Pax RP

"I don't assume you can see in the dark then? This lovey painting of "Collector on Notepad" in my grasp doesn't have eyes does it?" Coolpikaaa said, stepping back from the growl. He couldn't see anything- and that was a problem. If this creature wasn't so friendly, and knowing the Collector- it wasn't, he would definitely be in trouble here.

CP started to spark, a small amount of light being produced to illuminate the nearby walls.

"Uh... You there, in the dark. I'm not here to attack you, I am just an explorer, on my way through these caves."

The Collectors answer on the paper came back a lot quicker than before, clearly the entity was excited in some way 'I can see you just fine-and in the dark, usually better'. The paper then faded to blank once more, only the poem on the other side illuminated red.

What was in front of CP hissed and took a step back away from the sparking rodent. Directly in front of the little hero there was a pair of boots-that were see through and might have been brown once. Now their colour was almost unrecognisable, and covering both head and body completely was a tattered old cloak-it too was see through.

The ghostly creature in front of him spoke with a voice barely used, it sounded like it had been suffering from a constant cold with a horrific sore throat for a long time, not helped by the fact it seemed to like to draw out it's words. "Thaat iiiis good to know, I do welcoome traaavelers that mean not to huurt me" the creature raised an arm, covered beneath the tattered cloak, turned the hand-thin and deathly white, with unnaturally long nails-palm outwards and gestured for the electric mouse to come closer "do tuurn out your light so I can see you beetter. Iit's beeen so loong since I saw a strraangeerr"

CP's little light also revealed something else-little shriveled bodies of subterranean animals of all kinds littered the floor and walls in front of him-which was the only reason he hadn't stepped on any of them yet.

((Tada! Can you guess what it is yet? ^_^))

"Good to know you are always aware of my mortal peril..." Coolpikaaa said with a frown. The fact that the slip of paper in his grasp was living... seeing... Knowing...

He didn't have time to consider this long, as the Collector's disturbingly fast message faded, and whatever lurked in them stepped out.

It was a man, disturbingly old. Coolpikaaa lowered his guard, just a bit, as if breathing the man's air would keel him over. As sickly as The Collector's guard looked, something didn't quiet add up. The hissing and growling sounds... They couldn't have possibly have come from the being standing here, could they?

The man gestured CP forward, but he stayed where he was. Something was giving off bad vibes, and it only took a side glance at the creature's feet to realize what it was. Dozens of creatures, reduced to shriveled husks.

Coolpikaaa gagged, taking a step backwards. What- What had happened to them?!?

"What ... Are you?!"

The 'man', if it could be called that, pulled his arm back and placed it at his side. Though his face was still hidden, he gave the impression that he was staring at the rodent.

"I am a Wraith" it said eventually, still not making any move to go forwards "haave you not heeaard of uus?" it's tone seemed both disappointed and highly curious. "Come, dim your light so I can seee you bettterr, if you will not come foorwaaards"

((Short post is short-sorry about that))

"I would rather keep it going, thank you. Unfortunately something down here was growling at me, and I would rather not lower my guard too much." Coolpikaaa said, addressing the old man. Of course this creature was the one who had been threatening, but the rodent felt as though he shouldn't be rude to the Collector's guard.

Coolpikaaa took a step forward, but to the side, meaning to pass the old man. It was a gamble, but he felt fairly confident in that these sparks were what was keeping the Wraith at bay. With a straight chin, and larger sparks than normal, Coolpikaaa stepped over the mummified bodies and toward whatever was at the end of these tunnels.

The Wraith hissed at CP's sudden increase in sparks, revealing that it was indeed him that had been making the noises. He threw up an arm in front of his hooded face as though to protect himself from being blinded by the light, and rapidly backed away from the illuminated circle. Still, the cloak covering it's arm revealed why it was full of holes-where the stronger light touched him, the cloak began to smoulder, releasing foul smelling smoke.

"Aghh, the light, it buurrnssss" the creature hissed, flattening itself against the opposite side of the tunnel to CP. "tuurrn it down!"

It wasn't a threat, the being sounded almost panicked. Clearly, CP had been right about the light protecting him-the Wraith wasn't likely to get close enough to him to do whatever it had done to the mummified animals. His built in torch had come in handy.

Speaking of which, their number only increased the further in he went, and the long tunnel slowly curved back on itself, an extremely faint ray of light penetrating the dark near the end

Coolpikaaa gagged at the burning smell coming from the old man, hastily continuing his decent into the tunnel. The electric mouse's hunch had held true, the light forcing the wraith away, although it may have been a bit too effective. After all, he never meant to hurt a creature that in all fairness had only growled at him.

"Stay where you are! I'll keep moving down here, and that should keep you safely away from me. Follow, though..." He said, warning the creature as he steadily made his way over the bodies of it's victims.

"You've been awfully quiet, Notepad." Coolpikaaa brought up, addressing the paper in his hands once he was a bit further away from the ethereal being. "...Your guard there was taken out fairly easily. Did you forget I can make sparks?"

The tunnel seemed to actually be getting brighter, even through CP's sparky light show. Pressing further onward, the electric mouse wondered what sort of thing could possibly be hidden here, if anything at all. There always was the possibility The Collector had just arranged this as a clever distraction...

The Wraith hissed again, disappearing into the dark as CP and his sparks moved further into the tunnel. The brighter the light to the destination got, the less evidence of the Wraiths presence there was.

The paper didn't respond for a little after CP's little jab, but it didn't ignore him completely this time, eventually coming up with:

'Fool. I wasn't to know it was to be you that would come down here, was I?

Besides, that was just one guard...'

Once he got to the end, CP would come to a chamber that three other tunnels also lead to-the light one with the mushrooms hung on the ceiling, and two more dark ones.

Out of the walls, three of the massive tendrils from C's realm protruded-two forming a kind of wall around the thing in the centre, the third held poised above it.

The thing in the centre was one of the rare mythical beasts-a horse of some sort, it's hair still glowing faintly, it's mane pale silver, it's hooves faintly gold. It was quite sad, as the creature was dead, and thick silver blood was slowly trickling down a small channel from the small stone-built altar it was lying on top of until it reached the living darkness of the two surrounding limbs-where it was being absorbed.

Guardian stomped through the forest, unhappy. Out of everything. . He'd gotten lost! His body swelled up as he panted, trying to get as much breath as he could. He could endure quite a bit, but not running through a forest as long as he had been. He sat for a moment, leaning against a tree, as his vision swam. He sat to the ground, panting, when he saw a woman, shrouded in darkness, striding purposely away. He froze, watching warily, as he noticed a glimmer from the Avale; So this was the woman who he'd harmed, he realized. . But what about that lightning rodent from Kata? Was he okay? Did the children make it out unharmed?

He waited, patiently, for the woman to walk by, so he could backtrack her path and find the answers to these questions.

"My God C, What have you done?!"

Coolpikaaa held witness to a gruesome sight upon entering the final chamber. The horse, a unicorn, symbol of purity and grace, lay slaughtered on the Collector's altar. Silver blood, the same on the knife he now wield, ran down it's stone, feeding the tendrils of darkness that protected the body.

Feeding The Collector.


Coolpikaaa hung his head, realizing the difficult task that lay before him. He must somehow stop the flow of the blood into her realm, severing one of the foretold tethers. But how, short of destroying the altar the slain beast lay on?

The electric rodent moved further in, as close as he could come to the edge of the stone. Two tendrils made a wall, probably to prevent anyone from removing the source from the cave, a third held poised ready to strike should they fail. It was an easily recognized trap.... and perfect for what he had in mind.

Aiming a bolt of electricity to the base of one of the "wall" tendrils, CP stood ready, watching to see where his first attack took him.

The paper the electric rodent held gave him a simple answer to his statement, though it didn't really answer much:

'God has nothing to do with it'

The Tendril CP blasted with his electricity shuddered for a few seconds, before ponderously moving from where it was to one side of the room and quite suddenly sweeping the floor, from one end of the chamber to another, as though to get rid of a pest.

<hr />

Guardian would find that the currently darkness shrouded Swix didn't stop or stumble, and was clearly moving faster than should have been able to as well. She wasn't running, she was just fast walking for a humanoid, with a purpose behind it.

The possessed woman turned her head to look at the dracon, but didn't give any sign through her 'corrupted' facial expression that she recognised him. In fact she didn't seem to have an expression at all. She didn't even shrug, just turned her head and continued heading to wherever it was she was going in as straight a line as possible.

Guardian go the complete opposite way and come across the cave CP was in, or he could follow ES. There's not really much else for it.

Coolpikaaa vaulted over the tendril's first swing. This could work.

This might work.

Cp made a beeline straight for the altar before the tendril could take another sweep, jumping up onto the rocky edge where he held on. The electric mouse wasn't going to pull himself up, not yet anyway. Instead, he remained hanging, daring the third tendril to try and knock him down.

The large tendril CP had avoided stopped on the other side of the room, then swept back in the opposite direction just as quickly. The third one held poised above the altar, didn't do a thing. It just held it's position for long moments, motionless. Unitil it pulled itself back that is, further priming. The end of this particular one, had a barbed point.

Then with almost no warning, the middle tendril shot forwards to strike the rodent hanging off the end of the ledge.

<hr />

Guardian would find that the woman covered in darkness stopped before disappearing behind a tree, then spun around and purposefully strode back to stand in front of the dracon and pointing back the way she had originally come.

ES opened her mouth to speak, showing even her insides had been taken over "Your friend the yellow rat is in a cave over there" she said in a voice that wasn't hers, the voice of The Collector. "Of course, you could always follow my little agent here if you want to talk directly, I may even provide you some answers-not that it'll be of much use to you" the possessed womans mouth split into a disturbingly nasty grin at this point, as the possessor seemed to have found something funny here "I'll have fun either way"

The dark shrouded woman then turned around again and headed in the direction away from the cave-slower this time.

"Well then." Guardian said, pushing himself to his feet. He gave a rough approximation of a sneer, and called after the retreating figure. "I guess the wisest option would be to do neither; Then you'd get no fun from me&#33;"

He sighed, and went towards the cave; His friend could be in danger.

Coolpikaaa was nearly caught off guard, watching as the infuriated tentacle sweet back and forth looking for him. He almost could have laughed, had the circumstances not been so grim. Any chance to hinder the approaching evil he would gladly take.

Luckily for him, the third tendril had charged before it's strike, the wind-up visible in the corner of the electric rodent's eye. Swinging just to one hold, CP barely avoided being hit square on the head- instead being shook loose by the impact and landing rather roughly on the ground.

"Barbs this time? Poisoned I take it?" he asked to his companion in paper. If the Collector had learned from her first lesson, they certainly would be. You don't get lucky with one strike, just to repeat and hope it turns out better.

But had his plan worked? Had the tendril done more damage to the Altar than he ever could of? Cp needed to find out fast, as the other attacker he foolishly scoffed at was once again on it's way back...