on its front legs. And two horns curved out from its head. It opened its beak, growled again, and started to move - heaving itself upwards towards her as if attacking.

[Avi]

The Kelvic stripped off her ruined gloves, and dropped them on the corpse once she had finally got it out of the water. Well, that was the end of those – they had served her well, and now she was simply going to have to get another pair from Avanthal, or catch something and make herself a pair of proper mittens. It would be good practice, and gloves weren’t that hard to make. But as it was, she cupped her hand over her skin of her forearm, skimming the water and slime that had gotten into the gloves off of her hands before giving them a little shake, careful to aim the water on the steaming corpse so as not to taint anything further before repeating this with her other hand. This was like nothing she had ever seen before… but now that it was practically melting, well, at least it wasn’t melting into the water. She straightened, twisting a little bit to rotate her back and shoulders. Strong though she may have been, without the water, that stinking monster had been heavy once she’d got it out of the water. It didn’t look like it had been nibbled on, at least, and that was good… but it had tainted the water anyway. That was much was clear from the state of things. The unusual fish, the slime on the bottom, the filthy, rusty water… This was absolutely no good.

With the circle destroyed, every last piece of it spread about, Avi retrieved her spear, tucking her bag at the edge of the greenery. She didn’t need it catching on things, and in the event she ever had to back up, it would be more hindrance than anything else. Spear in hand, Avi started into the brush, her mind buzzing as she moved carefully, listening for sounds as she moved. It was thicker than she liked – for anything her size, anything crowded always made her feel somewhat claustrophobic. But she didn’t have time to dwell on that now. She had no idea what those circles were. It was something she would have to ask someone else about. Avi didn’t dwell on things like that. She didn’t dwell much on things outside of nature. She had been raised with people, true, but Avi was very much a wild, wild animal, and she liked things kept relatively simple. If she couldn’t find anything, she’d come back, take care of the corpse and leave something for Caiyha.

Life was never that simple.

Her sharp eyes noted the broken brush, scraps of fabric… the hunter in her knew what to look for. This meant this was a person that she was following – animals didn’t wear clothes, now, did they?

…

Okay, stupid question.

She trailed slowly, wary of overrunning whatever it was she was following. This was, honestly, one of the easiest trails she had ever seen, which made her all the more suspicious. Easy trails were often traps, meant to follow and ensnare in themselves. Her nostrils twitched as she got further into the brush. More death. Green eyes flicked from corpse to pack and back again, and her entire body twisted spear pointed at the sound of the growling. Another one of those creatures! Was this man responsible for them? Was it guarding him as its dead master, or was it guarding him because it wanted to feast on his flesh?

Either way, Avi knew one thing – it wasn’t natural. It didn’t belong here. This wasn’t a good place to kill it, even if she could. She jumped backwards, at least, or tried to, when it lunged upwards at her, and had an idea. If she could get her to follow it out into the open… preferably by the other one, she could try to kill it there. More open quarters would favour her in the spear, and her in the event she had to shift to kill it. Besides, she had seen how the first one had melted. She couldn’t have this one doing this here to ruin and destroy the brush. This was territory animals depended on. She hissed at the creature, eyes scarlet, and prodded at it with the spear, preparing to back up if she could just get it to follow her back out. It had to go – but she would prefer it didn’t die here.

[Gossamer]

The beast growled, advanced, its parrot beak snapping even as it moved like a boar through the brush and fully exposed itself out on the trail. The fabric scraps tangled in the brush Avi noted, as she backed up luring it back towards the beach, were ripped as if someone had forced themselves through the brambles in the direction she was backing, making it clear the dead man had most likely produced the trail getting to his location, rather than perhaps a partner making it retreating. The creature growled again, pushed the limits of her tolerance with the spear, and came out of the brush as she stepped gracefully backwards, still defending herself. It dragged a hind leg uselessly behind it, and its eyes were wide as it met hers. There was intelligence there as well as terror even as it came fully into the light. For all that it was starkly alien, its coat - devoid of fur - was incredibly patterned. It was something lost from the body that she'd dragged from the water. Patterns rippled across its skin, moving from the greenish blue bushes to a broken tan brown pattern that camouflaged it in the sand. It struck Avi as odd because predators didn't have camouflage. Instead they had patterns on their coats that broke up their form to those creatures that had poor eyesight. The thing snapped its bill one more time and Avi could see it had no teeth. It probably hunted and gathered just like parrots on Mizahar did, for all it was built almost like a canine. Its beak did have blood on it, evidence enough it had killed the man and was dangerous. But once fully into the light of the beach she could see its form was swollen and nipples beneath its belly were extended, engorged. Pregnant, probably close to term, the creature glanced at the corpse slowly melting in the sun, dissolving as sugar would into the water of the landscape. The creature gave a mew, tilted her head upwards, and cried out painfully at the sight. Then she turned, stared directly at Avi, ignoring the sword, and hissed in rage. By now they were on the beach, near both of the other two corpses and what had remained of the circle. The creature cried out again, but she was so exposed and what Avi could see as slow, that the Kelvic could tell she wouldn't be hard to kill. The creature stood still finally, on the beach, Avi between it and the water. It just stared at her, its look suddenly lost almost forlorn as if it waited for the inevitable.

[Avi]

She coaxed it backwards, occasionally jabbing at it with the spear, trying to tap at its beak from time to time as opposed to actually puncturing it or stabbing it right yet. She didn't know what it would leak, if anything, but she would much rather that she got it to the designated killing spot without spreading it. If, after all, it managed to poison the water when it was dead, who knew what it could do? It wasn't natural - that was what she had to keep telling herself when she saw it was pregnant. Her parents had always taught her, when hunting, that you avoided killing pregnant creatures when you could - you killed a male, preferably, because there was always another male to take their place in the ecosystem... but the females were needed to produce the next generation.

It wasn't natural. It isn't natural, Avi told herself as she backed up. The patterns on its hide were strange - it was camouflaged, as opposed to predatory, and she wondered inanely if whatever the things were they were sexually dimorphic. She was pretty sure she had seen some odd ducks in Sylira in which the male was quite flashy, but the female itself blended in with greys and browns and greens. But how would she know? If this creature's mate, if presumably that was what it was, had been left in the sun to rot, it could well have bleached the skin of any and all colouring it had. In any case, it didn't matter - what mattered was that it was coming for her, and it was absolutely furious with her. It didn't matter that she hadn't killed its mate - she was going to kill it.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to it as she leveled her grandfather's spear and aimed it, grasping it with both hands. She put her weight behind her spear and aimed it in a single thrust towards the the spot between the creature's eyes. With luck, she could penetrate to its brain... if it had one, she realized in the next moment. Creatures needed brains, but this was not a normal creature. But with luck, right through to the brain and end its life as quickly and hopefully as painlessly as possible. She didn't believe in drawing out a creature's suffering. If you took something's life, you should take it with dignity and respect, or not at all.