Ashes to Dust

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"One way or another, I won't be fighting if I can help it," Steel said.
A simple one-liner that vehemently denied any chance of her stepping into a dangerous situation.
"Of course, small fry that attract overconfident scavengers won't cause us any trouble," she added. "You should only start worrying when there aren't any."
She turned to Julius. "In the meantime, you ought to decide on a course of action for us... Master?"
Her eyebrow raised a mere millimetre or two, the subtlest hint of tentativity crossing her face on saying that last word.

-

While Beryl's search was relatively fruitless by virtue of lack of responses, Robin did see something in one of the houses.
Specifically, there was a black patch spread across a certain floor.
In the center of the patch, a sight that had been hard to come by ever since she had left the shelter.
A single sheet of folded paper was on the floor.
A memo reminding someone to go to a library, and a list of books.

-

The way down the cliff was rocky, uneven, but largely uneventful. Aloysius's small stature allowed him to traverse the path with difficulty, but security, and Glass maintained her elegance throughout. After a while, small depressions began to become noticeable in the cliff face, larger the lower they were, until they began to open up into actual holes and caves.

Just as they reached the bottom, a loud, echoing noise escaped one of them.
At first, it sounded like a distant roar, but a moment's contemplation and observation would correct that with ease.
A figure, sat in a cavern near the bottom of the slope, had let out a long, wistful sigh.
Their face was obscured largely by the hood of their coat, which had some sort of pair of large flaps hanging from the sides of it.
Not unlike, in fact, rabbit ears...?
 
"This town doesn't look very people-friendly," Otto said. At this point he had healed his tongue, just to save further embarrassment.

"Well, to be fair, there aren't any people," Silver replied disinterestedly. For someone who looked like a young girl, she managed to keep up to Otto's long strides fairly well.

"That's what I meant," Otto snapped back. Today had just been a strangely bad day for him. He chalked it up to the change in scenery and to his strange, rather snobby companion. He liked making friends but Silver didn't make it easy.

"So what even are you?" Otto asked, attempting light conversation, not very well.

"I should ask you much the same, angel boy," Silver shot back. "And I can't stand your wings, by the way. I mean, white is good and all, but rather cliché. Have you ever tried dying them?"

"I like my wings," Otto said defensively. Then he paused, thinking to himself. "Wing dyes. Doesn't sound half bad. Hmm...."

Before he could contemplate the idea further, something else caught his eye. The wooden gargoyle seemed to glare at him, which was something he instinctively didn't like.

"Glass trees, Aloysius, remember," he muttered to his doll. "Except sometimes you see-"

"Are you talking to your doll?" Silver interrupted incredulously. "That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. And a bit sad."

"Can you, like, get off my back for a bit?" Otto said, but at a hiss and with his eyes fixed on the gargoyle. He knew it probably wasn't just decoration, if his experience in the dustlands told him anything, but on the other hand, he was curious. Plus, they had masks. He liked masks. Putting on his own mask, Otto crept silently up to the gargoyle thing, signs pulled close to himself. Silver watched on, still rather arrogant looking but with a tinge of curiosity as well. There apparently was an upper limit to what she knew.
 
Beryl was frustrated at her lack of results, opting instead to poke at Robin who was carefully investigating the houses. "Didja find anything?"

Robin had seen the piece of paper and had carefully gotten to the edge of the rotten wood, touching it to try and see how badly it was rotted. It looked bad, more so than she had hoped. It meant that it wasn't going to let her see that piece of paper. It was a rare material so she could have used it in a trade, but it wasn't worth the risk. Plus, there was something odd about the rot, it was only around the paper.

"I said, DIDJA FIND ANYTHING?" Beryl yelled, standing next to Robin.

Needless to say, Robin jumped in surprise and was almost about to punch Beryl when she stopped herself. "Don't do that!" Robin yelled, standing properly on the floor, away from the blackened wood. "I nearly hit you!"


"Ah, but you didn't," Beryl said, teasing her. "So what's with the paper on the floor?"

"Uhm, I think it's for something called a Libarry. There's a book on there, but I don't understand why the wood is all black like this."

"Why don't we just get the paper? It looks fine to me!" Beryl then started to move towards it, and Robin caught her. "Hey don't-"

"Don't struggle or we'll both fall! The wood is bad there and I don't wanna get trapped in this spooky house!"

"We are not gonna get trapped. We are just gonna get the paper and see what it says more clearly!"

Beryl pulled forward and stepped onto the wood with Robin still trying to pull them both back. But, it was too late. They were both on the black and rotten wood. Robin clung tighter to Beryl more out of fear than to pull her back now, holding her breath as if that would somehow keep them both from falling in.
 
Aloysius halted in mid-stride, turning his attention to the cavern from which the noise had issued. After shooting a querying glance towards Glass, who in turn remained as serene and inscrutable as ever, he approached the mysterious figure with characteristic aplomb, seeming not at all disconcerted by the prospect of meeting an unknown being with nary a weapon(sic)​ or cover in sight.

As his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of the cave, Aloysius soon noticed the rabbit-ear-like appendages upon the figure's head. However, having previously encountered other Ashen with similar features, he paid them little heed.

"Who are you, and what do you know about this place?" he asked bluntly, disregarding any pretense at nicety.
 
Otto felt a disturbance in the force, as if all the wood in the Atwix was gleefully watching its own systematic pranking of everyone who set foot in this uncanny place.

-

The fall was a short one.
The majority of the floorboards creaked and snapped under Beryl and Robin's feet, dropping them into a stone room around the same size as the one above.
Ordinarily, it would have been a mere impediment that did little but waste time.
Robin's climbing ability aside, there was even a questionable-looking ladder leading up to a half-broken hatch where the wooden floor had been.
However, in these circumstances, it was not something that would be wisely ignored as it normally would.

An unlit torch hung on the wall by a hook, most likely to light the path of the pitch-black stone corridor under the house into the unknown.

-

The girl looked up at Aloysius, blinking in surprise as if at his very existence.
"Hello to you too," she said.
Her voice and gaze were moderately spacey, like she had just woken up, but she showed no signs of having been asleep.
"I'm Ryie. I'm an explorer," she greeted him, standing up.
She was almost a head taller than him, despite her own lack of height. It wasn't exactly outrageous, but it was hardly dignifying.
"Or at least," she mumbled, "I'm supposed to be."
She peered over Aloysius's head at the girl accompanying him.
"You have a Phantasm too?"
 
"Not all they attract are scavengers," Julius said ominously. "Who do you think kills something first? And when it's weak, who will come in to pick it off? You go around talking with enough creatures and you find out just how predatory even the weakest prey can be. But, just in case..."

His form distorted, growing broader in the shoulders and his forelimbs thickening with added muscle, the claws curving into thick hooks that dug into the very stone.

"You'll want to keep a tight grip, we're going the fast way into that village for some investigation."

He crouched down, muscles coiling before bounding forward and over the edge, his claws dug into the stone itself as he caught himself on the side, arresting his limbs' momentum for the barest second before he leapt again, covering metres in every bound across the uneven terrain like it was flat. As he landed on top of a wooden house by the sloping surface of the cliff face, the wood under his claws splintered, the claws ripping through it easily.

"That wasn't so bad, was it? At least we're down here now. Huh... The wood feels... new. Either it's been well kept or this is a new village. Or it could be the Dust has affected the trees up there in such a way to make it like this. Why build homes out of wood when stone is more readily available unless the wood was higher quality..."

He padded to the edge of the roof and peered around, looking at all the houses.
 
"Well? Poke the thing," Silver said, rather imperiously.

Otto took a step back. "Uh... I would rather not. Didn't you feel that?"

Silver, who was not always very truthful, said, "No. Just poke the thrice-damned thing."

Otto backed up, crossing his arms. "If there's anything I have learned from... Surviving in general, is to be careful. Glass trees, right, Aloysius?" The last comment was muttered under his breath to his doll. Silver shot him a contemptuous look, as if everything was the doll's fault.

"Fine. Well, what if instead, you got up on one of these houses, looked around? There's got to be something interesting around here."

"Just a second." Otto held up a single finger. Please hold. "Why don't you watch that gargoyle, make sure it does not move." Silver sighed, granting him a temporary reprieve. Otto pulled out his journal and wrote a quick entry.

Went through door. Must be a huge dustbowl in here - whole pocket place from the looks. Cool stuff. Trees. Village. Weird girl named Silver. We're 'friends' now I guess. Cool stuff. Will write more depending on future status of life.

he clipped it back onto his waist, then opened his wings. Concentrating silently, he flapped them once, propelling himself onto the nearest house roof.
 
"Creepy stone corridor, check. Red flags? Check. We aren't going any father unless you happen to see a bunch of smiley faces surrounding the entrance. Maybe not even then because that would be creepy!" Robin immediately turned to the ladder, scrambling up in order to avoid the creepy torch-lit hallway.

Who even did these sorts of things where they had a dark passageway in a basement? Not anyone sane or anyone who wanted intruders in it. Robin suspected both only because something bad had happened, and no one in this whole town was anywhere to be seen.

"And give up on adventure? Never!" Beryl said, pulling on Robin's leg to try and pull the horned girl down. "Cooommme on! It's begging to be explored! All we have to do is light the torch and the dark hallway suddenly isn't dark anymore!"

"Nope! I refuse." Robin was yelling now, and making progress even with Beryl hanging off her leg. "It's too scary to investigate and I had no plans on going into spooky areas on my own, but now we're down here and everything is bad and rotten and I don't wanna go down into the darkness."

"Lame!" Beryl replied, now trying to hang on Robin in order to slow her progress. "I say we investigate and find out what made everyone vanish!"

"I'm going to say Dust or if it's not then I say we don't stick around long enough for whatever did it to come around and make us vanish!"
 
"Perhaps I do," answered Aloysius blandly. "Though I can't say for certain, without knowing what a 'Phantasm' is." He wasn't exactly pleased by the height disparity, but that was something he'd long grown accustomed to, and it scarcely lessened his supercilious demeanor in any case.

He observed the unfamiliar girl's movements and speech with clinical detachment, noting in passing her seemingly distracted behavior. Next to him, Glass blinked slowly, but otherwise displayed no reaction to the topic at hand.

"Admittedly, I hadn't imagined that explorers spent much time lurking listlessly in caves," Aloysius continued. "Doubtless a result of the fact that I'm not one myself, and am therefore unfamiliar with their circumstances."
 
Three pairs of eyes made contact with each other in mere seconds.

The houses were all around the same height, so it was natural that Otto and Julius would notice each other almost instantly.
A third person, a hooded woman with a staff, offered a brief wave from a little way away.
The three did not quite have time to interact properly, however, before Julius's prophecy fulfilled itself.
Had Otto been on the ground, he might have been on the receiving end of the attack.
Instead, it was the roof Julius was stood on that shattered to pieces as a certain two-headed wooden gargoyle leapt up through it, an enormous clawed hand swiping at him.


--

No danger to flee from nor oddity to follow appeared during Robin and Beryl's mild squabble.
In other words, it was a coin toss.
To head into the shadows, or to turn tail?

Of course, it was impossible that the ear-splitting smash of splintering wood the pair heard from outside the house influenced their decision in the least.

--

Ryie pulled as indignant an expression that her sleepy demeanour would allow.
"I'm not here because I want to be," she mumbled. "My Phantasm, Sapphire, went off to do reconnaissance. 'Stay here', she said. 'I'll be right back', she said. Twenty minutes ago, she said."
She made fists and kneaded her cheeks is what seemed to be displeasure, but since the gesture clearly wasn't something that was often used to express oneself it was difficult to say for certain.
"If the problem is going off alone, then I don't see why I couldn't come too... Anyway, who might you be? You're a bit young to be out and about here, aren't you?"
 
"Hey," Otto called down to Silver. "People!" He waved excitedly at the hooded women, and then at the weird beast-man, since why not?

"Do they look friendly?" Silver asked.

Otto shrugged. "I mean, it depends on what you mean. One has a hood, one looks sorta beasty. But - oh crap!" He instinctively ducked when he saw the other roof, the one with the man on it, practically exploded. Right before Otto shielded himself with his wings, he caught a glimpse of the aggressor - that two-faced wooden gargoyle from earlier. He knew that bastard had been up to something. Sure, it hadn't actually done anything, but something about it had seemed off.

He turned to the hood lady and waved frantically and then pointed, hopefully in a way that suggested 'come help', and then called down to Silver. "Something's going down. Be right back." He took off again with a flap of his wings, towards the gargoyle and the man.

"Wait! I can help!" Silver called. Alas, Otto was focused completely. She cursed, loudly, then took off sprinting after him.
 
Already on edge from the sight of the birds, Julius was wary for whatever might be coming, whether it meant fighting or running. Despite that, he hadn't been expecting to have whatever it was burst through the roof below him like it was nothing. If it had been an open area, he would definity have been taken by surprise, but with the timbers slowing down whatever it was, he had an instant ot leap out of the fray. Taking that chance, he leapt backwards, his foreclaws catching the timbers. A claw swept back through at him and he released his hold, his continuing inertia pulling him back and out of the way of the attack.

While he had dodged the claw, he had backed off the roof entirely. Swinging out, his claws sunk into a crossbeam, far sturdier than the other timbers and further anchored by the foundation and the support timbers. While his claws dug in, it didn't splinter like the others.

"Hold tight," he growled past gritted fangs that were lengthening past his lower lips now, curving down as a muzzle formed.

Already fairly thick, the muscles in his arms and back bulged, rippling down his spine. The sharp sound of his shirt unzipping in rapid fashion could be heard by Steel as the fabric was strained by the muscle growth. Despite now being open, it was still tight, and it was now more than obvious to Steel that the seams at the arm had been burst long ago. His forelimbs were easily a half size thicker of pure muscle, his shoulders and chest wider for it. Veins popped out under the skin with the effort as he lifted both his own and Steel's weight onto the roof with what was now ease.

He balanced easily on the crossbeam, hunched over with his foreclaws resting on the timber to support Steel.

"I get the feeling you don't feel like talking," he snarled. "Even if you did, I'd have to worry about doublespeak."

His form slunk down as he went along the edge slowly, prowling, his eyes watching the gargoyle with interest, though he could hear the masked one of the two before calling out about helping. He would shred this belligerent beast and absorb either the Dust that ran through it.
 
Steel stood on the timber besides Julius as gracefully as a bird, only her toes apparently necessary for her to keep herself upright without any trouble at all. The two of them formed a stark contrast; both beastlike, an imposing titan and a dancer-like waif.
"Tch. It's a weakling, but its durability is troublesome," she assessed. "I suggest that we only attempt to drive it back for now. That said... I'm not sure I can properly accommodate the bulk of your arms in that form."
She narrowed her gaze, her ears perking up a little as she assumed a quiet battle stance, not taking her eyes off the gargoyle, which was lying in wait to launch its next attack with a pair of predatory glares.
"Do you think you can handle it while we're separate?"

The hooded woman caught up to Otto with ease, each movement seeming effortless, even casual.
"Leaving that poor girl behind, are you?" she smirked. "You might regret that. Cruelly abandoning a woman so abruptly is a good way to lose any chance at her affections, you know."
Her soft face quickly became businesslike as she took a tighter hold on her staff. "Do you want to manage the aggression or shall I?"
 
The boy's left eye twitched slightly at Ryie's mention of his youth. "I'm Aloysius," he replied shortly, "and my age isn't any of your concern. Physical maturity is a flawed and overrated metric when it comes to determining actual capability, as evinced by the countless barbarians of exaggerated stature and diminished percipience whose swollen frames populate this rotting shell of a world like maggots on a corpse. Oversized philistines whose comprehensive aptitudes consist of unsophisticated labor and brute violence should just carry out their respective menial tasks and remain silent. Why anyone would ever deem their entirely inaccurate discernment of a person's age to reflect the sum of said individual's accomplishments or qualifications is beyond me. In fact, you don't look much older than--..."

Pausing in mid-rant, Aloysius exhaled and shut his eyes briefly, then opened them again. "...Anyways," he said, "if your companion's been gone for a while, that probably means she's run into some sort of trouble. Shouldn't you go look for her? Staying in this cave doesn't seem especially productive."
 
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Otto's surprise at the hooded woman was not very well hidden. "Hey, you are pretty fast," he said, grinning. Then his focus shifted back forward, apparently inserting the women into the 'non-threat' inventory of his mind. "In any case, I think she is capable of handling herself." Plus Otto wouldn't mind her getting at least a little ruffled, not that he said that out loud. "And she is..." his eyes rolled to the side for a second. "Not my type, to put it one way."

"And can we both take on the two-face?" Otto gave her an almost pleading look. "I mean, yeah, too many cooks in the kitchen, but I think safety can be in numbers, so... yeah!" He let one hand snake down to his mask, then clapped it to his face, letting his wings do all the moving for him. Otto loved caution. Caution was vital. But sometimes a good fight couldn't be avoided, and sometimes a good fight just had to be had. And sometimes, a good fight is simply good for your health.
 
"Not sure what you're on about being separate, but I doubt it would be an issue."

A low growl rumbled in Julius' throat at the gargoyle. He circled around until his gaze included both the gargoyle and the others who had arrived. He wasn't sure what they were up to, but for now, they harboured no aggression for him. For now.


"But if you have an idea, I've listening."
 
Ryie shook her head. "'It's dangerous to wander around here alone', she said. 'There's a lot of unknown monsters', she said, 'so it's safer if I scout'. She's still alive. I know she is. I'm just very bored."
She looked over Aloysius a few times with her vacant stare.
"It's dangerous to wander around here alone," she said, with a slightly scheming hint surfacing in her dazed tone. "I'm not strong, but I am fast. I'll come with you, how about?"

-

Steel took a posture as if she was about to break into a full-blown lecture, but shifted in the blink of an eye to defend Julius from another attack from the gargoyle.
"It seems I will have to explain later. For now, sheer force of firepower will be sufficient."
The wooden monster slashed again with its free arm, but Steel once again blocked... no, caught it.
"Allow me to demonstrate."
With a movement so swift it was difficult to even follow, she had already thrown the bizarre creature so high into the air that one could easily have mistaken it for a bird, and then leapt after it with a burst of force.
With a single strike, she sent it rocketing back down to the ground, a cloud of dust and dirt spewing from the shattering earth.
And yet it rose to its feet, unscathed.
"As suspected," Steel concluded, landing in front of it with silent grace. "That was the full strength of my mortal form. With such difference in parameters, it must immortal under these conditions."

A rain of blue lights fell around the pair, pushing the gargoyle back a little further.
"That was it? I was expecting something flashier from the reliable Steel," the hooded woman smirked, pointing her staff out towards the monster, the tip still glowing from where she had cast her bolts.
"I have no need for such a waste of energy," frowned Steel. "Rather, it is my opinion that you gemstones expend too much power yourselves."
"Just because your Dust reserves are lower," laughed the woman, before taking a step back, looking between Julius and Otto. "Now isn't the time for banter. Neither of you boys would happen to be able to drive this thing away with some convenient magic trick, would you?"
 
"Not really," Otto admitted. Of course, there was his dust blade, but maybe not just yet. He took a knee, landing softly near the beast-man and woman, and reached into the ground. With a quick flick of his Dust powers, he extracted the dirt below him into the shape of a spear. He hefted it up, apparently slightly unsatisfied with its quality. Sure, his powers made it much durable than regular dirt, but he would prefer stone. Or bones. Even flesh could make decent weapons, if messy ones. Still.

Silver came strolling up, pointedly looking nonchalant and refusing to look directly at anyone. "So happy so many competent people are here to work," she said, inspecting her hands in a rather pompous manner. I'll just sit over here, shall I?"
 
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