Flashback In The Deep Darkness

[Razkar]

Even with all that had happened that season, Razkar had to admit, in the more honest and private corner of his being, that whatever snake-blood was in Tinnok certainly gave her the edge in these trees. Or was it her Myrian athleticism?

Either way, when he tumbled from the vines, sliding down so fast his hands burned and frayed, he could already see her frame almost... bouncing from branch to branch, then slicing a vine free, falling-

-hitting the ground with him still fifteen feet in the air.

His stomach growled accusingly and Razkar scowled, but competition denoted the risk of failure. Where was the fun if you knew you were going to win? He took his time dropping the last few feet and landing hard but with his knees bent, absorbing the impact.

Rehkuna was already before him, just as Ioxera had been for her own subordinate. She cocked an eyebrow and Razkar stood at something like attention.

"Clear, mistress. Nothing bigger than a pig's moving out there."

"You are sure?"

Razkar chose his words carefully, although part of him regretted them later. "I may not be marked by the Jungle Goddess, mistress, but I know that if Dhani were moving out there, the Jungle would tell us. Calls of alarm, of challenge... we would hear something. I heard nothing. I am sure."

Rehkuna nodded sharply and jerked her head to the fire.

"You and the abomination eat. Myself and Ioxera will take watch."

Razkar squatted next to the halfbreed on a seat of curling vines and waited until she had taken the choicest cut of the roasting bird. Once she was munching away, he broke off a steaming leg and started into his own. He waited until her triumphant gaze slid to his and then gave her a scowl... but his lips were smiling slightly under it.

"Luck..."

There was an amused snort by was of response, and Razkar chuckled softly around his leg. Erama was eating, too, but keeping her distance from Tinnok, suspicious glances flicked at her now and again. She still couldn't understand how Razkar, as staunch and solid a Myrian warrior as she had ever met, could ever lower himself to associating with such an...

"Males," she muttered and ripped another hunk off her own meal.

The night wore on and Razkar was glad for its passing. The dawn would break in a few bells and then they could march again, the village of the Dark Water clan somewhere beyond the choking jungle.

[Tinnok]

"I may not be marked by the Jungle Goddess..." Tinnok let the phrase slide by. She knew Razkar for a man who wouldn't judge her based upon her Gnosis, having seen her work without it. If he made another statement that questioned her skill and related to her gift however...

She polished off the meat swiftly, gnawing upon the bone like a dog, and ignoring the looks of one of his fellow fang mates. She watched the half-breed as if some kind of filth had picked itself off the ground and claimed to be Myrian, yet her glares barely phased her. Too much had happened in the short span of simply one season for her to truly take the look to her hardened heart.

Tinnok chuckled at his jab. "Not far from the truth...that vine could have been hit or miss...literally." She would have bruises to show on her knees from that little stunt, but it was worth it for the small victory. When she was finished with the bone, white gleaming in the dancing fire light she added a few twigs to the blaze and threw the bone behind her into the brush, letting it rejoin the cycle. If their leader's had claimed watch it would be best for her to catch a few moments of sleep, for this new day might not be as forgiving as the last.

Rising from the vines she watched Erama survey her progress, slapped Razkar on the shoulder and gave the woman a wink that she could see sent shudders down her spine. White teeth that were all too clean swept into a grin that was enjoying itself a bit too much for its own good. "Nap time, then."

She stretched out again, her legs and arms that had taken the brunt of the punishment upon this day, and found herself a nook in the large tree they had originally climbed, a hand sliding comfortably along rough bark, letting the peaceful and slow language of the tree guide her into slumber.

----------

Syna had not yet passed the horizon when she felt a rough hand on her shoulder and looked up to see Razkar's dark gaze. No words were needed, and her sly expression from a few bells ago were gone. Back to business as usual. Tinnok stamped out the fire as the others gathered there things and strapped on weapons. Her machete slid comfortably into her grasp and the procession began anew. Only a days more and their journey would be done...this mystery solved one way or another.

[Razkar]

When the female slapped him on the shoulder Razkar almost choked on his mouthful of burnt meat. Tinnok rarely emoted in groups, and she never showed affection. But that comradely slap broke that, and as he walked away he wondered...

Then he saw Erama's flushed features. Oh. That was why.

The male rubbed his tired face and settled back into his seat, deciding that it was as good a place as any to sleep. Females... and they thought males could be petty and childish? Amazing. But he did not let the thoughts trouble him for long, and Tinnok's last quip was quite correct.

One of the golden rules of soldiering, a much more practical code than the vaunted ones of the warrior.

If you get a chance to sleep, whether it be a chime or a day, take it.

----------

When Syna rose, so did they, and it was without complaint or comment. Barely ten chimes after the six of the eight that were asleep had woken, the dead fire was stomped and buried, along with the bones of their supper, and they two-line group had moved out yet again.

Blades were drawn and were soon flashing and chopping in that familiar rhythm. Bells passed, no words spoken, eyes constantly moving, the tedium eating away at whatever doubts or fears or thought Razkar had until here were none. They passed deeper and deeper, until they were within five miles of... of...

Razkar frowned, pricked his ears and heard... nothing. There was nothing. No crickets, cicadas, birds, lizards, pigs, monkeys... nothing but the sweltering breeze blowing through the trees and...

He heard a hiss of pain to his left and saw Tinnok grasp her Gnosis mark. She was frowning in confusion, yellow eyes turning to him with a befuddled anger building in them.

The rest of the fang stopped. They were all as experienced as him, veterans of Goddess-knew how many skirmishes, ambushes and pitched battles... and they knew that when the Jungles of Falyndar grew silent and Caiyha herself writhed among the green...

"We need to keep moving," Razkar said, even as he stopped and drew his ax, eyes squinting and searching desperately through the undergrowth, "Whatever is around here... we don't need to stop for it."

The two Fang Leader's didn't agree or disagree, they just pushed forwards and chopped their path through the unyielding jungle. The rest followed behind them, unnerved by the silence surrounding them. Razkar tried to force that unnatural situation from him mind, tried to ignore the voices that whispered fears and fantastical reasons for it.

When the Jungle stills like this... it is for a great evil. Something is happening here. Something that should not be.

He gritted his teeth and they kept moving, until with a sigh of relief that he did not give a damn if anyone heard, they smelled smoke... and heard the village of the Dark Water.

[Tinnok]

It began at first like a mild headache, a buzz in the back of her mind that something was amiss. The plant life around the city may have been unnaturally grown, but it was healthy and vibrant.Then she felt a pinch upon her skin that became nearly a burning pain, causing her to wince and pause in her motions. She felt the plants as they passed, noticing yellowed sections and sickly feelings that made her stomach curl.

She had not yet tasted the stench of corruption that could plague the earth, the conditions that mandated Caiyha's children and servants to repair. The earth called to her like a wailing babe for her to tend to it, dying of causes yet unknown, but surely sinister in nature. Her eyes shut and her mind tried to hone in on some idea of a problem, but the thick choking net of life seemed to eliminate any known patterns. Whatever the root of this problem was...it must surely have to with the Dhani...the Dhani.

She had been calm, reserved, determined, and lusting for blood, but calm. Now her body quivered with rage. A storm could rip apart her fang and destroy her comrades, but no half kin of hers, Dhani or Myrian would trample and offend her jungle and expect her to remain in a plain state of mind.

Noses scented the air like canines as the small scouting party smelled the signs of civilization. Sore arms and legs moved quicker, slashed more swiftly through the undergrowth to their destination and a small clearing broken by huts and longhouses. Ioxera heralded their arrival with a bird call, and like shadows warriors from the Black Water clan emerged from the trees, raised weapons lowering slowly.

Rekhuna stepped forward, her stature and bearing demanding to be respected and answered when she spoke. "We come as scouts from Taloba, sent to learn of the potential Dhani threat that resides outside of your village."

"If we knew anything, we would tell you." The voice was cold and formal, and came from a woman who looked to be in her mid fifties, and was nearly a head taller than the tiger herself. She was not old enough to be the Matriarch of the clan, but the way she held herself spoke volumes that no title ever could. Greying hair was braided in intricate forms that zig-zagged across her scalp, and her eyes were a light hazel in dark features, a long spear clutched in both hands as she assessed the group from Taloba. "I am Ysir of the Black Water, War Mistress of our clan. We had caught tracks...suspicious in nature and tracked them to the cavern not five miles outside our village. We have guards stationed outside the hole, but have not yet entered it. It is a deep cavern, one that hides many dark creatures, it is why we are not sure it is truly Dhani."

Rekhuna nodded and Ioxera rubbed her chin thoughtfully. Tinnok was practically sizzling with impatience. They would have to explore the caverns in order to get the intelligence they sought...she knew they would. Whatever was down there, Dhani or no...it was causing a disturbance and a vengeful and furious side of her sought to slay it, here and now. One leg twitched with impatience as she watched the two fang leaders conversing with the war mistress, deciding upon their plan of action.

[Razkar]

"Why have you not explored the cavern further?"

Upon seeing the entrance to the cavern, Razkar already guessd what Ysir's answer was. It was only half a bell through the jungle surrounding the Dark Water's village, a the bottom of a winding crevice in the ground that was overgrown with vegetation. A thin, pitiful but impossibly clear and cold stream of water snaked its way down the bottom of it, leading to a cave mouth wide enough for five to walk in abreast.

"Mouth" was the right word, Razkar thought, but as he looked at the dark fissure scraped out of the earth, it did not seem to be yawning open like other caves he had seen.

With a fresh thrill of fear, he saw that mouth and thought it was screaming.

"I told you," Ysir replied, voice cold at being questioned so in her own lands, "There are dark creatures lurking in its shadows. There have been for as long as my clan had walked this land. We are warriors, but we have not the numbers to throw our people into the jaws of the unknown."

Ioxera snorted, drumming a tattoo on her war club as she glared at the cave.
"Children's stories."

"If they were but stories," Rehkuna said thoughtfully, "We would not be here, Ioxera. These tracks, they were serpents?"

"Of that, we are sure. They looked like Dhani, and they ended at the rocks near the cave. Given their size, we assumed the Snake People, but..."

"But you have not confirmed this."

Not a question; a statement. Ysir nodded, a flicker of shame passing quickly over her fine, preserved features. Razkar felt a touch of sympathy for her, but he let it pass. He knew what it was like to want to protect your clan from the horrors that lurked in this jungle, but if it was Dhani infesting their land, such caution was a sin, not a virtue.

He glanced at Tinnok, lined up with the rest at the entrance of the cave. Contrary to his fears, when they arrived the guards were still there, set back in the treeline with their eyes loyally fixed on the cave. Nothing had moved, they said. But...

"Are there any other entrances?"

"We do not know. As I said, we have not explored them deeply... but we know of no other caves for miles around. If there are other entrances, they extend far, far abroad from this valley."

Razkar nodded slowly, processing this. No Myrian liked venturing below ground. Since time immemorial, that had been the domain of the Ancient Enemy. Myri's Children had ruthlessly ruled the surface, but what lay beneath... that was tailor-made to the slithering abominations. He glanced at Tinnok and saw her impatience, he barely-restrained anger. He could only imagine how her gnosis was tormenting her, for... he felt it, too.

Razkar knew the jungle was harsh and brutal. Caiyha was a being a beauty and wonder but also utter impartiality. In the grand scheme of her works in Falyndar, she ultimately favored and maligned no-one. She created a deathly and dire place, and it was the will of every inhabitant that defined survival.

He had felt that cold harshness before... but this was different. Caiyha was not evil; this place was. It reeked of a... malevolence. A malign intelligence that set cruelty and pin in motion, for its own sake, the perfect definition of true evil.

That was what Razkar felt crawling over his skin when he looked in that silently screaming chasm. It frightened him... but he gripped his ax all the same.

Evil needed to be fought. It needed to be destroyed, or it would spread.

"When do we go inside?"

Rehkuna turned to regard the male as he spoke. She had worried that what he had seen at the Blockade had broken his resolve... but she knew him of old. He had a rare hatred in him, did Razkar, though he hid it well behind his duty and his honor. She was grateful of that; without them, he could have proven a problem to her.

"Now." She said simply, turning to Ysir before Ioxera could begin her objections. "War Mistress, you and your people will wait here for us. It is midday. If we have not returned by midday tomorrow, alert Taloba and tell them to send a full force with intent to destroy. Our fang is small, designed to observe and evaluate, not engage our enemy. We are not intending to exterminate what lies within, so will keep our distance and have a mind to return by tomorrow. If we do not... then we never shall. Do you understand?"

Ysir nodded shortly, an experienced warrior in her own right who knew the wisdom of Rehkuna's words. "It shall be done, Fang Leader. May Myri guide your hand..."

Rehkuna smiled thinly, taking the offered hand and shaking it, ending the old army of Taloba saying.

"And Dira by blade." She whirled on her makeshift fang and began snapping off order, Ioxera growing more and more apoplectic with every word. "Three-two-three formation. Razkar, Tinnok, Hiteo, you will take the lead, weapons drawn at all times. Myself and Ioxera will take the center. The rest of you, rearguard and eyes open. We all know how the Dhani love their ambushes. Keep the torches lit the whole time and minimal noise. The light enough will be warning for whatever's down there, we don't need to add to it. Your torch goes our, relight it or withdraw to the center."

She rounded on Tinnok as Hitieo and Erama began to fashion said torches out of branches and vine. Her gaze held a hint of a sneer, but it was more level now, almost... equal.

"We'll be depending on you, halfbreed. Your... second eyes will aid us greatly down there. Hence you are in the lead." But then she took a step forwards and her voice dropped to truly icy levels, barely above a whisper. "But if I see any aid or sympathy for the Ancient Enemy when we are down there, anything that I think stinks of treachery for your kin... you will never see sunlight again. Are we clear?"

At that point, Ioxera's pride could take no more and she exploded.

[Tinnok]

Ioxera seethed, voice raising in intensity as she spoke. “The abomination falls under my leadership Rekhuna. Tainted blood or no, she has spilled her share of Dhani venom, if it were otherwise, she would not be standing under my leadership!”

Ioxera’s words were said through gritted teeth, barely containing any semblance of reservation. Rekhuna shrugged. “Her blood will reveal itself in time, Ioxera, or are you so naïve as to think otherwise?” A small smirked jerked at her lips, and Ioxera’s eyes widened in rage and indignation.

For once, Tinnok’s rage was too focused on other things to be taken out upon the tigress. She stepped forward, laying a hand on Ioxera’s shoulder. Her fang leader flinched away, but Tinnok caught her gaze and it said it all. Not here. Not now. A conviction lay deep within yellow eyes. Taking the front? Good. Her fellows not trusting her was the norm, and nothing to take to heart…not anymore, and certainly not here. She glanced at the ominous entrance, the perfect place for her half brethren to lie in wait, and she smiled. Ioxera gave Rekhuna a look that implied this was to be continued at another day, but cooled her temper…for now.

She wrapped dry reeds around damp moss, it would keep the smoke minimal, but keep a flame going as it worked around the plants. Taking a chip of flint from her pocket she sliced it against stone rock face until the sparks caught on the dry reeds, hand cupping over the torch and blowing upon the surface, coaxing the fire. The little spark hungrily lapped at dry and dead leaves, sinking into the thicker substances below, and Tinnok nodded, satisfied.

She turned to see her fellow forward line ready with their own torches, and practically leaped into the entrance of the cavern, pausing only until she felt the shoulders of her comrades on either side.

It was a tight fit, barely room enough for three to walk abreast, so the half-breed moved half a step ahead to promote a little more room. Despite the rocky crags below her, she kept her feet bare, and found it easier to keep her purchase on the slick rocks with toes that could grasp stone. They proceeded along a slow downward slope that curved slightly, cautious steps taking them ever deeper, until the light of the outside had faded away.

Moss hung upon the walls, but whatever it thrived upon was not what Tinnok was used to feeling. The pain in her shoulder seemed to dim somewhat…but perhaps she was just growing used to the dull throb of wrongness permeating throughout the cavern, she couldn’t quite tell. When her fingers brushed the moss it felt quieter, dimmer than plants out and about within the sun. Drawing her fingers away she realized her hands were covered with a faint reddish liquid, watery because of the dripping ceiling. She had heard of plants called Blood Moss before, but had never actually encountered it before…rumors was the plant only grew in places where death and violence occurred in regularity. Wonderful.

She did not communicate this fact, however, for fear of breaking the strange echoing silence their small procession made. Her feet tread carefully, eyes making sure that she knew precisely where she stepped each time, for who knew what filth could line this strange watery cavern. They went deeper, but the only noises Tinnok heard was the faint movement of her comrades and the dripping of water off moss and rocks. It was dark, the rocks slate grey and slick with perspiration. Winding tunnels continued, tall but not wide, until the fang found themselves in a larger area as the tunnel split off in two different directions.

Tinnok frowned, not liking this decision. Splitting up was out of the question, for it would be precisely what their enemy sought, but it there truly were unknown dangers in this cavern, who knew which path would lead them to the information they wanted to know. So the half-breed assessed the facts presented to them. Both tunnels led downward in opposite directions, both were wet and dark. She held the torch down one pathway, then the other, then pursed her lips and handed the torch to Razkar. The light would not help them here, for various reasons, but she wished to see what the darkness had in store. Letting her eyes adjust to dimmer settings she looked down the right pathway, trying discern any details that would differ from the left. For one she did not notice the hanging blood moss, and there…there was light. She took one cautious step forward, eyes squinting and focusing on whatever it was…then realized the source of light was coming from some kind of fungus, perhaps a different variety of moss, a strange vibrant blue instead.

She retrieved her torch with a nod of thanks towards the male warrior, and approached Ioxera and the tigress, her voice barely a whisper. “My gut tells me left.”

Rekhuna snorted, but Ioxera’s gaze focused in on the abomination, gaze serious. Her eyes asked why and Tinnok glanced down. “The path is healthier to the right…plant life more natural. Whatever is happening…to with the Dhani, it is most likely to the left.”

Rekhuna looked unimpressed, but Ioxera was satisfied. The path was even more narrow no matter which way they chose, and their formation simply wouldn’t work. Ioxera motioned to Razkar. “Take the lead male, if the path widens the formation will go back to before.”

Tinnok bit her lip, not liking the fact that she had to relinquish sight of the front, but not willing to argue. She looked to Razkar, letting him see the worry and hate in her gaze. This situation was strange no doubt, why could it never be simple?

[Razkar]

Deeper they walked, further into nothing, shadows and dripping water. They passed stalagnites that had taken countless millenia to form. Through winding tunnels slick with moisture that undrground rivers had to carve out. But not once did they catch sight of their prey. The only life was them, their torches, and the sickly moss and fungus that oozed across the walls.

And then they came to the fork. Razkar heard his Fang Leader's order and nodded without hesitation, always the good soldier. But he saw Tinnok's expression. He nodded again, a little shorter, trying to say with his eyes what he did not have time to in the darkness.

I'll be fine, just keep your third eye open.

Leading the way by torchlight, free hand clutching his ax, Razkar could see that the halfbreed was dead-on about the plant life. As they moved down the narrow tunnel, the fungus turned from green to yellow, then brown and finally a putrid black that spawned other fungi that fed on the corpse of was beneath them. Razkar's nose crinkled in disgust as the smell became overpowering...

... until it twitched. It was not only the fungi that was rotting down there.

Eyes narrowed and heart beating faster, he quickened his step, torchlight forging his way through the slippery rocks and narrow passageway... until it was narrow no longer. A cavern blossomed in the darkness, a rock pool at its center filled with dark water. No light permeated it... not natural, anyway. But Razkar felt his jaw drop as he looked upwards...

A constellation of lights was above their heads, sickly and wyrd but bright enough to almost negate their need for torches. The cavern's ceiling was covered in that same glowing, pulsing fungi that they had passed before. Then Razkar's nose twitched again, and he looked back down...

"Shit."

Literally.

He moved nimbly over the slimy rocks around the pool and stopped at the mound of white, chalky substance piled in one spot. He knew it of old: snake droppings. But whereas even the largest "natural" serpent would produce a pile of spent, wizened droppings that were the size of his fist, this was easily the size of his head, perhaps larger.

Grimacing and forcing his bile to stay put in his stomach, Razkar leaned closer... and nearly vomited. But he learned what he had intended. He turned back to his fang, finding Tinnok and Ioxera leaning close to him, the rest arrayed around them, keeping watch outward.

"It's Dhani." Razkar said confidently, taking a quick gulp of water from his skin to wash the taste from his mouth. "Normal snakes don't leave droppings this big. It's fresh, too, smell is still... very strong."

The male licked his lips, hunter's gleam in his eye at the joy of finally having found sign of their prey. He looked around them and saw the entrance on the opposite end of the tunnel, where the pool had meandered and carved a small, hunched passage.

"Must be down there. They woun't shit where they eat, or petch, or... anything else. They'd do their business somewhere away from the nest. But it is them, and however many there are... I think we're on the edge of them."

He listened to the contemplative silence as his words sank in, eyes fixed on that darkened exit. Anything could be beyond it, waiting and hissing in the shadows. He flipped his ax around in his hand, twisted it.

Finally, he thought hungrily, something we can kill...

[Tinnok]

She saw Ioxera and Rekhuna falter. How far did they go, risking their lives simply for intelligence? But finding Dhani droppings did not reveal number or purpose, and Tinnok smiled with glee seeing the resignation shared between the two women, knowing that they had to press on. She stepped up beside Razkar and saw her own purpose mirrored in his gaze. Let's see Rekhuna doubt her heritage after they ripped a few Dhani limb from limb, aye?

The tunnel was significantly wider out of the cavern, wide enough for five people no less the three that they maintained when traveling. It was clear from this point on that actual carving had been done, and Tinnok vaguely wondered how long the Dhani had dwelled here. Had they been occupants before the storm, and now their numbers had simply grown? The way the rocks had been cut was not so artful like the mountain people, more utilitarian in nature, but it still spoke of a people setting down roots, a thought that did not bode well for the half-breed or her companions.

So they walked. Erama was silent, every now and then flashing looks at Tinnok, but she would not return any lude expressions today, too strong was her focus. In her hand free from the torch she clutched her scimitar, slowly adapting to its unique hold and handle in her grasp. With wider halls and higher ceilings she felt even more exposed than in the single person tunnel. Now the pathways had room for multiple Dhani. The advantage was that because of the strange fungul growths, the group was able to eliminate use of their torches, dousing them int eh wet walls and moving onwards without inhibiting their sight. Tinnok put her worries and fears into her feet, carefully stepping, eyes flickering between the dim light ahead and the shadowed ground below.

OOC :

To set the creepy tunnel mood.

Shivers trickled down her spine when she heard it coming from all sides. It started faint but grew steadily in volume, echoing through the tunnels like a winter breeze on a summer afternoon: Hisses.

Tinnok's head snapped to and fro, and she saw her comrades doing the same. The sounds seemed to be coming from every direction, but there was not a snake in sight, not in the shadows ahead, nor upon the ceiling, not even behind. Weapons were clenched in hands as the sound grew louder, creating some strange beat. And then the singing began.

Three by Two the flesssh eatersss come Ssssiku consssume them, one by one Try asss they might to run and hide Her children will find them, rip out their insssidesss

Tinnok's yellow eyes widened in fear and hate in equal measure, and almost as one Erama, Razkar and she formed a triangle, backs touching each other, eyes darting frantically to every shadowed corner and crevice, watching as the tigress and the rest took up similar postures. What in the Godess's name had they walked into?

[Razkar]

The tunnel reeked of age... and patience. As Razkar looked around at the carvings, he couldn't help but notice how painstaking they seemed to be. There weren't overly-ornate or large, but their complexity and smoothness spoke of dozens, even hundreds of years of faithful maintenance.

Whoever they are, his mind whispered to him as they kept up their creeping march down the widening passage, they've been here a long, long time...

Then the hissing rasped against his ear, starting slow but still making him shudder when it finally reached a crescendo. He ground his teeth until they hurt, sheer reptilian menace rattling his mammalian brain, making some deep, primal part of his squeal in terror.

But there was nothing. No shadows flitted nor scales shone or scraped on the wet stone. The Myrians snapped into defensive formation in different groups. Razkar, Tinnok and Erama were backed into a triangle within two steps; Hiteo, Chinra and hulking Gaest did the same.

Rehkuna and Ioxera were back to back, Fang Leader to Fang Leader, eyes searching... searching...

They came the singing. It slithered like the serpents that Razkar knew were singing it, slid unwanted into your ears, echoing off the high walls, violating your consciousness and worming round your soul. Razkar felt a tremble in his hands and let free that tap of rage and hatred that he kept corked deep inside him, that contempt for his enemies he'd held inside him since the day his mother had been laid low.

"Face us," he snarled at the darkness as the words rushed around them, "Face us, cowards!"

Something moved. Or seemed to.

Razkar's eyes caught the suggestion of movement from the end of the passageway. A flash. Something pale and shining in the fluorescent fungal light. His breath came out in a steam, as if suddenly cold in the warm, stifling confines of the cave. He felt Tinnok stiffen next to him and could only imagine how her Gnosis was paining her.

There was corruption here. Old and powerful. And it had not finished it's song.

Long enough in darknessssssss lain
Called to blesssssss promise of pain
Ssssstrip their flesh and ssssssup their blood
Drown their sssssstrength in Sssssssiku's flood

Stronger now; localized. He peered down the tunnel and thought he saw a flash of a grinning, hairless face with a maw full of fangs, slitted black eyes above it. Far paler than any Dhani he had seen, as if bleached and whitened by countless years trapped or waiting in the sunless netherworld.

Welcome... Welcome to the deep darknesssssssss...

He flinched, hearing the rasping, hissing whisper as if it were right next to his ear. Razkar gripped his weapons tight, drawing his gladius with his free hand as the voices began to tighten around them.

[Tinnok]

It bubbled up inside her. Her Gnosis was a dull throb compared to the clawed hand that grasped her heart when she saw those eyes glinting in the faint light. It felt hot in her very center, like an iron bot over the stove, gaining and gathering its heat. She knew in those eyes what people saw in her own. The cold gleeful stares filled with hunger and promises of death. She loved her eyes, in a twisted masochistic way, but the heat rose within her seeing those ones, knowing they had caught her fast in a trap. When Razkar spoke a hiss escaped her own throat, one that spoke of blood to be spilled.

That was when she saw it, a flicker of movement above her, a tail sliding into a hole. The voices sounded as if they came from all around...because they did. Eyes glinted up in the dark recesses of the ceiling and the half breed realized with sinking horror that this passageway had been constructed with cold and thoughtful intent. Rkhuna had been right: The Dhani loved their ambushes, and the holes up above that allowed their serpent bodies access on all sides to enemies below made this a perfect one.

And then the noise stopped. It was if they had trained to be fearful killers all their life, for Tinnok realized the genius of their plan. Suddenly the passageway was as silent as the jungle after a vicious storm, and the only sound was the heavy breathing of the fang. She could hear her own heart beating, and feel the racing beats of the ones that surrounded her.

Taste it my brothersss and ssssissstersss. The pigsss reek of fear and hate, and it will fuel usss.

Tinnok's whole body was rigid with tension. If one of her comrades had touched her more than the casual brush of their backs she suspected her bones would simply shatter from exertion. Like a hawk circling the wounded sparrow, the tiger stalking it's lame prey...she felt pinned and helpless, if this was to be the end, what did they wait for?

Her answer came in the form of glass orbs thrown from the holes in the ceiling. They shattered upon the floor, and as they did so, the liquid within them, a strange mossy green, turned into a gaseous form, rising up into the air.

What trickery was this? Tinnok broke formation and pushed herself against the wall but the substance rose high and fast, before she could even think she had consumed a lungful of it, and it brought a hacking cough from the back of her throat. She looked around desperately to see the others of their party meeting the same fate, some covering their mouths, but to no avail. Her vision swam and an itching rose in her throat so extreme that she wanted to claw out her own esophagus. Her scimitar clattered to the stone and she found herself on all fours on the grounds, knees scraping over broken glass. She looked up, saw Razkar falling down and his eyes wide. She reached for him, though she didn't know what this gesture was meant to symbolize. Some pathetic form of goodbye? Her yellow eyes burned with pain and hate, but she made sure there was a determination swimming around those slits. Her last coherent thought circled around the idea that if they had truly wanted them dead....why knock them unconscious?

Good, good. Take them to the lower chambersss, make sssure they are prepared for the next ssstep. oocBwahaha, have fun setting up the next scene!