Awakening The Earth

[Kandosa]

"So, what business do you and your father have in the sands?"

Ketsumeh glanced up from the muddy blue-ish waters of the river that surrounded Irrakam, and glanced blankly at the ferryman. He wasn't particularly talkative, and had kept his mind on his job, something he had appreciated of the man, until right now. He was a slight man, wearing hooded robes to keep himself safe from the harshness of the sun. Dark marks were tattooed on his face, and his head was shaved, and as the puppeteer stared he realized the severity of the puzzlement on his face increased. 'Oh yeah...I never answered. I just stared at him for...' he paused, looking at the shadows, realizing about a minute or two had passed.

"He's not my father," he finally replied, giving a sidelong glance to the tall form beside him. That was why he preferred to slip inside Anubhasa; less questions that way. "He's a traveling companion," he added with a wistful tone, leaning against the side of the boat, hanging his fingers only a few inches from the water's surface. The river, at least, felt a bit cool, decreasing the severity of the sun's heat to some degree. "What value do you have to him? You're just some kid. What could you do but be dead weight?" Ketsumeh scowled angrily at the ferryman, almost wanting to tug the strings and open the blades in Anubhasa's arm. "I'm a psychic," he said quietly, turning his attention back to the passing waters. "Oh yeah? What am I thinking of, kid?"

"That it's hot out."
~
The ruins of Aravir were just as large as the word "ruins" in that definition merited, stretching out past the sides of his hands when he pressed them side to side to block out it's sight. Ketsumeh rode on the shoulders of the tireless puppet, trudging ahead through the sands. "I hope harpies aren't the cause of trouble," he mumbled as the puppet began to descend a set of recently uncovered weathered stone stairs, the upper parts of the Ruins rising around him. He kind of doubted the feathered bitches were the cause of concern, but still, he fretted over it. He hated fighting them, hated cleaning their blood of the puppet. "Ah, whatever. This should be simple! Couldn't be anything as bad as the Arta!"

((Open to one, please))

[Meow]

“Ok Feru, I have your Archeology Exit Pass. But you have to find some missing excavation team and they already sent someone out.” Khan came out with a not too happy look on his face.

Feru only half heard the words as she stared at the street dancer who was doing amazing acrobatics in a rather tasteless dress that had all but the undergarments in a see through silk. But the leaps and twirls and flips and fluid hand motions had entranced the catgirl and a few ribbons had tempted the kitty magus to pounce on at the little decorations but she held her best behavior before turning to her master. “Meow?”

“You can’t just grab some magic items, you have to rescue someone too or your pass will be revoked along with any prizes on your educational trip.”

“Nya, why can’t I just practice enchanting at home, it’s so hot here and I just want to nap?”

Khan shook his head and threw up his hands. “Because you need to see and touch some real artifacts to get a since of how to imbue the power to the best affect. I know you’ve seen magus artifacts but you need to learn from other styles too. And Raiaera take effort that you can’t learn from their style, so that makes Ancient Fallien relics the best.”

“Ok meow, but it’s still hot and I just want to sleep.” Feru curled into a ball and started to doze off.

“Get moving, I have other business here, I’ll summon a shadow horse to take you there.” Khan made a chant and drew a rune in the sand that vaguely reminded Feru of a horse before it came forward and picked Feru up in its muzzle and ran off.

=^-^=

The shadow horse was quite fast as it had Feru to the ruins in only 3 hours, which the kitty girl was mercifully asleep during, getting a rough catnap and a stiff back once she was up and the magical ride had vanished. Weathered gray stones were all around, holding hints that they were once buildings of great beauty but time had taken its toll.

The kitty girl stretched as she looked about, the edge of a great sea of sand that seemed to have no end in sight save for the ruins. Feru Stretched and mewed as she kept looking for something different. Then she caught something of a smaller man riding piggyback on a larger man. Maybe they could help the kitty magus. “Hihi!” Feru cried out with her tail twitching happily. “You think you two could, Meow, help me find someone?”

[Kandosa]

Surprised to hear another voice, Ketsumeh pivoted his head to the side, looking at the girl. She was certainly an odd sight to see, what with her triangular cat ears poking up from violet hair. The puppet clomped over to her and bent down, so that the boy on it's shoulders was face to face with her. Ketsumeh squinted, frowning as he stared, then Anubhasa rose up, and Ketsumeh shrugged. "No. We're here on an important mission from the Keep." Without a further word, the puppet turned around and began to descend the steps again, pausing as he reached the bottom. The light down here was predictably dim, filtering through cracks and other unseen sources. Dust hung heavily in the rays of light, and debris was scattered throughout the the path. It was a hallway, stretching for about thirty feet and opening into another chamber. "I smell...blood." 'But that should be impossible. To smell it, there would have to be a rather large amount spilled, not to mention, any blood in these ruins should have been dry thousands of years ago.'

As he searched for the smell, he noticed a few dark spots in the sand. Ketsumeh hopped down off the puppet's shoulders to inspect it. "This has to be it," he muttered, gagging from the smell of it. It was a lot stronger now, but it was...dry. "That doesn't make sen -- AGH!" A hand burst from the sand, and Ketsumeh leapt back as a form rose rapidly from the surface. It was covered in torn silks and stained bandages, and what little of it's flesh could be seen was a mottled dark red in color, much like a scab. It lifted it's head, and in it's glowing eyes could be seen the madness of the world. 'Arta!' At least four of them rose up, and the other dark blotches of sand flowed off to the chamber at the end of the hall.

"Mmm. And I thought this would be dull." Beneath his robe, Ketumeh's fingers began to twitch. Anubhasa pulled back it's cloak, and a long, bladed iron tail uncurled from around it's legs, stretching out as though it were sentient.

((Two for me, and two for you. Thought it needed some action.))

[Meow]

Feru wasn’t at all pleased at her answer, not only was it a ‘no’ but worse was the kid dismissed her for some scent. Sure it was blood and people tend to freak out from it and Feru could smell it too. Probably some poor desert animal had hurt itself and was being eaten or some traveler cut himself or maybe it was the people that were injured were wounded and needed help. But still it was rude to ignore the kitty girl like that

“Nya, alright. I’ll go and leave you alone.” The magus thrashed her tail as she started to walk away from the pair to search the ruins on her own. But there wasn’t much distance made when a claw thrust strait out of the sand to catch the kitty mage. Feru yelped and jumped back to free herself from the claw though her landing was on her back and left with the option to crawl back and try to get on her feet.

But another claw ripped forth though Feru was able to get up in time to avoid being nabbed. “Stay away?” she hissed as she kept backing up. “I don’t taste good!” She whined while retreating further. The ugly creatures were fairly fast and soon Feru ran up to a ledge and looked down at the monsters as they were starting to climb up the small ledge as well. Feru chanted as she held her spell book to her chest before pointing a finger, but no spell came forth since the last word was a yelp and Feru jumped back again as the claws almost got her again but she ran down the ledge trying to keep her distance and hope to get a spell off.

Not exactly easy since there were two of them, But Feru needed a spell and decided to try and speed up her chanting. Rushing was dangerous but then again there wasn’t much choice. The tail was all puffed up and Feru let out her hasty spell, the fireball worked but it only caught one of the undead, which caught aflame and fell to the ground. The cat magus panted as the fast spell and running took a lot out of her and still she had more fleeing to do.