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Character: Ataya
Stage: Apprentice
Luck: 5 (+9 from Dysarrin)
Creature: Feuereches x 4 | Ayrala Dragon x 1
Success Rate: 31 - 100 | 6 - 100

Win x 4: (16 x 4)/2 = 32exp
Win x 1: (15 x 1)/2 = 8exp

Total: 40exp, +5 LUK, Levels to 10 with 7/10 exp left over, +15 stat points to distribute, + 1 Ayrala Dragon Orb, + 12 Fire Feathers

Word Count Required: 1,500+


•••


Luck: 10 (+14 from Dysarrin)
Creature: Eowyn Alkara x 4 | Adult Argaroo x 4 | Kiandri Dragon x 2
Success Rate: 31 - 100 | 6 - 100

Win x 4: (25 x 4)/2 = 50exp
Win x 4: (28 x 4)/2 = 56exp
Win x 2: (25 x 2)/2 = 25exp

Total: 131exp, +10 LUK, Levels to 19 with 12/19 exp left over, +27 stat points to distribute, + 2 Kiandri Dragon Orbs, + Argaroo Loot

Word Count Required: (Total) 4,500+

The autumn of Ataya’s eighth birthday chilled into an icy, bitter winter. During that period, he saw far less of Dysarrin, and on many days did not leave his own house due to a combination of parental restrictions and necessity, the winds outside his house fierce enough to cut to the bone and snowdrifts piling up past the edge of their door on several days so as to make it difficult to leave to begin with even if one wanted to face the cold. He found, however, that he didn’t mind the cold so much as his parents and sister seemed to.

Instead, in the meantime, he filled his hours with a plethora of other activities: reading books brought to him by his uncles, playing games indoors with his sister, and — on the warmer days — skating on the frozen lake outside their house, dipping and weaving across the ice with not near so much grace as his sister, but enough to enjoy himself nonetheless. For the most part, he buried himself in stories and magic. The greatest benefit, in his opinion, was that on most days, their father forewent their training sessions entirely while the snow remained high. His only true worry was that over the long nights and cold days, Dysarrin would forget him in their time apart.

When winter thawed into a warm spring, said fears that Dysarrin might not return were quickly appeased, and their interactions continued as the weather warmed, Akara often as not following along to take part, when she was not distracted by other things. Ataya had long since explained the resolution of their dispute regarding his mixed race, and even Detraeus — though brittlely wary of their interactions with the foreign wild boy — consented to permitting at least this one friendship, given that his children had few, if any, other sources available.

Today, with summer in full swing, Ataya was engaged in one of he and Dysarrin’s favorite shared activities as they had discovered: adventure. Which, in this case, meant exploring — a relatively fancy term for scrambling over the rocks amidst the surrounding mountain area and getting up to, in general, things his father probably would not approve of, if he knew. But Ataya had no intention of informing him.

Eowyn’s midsummer sun poured down on them, red-orange and blisteringly hot with all the raw energy of the untempered desert, a sting only barely softened by the perpetual, healthy mountain breezes whipping between the peaks. Even being only midmorning — the sun not yet at its peak overhead — the rocks beneath Ataya’s hands when they climbed anywhere steep enough to merit it, were hot, coarse, and either jagged or worn down in turns. Fortunately, even with his limited physical endurance, having lived here his entire life, they were manageable. But all the same, it didn’t make the process of touching them much more enjoyable, and he panted as he climbed, long since out of breath as he ushered his long hair out of his face and squinted upwards as they went.

“How much higher…are we going to—?”

Then, in the course of a stray sidelong glance, Ataya’s eyes landed on something of note. Something new. Or, rather, undiscovered by them previously, at least, if he wasn’t mistaken. The glare of the sun and distance made the exact nature of it difficult to discern, but it looked like a nook into which they could potentially climb — if they could get there. Dysarrin could certainly get there, between his small, fluttery wings and seemingly innate ability to climb anything, scurrying and leaping around like an animal. Ataya on the other hand…

Well, it didn’t look too far up, and most of the surrounding mountain was climbable. Dys could probably help him, too.

“Dysarrin—Dys,” he called out, coming to a steady perch atop a rock of his own. “Look — does it look like a cave to you? Can we make it in?”

“Meat,” Ataya repeated, squinting at it.

After having known Dysarrin for approximately a year now, he was in no position to second-guess his nose — or whatever sixth sense it was that seemed to provide him with obscure information beyond the reaches of Ataya’s own, more limited awareness. But something (likely a combination of common sense and personal experience) told Ataya that when Dysarrin said ‘meat’ he did not mean the cooked and fully prepared to eat variety. Probably not dead, raw meat either, though that was highly more probable than a freshly roasted dalak served with peca nuts and oni sprouts.

“Meat, like…live meat?” he asked. Always best to clarify. “And I can get up,” he said. “I think…if I tried…if what’s in there isn’t too dangerous.” A little risk was exciting. Much more than that and, well, Ataya wasn’t a fool. “Perhaps you should go first?” Dysarrin was more durable, after all. He began moving up over the rocks as he spoke, towards the opening. “You can scout it out, and once you get in, if I need it, you can help me up.”

Ataya hummed to himself, pleased at the assurances as he worked his way over the rocks, even if he was fully aware that Dysarrin’s promises of ‘no danger’ were about as reliable as his father’s promises that their lessons for the day would be ‘nothing he couldn’t handle’ or ‘not too strenuous.’ Or, better yet, something he could ‘master with practice.’ Ataya snorted. Even if he couldn’t rely on either his father’s or his friend’s reassurances, at least Dysarrin’s misrepresentations resulted in fun. Usually.

He dusted his hands off on his clothes before starting forward again, choosing his footholds carefully as he scrambled up. Boots were a marvelous invention. As much as Dysarrin took delight in the outdoors, Ataya couldn’t begin to comprehend why he was so averse to the obvious protection they provided. But then, Dysarrin wasn’t always (or, was rarely) logical. When he reached Dysarrin’s outstretched hand, he caught it, hopping and catching messily at the rock with his toes. The resulting scramble was largely ineffective, accompanied by much yelping and frustrated, useless scratching of his feet.

Once Dysarrin had a grip on him, however, he hauled him over easily enough, and Ataya sprawled out on the warm rock, not quite managing to resist the urge to peek back over the lip to judge how far he’d have to fall if he needed to make it back down on his own. Rock. An ample swath of jagged, downwards sloping rock that swept like a river towards the base of the mountain. He winced, and looked away, turning his attention instead towards the immediate source of interest: the narrow cavern opening before them and the looming darkness within. It stretched on and down like a rocky throat, Ataya thought, pushing to his feet and ducking in — all rounded, sloping walls that went back, and back, and down.

He murmured a simple spellword, gathering a ball of light like a storm bug in his palm and then ushering it into the cavern as he moved forward. The shifting angle of light sent obscure shadows licking across and down the cavern walls, back and forth. His pulse picked up, rampant with curiosity.

“Do you suppose anything lives here…?” he murmured. “It could be ours if nothing does…or perhaps someone hid treasures here…like stolen spells and jewels and weapons…” Especially spells. He edged a foot out further, then paused.

Still best to let Dysarrin go first. Particularly if there was ‘meat’ in the cave.

Ataya’s attention swept everywhere, alert, but also insatiably curious. What made its home here, if anything? It couldn’t be too large, given the size of the opening and the tunnel itself, but it didn’t seem entirely abandoned, either. Not musty or still. Little to no settled dust other than dirt and grit. And…feathers?

Ataya tilted his head, calling on another small orb of light to join the first and better light the rapidly darkening path ahead, his attention focusing on a distinctly red orange glint of something up in front of them, on the ground near the cavern wall. He moved to step closer, mind already skimming through the possibilities of what sort of creature might leave—

At Dysarrin’s abrupt stop and grab — though he hadn’t been going terribly fast, admittedly, to begin with — Ataya tripped directly into him, yip-grunting as a result and half falling on his friend before regaining his balance. Just as he opened his mouth chastise him for not giving some verbal warning he, too, heard what seemed to have put Dysarrin on alert. The claws digging into his shirt were forgotten, as was his frustration, and Ataya’s pulse picked up, gathering to a quick, nervous stutter against his ribcage.

“Dys…” Ataya moved a half step back, ducking behind his larger and sturdier compatriot — so as not to hinder Dys if he suddenly chose to leap wildly forward, of course, not because he was nervous or scared. Definitely not scared. He prepared to cast, though, if necessary, his limited pool of magic rippling towards his fingertips beneath his skin like an unscratched itch. “Is that…the ‘meat,’ do you suppose?” he asked, voice dropping to something just above a whisper, beneath the decibel levels it would take to create an echo. “It can’t be very large,” he said, as much to reassure himself as anything else. “It couldn’t fit if it were very large…”

And he’d seen a feather — or what looked like a feather — and feathered things didn’t tend to be very large, did they? Generally? Though, that could have just been all that remained of what whatever-it-was ate. Perhaps it was a bognotti. That would be exciting, as he’d never seen one in person before. Though…

He took another step towards the entrance. “Perhaps we should—”

Whatever he might of said did not make it, cut off in lieu of a small sea of approaching red-orange feathers out from the lower reaches of the cave, accompanied by a plentiful amount of hissing. And Ataya may or may not have screeched in his startlement.

“Dys—”

Ataya watched, absolutely still, wide-eyed, and attentive initially as Dysarrin leapt into the fray. Yes, good, let him go first. It worked marvelously, in fact: Dysarrin’s mad snarling and snatching, size, and attitude drawing the attention of the bulk of them in an instant and allowing Ataya the time to take several more steps back and think. One, two, three — his eyes scanned the cluster of them, then squinted — four. Four total. Feuereches, based on a description in a picture book, though he’d never seen them live and in person before.

As Dysarrin caught one, latching onto it with his teeth and tossing it about, he reminded Ataya of one of the ‘trained’ canines that hunters sometimes brought into the streets of Taliuma. Large and ferocious. Bred to sink their teeth into the necks of prey and then whip the smaller body back and forth until its neck broke. He’d seen them do it with an unfortunate rodent caught from the gutter once. Like a game.

Fascinating.

If barbaric, and exorbitantly costly in terms of physical energy.

From his safer position out of the fray, Ataya called on his magic. Despite the slight size of the targets, Ataya’s magic wasn’t particularly potent, so it took several casts to fell the first one, only just managing to bring it down to a slightly singed, twitching, feathery pile at his feet before it sank its own teeth into him. He brought down a second, more distracted one, at approximately the same time Dysarrin turned to him to verbalize his conclusion that the meat was ‘stupid.’

Ataya blinked, glancing first to the fourth feuereches as it screeched and fluttered off in retreat on deeper into the cave — like a large ember or small feathery touch floating into the darkness — and he wondered how deep the cave went…

Then, dismissing that thought for the moment, he turned his attention to Dysarrin—and snickered. Quite a sight, overall. Ataya was reminded, again, of a large canine at the end of a game where the prey died too fast. Or perhaps anyone who’d ever attempted to pluck fowl with their mouth.

“Yes,” he agreed, stepping up and reaching out pluck free a few stray feathers from the corners of Dysarrin’s lips and cheeks. He wondered, eyeing them, if they might be worth anything. Useful for anything? They were warm, still, even after the creature’s death. It seemed probable that their lingering magic might have some use. Glancing back to Dys, he grinned as he tucked the feathers away into a small pouch at his belt. “Very stupid. Do you want to explore deeper? The last one ran away…there might be more, a whole nest. Or treasure.”

He started forward, calling his orbs of light back to him without waiting for Dysarrin’s ‘permission’ — though he wasn’t quite so stupid as to go on alone if Dys refused to follow, he simply expected him to. Within a few steps forward, though, he stilled, ears intent on a new, soft trickling sound, and eyes caught on a different sort of glistening on the walls ahead.

Dampness…?

It seemed obscure at first — they were in desert territory still, after all — but after thinking on it, it made some sense: of course a nest of critters might be more attracted to a cave that had its own inherent water source, and most of the desert’s water was underground. When he moved up to touch, standing on tip-toe to trail his fingers over the cool, black rock, his suspicions were confirmed. Definitely dampness. Which, he reasoned, might very well mean an underground stream, or at the very least a small pond or reservoir deeper in.

Only halfway tempering back a happy hum of excitement, he looked back around for Dys. “Come, we’ve got to go deeper. There might be water in this cave. Like a pond! Kara would love it if we find a pond…”

Ataya’s eyes darted hither and there, attempting to absorb the entire sight at once as they edged forward. So much to see, and never had he witnessed anything like it. Dysarrin’s breath on his skin — while slightly distracting — was cast largely into the background of his active thoughts, most of his focus on what all could be done here. What might live here, what must have happened to make the rocks form in such a way — what was the purpose of the jutting teeth out of the floor and cavern ceiling? Why the crystal, where did all come from, what was it made of, and what inspired the gods to create it just so? It looked like an open, yawning maw of jagged teeth and no tongue, Ataya thought, or two sides of a broken rib cage on the corpse of a half-eaten animal, still wet and slick.

He squeaked, nearly stumbling in his distraction as the cavern floor went more sharply steeper, but then Dysarrin’s arm was there, steadying him, and he hummed in appreciation, attention flitting mostly back to where it had been. When they came to a temporary stop, Dys holding him still and voicing his question, Ataya shook his head.

“Never…maybe in picturebooks, or stories…but never real. Isn’t it amazing?”

Ataya reached out, running his fingers curiously up the rock of one of the upward spires. Wet. And surprisingly cool — chilly, even, despite the desert environment. Drawn forward by the sound of dripping — and his tireless curiosity — Ataya edged further among the toothlike spires, stepping as carefully as his clumsy feet could manage. Then, he came upon it, blocked from view at first by both the dark and the rocky spires, but now lit up by his dimly glimmering light spells: a pool, so black, it looked almost more like ink than water, but glassy and reflective — perfectly smooth, but for the tiny ripples created in one corner from dampness dripping down from the cavern ceiling spires into its corner.

Ataya trilled happily and started towards it, trying to lower himself over the minor ledge leading down towards it without hurting himself. “Dys — Dys, look, there is a pool!” he exclaimed, making it — miraculously — down without incident and approaching the edge to crouch beside it. “It’s so dark…I wonder how deep it is…or if it’s water…”

Unable to resist, he drew a feather from his belt pouch and reached out with it, dipping the tip in to create an outward-bound ripple across the semi-perfect stillness. It certainly acted like water. And when lit up, he could see some hints of shape below. Murky, indistinguishable shadows of existence.

“I wonder if you could swim in it…”

Just as Ataya was about to reach out and dip a finger in to test the pond himself—

“Eeyip!” he squeaked, stumbling backwards at Dysarrin’s grab and tug. “But…” He glanced over to the pond, and then back at Dysarrin, not immediately struggling against the hold, but still curious about the pond and irritated that his companion had been so eager to drag him away from potential research. Or at least discovery of one sort or another. It didn’t look that dangerous.

Other than being dark.

And cold, and slippery, and strange.

And…well…

“I wasn’t going to drink it,” he insisted, squirming a bit for good measure. “I just want to know what’s in it, is all. It could be anything, you know. It didn’t hurt the feather, and it didn’t smell…much. What if someone—”

Before Ataya got far into his argumentation process, something moved in the cave. Something higher up, over the ledge, and on the opposite side, from the sound of things. Immediately, Ataya stilled in Dysarrin’s grasp, and listened. Click. Click. Click. Rocks? Or talons. Something sharp on the granite of the cavern floor, followed shortly after by scraping and then the tumbling of a few scattered stones. A breeze rippled through the cavern. Strange and out-of-place in such a deep, walled off area.

“Dys—”

A sharp snort cut Ataya off, just over the lip leading down into the pond, and moments after a puff of dust and rain of pebbles, came the appearance of a large, white-silver snout. And teeth. And claws. And wings. They stretched wide as it spotted them, another, sharper gust whipping across the rock. The dragon couldn’t have been much bigger than the two of them put together, but it was bigger than the ysalis he and his sister had fought, and plenty big enough for Ataya. He hunkered, and half-scrambled in his efforts to move back. Behind Dys, behind Dys, behind—

The ayrala leapt for them, squawking with a sound that seemed a hybrid between that of an oversized bird and the proper ‘roar’ of a dragon. Not that Ataya was in any position to judge, given that the next sound to come out of his throat was significantly higher pitched and closer to a screech than anything else. The wind howled, shoving back at them. Pebbles, debree, and whatever else might have been a part of the surrounding landscape seemed to lift up, animate and caught in the mini-tornadoes of chaos created by the dragon’s magic. Ataya scrambled backwards and sidelong, feet tripping up over slippery, unsteady ground. Then, talons scraped into him. A grazing glance down his arm, but enough to make him cry out and go toppling back, back—

Until his foot hit nothing but cold, wet slope, and an instant later, he was engulfed in black. And wet. His flailing arms only partially slowed his sharp descent through the water, barely mitigating the damage of the sharp crack to his head against one of the outward jutting stones beneath the surface, and everything after that was hazier. Ataya was vaguely aware that he was still sinking, that he probably ought to do something about that, and that going to sleep in water was generally a bad idea. But already, he could barely see the surface through the black, his senses felt heavy and thick, the sounds around him dulled, and there was a distinct calmness to the entire situation.

And music.

His mind stirred. Because — music? Why, why, why of all things strange and obscure already going on, would there be music at the bottom of a black pond in a dragon cave in the middle of a volcanic mountain? But, despite his dulled senses — or, perhaps because of them, though that didn’t occur to him in the moment — he could just make out, over the distant commotion above water, the sound of soft, echoing bells. Slow, but gentle, reverberating to a tune like a lullaby, except distinctly more ethereal.

Ataya’s fingertips hit something. It stung him. A sharp, familiar jolt of magic, like whenever one of his spells went awry and the excess energy targetted him. He shook his head, the fog over his mind slipping back as though chased away by the sting, and he frowned as the world settled back into place. Air. He needed air. Soon. He glanced over, fingers gripping back instinctively around the thing which had jolted him into proper consciousness. This time, it did not sting him, and he yanked. Once, twice, three times.

With a dulled thud of several stones rolling away, the thing — a…Ataya couldn’t tell what it was yet, other than perhaps a large branch — came free, and he kept it firmly in his grip as he pushed up towards the light, and air. The sound of bells in the distance, with the coming of his full awareness, faded like dream out of existence. He broke to the surface moments later, coughing, gasping, dragging breath deep into his lungs and scrambling messily for the pond’s edge, all the while towing his cumbersome branch along with him. He was soaked, frigid, and sore. The throbbing in his head made it feel like he’d been hit by a mountain, and—

He squinted down at his newest retrieval, attention focusing not on the large horned skull at the top larger than his own head. Or the fact that the body of the staff — for it was a staff, not a branch — looked to be made of quite potentially Magescian bones. Vertebrae, to be specific. But the fact that beneath the skull, attached to the ends of a variety of different-lengthed beaded strings, was a full set of variously sized, small bells. He reached out, lifting and shaking one lightly, only to frown when it made no sound. Not even a soft thhk of movement, wet metal, something. Instead, absolute silence. As though the bell itself did not exist.

Then, a dragon roared.

There was still a dragon up here. Funny, how one could forget the minor details, sometimes. Ataya almost considered scrambling right back into the pond. But then, that would mean leaving behind…

“Dysarrin? Dysarrin!”