Daylight Cavern

[Mellie]

This is often called one of the strangest locales in the world. Why? Well its an underground cave, and yet the walls are covered in stain glass windows... That allows sunlight in. Not a single person has an explanation for this, but many don't care why, they just admire the beauty. If you walk the twenty feet the make up the uneventful opening portion of the cave you find yourself looking at a fork in the path. Which way will you go?

[Skylar]

Skylar had decided to take a boat to Acheron, having grown bored of wandering aimlessly around Niseca and deciding he wanted to spend some time in a different place that perhaps had a bit more buildings and the like than simply forests. Not to say he didn't love forsts, but he didn't want to spend every night sleeping on the ground when he couldn't find an inn to stay at. On the boat, he had heard from some other people that the cavern here was a sight he should definitely see before he left, so he had decided to head there first off so he woudln't forget.

And boy, they hadn't lied.

Despite the fact that it was a cavern, it was bright and cheery and altogether quite beautiful. It was probably because of the fact that it felt so unlike a cavern that he did the stupid thing he did next, which was continue walking into it rather than turning and leaving like he would have done otherwise. When he reached the fork, he turned left and continued, completely absorbed in the incredible strained-glass windows that covered the walls. The things magic could do continued to astound him.

[Mellie]

On the left path you walk a good ten feet or so with nothing even changing one bit (or so it seems) and then you are forced to turn right. In this stretch, a few of the stain glass windows are broken. Two or three of them. The other ones display images of the deity of light. This goes on for a whole twenty five feet, each of the paintings on the glass being different than the next. The next turn would force you to go to the left but there's a small bit of movement ahead... Well, maybe there is. It is hard to tell what's moving and what's just a rock coming loose from the roof.

[Skylar]

Skylar continued walking along through the cavern, his attention almost completely absorbed by the incredible scenes depicted by the magical stained-glass windows that continued to lighten the area despite his increasing distance from the outside world and where any light might logically come from. He was so oblivious as to what was going on around him that more than once he found himself tripping over small rocks on the ground, and once he almost ran into the wall as the cavern turned to the right and he did not. Once, a small rock from the ceiling broke loose and hit him on his head during its descent.

"Oww..." he muttered, rubbing the spot on his cranium that the rock had to rudely smashed into. He found the rock on the ground and kicked it with his foot, to show it who was boss. Skylar then returned his attention to the stories the magic windows were telling him. That was, of course, until he came across a few broken ones and he stopped in his tracks, wondering who in their right mind would possibly want to wreck such beautiful works of art. The shattered pieces were laying neglected on the floor, dull now, and Skylar kicked them to the side of the path, so people without shoes (or people with thin-soled shoes, because you never know) wouldn't get their feet cut on the glass. After all, in a place like this if you got a cut on your foot, you would probably end up getting an infection and then thing swould just go downhjill form that. Heck, they might even get gang green, and that (he had read) was not a very pleasant experience.

After mourning the loss of the few broken windows, Skylar continued on his way, easily getting absorbed back into the pictures and his own thoughts. He was so absorbed, in fact, that he didn't notice the movement ahead and thus didn't find himself wondering if it had just been another rock falling, or if it was a monster of some sort that was probably hungry and going to try to eat him. He probably should have been paying more attention to where he was going, because he was in a cavern and all, but with so much light it was hard to forget that he was actually under ground, and monsters tended to live under ground. Big, scary monsters with lots of teeth and large appetites. Monsters that, perhaps, liked to eat little boys who wandered into their caverns.

[Mellie]

As you continue to walk blindly forwards, you eventually are within sight of a cheerful looking otter-like creature with bright wings and a colouring that could be likened only to a rainbow. It gives you a brief look as you approach, eyes blazing in an angry fashion that looks particularly uncharacteristic of such a bright animal. An angry growl of sorts comes from the depths of its throat and it lunges at you, claws bared as it's wings propel it forward...

[Skylar]

Skylar stopped walking somewhere along the line in order to focus more on one particular depiction of the deity of light, which he found particularly interesting. The detail in the glass-work was simply phenomenal and he found himself wondering where he would be able to find something like this in stores. But then he realized he would probably need a house first, and not only did he not have a house but he was way to young for anyone with brains to allow him to buy one.

Suddenly, his random thought process was interrupted by a rather menacing growl and his breath caught in his throat. He turned to see what frightening creature he had unknowingly approached and was greeted with a.... well, this was where he got slightly confused. The creature itself looked like it could have easily been the pet of a little girl, or maybe a plushie of some sort, and if it hadn't just growled at him he never would have thought it to be the least bit dangerous.

Well, except the crazy, evil look in its eyes.

Moments after he noted the strange combination of appearances that the otter-like rainbow-coloured creature was displaying, the thing lunged at him with claws bared, evidently being propelled forward by the wings on its back. For just a second, Skylar wondered what he could have possibly done to piss the thing off so much that it wanted to kill him. After all, it didn't exactly look like something that was commonly this angry.

But he didn't have time to contemplate that, and he had to jump out of the way, which he did just in time to avoid its claws. He ended up rolling and jumping back to his feet, where he backed away with his hands up in the universal symbol of surrender. He also spoke to the creature, simply because he figured it couldn't really hurt his situation any, and if the creature could understand common then he could avoid a fight completely. He doubted that, but it was worth a try. "Whoa there, I'm not going to hurt you." He doubted the creature would understand, but it was worth a try.

[kyo]

The creature recovers its footing after you dodge the attack, and it turns to face you. As you try to use your words to calm the creature, it cocks his head, as if to understand you. However, a split second later, it lunges towards you much like before, using its wings to move forward, claws outstretched. As it draws closer, a rainbow trail faintly appears in the air behind it...

[Skylar]

Despite his attempt to communicate with the beast, it lunged at him again, looking just as angry and intent on disemboweling him should it get its sharp little claws latched onto his abdomen. He ran out of the way of the attack and stopped a few feet away from where the thing had ended up. "Oh come on. What did I ever do to you, huh? I don't even know what the heck you are!" He didn't expect it to understand him and he spoke mainly out of annoyance.

He spoke again, but this time directed the words to himself rather than the creature which was probably going to try to attack him again, and again, and again. " 'Go visit the Daylight Cavern', they said. 'It's so beautiful' they said. 'You'll have a wonderful time,' they said. Just my luck to come here at the same time as some crazy wild animal."

[kyo]

After missing for a second time, the creature was obviously visibly upset, as evidenced by it jumping up and down and smashing its tail and claws to the floor in a frenzied manner. Looking up at its opponent, the colourful creature charged at him again, flapping its wings to move forward. This time, however, as it was about to make contact, the creature switched positions, to lead with its tail, which could cause major damage if connected.

[Skylar]

Skylar wasn't surprised when it attacked again, although this time it seemed to think that it would either have a better chance of hitting him, or it would hurt more if it did hit him, with its tail. So the creature ended up doing some sort of back flip in the air to try to hit him with the tail, but it was easy enough to dodge. Skylar was beginning to get slightly annoyed with its persistence, especially because he had just wanted to come here to look at the artwork and enjoy a walk and this creature was making it impossible to do either. And he hadn't even done anything to make it so mad at him!

Atleast, he didn't think he had, but maybe he had done something without realizing it? But what could he have possibly done? The only thing he did besides walk was brush some broken glass off to the side, and if that was what was annoying the creature then it was just a jerk who wanted peole to cut their feet on broken glass.

Whatever the reason, Skylar wanted it to stop, and he didn't want to leave the cavern. Therefor, the only thing he could think of to do was to attack it back and hope it got knocked out or something, because then he could continue on his way without it attacking him constantly. The only problem was that he didn't carry weapons with him. He'd never had a reason to. So that left him with his fists and... well.. what else could he use to attack this creature? He didn't like the idea of getting close enough to it to be able to punch it, since it could scratch him and bite him and otherwise harm him.

He looked around for something he could use and noticed a myriad of rocks on the ground around him and all down the tunnel. Perfect. Now if only he could hit the creature with one. He grabbed a decent-sized rock from the ground and chucked it in the direction of the creature, hoping to hit it somewhere that it would hurt.

[Mellie]

The creature finished turning itself about and then, landing down to the ground with wings still flapping viciously, as it summoned a sort of groaning or hissing sound from the depths of its throat. It clawed at the air threateningly and when Skylar tossed the rock at it, the creature simply flattened its wings against its back and let it soar over its spectrum coloured head. In another movement it was running at Skylar and jumping with claws outstretched in a motion that seemed meant to be a pounce to take down Skylar and offer it a better vantage point for clawing and biting.

[Skylar]

Skylar was disappointed, but not surprised, that the rock he had thrown had missed the creature by a mile, flying right over its head and hitting the ground uselessly behind it. What did surprise him was how quickly the creature responded to the attack, if you could even call it that. It ran at him and pounced, and for a moment he thought back to when he had seen a small kitten do the very same thing to a grasshopper. It hadn't seemed nearly so menacing then.

But a moment of distraction was all he needed to miss his opportunity to jump out of the way, and he was knocked painfully to the ground by the weight of the colourful, angry beast. His breath was knocked out of his body and he hit his head unpleasantly against the hard, stone floor of the cavern, which would have caused him to see stars if the cavern had not been filled with light already. The creature's claws dug into his shoulders and he whimpered. He had never been in a fight before and, in fact, avoided them like the plague, so he had absolutely no experience with dealing with pain, and to be quite honest those claws really hurt! He was almost positive that he was bleeding.

Deciding he didn’t want to hang around to see what the creature was going to do next (which would probably include killing him and then probably eating him. Yuck), he tried to think of a way out of this mess. He wasn’t nearly strong enough to push the thing off him, and there wasn’t a rock nearby to hit it in the head with, so that really only left one thing for him to attempt. Taking a breath to steady his nerves and his head (which was still pounding from the connection with the floor), he rolled to the side in an attempt to knock the creature off of him, or atleast have it jump off when it saw he was moving.

(admin note: Skylar took 36 damage)

[Mellie]

The creature was thrown off of Skylar when the rolling commenced, but with it's fast reflexes it flapped it's wings to steady itself before connecting painfully with the ground or wall. Despite the fact that no damage had been done to it, blood began to stain it's white and spectrum-coloured fur. Growling angrily the spectrum beast stared Skylar down, moving forward slowly as it's tail wove menacingly in the air, wings flapping and spittle flowing down it's mandibles as screamed at the boy. Without much preamble, the creature burst forth again, claws flying through the air in an angry attempt to destroy it's opponent.

[Skylar]

Skylar was, to be quite honest, surprised that the creature had been thrown off as he had hoped it would be, but didn't want to question his good fortune. So he got himself to his feet as fast as he could, which in this case wasn't actually very fast. After all, with the wounds in his shoulders from the creature's nasty claws he couldn't really move his arms without causing himself pain, and his back and head still hurt from when he had been knocked to the ground. But he eventually did get to his feet, in time to notice the blood on creature's body. How did that happen? Oh wait, Skylar was covered with blood from his shoulders so it seemed pretty natural that the creature would have blood on itself as well.

Skylar watched at the otter-creature-thing stared him down, its tail flicking from side to side. It looked like a cat ready to pounce on a mouse. He didn't like that analogy. Cat's ate mice. The beast made a horrible screaming sound and Skylar flinched and decided he didn't want to stick around to see the end of this story. Turning tail just as the creature pounced, Skylar ran.

But he didn't run fast enough.

The creature knocked him to the ground as it ran into him from behind and he fell forward, hitting his head hard against the ground and, quite possibly, breaking his neck as well from the force. Either way, it killed him. For a good second or two Skylar lay on the floor of the cavern, his blood seeping from the wounds the creature had inflicted on him. But it would seem death wasn't his fate today. The life returned to his eyes and his wounds healed and in a moment he was back on his feet and running away again without a clue that he had come so close to leaving the world forever. Unfortunately in his rush and disorientation, Skylar ended up running deeper into the cave rather then out of it. This just wasn't his day.

(Admin Note: Skylar took 37 damage.
Skylar lost 1 fate point.
Skylar gained 199 health.)

[Mellie]

The creature, after pouncing successfully on its enemy, tumbled off of him before getting back to its feet. It knew now the risks that it took keeping itself on the boys body, so now it would not do so. More blood ran down from its shoulders and it turned it head slightly to lick it away before turning back to its opponent... Only to see that he was running away, and rather swiftly. The creature started to pursue the purple-headed humanoid, but stopped short when more blood and pain came from its shoulders and head. Growled angrily it stopped and tried to rotate its head in such a way that it could see what was causing the pain - and then it fainted.

The path Skylar is on continues for twenty more feet, and then he is met with a choice of going either right or left. There appears to be some small building at the end of the right path, whereas the left path looks as if it makes another turn briefly.

[Skylar]

Skylar paused at the fork in the road, trying to remember which way he had turned from the entrance so he could retrace his steps and get out of here. However, after looking down the right path and seeing what appeared to be a building he realized he had no idea where he was anymore. Well, maybe someone lived in the building and could help him out, so he turned right and headed to it. Knocking on th door, he waited for an answer and hoped it wasn't something that would also try to kill him. He didn't even realize yet that he was no longer injured.

[Mellie]

A thick growling sound comes from behind Skylar, along with the sound of chains straining. Behind him, a well-muscled, angry looking wolf pulls at a chain collar that is fastened tightly around its neck to a post sitting in the middle of the large clearing-like area (that appears to be thirty feet as far as Skylar can see forwards and forty feet from the front window of the broken down little house) in the middle of the cage. Groaning comes from behind the tiny house, and after a few moments, the groaning gets louder. Four figures emerge from behind the small cottage - people. Although these people are not completely... whole. Instead there are the occasional limb missing, large amounts of skin decomposed and a nausea inspired green tinge to the skin that remains on the bones. The four figures begin to lumber towards Skylar. Two of them are short, child-sized, and the other two are larger, one with breasts and one without. All of them, however, seem intent on seizing Skylar.

[Skylar]

Alrighty then. They were obviously not friendly people, and their pet... wolf didn't seem too friendly either. Skylar decided he didn't want to get into another fight because he knew he wouldn't be so lucky this time, so with little more than a second of thought he turned tail and ran away again, back the way he had come. Well, until he reached the fork again. Not wanting to run into the otter creature again, he continued straight to see what the other path had to offer. He prayed it wouldn't be yet another thing trying to kill him.

[Mellie]

From the fork on the path goes for twenty feet before it forces Skylar to turn left. Then another twenty feet go by before another forced turn bring Skylar right where fifteen feet lead to another right turn. Ahead Skylar can see that there will be another turn coming up in around twenty feet, where there appears to be some sort of barrel sitting in the corner...

[Skylar]

Upon spotting the barrel, Skylar approached it happily. After all, he had been walking for some time now and his feet were tired. A barrel would be much more comfortable to sit on than the hard, stone ground. However as he approached it he grew wary. After all, he had been attacked by pretty much everything else in this cave so far - how could he be sure the barrel didn't contain something that would attack him as well? Or worse. What if the barrel itself contained some magic that animated it, and he would be eaten by it. Wouldn't that be embarrassing. So when Skylar reached the barrel, he attempted to remove the lid to see if anything was hidden inside.