Game Of Scales (Tinnok)

[Kalesserimamoru]

The trickster cackled at her words. She was a Myrian for sure, talking about shoving a fang into the heart of a Dhani. It sounded like something someone had scribbled in a book, assuming Myrians could read and write first. "And now?" he added with an arched brow. "And now you want to see him? To find out what he has been up too?" He knew exactly what he was doing, teasing the woman to get a reaction out of her.


"Power of Boness? Yess well, I ssuposse that isss possible. Mosst thingss are it would appear. If you like fangs sso much, add another and make it a pair." Again he teased her, knowing she wouldn't attack him, not now after what they'd been through and his hypnotic persuasion.


Suddenly, just as he was about to move further away, she jumped up with what seemed like frustration, or a new idea. Mamoru's eyes widen slightly and he paused to see what she would say next. Surely she wasn't about to beg him to stay, to cross the short path between them and take her into his arms again? Of course not...that would have been too easy. Mamoru's gaze followed hers as they lifted towards the canopy. Her attention had turned back to the tree again, what a wonderfully boring mind this one had. Tinnok had discovered a new way to tackle the mystery of what was wrong with the tree, and she wanted his help with it.


"Interesssting..."


Things where looking up, and as her words left her mouth, the trickster's eyes widen, and his lips quivered with delight. If he helped her solve the issue, he could ask one thing of her, and she would comply as long as it didn't put her life at risk. A fair trade, and she wasn't asking him to put his life at risk either. But there was something else to be said about it. While many may have seen this as a simple black and white deal, Mamoru saw so much more. That was the thing about oaths and deals, they were still manageable as long as the intent remained the same from the moment of the agreement until the end.


If the trickster didn't know that his task would put her life in danger, how could he know to avoid it? Furthermore, if his wish itself didn't put her life in danger, but because of what they shared, something else caused risk to her life, was he in breach of contract? Mamoru loved these puzzles, these plays on words. Perhaps he would ask her to be his, to share a bond with him that was something more than a casual rump in the grove. Maybe not, the word itself held enough weight to sink a ship, and the halfbreed would surely protest. Asking such a thing was close to asking her to attack a Myrian fang. Long words, big words, that appeared to hold more meaning than others, when it truth they didn't always.


There was also the thought of taking what she had teased him with so easily before. But then, he knew that was something they both had wanted since their first encounter. Why put a price on something now, that was given so freely once before? The trickster licked his lips, he would have her and he would have what she offered, just as he had planned. A devious smirk rose upon his lips and he nodded in agreement.

What had she gotten herself into..?


"It isss a deal, I will help you ssolve the mysstery behind thiss tree, and afterwardss we can disscusss my reward."


Following her actions, the Dhani pulled his djed from within him, allowing it to rise to the surface and flow into his hands and feet. Fingers lengthen, becoming thicker and palms widen to take the shape of that of the primate. He wiggled his toes, those too grew longer extending as his fingers did until they were almost identical. His feet widen as well, mimicking the uniqueness that the monkeys shared between their hands and feet to allow them to grip as easily with one as the other. He decided to go with better grip than claws, realizing that if he slipped, or his claws broke he would fall. With the hands and feet of the primates, he could more skillfully make his way about and continue on.


Once the transformation was complete, he watched Tinnok go up first. She had so much promise, though he wondered if her Myrian blood would keep her from realizing it. He waited until she had started up, and then followed, going up right behind her. The trickster moved as she didn't, following her closely in case she slipped. He couldn't have her die before they completed their..arrangement.

"Letsss get to work."

[Tinnok]

She knew she had given him power. More than he already seemed to have over her she wasn't sure, but it was something...something she wasn't sure she could regret. After all, hadn't she spent her lifetime looking over her shoulder, second guessing ever decision she made wondering if it was right? To throw her fate to the naked, comely Dhani didn't seem to be the worst thing she had done in her short lifespan of bad decisions...but that remained to be seen,

For now, however, there was work to be done, and all of the fun and horror that would surely come after could wait a while longer.

Gradually the tree sloped inward, becoming thinner, and it wasn't until the trunk itself started to lean towards the weight of her and Mamuro's body following close behind that the half breed dropped down onto a lower branch and rotated her wrists which had become cramped from the climb. Glancing over at Mamuro, she then looked downward at her new vantage point. "The monkeys I was following knew to avoid this place, probably from leagues off...clever things."

There wasn't a distinct line between the lush jungle and the strange dead area she and the Trickster inhabited, for nature was much more subtle than that, but there was an ovular plot of land that was most certainly dead, where only a few yards away greenery lush and juicy sprung from the soil.

"There's something below the ground here...something stealing the nutrients..." The half breed crouched down, placing her hand upon the tree bark again, trying to find the source of that void she had discovered before. She felt the darkness the emptiness, then felt a specific ring of the tree, a memory of events in time that had made one layer of the bark that was now compressed in its center. She felt her roots drowned by water, and a period of time upon which there was no sunlight and only the liquid, which must have signaled a heavy monsoon season, but when the waters receded...they took land with them...

Tinnok clutched her head a moment, her mind trying to process the information she was receiving from the great tree. She felt something replaced, not soil, nothing that the roots could take from.

The witch growled under her breath. "I don't understand...it's like the plants are sucking up...death."

She paused a moment, contemplating, then reached back into the trees memories, trying to find that same year that had washed the land away beneath its roots. It was hard for a tree to see years as you did, it saw each day the same as a century, merely the passing of one cycle to the next. But the event was not so far back...barely a scratch into the trees extensive history...as far as she could tell.

"I think this happened during the Djed Storm..." Not that it mattered when it had happened precisely...The witch leaned against the trunk before shifting her weight and dropping down harshly, her arms reaching up to catch her on a branch, using the momentum to swing herself lower down upon another branch. She paused a moment and called up to the Dhani.

"I'm sorry I took you all the way up, but I think where we need to go...is down." By the time she reached the ground again Tinnok was huffing with exertion, and she began to circle the base of the tree, her feet pounding the ground experimentally as if listening for something. After disappearing around one of the great buttresses, there was a muffled cry and the sound of shifting earth. If Mamuro was watching from above it was like the earth had swallowed her up, from the side it look like she simply disappeared. When he went to investigate a dusty hand emerged from a large gap int he ground between two roots, a dirt streaked face emerging behind it with a gleam in her eye.

"There's a whole cave down here!" Her voice was filled with excitement as she disappeared back into the blackness, a soft light filtering in from holes above.

[Kalesserimamoru]

Mamoru continued the climb up, using his new feet and hands to work his way up and to grip the branches that he needed to move on. It was still a different workout than he was used to, the Dhani didn't climb as much in his human form as he did while a snake or Dhani. In those forms his scales were useable in helping him climb better, where as now he had to depend on his limbs completely. The trickster continued to climb and move from place to place while keeping the tempting rear-end of the half breed's close in sight.


After going up higher, he paused and rested on a thicker branch. He took in the view, also looking below for the other type of monkeys. They had interrupted them the last time they were about to embark on an adventure and to see them again wouldn't surprise him. He exchanged a glance with the woman and looked to the tree again curiously.


"It sseemss that your tree is dieing...maybe the land itsself isss ass well?"


The trickster watched Tinnok as she investigated the tree more. The woman was serious about finding whatever it was that was going wrong and then perhaps fix it? Followers of Caiyha did so worry about the plants and animals, but whatever she was sensing was lost to him. Closer inspection and he would notice the outreaching of death coming from the tree and fading off into the land surrounding it. At least whatever it was seemed to be in one place.


"The djed storm? That was a fun time for usss all, hmm? Ssoundss like a good of an idea ass any to sstart with. But what doess that really tell usss?"


Mamoru didn't follow the woman back down, and instead crouched down and settled on the branch beneath him and watched her go to work. His morphed feet clinched the bark tightly and one hand reached out to balance against the tree. Tilting his head, the Dhani offered her a bemused expression, though it might have been hard to see with the mane covering his head and part of his face. "Going down? Thosse were my exact thoughtss when I firsst...ah very well then."


And back down it was, Mamoru gripped the branches tightly as he lowered himself down, legs and feet padding against the tree to slow his descent, when he wasn't swinging down from one to a lower branch. He looked down and for his companion as he moved, and with a sudden muffled cry, the trickster looked down to see the ground shallow her up. His eyes widen and his eyebrow twitched with irritation. "What madnessss iss thisss??"


He shifted his body and dropped down from the tree away from the spot where Tinnok had disappeared. While this was interesting, he preferred his toys alive while he played with them. Kneeling down, he looked closer at the ground that appeared sunken in and then there was...a hand, followed by a dirt smeared face and a yellow eye. He cackled under his breath as he looked to her. The woman was like a kitten, so curious and filled with joy at any discovery. However interesting and mystery an underground cave may have seemed, he remembered the last time that he had dove into something underground and almost lost his life in the process.


"And here I wasss looking to explore a very different cave..." Shaking his head at the pattern their encounters were starting to form, the Dhani stepped forward and allowed himself to sink into the ground.

[Tinnok]

If Tinnok got the little joke Mamuro threw toward her, she showed no sign of acknowledging it as she crept down into the shadows. Unlike her Dhani companion, Tinnok would have to rely upon the thin light filtering in from holes in the ground above to see, though her pupils adjusted somewhat to the amount of sun coming down and changed accordingly.

First she realized a stark smell. There was of course the biodegrading of leaves and debris that gave off that deep earthy smell she enjoyed...but no, there was something far more foul down here, and she could taste some sort of death upon her tongue, her Gnosis seeming to pull at the skin of her arm, making it feel sore. "I think I know what has been leeching the life out of here...now we just need to-"

Her voice cut off swiftly as she stepped forward and came face to face with the snout of a Dhani. She took a quick leap back out of shock if nothing else, before realizing that it was motionless. Leaning forward she went to inspect the creature...and a whole slew of memories came flooding back from a certain hunt in the woods with Eagle.

It's head was Dhani shape and size, its body human and curled into the fetal position, and oddly shaped tail coming out of it's rump, one leg half gone into its flesh, and it was not alone in its torturous death, two others mishapen and misformed, caught halfway between transformations in the Djed storm were curled and dead, skin sloughing off bones or dried and stuck to to shriveled muscles lying in a pit of black. Tinnok's feet sunk into black earth corrupted by the taint of death, and as she stepped forward she howled in pain, her foot sliced open upon some sharp protrusion on the ground. Dropping to her knees with a grunt she began searching with her fingers, finding a carved bone knife with runes upon its surface...covered in something black and sticky...perhaps the old blood of these Dhani.

"Goddess above, what were they doing?" She had seen a malediction ritual only once, and never wished to see it perform again, regardless of what she had told Mamuro...but these three seemed to have been doing something strange and probably vile when the storm hit...and they paid the ultimate price. She wondered if it was the transformation itself that had marred their body in such a way that they couldn't live, or perhaps just Caiyha's fury at the act of malediction at a holy site. Or perhaps it was none of these things at all...or all of them at once.

[Kalesserimamoru]

It seemed the woman didn't catch his humor, or that she wasn't amused by it. That was no surprise to him, most women didn't get his brand of humor and the one's who did, weren't fans. He slipped into the ground and landed on the floor of the cave as Tinnok did before him. Looking down he almost chuckled at the sight of them. Muddied, and with the generous coating that he received it almost appeared as if he were wearing clothing.


It was dark in the cave, warmer than above, and there was a scent tickling the inside of his nose and his tongue should he flick it about. Old, death and coagulated blood staining the walls with a smell nothing could wash away. Something happened there and it was brutal. Mamoru released the flow of djed in his limbs and allowed his hands and feet to resume their natural shape and form. He wouldn't need this form while crawling through a cave or underground ruin."Oh? I wass jusst about to ssay that ssomething musst have crawled down here and died and now it'ss...."


How true his words were, at least in part. The trickster paused as the woman suddenly jumped back, and tighten his fist as he looked to see what had frightened her. The dead body of a Dhani, or something like it. Another deformed creature that used to be a Dhani. Moving closer, he noticed that there were more of them, all misshapen and very dead. "Now I think we're getting ssomewhere. What ever happened here wass..."


He was cut off again as the woman screamed, and for a moment he wasn't sure what had happened to her. He reached down to help her up, but as she searched frantically to find what cut her, he was interested to see it as well. A bone knife with runes inside. Something about it reminded him of the weapon he had retrieved from the ruin he had visited. More malediction perhaps? That certainly would explain a lot, and why the tree and the soil around it were dieing.


"Looksss ass though you've sstumbled onto ssomething here Tinnok. Caiyha would be pleassed. Or at leasst she will be if you can resstore thiss cave to it'ss former glory." Reaching down again, he pulled the woman back up and closer to him, of course this was for her protection as well as for his own reasons.

[Tinnok]

Surprisingly, she didn't fight his grasp as he pulled her close, and she leaned into his chest, observing the situation warily. Dead bodies weren't enough to taint the land...but their magic was, perhaps that was the source, and Mamuro had observed the challenge in this as well: Cleansing the taint.

"I hunted a Dhani like this, who was stuck in between forms, murdering with abandon in the jungle, unable to shift back or forth." Her voice was quiet, not needing to be very loud for the Trickster to hear her. She brushed her thumb along the Dhani's arm thoughtfully. "Better to put it out of its misery than allow it to suffer...no one should have to suffer like that." the words were an echo of her voice back then, and she knew Eagle had not understood, all he saw was the Dhani, she saw the pain.

A globule of spit fell upon the floor and Tinnok pulled herself away from Mamuro, not rudely simply...abruptly. "Well first...we should get them out of here and burn them, then...I don't know, try to figure out what they were doing?" She glanced back at him. "You can see better than I, any clues?"

She bent over and reached for one of the bodies, larger due to the mostly formed tail emerging from its torso. It was heavy...but many of its nutrients had been lost in the two years the body had had to decompose. Something wet slid off when she first tried to grip the creature beneath the arms, and she grimaced, wiping her hands upon the floor before trying again, dragging the corpse foot by foot towards the entrance of the cavern.

oocFeel free to make up whatever you want, the whole weird twisted Dhani idea was the real point I wanted to get to, and anything after that is totally fine!

[Kalesserimamoru]

There was something sickeningly twisted about the scene before them. The Dhani were dead that much was very clear. But what irony would it be, if the very thing they had been trying to do was to prolong their lives? The trickster glanced down at the woman leaning against him and he could see the worry, and confusion in her eyes. They had come to a very mystery scene indeed, and he wondered if she too was finding these things more and more frequently.


Mamoru listened to her story and it tugged at his mind to try and solve the mystery. What could break the chain in a Dhani transformation and cause them to be stuck in a form in between all three? Was this some ill effect of morphing or something else more sinister. "Why doess thiss ssound like ssomething to do with morphing gone wrong? It'ss nothing I've ever encountered, but what elsse could causse a Dhani to losse control of his formsss?" He wasn't certain that was the key, but he figured he'd voice the idea anyway, just in case Tinnok may have been thinking something similar.


She moved away from him then, and started to investigate again. Mamoru moved as well, having no desire to stay inside the death cave any longer than he had too. "Ssometimesss with thesse ritualsss there are drawingss, ssymbolsss on the ground where ssealsss are created. Only..it's hard to see here with all the muk and bodiess." Agreeing with her, the trickster moved to a body as well and started to pull it out of the muk and towards the entrance. He looked up just for a moment and he was sure that he saw something on the walls.


"Well..what isss thisss here?"


Stepping over the bodies, the Dhani moved closer to the far wall of the cave to look closer. There, etched into the rock were drawings, one posted after the other in a row, and others opposite, seemingly separated from the them. His features wrinkled and he folded his arms across his chest as he looked upon them. Odd doodles, some more skillfully drawn than others. There was a figure, Dhani like in shape, but it had two extra sets of arms and a pair of legs, with the tail behind it. Next to it was another similar drawing of the same creature, only this one had the mouth of a lizard. On the other wall carved into the rock were images of being with wings, twin tails, and other things he'd never seen before.


"You might want to take a look at thisss." he said, reaching his hand out towards her without looking in her direction. If she were to expect his hand, he would draw her near, possibly pushing her against the wall if she needed the extra help to see in the darkness. "What do you make of thisss? Iss it read left to right, or right to left?" He would stay there with her and discuss her ideas if she had any before turning and moving on.


What he found on the opposite wall facing away from the entrance way that they used to get in was even more interesting. Images of the same creatures from the second group were drawn here as well with different weapons presented below them. There was an inscription, scribbled writing in carved into the rock, that was barely legible. Walking closer, Mamoru stared at the writing trying to make sense of it. "Blood in? Ssoulss trapped? blood out, new life?"

[Tinnok]

Tinnok continued dragging the body upward, grunting as she did so, especially when she had to take the bulk through the one opening. She listened to Mamuro's mutterings, however, and as she brushed her hands off stepping back into the cavern she shrugged.

"All I know is that the one we fought before, it said the Spring Storm was responsible for the way it was, I mean...it looks as if they were shifting and somehow caught in the middle, but if they were shifting when it happened or the storm forced them to do it...and they were caught in..."

She leaned forward to look at the runes. "Can Malediction do that? Aid you in morphing? It has always seemed so...unpredictable to me."

As she asked she grabbed another corpse, this one easier to move as it was mostly in human form. "Though that would be handy...a knife or item that could just allow you to shift, maybe even without utilizing your djed, but..." She shivered. No the Witch might practice magic, but even she knew where to draw the line.

Her eyes stared forlornly down at the body curled painfully into the fetal position. It brought her back to her discussions with Eagle. He had said the storm was Caiyha's doing because of the way the forest had over grown and covered all the established paths of the Myrians. She had been so furious at him for that, but this sort of display...no, Caiyha would simply eat transgressors she would like to think, or turn them into animals like she had seen with her own eyes once before.

Two bodies brought out into the light, Tinnok assessed her options. It would be risky simply starting a bonfire for them, though now in broad daylight was probably their best option for the whole situation, at night it might as well be a signal fire for Dhan and Myrians alike.

She slid back into the murky cave for the final body, her arms burning from the strain of the dead weight, picturing the strange images in her mind, the words that Mamuro was speaking. "So it's written in snake tongue then?"

[Kalesserimamoru]

Mamoru waved his hand around lightly in the air, twitching fingers reaching for something that was too far away to grasp. Drawing his hand back in, the trickster looked at it before glancing over his shoulder to see Tinnok steadily dragging bodies out of the cave. What a hard worker this halfbreed was...Caiyha would be proud.


"Well that sstorm releassed a havac on the world around usss. Ssomething sso powerful that it's pressencess iss sstill felt on thiss day. But if what happened here wass only caussed by the sstorm, then I guesss thesse writingss could be ssomething elsse...oh well."


The trickster turned way from the wall and headed back into the center of the pit. There was no reason to get swept up into something else that had no baring on what she wanted to achieve in the cave. Whatever the drawings meant, it didn't seem to have anything to do with either of their plans which made it irrelevant.


"I don't know what powersss Malediction can and can't do. But the quesstion iss, did they think it would help in ssuch a way?"


By the time Mamoru turned again after looking at each of the carvings a last time, he saw that Tinnok had removed all of the bodies. She was fast, he wouldn't have thought she had the strength to lift that much weight on her own, but the truth lied in the missing bodies leaving only muk behind. The trickster lifted his hands as if he were about to applaud, then dropped them to his side and with a smirk upon his face.

"Sso...what now?"

[Tinnok]

She grunted and groaned as the last corpse was hauled out. Just because they were lighter having lost most of their fluids...didn't make them light. In a makeshit pile a short distance away from the tree they mangled corpses leaned on one another, and Tinnok looked at the front of her body in disgust. Waste, sections of skin and Goddess knew what covered the whole front of her chest and stomach from keeping the bodies tight to her chest on the climb up from the little cavern. Trying to wipe the residue away just made it stick to her hands, and she had to focus to keep from shivering in disgust.

She heard Mamuro muttering within, and leaned down, hair trailing about her face in loose curls as she peered downward at him.

"Well first...we need to burn these bodies. They are done and gone, and shouldn't taint this place anymore, but...their filth is sunk deep into the ground here, so I have to think on precisely what is going to cleanse that."

She offered a grimy hand. "Help me make a bonfire?"

Once he was out, Tinnok turned back to the pile. Yes, they would have to do it now, lest distracting anymore unwanted attention, if they kept the wood dry and without much bark or other debris, it would keep down on the smoke, and the warm breezes drifting by would help dissipate any that did manage to curl up through the canopy. She began finding proper pieces of wood, and laid them diagonally atop the bodies, covering them with the wood and making a tent shape, as well as poking in smaller bits between limbs where she could fit it. She wanted these monstrosities burned well and good...and fast. As she worked she began talking to herself, trying to figure out the next step.

"Land needs to be cleansed...not just cleaned, but...restored. Sun hasn't helped the plants recover, or this glade already would have...water? But the monsoons haven't done anything...not yet...And how am I going to clean out the cave? One handful of dirt at a time?"

She brooded and stewed, continuing to pile up the wood, and her answer came in part when she stumbled with one of her pieces, feet follwoing each other swiftly into a dip in the earth. She cursed under her breath as her feet went from dry soft grass to smooth rocks, eyes widening as she tried to find her balance. She glanced down and realized she was in a dry stream bed not too far from the glade. She stood stock still in its midst, contemplating the information the tree had given her, trying to decipher it all. "There was water...water washed things away...changed the course of the stream?"

It was like she had a few pieces of a puzzle that didn't entirely make sense, but one thing did...she needed to get water to the glade...the how of this...she wasn't entirely sure about, however.

Returning to the pile of wood she put her new load on and glanced at Mamuro for a moment. This was a time where she could feel herself, in control...but soon enough it would be his time, she wondered if he was thinking about all the twisted things he could get her to do, how best to utilize the power she had bestowed upon her. Well...it was not yet time, not yet...