Coral Maiden, Coffin Mine [Ponytail, Talea, Charis, Missy]

[Vanitypirate]

Ponytail twirled the end of his moustache in thought as the woman became a crow and perched atop Talea. He supposed it was even safer that way... which would mean one less person to try to keep safe. If danger came, she could easily fly out of harm's way.
That thought alone brought him some comfort.

"Well, that is... even better." He marveled at the shapeshifter-- the first shapeshifter he'd seen before his eyes. His father would have been astounded, were he here...
With a tip of his feathered tricorn, he smiled a warmer smile at the rest of his more sure-footed compatriots.

"We hunt on. Let us proceed carefully." He nodded, making to lead the group down the precarious steps.

[rosallora]

The closer they got to the entrance to the Cove, the colder it got. The heat that clung to the soil of the Hamlet during the night wasn't present here, the only thing under their feet being cold, slate-colored stone. Coral and barnacles began to appear some ten feet before the group reached the very bottom of the shelf, where a yawning passage laid before them; it revealed the waterline, and just how drastically the tide had dropped in order for them to access the cavern at all.

Moonlight streamed over them, nearly as bright as day. But the inside of the cave looked like it became black as pitch just a few meters in, icy water running in a stream down the corridor. The cave itself was more a canal than anything, a shelf of smooth rock on either side providing a pathway on which the adventurers could walk. More barnacles of varying color and polyps missing the water decorated the entrance, and it was an alive thing within, a pulsing thing. This was not some cave merely of stalactites and moss. With every movement of the water, mist dispersed about the rocks, frothing in a lazy, rhythmic manner, not unlike human breath.

Its chasm was open to them, and the clock was ticking.

[twostepsback]

"Looks blacker than a Morgh's heart down there..." Charis remarks as she peers into the Cove's waiting maw. "Who has torches, other than me?" She then asks.

[Vanitypirate]

Ponytail scanned the smooth, stone shelf that lined the canal; it looked promising, but to Ponytail, it was a clear hazard. If one were to slip on the slick surface, there would be no where to fall except into the water.
It was a pity the two other women could not become a crow, too.

"No, no torches... we still have the moonlight. Save it for when it is very impossible to see." He instructed, stepping closer to the chasm, hand on the wall as he peered inside.
He paused and explained further, glancing over his shoulder at the rest of the group, "When you have flame, your eyes become used to the light and will become unable to see into the dark. If a dark creature sees us, we will not see him."

He stared back into the maw of the cove and nodded his hatted head,

"If you are ready, we shall proceed. Should you fall, do not grab onto your neighbor, or you will cause the death of both."

[EtherealNoire]

Though the darkness soothed her tired gaze, it clawed fear through the souls of those before her. Their voices echoed in the chamber, entreating stone and mottled creature until a hundred voices chorused with them from the cavern's maw. In the shifting light, even the outer walls seemed to curl, sea arms coiling between each moonbeam, only to return to stone when careful eye should fix upon it. The carvings warned of what had hunted below the cavern shelves, and may yet dwell within the waters beyond.
Talea drew near to the others, listening to spray sweep away their words. They wished to proceed.

Such as the creatures pulled from their tidal dens, the light dwellers too clung to the rocks with prayers not to be lost in the shadows. Yet the ocean heeded not their call, swallowing moon and stars alike into its inky depths. Still she found respite in its presence, a calming melody as her hand shifted to the bag at her waist.

Nay though a word passed her lips, all those near found their gaze drawn to her palms and the three smooth stones cradled within. For while in the moonlight, they appeared as pebbles pale, natural in their solemn rest, in the darkness they possessed a soft glow enough to light the space before each footfall. Yet to the eyes, they shone as subtle as the moon's luminance in the night.

[rosallora]

They move away from the safety of moonlight, whatever little there was there to begin with. They forfeit it quickly, eyes adjusting unevenly to the dark of the cave. The cavern is damp to the touch, everything obviously recently touched by the water. Lines on the wall indicate where low tide would usually be, high tide leaving the entire opening filled with black, endless seawater. As they progress, the gap between the two sides of the cave grows smaller and smaller, the two edges nearly joining until the rift between the two sides is nothing but a thread of water trickling through the cave. It's a steady drip, a small river that burbles through the cavern.

Their eyes adjust to the dark of the cavern, each of them picking out different details, different shades and flickers of movement.

In the distance, Talea can see a faint glow emanating from the ceiling. A small piece of it drips down, landing with a splash in a distant pool. It glitters in the dark despite the lack of moonlight. She can see that the space opens up in a large, flat, glasslike surface, two tunnels splitting from the circular room.

Charis notices some places where the river is deeper than others, small bubbles coming up from an unknown source. Occasionally, dark shadows pass through and around those crevices, but none come close to the surface. They move, however, always from left to right, never the other way.

Missy, from her perch upon the skull, with her acute sense of hearing, catches the faintest sound of something on the wind. She is hit by the distinct sense that they are not alone. She sees a flicker of light come from the left tunnel, something further in the cavern barely discernable.

Ponytail is lucky enough not to drop his equipment, and is able to catch his hand on the wall before he stumbles over a particularly unforgiving rock.

[twostepsback]

"Be careful around that river, parts of it look quite deep. Plus, I can see things moving in there... but only in one direction, left moving towards the right." Charis informs as she sweeps her right arm in the same direction she spoke of. "Do you see anything, Talea, Missy?" Charis asks, leaving Ponytail out due to seeing his near spill.

[Machevelli]

Missy flies off of Talea’s head and lands on the ground behind the party, changing back to human form to speak.

“U-uh, I saw a weird flicker of light coming from the left corridor... Also, when I’m some animal, I can’t exactly speak, so maybe one animal sound for no and two for yes? That way I can answer at least yes or no questions...” Missy shivered, remembering that she wasn’t wearing anything and she let out a short squeal before transforming back into a crow.

[EtherealNoire]

Talea's sight was hidden beneath the shroud of her wild locks, yet her features, unearthly pale in the faint light, lifted to the ceiling, fixed on a distant glow that seems to glitter in camaraderie across her skin. There her motions followed, sweeping forward without need for caution as she drew near the worshipper of Light.
Not days before had their pathways crossed, amidst a night frought with woe. Twas a mixture of fate and omen that their flights collided again.

"Shadows preside in all things, yea in the waters and the echos of what dwells within this ocean cove."

Crimson rivlets cascaded down her shoulders like sea plants on the tide, tangling amongst their interlocked fingers till she drifted once more into the shadows, drawn away on a salted breeze. What she left was the opal glowing in Charis' palm, and another gleaming upon the hunter's open hand.

"Tis not the motions of darkness that blind us, but the trouble in our hearts. Thus to thy light I shall guide thee," Talea breathed, lifting a hand to the glowing pool beyond.

Her footsteps made not a sound upon the damp stone, for just as the sunlight rose and set without words, so too did the shadows walk in silence.

[Vanitypirate]

Hand against the wall, Ponytail was simply grateful that he hadn't fallen entirely forward. A slip and fall in this cave would be disastrous.
He collected himself and his thoughts as he listened to his compatriots' observations and followed Talea's gesture towards the glowing pool, which he only spared a cursory glance over, lest he allow himself to become night-blind.

"Do not... swim in the water, or touch it. Many dangerous things can cause a water to glow." He made an odd look at the opal in his hand and turned it over in his fingers, but he left the subject unpressed for the time being. Now was not the time to bog himself down with mysteries and questions.

Charis likely spotted fish swimming into the chasm, he deduced. The fish of the sea were often frightening to those unaccustomed to them. So he turned his gaze to the left corridor that Missy had spoken of and set to stalk carefully forward, treading as carefully as though he already had a beast in his sights.

[rosallora]

The light of the place is fully realized as the group ventures properly into the circular space, the domelike ceiling peppered with spots of colored light. Blues and teals, whites in places, and as they look, it's evident that it was something growing, something living, in the cavern itself. A pool of water to their right, large and as cold as the little stream that ran to it, was silent and still save for the occasional drip of the bioluminescent stuff dropping silently into its depths. The effect was that the pool seemed to be itself gleaming from the inside out, casting strange waves of light over the cave walls, smoothed with centuries of salt water. With every bit of the slime dropping into the pond, little ripples cast out over the surface before coming to a still again. It's almost peaceful.

The water is beautiful, and Charis approaches the pool with a curiosity, inquisitive but not wanting to be too involved. But there's a scratching, a hauling sound that makes her pause. And in the pool she sees a trunk, and then, a pair of retreating legs, leaving it unattended, alone. She can see through the scant crack between the lid and the bottom the bundles of herbs, glass implements, and bottles of strangely colored liquid. It's everything she could ever want, every experiment and wonder right at her fingertips. She drops to one knee, reaching for the goods that could so easily be hers. Surely the man that left them there wouldn't be back for some time. She just had to get close enough.

Talea, drawn to the lights and the depth that it offers, wanders toward it like something drifting on the breeze. But then something catches her eye- against the black slate of the reflection, she sees the ruffle, the soft blackness, of feathers. She is there, transcendent and dark, gravity uncommanding of her as waves of moonbeam-white hair drift behind her. They curl in some unseen wind, her eyes dark and fathomless, and she is something more, something different. She no longer needs them. But Talea... she needs this reflection. She stands at the very cusp, her toes right at the water's edge, eyes wide as she gazes into the depths.

Ponytail hears something - a call, a voice. And suddenly the cavern is no wet, cold thing, but warm. It emanates from the water, a golden glow so undeniably like the sun that it throws itself at him, even in the dead of night. The smell of grasses swaying catches his nose, and as he walks forward, the rock under his feet is too strange, too different, from what lay before him. He can see them, within - men, the men he grew up with. Their reflections are blurry in the water as another piece of slime drips from the ceiling, but he knows them all by heart even with the distortion. Golden and red and brown hair, eyes in all hues, strong and capable, they call to him with pride, with welcome. Come here! One beckons, his ponytail swishing in the warm wind, and Ponytail himself hesitates, unsure. Could he? Could he really?

He looks down at his hands to find them more callused and weathered, wisps of his own ponytail trailing down and over his shoulder, he is older, more experienced, and though the men he calls his fathers are older too, there is something different, something golden, that glazes over this moment. He is both son and equal, fighter and precious thing to be protected. The call out to him, guns hefted, chortling and laughing with one another. One of the men punches the other's side in camaraderie, another pair beckoning before patting the other on his back. There was no competition here, no clamour for who was best and right. It was the simplicity of the hunt, and all of the honor that came with it.

And they wanted him, called him, they needed him home. For it was not complete without him.

The young man breaks into a sprint, and hurls himself into the icy water with full and complete commitment, sinking like a stone towards the bottom.

And Missy? Missy sees this all from a bird's eye view, water splashing up and nearly hitting her as she circles over pool, seeing all others entranced and enchanted by the call of something sinister.

[Vanitypirate]

It should have felt good-- this was what Ponytail had wanted all along, desperately more than the desire to hunt and run through the golden savanna. He would have followed them everywhere, given up his gun and sword if they would only even consider taking him back.
When he opened his eyes it was as though his lids engulfed them in a cold fire. He saw his compatriots at the pool's edge, standing stoically, and floundered and flapped his numbing arms as if to reach out to them, but his hands grasped only icy water.

Why would they take his hand? They had no reason to. There was only a handful of people who cared whether he lived or died. As that very handful called for him to come home, he vowed not to disappoint them a second time.

His floundering in the water ceased as he ran through the brush, eager to join the men's revelry. It was time to go home.

[EtherealNoire]

The cavern urged her, pulled her. It spoke no longer of the threatens within its polished bowels. Only of the souls that waited beyond the edge of light for her approach.  She was cosmos and nether, the spirit of Night. It enveloped her in its glacial drafts and coaxed her heart to fly. Born from the tears of heaven, she could be the guardian of those fallen in the darkness.
Yet in the depths a voice commanded. It settled o'er her fragile flesh, twilight and thorns and echoed spells till she found her lips compelled to answer. Yet what she drew within her breath was not the taste of words.
Water. Burning as ice. It enslaved her lungs,  poisoned her mind. She tumbled in its madness, clawing for its bordered lands. On shattered heart and broken wings, Talea struggled towards the surface.

[Machevelli]

Missy quickly lands and transforms back into a human, trying to pull Talea out of the water. Almost falling in herself, she manages to grab ahold of Talea and hoist her out of the pool. "W-what are you doing? Are you okay? Why did he jump in? He just told us to stay away from the water too..."

Ignoring her shiver at the cool air on her bare form, Missy sits Talea up and thumps on her back, trying to get some of the water out of her lungs.

[twostepsback]

Charis is slow to move, the logical part of her mind is pointing out all of the inconsistencies about what she is seeing. 'It's dark, and that chest is in the water, how am I seeing the contents so clearly? Those herbs should be ruined by the salt water, yet they look perfectly fine...' This hesitation allows her to see that she's not the only one to be lured into the water... which is the final straw. "Ponytail! Stop! IT'S NOT REAL!" Charis shouts as she leaves the bag with the torches, Missy's clothes, and her dry medicines on shore, while Charis herself goes splashing into the water after Pony.