(Mystery Egg) Crystal Cave

Luna hummed as she came to a stop at the gaping cavern entrance, her hooded cloak falling back as she tilted her head to take in the entire scene. She'd been exploring the area after being laughed out of a group for wanting to get a closer look at some loot. "Boring!" they'd called her! Well, she would show them. She would... she would walk right into this crystal encrusted cave and come back out with something amazing.

She swiped open her spells list. Sure, she kind of knew the words by now, but in more intense moments she could not trust herself to recall them properly.

She stepped into the cave.

...

Only a few steps in and the darkness seemed to consume her despite the crystals refracting light all around. Oh wait. It wasn't just the darkness. She'd been literally consumed. By a massive beast.

One moment the realization was dawning on her. The next, her corpse disintegrated, snapped in half by the sharp teeth of a hungry predator.

Thrown die:

15

 

Leon wasn't sure why he even bothered and- oh, right. The entire room-sharing thing that the Coven or whatever it was called had been, well, called off. He'd rather just chill but, unfortunately, he had given all of his gold to Mer...kabe...Merkane? Whatever. Anyways, he barely had enough money to lounge around from all the mooching he did and real life was hardly any better. That was when he heard rumors of a great wealth along the region; something which appealed to him instantly. A chance for immense wealth. An opportunity to continue his lazy days.

It sounded like a great idea until he found that it wasn't just a small part of the area which was crystallized. It was the entire forest. After Day Two of wandering without success, he decided to call its quits and head back to Falderen until he realized something very important: he was lost. It took a couple of hours after that for him to reach the Crystal Cave he was residing in now. It took him a few minutes after that to notice that he wasn't the only one staying there.

"Why is this my life?" he looked above, questioning whatever deity was up there. Apparently it was the god of rocks or something considering that what he saw was just the cave's top. Slowly, with a deep breath, he craned his neck back and stared straight into the numerous predatory glares directed at him. Slit pupils. Wild cats? Wild dogs? Rabid beasts? The shadows hid their silhouettes with painful ease and he groaned yet again. "God damn it."

He waited for one of them to make a move; to attempt to strike first. When none of them did, too smart for their own good, he merely raised his arm slowly. His lips were dry. His breathing ragged. He felt a piercing fear broiling in his gut. A tremor ran through his body. His fingers trembled as he chanted. Yet, despite it all, his eyes were blank and his voice was as monotone as ever.

"Buboes, phlegm, blood and guts! Boils, bogeys, rot and pus! Blisters, fevers, weeping sores!" he chanted in a lazy drawl. His stature of which he held himself at betrayed nothing. "From your wounds the fester pours."

Leon did something he thought he had forgotten to do. Something he hadn't done in a very, very long time. Leon hoped. His fingers were crossed and his heart was pounding and he hoped it would end in the best. He could get used to this tingle, he thought, before darkness overcame him...

Thrown die:

79

+15

 

Without the fear of ruins hovering over her like the promise of death, Gwyn found herself peering down into a crystalline cavern that promised death anyway. The rumors of wealth meant little to her, but the odd beasts of Zalra with their beautiful and lethal affliction were too curious a bait to resist. So she followed the paths she heard of, tracking down landmarks and the previous passages of others.

Now, standing on the lip into the deep dens of the creatures, Gwyn cracked her knuckles and rolled her shoulders to ready herself. She pulled the bow from her back and pulled the string in her customary pattern. It wasn't quite a superstition she had developed for herself, like all the inane ones playing sports for years had caused, but she'd gone and snapped the string of the longbow twice so far. No one could blame her for wanting to test the tension and draw weight a little extra, no? She would be testing it on any beast that stood before her soon enough anyway. Might as well be sure.

With that she moved forward on sure feet, an arrow snug against the line of the bow with the arrowhead gently resting along a guiding finger.

Thrown die:

100

+40
​

None of them seemed to hear her. To see her. She ghosted through without an eye nor ear nor nose nor snout swinging her way. The pile of gemstone eggs rested before her in gleaming glory when a great maw suddenly descended. There was a second where it hung above her and it thought her caught, but the Power Shot from her bow shattered through the crystallized skull of it. It fell without a single sound made beyond the clatter of crystals and splatter of thick blood. Gwyn reached forward and claimed her prize, smiling gently down at the gleaming surface. "You're mine."

 

_____Alice was not if anything but a tryer… Her focus on the cave before as she swallowed back her fear and began moving forward carefully. Her sky blue eyes reflecting the light from the crystals as she moved deeper into the cavern, then everything went black and she felt her body collapse. A monster not even trying to eat her as it stomped down on the small girl and she awoke gasping for air before a women. Death by getting crushed… some adventurer she was.

Thrown die:

6

 

Curiosity killed the cat, Ash thought, but didn't say out loud, because there was an enormous beast with wickedly sharp claws shuffling next to the stalagmite she was hiding behind.

This was a mistake. This had been the worst mistake she had made so far, and that was counting the time she threw herself off the top of a pillar that reached into the clouds. Arguably the time she tried to walk on a corpse pile was worse, but seeing as how she hadn't actually carried out the odd compulsion to douse herself in what was likely to be poisonous liquid, she felt that that was not a mistake.

But wandering into one of the most inhospitable parts of Crystallized Zalra, which was already known for being an unwelcoming and unrelenting region? And merely out of curiosity as to what would be in here? This was most definitely a mistake.

She heard the beast move away and risked peeking around the rock. Yes, the coast looked clear. Hm. Now how to get past the veritable army of monsters in between her, and what looked like a very shiny pile of gems? Maybe... if she snuck around... or...

Her gaze trailed over to the walls of the cavern. They were jagged and rough, with plenty of handholds. And well, it wasn't like her upper body strength was all that great, but she could always grow vines to anchor herself, right? And she hadn't seen any creatures that were capable of flight...

Thrown die:

99

+15

Hah! It worked! Ash grinned as she dropped down next to the pile, arms aching but otherwise safe. This close, it became obvious that there were eggs in this pile. Well. Now that she was here...

 

_____Here Alice was once again, looking at the entrance to the crystal cave before her. The last she was here felt like a bad dream, except the fact she could still feel herself getting crushed every so often. She was here purely to try her luck again, she wanted to make sure one of those eggs was not raised to be some evil monster like the one that had crushed her previously. Maybe it could be a griffin egg, her hope was the very reason she was determined to try this again, but likely not a third time as the feeling of death would grow real bad and terrify her to never try again.

_____Her hands nervously laced one another as she tried to keep her eyes peeled for anything moving within the cave as she approached. Her blonde hair trailing slightly behind her while Blue eyes glowed with determination and fear, but she kept pressing forward. Her frame frantically hopping backwards at the sight of motion in the nick of time to avoid the jaws of a monster eating some gems. Alice could not help but admire it for a few moments before she quietly walked around it and pressed forward.

_____It was great to be small sometimes in her book, bare feet gliding across the cold cavern floors as she stayed entirely alert, watching some of the monsters roll around crushing gems before smaller ones ate them allowed Alice to enjoy not being on the menu for now it seemed. Staying clear of any of the gems as she approached until she saw the room filled with eggs. This was the moment, her pace slow as she approached so close to her goal...

Thrown die:

11

_____Another step forward was met with rattling, one of the monsters slowly moving to face her down as Alice sighed, she was just not destine to get any pets it seemed as she was swallowed whole and woke up to the women again, she was never going to try again, not in a million years.