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Floating gently in the water was a calming sensation. Slowly, he could feel his worries drifting away. He didn't regret his choice, it felt so right, to meld with the waves. Suddenly, Sunlit Rock's cry yanked him from his nonexistence. Feeling almost like he was drowning he tried to gasp for air, and felt himself fall through the ocean. The heat blasted at his body, burning away his new form and replacing it with his original one. Landing softly on the ground he paused for a moment, looking around, he noticed another choice. The buck sighed, feeling exasperated.

More choices! It was even more exhausting each time he made a decision. Truthfully, he didn't feel much like waving over a rickety bridge surrounded by lava. After being in the cool ocean, the heat was bad enough without being so close to it. That odd liquid though, it didn't really seem safe... the buck shook his head. Shadowed Moon needed to think where Sunlit Rock would go... he sighed once more. Into the liquid probably, the bridge would seem like a hassle to her, and dodging pillars would seem less difficult, especially with her smaller body. Shaking his head, these choice kept getting worse and worse, he headed to the right.

Two kin opt to wind through the dripping stalactites and stalagmites, losing sight of each other quickly among the points that poke down around them. Perhaps they will realize, as they walk, that there is something familiar about the curved lines of the growths, not quite so random as they thought.

Perhaps they will figure out, just seconds too late, that they look like teeth. And then the jaws will close down on them, the mouth of a giant creature crunching them briefly between its teeth before swallowing them, barely alive.

In its belly, they will join countless other kin and creatures, pets and familiars that are barely recognizable as they creatures they once were. They are grievously wounded, but they will lie there for what feels like far too long, sprawled among rotting flesh and battered bodies, before they finally die.

They will awake, wherever it is they fell asleep, tossed free of the dream by their horror.




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Sorry you three: you took the wrong path, and your low scores/failure to post unfortunately mean that this is the end of the game for you! However, I request that you write a short reaction post in this thread -- either of your kin as he/she slowly wastes away, or of their feelings when they awake -- if you'd like to get Legendary credit for participating.

It is down to three kin, now; three kin who work their way across that precarious path, who stare down at the bubbling lava below and hold their breaths.

The last of them barely makes it across before the bridge crumbles to pieces behind them. There is no turning back.

It is quiet again, now. Ash is falling around them, again, except now it falls upward, from the earth, brushing past their faces and disappearing upward. They are in a cavern, but it is so large that they can't sense the ceiling, they can't find any walls in any direction.

When they turn, again, there is nothing behind them, either. Every directions looks the same, and all they have to go on is sound, and that sense of urgency. It seems, now, that the filly is in one of two directions.

To the left there is a a breathless panting and then the clatter of hooves, at least two sets, as if someone is being chased.

To the right they hear a shrill, frantic scream, cut off quickly, far in the distance.





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CONGRATS! THE FINAL THREE!

If your name is listed above, you have 24 hours to respond to this prompt!

Please respond with a short paragraph in which your choice -- right or left -- is highlighted in bold, and in addition, please roll 1d20. This roll may or may not be used to direct players back into the game.

Last Night was the last to cross and she had just reached solid ground when the bridge crumbled behind her. She walked across the bridge, balancing precariously with her tail held aloft. While she was generally well suited for movement, there was a bubbling urgency that unsettled her usual calm as she stared down at the lava below the bridge that kept them from burning. She had been unaware that she had been holding her breath until the bridge had crumbled, her breath escaping her right as the bridge disappeared.

The ash fluttered into her eyes and she blinked it away, trying to see past it to choose the right path. There was no clear path marked out, no walls or dimension to lead the way, only endless ash and space, so she listened. On one side she heard running and on the other she heard death. She felt little sadness regarding the cut off scream; the choice was made for her.

Blinking rapidly she started left. There was nothing to be done for the dead. They did not come back, even though this was only a dream, one she could not shake free of. She could fight the concrete, she could recapture the little filly that filled the hollow in her chest if she was still running. She pushed through the falling ash, she could chase as well.

As the first to cross the bridge, Roses did not even notice it crumble behind the triad. She did, however, hear the distinctive sounds of screaming as well as a sickening crunch. Just as she perked her ears to listen for a sound, the ash seemed to swallow away the world behind them. The small doe shuddered to herself, then turned her attentions back to the choice before her.

For a moment, Roses was almost enchanted by the look of the painting- and her innate curiosity pulled her hooves in that direction. But then, elsewhere, there was an ear-splitting scream. Alert and tense, she felt her heart threaten to beat out her chest. That had to be her darling- it had to be!

She stumbled a bit as she tried to bound off, hooves fumbling against the ash. Were it not coating the ground, she was certain she would have sounded quite the fool. None the less, she managed to take off, willing her body to travel as quickly as possible down the path to the right.

She would not fail her Walking Root! Not this time.

The sound of pounding hoofsteps draws the attention of two kin, leading them away into the empty cavern, the only sound that surrounds them now that of their own panting as they break into a canter. They swallow the ground in long, frantic strides, heading toward the source of that sound, lost in a sea of fog.

When they come up on it, it will be sudden, and surprising. They will almost slip in a puddle of something red black and sticky; they will almost step on the tails of a pack of wolves almost the same color as the fog around them.

The sleepy wolves, well-sated on the meat of two mauled and slaughtered boars, will raise their heads and decide that maybe they're not as sated as they'd like to be.

The duo has only a split second to turn tail and run back they way they came before the wolves find their ways up to their feet, stretching, and start after them.

Precipice is too slow. They take her down, sharp teeth finding her throat to draw rivers of blood, to bring her to ground, to drain her dry and devour her.

She will awake, wherever it is she fell asleep, tossed free of the dream by her horror.



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Sorry dudette: you took the wrong path, and your low score unfortunately mean that this is the end of the game for you! However, I request that you write a short reaction post in this thread -- either of your kin as she is devoured, or of her feelings when she awakes -- if you'd like to get Legendary credit for participating.

There was only one scream, brief, cut off. The filly, lost in this mess, doesn't scream again -- but the pair of them, now, will imagine they can hear it in their heads, an echo that rattles around between their ears and raises all the hair on the backs of their necks.

They know exactly which way she is, now. They run in that direction, a frantic run, and yet they seem to get nowhere. Ten minutes, twenty, and it seems that the room around them is only getting bigger, the path in front of them expanding, nothing changing in the frantic swirl of fog lit by some unexplained light from beneath.

In the distance there is only darkness.

It will be hours, their run lagging to a slow trot, to a walk, to a dragging, exhausted limp, before there is a small light in the distance. It will be more hours, their hooves aching and bloodied, their skin hot and cold over every inch of their bodies, before they reach the scene.

She is there, and she will look different to each of them -- the girl that they are here to save, suspended in the heard of a spiderweb. She is wasted and thin. It has taken them too long to get here, and her head lolls on a sickly body, her eyes look dully and miserable, any fight has gone out of her.

She cannot speak. She cannot help them cut her free. They must choose which long stretch of spidersilk will unravel the mess.

Will they take teeth to the left strand, or the right one?




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If your name is listed above, you have 24 hours to respond to this prompt!
THIS IS THE LAST PROMPT!

Please respond with a short paragraph in which your choice -- right or left -- is highlighted in bold, and in addition, please roll 1d20. This roll may or may not be used to direct players back into the game.