Wet, Blind Hunt
« continued from Return to the Temple.
Delilah (Stubb spoof), Angus, Amos, Frigg
Location: Ancient Temple (Collinsel)
Drifting inside the untended temple, the flustered troupe, mud-caked and disoriented, has become separated. Half of the explorers choose to tarry at the entrance, stand watch, while the dragon and wildcat barrel onward after Delilah. Angus curves a last glance back to the others, stooping to secure the cuffs of his pants, before he rises and turns. "Lilah?" he calls, having lost sight of the girl. "Slow down, m'love. You're losin' us." His words reverberate within the musty dome, fraternizing with thunder claps and the plunks of seditious rain drops.
"Lost us already, ain't never saw the point of this blasted misery of a journey, " Amos curses, but following closely after the dragon, "Blasted weasel."
Delilah reappears briefly against the darkness ahead, illuminated like a succubus by a flash of lightning that darts in through a crack above. Her face is turned back toward the group, smiling blankly. "Look, Amos, if you don't want to follow me, be on your way. I've had about enough of your bellyaching, and I'm not going to look very kindly on anymore 'blasted weasel's, or whatever other choice names you wish to call me." She turns her back on them and continues at a slightly reduced pace. "Do it for Stubby, if you do it at all."
"Shut yer gripe hole, Amy." The dragon speaks over his shoulder, echoing the umbrage of the mustelid specter, as squinted eyes rove for the voice. "Cats ain't partial t' th' wet--I know that much," he pauses, hooks a thumb at his shirt collar, swallows deep, and then continues, ".. but ye'r gonna' let this dank lil' hole inna' wall knot up yer tail? C'mon, Amy. Who snatched yer curious bone?" Quickening his pace, Angus scurries, as nimbly as a loping reptile can, for Delilah.
Amos huffs and hisses, but keeps his mouth shut. Hurrying after both the dragon and Delilah.
Frigg is trailing the rest of the group, on her knees at the entrance. By now, her fraility has overcome her own curiosity, and finally the old mouse succumbs to her weakened state. Blurred vision lends the mouse a distorted view of the dreary surroundings, thunder that's frighteningly close seems as distant as the horizon, and her eyes wander around aimlessly in her head before she collapses into the slime on the floor, arms and legs with their paws laid out neatly behind her.
The heavy rain has coalesced into a waterfall that tumbles down through the gap in the domed ceiling and ripples through the soggy vines hanging almost to the ground. The torrent sparkles in the places where it catches fallen starlight and splashes viciously in all directions, catching the feline and the frail alike in its spray. Delilah has disappeared again in the black ahead, but there seems only one way forward, as before: through the doorway.
The soused thud of fur and rags against tile has Angus reeling; even among the cacophony of the storm and the squabbling, the wet swoon of tired flesh does not go unnoticed. He skids in the slime, lapping furiously at the fusty fragrance, before the distinct odor of sodden Rodentia jells. "Aug--still *yew*, is it?" the dragon balks. A glance is thrown from the evanescing weasel to the prostrate curmudegon. "Hang up a tick, Lilah darlin'." There is no response. "Amy, go after her. I'll get this one." He slithers to Frigg, gazing down.
Frigg's arms slowly come to life, but only a very tired life that seems to slip away again once it starts. She's able to plant her paws in the slime next to her sides, but her arms collapse and a loud rush of air escapes her nostrils as her body sighs. The eye on the side of the lizard rolls upward to meet his stare, but rolls back down as the lid start to droop with it. Suddenly, she seems to get a second wind, and her eyes open again, and she's able to get up on wildly trembling paws and knees. "An... gss.. oh look at the mess... I'm a wre... wret..." Suddenly, the mouse wretches all over the ground underneath her. "Uuugghhh... le... leave m...me.."
Amos turns back to watch as Angus goes after what he doesn't see clearly, soaked and wet and staring in the darkness he heads in the direction he thinks is forward. Through the doorway, hissing unpleasently as he wills himself forward. For Stubb.
Delilah cuts in: "Come on, boys! Are you going to let a little rich girl beat you? It's just a bit of rain!" Her movements are inaudible through the din of the storm, but her voice suggests that she is not far ahead.
Angus palms his eyes, kneading, irked, at his brow. "Ma'am, what're we gonna' do with yew? Why ye' gotta' trail us? Can't ye' see this ain't no place .." The reproach thins, as the dragon realizes that Amos, too, has vanished among the mist. "C'mon, girlie." With a shepherd-like resolve, he plants a hand between Frigg's shoulders, and guides her onward. "If ye' got this far, ye'r sorta' along fer the ride."
Amos the half drowned fluffball hisses, but otherwise moves to catch up with Delilah. His tail flicking dangerously behind him as he scurries after her.
The expulsion of 'bad humors' seems to have done the maid some good... she feels cold again, and draws a shawl close around her, shivering. She takes the help but doesn't say a word. Years of being polite and proper around others, and being still of sound mind, put an awful weight of embarrassment upon the retching incident, and she hardly knows what to say about following the group. She plods slowly but steadily next to the lizard, now attempting to wipe the slime off of the front of her.
Delilah, in the hallway ahead, leans impatiently against the wall. She is oddly pristine compared to the others, or at least it seems so in the nearly lightless corridor. "The rain will wash their stench away," she says to Amos as he comes up to her. "May it never return." Her eyes drift lazily across the wildcat's drenched visage, then down the hall to the door up ahead.
Angus, mindful to avoid the fetid puddle, raps as he walks. "Mmf, dear. What didje' eat fer lunch? Stinks like fear and week-old fishes." He takes a final appraisal of the spew. "Toads, lady. I think ye' got, er, some on yer smock." A finger loosely indicates the befouled front of Frigg's garment. "We'll haveta' give ye' a good dunk, iffn' we make it out of here." He lifts a paw overhead as they bridge the stormy deluge, but a hand is an ineffective umbrella. "Then again.." Grumbling and soaked, he closes the gap to the others. "It's that crumby crone again, mates," he informs them.
Frigg lifts a paw in panic toward the lizard as he jumps ahead to the others, "W...waii...." Her voice, raspy and dry, after the surge of bile, struggles to shout out to Angus. She keeps her determination, and the momentum of her second wind, as she walks a bit faster toward the main group.
Amos looks decidedly unpleasent, soaked and a mess to say the least. Yet he doesn't let the weasel maid get to him, he grunts and with the new direction know he makes forward towards the door up ahead.
Delilah scurries along behind the wildcat.
Angus slows, pivoting to face the squawking senior. "Listen, ma'am--Lilah don't look keen to wait up on stragglers. Ye' somehow kept up with us fer this far, why the strife now?" In spite of his censure, the dragon extends a hand; he is kind enough to first wipe it clean of grime, transferring the muck to a pant leg. "C'mon, c'mon. What, ye' want a dang chariot?"
Frigg takes the hand gratefully, and keeps silent for a while. The mousemaid clasps her shawl with the other paw, only bringing it, and the edge of the shawl, up to her mouth with the occasional cough.
"You're a popular bunch," Delilah says with a wary look at the old mouse. "No wonder Stubb's enemies didn't have trouble finding him." A smile removes any unintended barbs from her pronouncement, then she follows Amos through the open door. Wind and the spray of rain rushes through it, blowing the weasel's flowing dress up in waves behind her. She shelters her face with an arm and plunges forward.
Angus hauls the elderly mouse along, situating his arm so that he, more or less, tows the bulk of her weight. The dragon fails to summon a snarky retort to Delilah, so, mollified by her twinkle, he simply answers with a lop-sided grin. Then his attention deviates: dark eyes skip about, studying the peculiar architecture of the temple; its unsettling mixture of abandonment and furtive, fleeting habitation. Intermittently, the wary gaze darts to the weasel, dubious of her apparent familiarity with the temple.
Frigg also manages to glance around the mysterious surroundings and wonder about their leader, although she certainly is just trying to survive at all. The mousemaid feels much better now that it seems she's been accepted to follow in their journey, and the stress that complicated the physical symptoms is now partially alieviated. She looks toward the doorway, expressionless and mute.
Amos also looks towards the weasel, looking a bit more mannered as he looks around their surroundings.
They follow the path toward the hallway and plunge deeper into the temple.
"Lilah?" the dragon barks, hurtling into the unlit chamber. "Shoulda' had th' mind t' bring a torch," he laments, as the hand not attached to Frigg fumbles lamely at the gloomy space before him. "Amy?" In his blind groping, the lizard flounders over a discarded knapsack and, presumably, its metallic contents, as an awful clamor scatters the floor.
Amos somehow got behind the lizard, fumbles in the dark and grumbles, "Am right here, " He calls out to the dragon, "What'cha making a racket for?"
The rain tears down through the collapse ceiling of the old living quarters, soggifying the scraps of furniture that still remain. Delilah squints through it. "I explored here just the other day, but..." Her lip quivers. "But the rain has changed it. There was a door..." She looks back into the darkness behind her, hopeful of directing her speech back to the others. "Which way was it that you found Stubb?"
Frigg similarly gropes about with the unoccupied paw, dropping her shawl in the process, with a moan. She looks back at it; there it'll stay as long as the lizard presses forward and she's attached to it... she sees the cat walk over the discarded article and groans, slumping her shoulders. Up ahead, Delilah is just the illusion of movement in the dark. The mousemaid squints.
The caliber of Angus' cursing rivals that of the riotous tempest outside; he is limping, wagging the rammed foot in a fit of discomfort and irritation, but at least the thunder smothers some of his vulgarity. "I dunno'," he says through clenched teeth. "I weren't with 'em." Despite his rambling anguish, the lizard maintains his hold on Frigg, and hops on--all though not without a few angry kicks at the camp debris.
"How's rain wash away a door, love?" Angus adds.
Delilah glares back at the lizard through the limp wet fronds that the rain has carved in her hair. "You try to see through this /bloody/ chaos," she says with an irritable snarl and takes hold of his arm. Though much weaker than Angus, she tries to drag him forcibly forward to seek the elusive door beyond the opaque curtain of precipitation.
"I can't see a bloody thing, maybe it was this way, " Amos responds to Delilah's question, running paw through matted wet fur and shaking his head, "Is either there or it isn't, is a bloody door after all!"
And there's lots of shouting. Frigg can't make most of it out in her dazed state, and she just clamps hold of Angus' hand with both paws now. She pulls her hood tight at intervals, the edge of the downpour spraying and ricocheting into her face.
Angus winces at the temper in her grip, but submits. Now there is an outlandish beast-chain; Angus, the compliant link between Frigg and Delilah. Hand guided by the weasel maid, the dragon fishes for any symptom of a door. His palm flattens against the clammy stone wall, exploring its contours, but the rain and the shadows impede his sight. His palpation is distracted, clumsy. "Are ye' sure, darlin'?"
The weasel pursues her own investigation while Angus fumbles around, and she is rather quickly more successful. "In here!" Delilah's voice is nearly lost amid the clamor, but she does not repeat her call before ducking into the little shrine where the adventurers previously found Stubb.
Angus, sucking a breath, thrusts his snout beyond the surge of rain, tongue dithering near his hand. Water streams over his head, tangled rivulets glinting in the periodic amity of lightning. He draws the arm with Frigg reflexively closer, shifting to the noise of Delilah's evident triumph. "Haha!" is his mighty bellow, as the mouse is brought it to an exultant clutch. The jubilation is brief. Angus swiftly drags the curmudgeon along, chancing the evasive chamber.
Amos clambers past the lizard, heading off towards the sound of Delilah. Moving into the shrine after her.
Frigg is a soggy mass of confusion, and wouldn't be able to make out a door if it was beautifully crafted in oak and stained to accentuate its paneling. Much less an invisible one-- but the lizard finally finds it, and Frigg's eyes widen at the reptilian embrace, before being tugged along again. "Di... did she fi..nd....?"
They go through a door into what appears to be a shrine.
Even as the others enter, Delilah has already positioned herself by the wall. Her paws survey its unlit surface. "Dammit..." she mutters. "Keep that door open. I'll need all the light I can get." Tongue planted between lips, she inches her fingers along the cracks, searching.
Amos hastiliy scurries back towards the door, moving to hold it open as instructed. He cranes his neck and turns back towards the others as he tries to inspect the room from where he's holding the door open, "Got it."
Another dash of lightning flits beyond the door, its gleam hampered only by the bodies that pour through it. Angus shakes like a dog, slinging droplets from his saturated garb. He surveys shrine, releasing his clench on Frigg, and trots to Delilah. Stooping, the dragon asks, "More secrets, eh, m'lady?" and, imitating the weasel, pokes at the wall.
As Angus 'poke's at the wall, it opens up onto a hidden chamber.
Frigg immediately stumbles after the lizard's grasp on her loosens, but she rights herself in time to prevent a fall. She looks absolutely wiped, she's sore all over, and it even hurts to cough. The mousemaid visibly winces while doing so, the sounds muted every so often by the thunder and voices. The hood is pulled down again.
They slip away in the darkness.
