Dominus Spiritorum

[alakin1]

An earsplitting sound, sounding somewhat like thunder, rent the air throughout the Wilds. On a rise overlooking Lake Incatatium the ground gave in, leaving a large hole. Then, as though a ground itself was groaning, a large rumble rose up. From the hole rose a large, ancient-looking building, a temple of sorts, resembling that of the Aztecs, or Mayans. At its apex stood a strange figure, a zombie of some kind, flesh half decomposed hanging onto his bones, an eye flapping out of its socket, and draped in moth-eaten cloths, silhouetted against the sky. Beside it stood a smaller figure, a skeleton, though it still retained both its eyes, also clothed in dust-ridden rags which may have once been fine livery.

The larger skeleton motioned to the smaller,

"Where are we now Calh?" he asked, his voice melodious, with a hint of coldness dissimulated in it. The smaller skeleton, Calh, took out a small piece of paper, which looked impossibly old, defying the laws of time, the paper did not crumble into dust.

"I'm not quite sure, Master. We seem to have left the map's zone." his voice sounded something akin to two pieces of sandpaper being scraped together. The servant's master scanned the Wilds,

"Nonetheless, we require more experiments... The last batch are gone, or 'ungone', as the case may be." the zombie smiled to himself, as if remembering some happy memory. Calh, visibly worried about something, tapped his map,

"Master, might I suggest we be more careful. Another batch of disappearances, another batch of 'ungone' experiments. We don't even know where or what this world is. The High Council is bound to become suspicious." The Master turned to Calh his left eye hanging down from its socket and swaying with the movement,

"My dear Calh, nothing would please me more than not requiring another batch of experiments, considering that it would no doubt mean my success. As for the High Council, bah! A court of impotent fools draped in finery and pretending to have some degree of control of life. I would rather worry about a small rat than the High Council. Now leave me to my work." Calh bowed deeply, his joints creaking,

"Yes sir."

"Yes sir..?"

"I meant, yes Master Tong." Calh retreated, visibly not at ease with his master's plans, folding the ancient map back into the folds of his cloths. Tong smiled to himself, pausing to push his hanging eye back into its socket. He waved his hand, a hidden trapdoor opened in the stone beneath and a large orb flew up, stopping level at the zombie's chest. He placed his decaying hands onto it. In a rush of consciousness he felt his mind elevated.

~Now begins the game...~ the orb shone brightly, growing in glow until it almost rivaled the sun.
~That should draw some curious locals. No need to waste time finding new experiments the old fashioned way...~ he looked out across the Wilds,
~He he. Curiosity killed the cat, or unkilled it as the case may be...~ happy with the lighthouse he had made, he strode serenely into the temple, waiting to greet his new test subjects.

[Coolpikaaa]

Two birds flew down from the sky and rested on the temple.

"Care to tune that down?"One of them said in a raspy voice, the best a bird trained to talk could do.Content with their complaint being served, both lifted off the temple again and soared down to a tree on the lake shore.

They then chattered to each other in a rising tone as if fighting, oblivious to the fact the couple above the temple were obviously "dead".

-coolpikaaa

[Swix]

The glowing orb of light did attract some attention, specifically, the attention of a particular golden furred griffin. Goldfeather had been hunting, flying high in the sky whilst scanning the ground below her with her large brown eyes. The light was impossible to miss, but the building that it came from looked far too human, too civilised for her to risk going in for a closer look in her true form.

Instead, Goldfeather glided down to the ground until she landed softly on the Wilds floor. She began to walk towards the building, but as she did so she grew smaller and changed from quadrupedal to bipedal along the way. Once she reached the place, she no longer looked like the majestic beast she truly was at all. Goldfeather instead looked like an adult female human, with long gold hair and a flowing golden dress to match. In this form, she wore no shoes, and walked barefoot across the ground. She stared at the imposing building with wide, wild brown eyes that were both cautious and curious. Where had the thing come from?

Only slightly familiar with human polite practices, Goldfeather knocked on the door of the temple before opening it slightly to see what was inside. "Hello?" she called into the large building "is anything here?"

[alakin1]

In the centre of the entrance hall Goldfeather had entered a whirring sound, like that of a blender, could be heard.

whirrr...whiirrrr

With a groaning of probably ancient gears, a small platform detached itself, descending down into the floor, leaving a hole with no obvious bottom. With another cacophany of whirring and groaning stairs rose up to the hole, and with a creak, torches lit up, revealing it to be a passage down into the temple's depths.

Master Tong stared serenely at Goldfeather, the entrance hall being displayed on a stone screen before him.

~Ah, a subject so soon. Time to prepare the laboratory... If I don't succeed soon the High Council will be on my case like the back-stabbing ego-centric fools they are.~ he clicked his decaying fingers, a console rose up, with only two buttons displayed on it.
~One for life, one for death~ he pressed the left button, before standing with a squelch and walking away into the surrounding darkness.

[Zerrer]

Ashael was sitting in her house when the ground caved in. She screamed as she fell under the temple.

Suprisingly, she survived. But she was stuck. "Great. Now I have to wait until I die of starvation or something."

[Swix]

Goldfeather looked up at the whirring noise within the large building with some apprehension, ready to turn tail and leave the second anything threatening happened inside. She didn't like being inside buildings either, and she knew humans had a habit of setting traps up in their homes.

So it was no surprise she was relieved when it just turned out to be the insides moving without any hostile intent. The hungry griffin in human form cautiously came further into the room towards the downward leading staircase, her brown eyes still on the alert. There must be someone in here, surely? Or the stairs wouldn't have moved... unless they were one of those automatic things the humans seemed to love so much. Lazy creatures.

Goldfeather stood at the edge of the downward heading stairs, deliberating what to do. She liked being underground even less than she liked being inside a building, and yet her curiousity still managed to get the better of her.

Frowning, the griffin in human form began to descend the stairs, calling "Hello?" as she did so. Although she only said it once, instead of repeating herself.

[alakin1]

"There's no need to shout. I'm here, I'm here..." a rasping noise emanated from the shadows. Calh ascended the stairs, moving strangely agilely despite being only bones, moving into the light.

"Right then, you'll be the guest won't you?" without letting Goldfeather respond, he continued,

"Well of course you're the guest. Why else would you be here? It's like that talk I had with Parant last week, very nice person Parant, do you know him? A bit on the carnivorous side but very nice nonetheless..." Calh was forbidden to speak to the subjects, except to give instructions, but he felt that if they didn't respond (mostly because he never gave them time to) then it wasn't talking to them. He motioned Goldfeather to follow before starting down the stairs,

"...beautiful planet Kanxj, the people are a bit primitive but they're very polite, seem to think anyone who lands in a spaceship is automatically a god. Strange eh? Ah, here we are." during his entire rant the skeleton had never checked to see if the griffin was following him. Presently, he had just entered a large chamber, with two passages leading off into darkness. A silence, ominously like that of a grave, hung about the place.

"Well I'm off, the master will be here any second, just wait a bit." and with that, Calh strode off through a side passage. In the centre of the stone chamber stood a stone archway, a sickly green light shone out of it, lighting the room in a strangely macabre glow.

[Swix]

Goldfeather had begun to back off once she'd heard Calhs odd voice, but she stopped once he stepped into the light and revealed himself to be a skeleton. Not quite a monster that she would have felt far more comfortable with, but at least not human. Well, he hadn't been human for a while judging from the lack of flesh on his bones.

Goldfeather opened her mouth and then snapped it back shut as he babbled nonsense at her. Parant? Who was Parant? No doubt the talking the skeleton had been doing was at rather than to.

Kanxj? Planet? Spaceship? What in the world were they? Being a griffin, Goldfeather had no knowledge even of what one of those looked like, nor did she think that joking about someone else being a god was funny.

But she didn't have time to express any of these opinions as the intriguing yet bemusing skeleton hurried off and left her so she could wait for his 'master' to show up. Since the griffin could no longer talk physically the way that Calh had been doing as he'd rushed off, instead she sent a telepathic message to him: ~You certainly talk a lot~

Goldfeathers golden dress moved slightly in agitation as she took in the surroundings she was in now. The dress itself was of course not material at all, but still part of and attached to the griffin herself. It was a part of her, only giving the illusion that it wasn't.

The beast in human form began to wonder if maybe she should change back before this 'master' got there. Masters of anything were usually the cause of most troubles. And the odd green light worried her no end.

[alakin1]

The archway in the centre of the chamber shuddered, if it hadn't been inanimate one could have sworn it was shivering from cold, or fear. It shuddered again, more violently this time, again, and again. Faster and faster it shivered. The green light dimmed down until the chamber was devoid of any light. Then, with an explosion of light the archway fragmented into a thousand pieces. Green light flooded the room, this time coming from no obvious origin. Where the archway had been, Master Tong, his left eye hanging out from its socket, now stood, looking serenely at Goldfeather.

Master Tong had always been one for dramatic entrances, and he felt that this had to be one of his best. He looked at Goldfeather, sizing up her for the various experiments,

~Undeath? Hybridity? Yes, hybridity. Hmm, Machine-Hybrid, or Creature-Hybrid?~ his train of thought was abruptly stopped as he realized that Goldfeather was still there. He beckoned the griffin, before turning round and starting down a side passage. He had no qualms about her refusing to follow, at any rate if she refused she wouldn't escape alive.

- - -

Calh stopped abruptly,
~You certainly talk a lot.~ he was sure someone was speaking to him, telepathy? He hoped it wasn't the new subject, or he might be punished for talking with a 'guest'. However, he cast the incident aside, he had more important things to do. Arriving at another junction in the labyrinth of tunnels he opened a small console in the wall.
~Oh...we seem to have landed on a house.~ a smile would have crept up his face, was he not a skeleton. A house might mean people, people that might still be alive. If he could capture them then no doubt he would be well rewarded.

Whistling, as best he could, he strode off down another tunnel, before descending some stairs, anddown a trapdoor. He was out of the temple, underneath it.
~Hmm, definitely a house.~ still hoping to find someone, he began moving the rubble into a neat pile.

[Coolpikaaa]

The two birds squabbled back and forth until realizing they were now alone.

"Whew..." One said to the other, clearly relieved."Look, I know you are mad for me making us go out,but no one was any wiser and that light wa-"

"Hey! Don't you tell me to be quie-"The same bird continued, seemingly talking to himself.The other was looking in the opposite direction.
He continued on...

"I don't hear anything."

"No."

"Of course! You saw them go into the temple."

"What? Which house?"

"Look, there is obviou-Oh."

The silent bird cocked his head slightly, looking up at the temple entrance.The talkative one nodded, and both suddenly evaporated into nothing.
---
Atop the temple, a shadow flickered on the wall, winding down the stairs.The darkened area crept along the wall, vanishing in the absence of light, and re-appearing when it reached a strange green glow.There was a woman here, and the shadow took careful measures not to be seen before heading down one of two branching paths.

-coolpikaaa

[Swix]

Goldfeather watched the archway shudder and shiver before violently exploding, causing her to instinctively shield her eyes from the sudden flood of green light and sharp shards as well as stumble backwards when she attempted to back off.

'Stupid clumsy human form' she thought to herself as she got back up, brushing any dust off her living golden dress 'four legs is so much better'

Whilst slightly annoyed at the lack of response she'd gotten from the once talkative skeleton, it was quite possible he couldn't answer back so she shrugged off her annoyance pretty easily. Besides, she was now faced with his master, whom she could see to be a zombie and whom seemed far less talkative than his servant.

She simply stared at him as he lost himself in his thoughts whilst doing the same, only moving to gesture her to follow him as he turned and walked deeper inside.

Still unable to contain her curiousity, Goldfeather started after the zombie master. It wasn't often she saw an old temple inhabited by monsters like these two after all, and she wondered what interest they had in an apparently human female. Why were they being so... dramatic around her?

As suspicions began to form more and more in the griffins mind she instinctively began to change back to her more natural form. Behind Master Tong bipedal footfalls became softer as their soles changed to the pads of the feline, and eventually became quadrupedal steps as her spine changed so it could no longer support the upright way of walking. Her hands fingers shrank and grew larger as they changed into forepaws simultaneously with her feet, legs, arms and spine becoming more lion like. What had been her dress flew open and changed into feathery wings and the long, feather covered tail of a beast who was just at home in the skies as on the open ground.

Of course, whilst all that was going on her head and neck changed as well. Instead of golden locks of hair she now had feathers growing out of and covering her entire head and neck, as well as the front of her mouth and nose beginning to jut out and harden until it formed the hooked beak of a gigantic eagle.

Goldfeather wasn't going to get caught out in her human form if this zombie master attempted to try any hostile moves, especially with her being already uneasy underground.

"I take it you are the master of this place?" Goldfeather called after the zombies back, now she had the opportunity to talk "Why did your building turn up here? This is another's territory"

[alakin1]

Master Tong looked back as Goldfeather asked her questions, his eyes opened in surprise for a fleeting instance, causing his left eye to fall out of its socket, as he saw that the woman was actually a griffin, but he quickly took hold of himself,

~A shape-shifter? Even better!~ He pushed his eye back into its socket before continuing down another flight of stairs, they were deep in the heart of the temple now.

"I am Master Tong, though in my younger days I was known as Xiang ji Tong, a noble of the State of Shou. Later I was known as Tleehlath, the Jaguar That Watches Mysteries." the zombie stopped nostalgically for a moment. Ahead a deep, flickering blue light could be seen.

"But that is all past now. Ashamed though I am to admit it, I require your help, shape-shifter. A great evil that has followed me from my previous home is readying itself to destroy this world, hoping to destroy me with it." They were at another stone chamber now, this time with two chairs and a table,

"Please, sit down, I will explain what we must do."

[Swix]

Goldfeather continued to follow Master Tong, finding her movement far easier and more fluidic now she was back in the form she was supposed to inhabit. The griffin flexed her wings slightly as she walked, only starting slightly at the sight of the other monsters eye falling out of it's socket before being pushed back in. A zombie who didn't just let his flesh hang around, how strange...

The griffin became ever more uneasy as they descended another flight of stairs, just how far below the ground did this thing go? She didn't think she wanted to find out, but she listened to what the zombie was saying nonetheless.

Since the griffin could not sigh, she did not really react outwardly to his claims of being followed by a great evil that was going to destroy the world, except to think within her own head. 'A force that will destroy this world?' she thought 'just to get at this guy? He must have really annoyed it... I guess I better help, I don't want to lose my home'. Of course, and as usual Goldfeathers reasoning was for her own benefit, but then again it is hard to think of the destruction of a world as beneficial to anyone.

"No chairs for me" Goldfeather told Master Tong, eyeing the chair with some distaste and in no hurry to resume her human form now she was back to normal "I'll sit on the floor if it's all the same to you. Far more comfortable"

Goldfeather did as she said, sitting on the floor in the manner of a cat on the opposite side of the table to the zombie, her long feathered tail brushing the floor. "So tell me" she said, tilting her head slightly as she regarded him "how and why do you need my help to defeat this... apocalyptic being?"

[alakin1]

"Hmm? Ah yes, of course. It would be hard sitting on a chair when you have four feet." Master Tong sat down heavily into one of the two chairs in the chamber. His age was beginning to tire him, perhaps he should ask the High Council for a replacement body? Later maybe, first he had experiments to do which, if successful, would make of him an emperor of the High Council.

The decaying zombie faced Goldfeather,

"Oh it's very simple my dear shape-shifter. Tsulina, my genocidal pursuer, is easily confused, in fact confusion tends to weaken her to such a point that a sneeze would kill her. Now, you being a shape-shifter, it would be easy for you to change into me, and therefore, faced with both you and I, identical...zombies," Tong disliked naming himself as a zombie, it reminded him of his own shortcomings. "Tsulina would be totally confused as to who to attack, then we jump in, and finish her." It wasn't a very convincing plan, but the zombie didn't care, the last piece was in place. It was time to end this charade.

He gave the griffin a sly smile, revealing very few teeth, clapped his hands and left the chamber, turning round just at the entrance from the passage. A slight chuckle, and simultaneously the floor collapsed, and the ceiling groaned and started falling, a great big block of stone hurtling downwards. A faint light could be seen below, about 200 or so feet down, revealing yet another stone chamber.

[Swix]

'Okay' Goldfeather thought as she watched the zombie whilst he explained about this Tsulina character 'that has got to be the strangest basic plan I have ever heard' And of course there was the trouble of actually being able to do it. Being what she was Goldfeather could become any human or elfs form, although she preferred the one she'd come in with and used it exclusively, albeit with varying ages. But there were two problems, first that she'd never tried to become one with missing flesh, and second that even if she did manage to mimic the zombies clothing it would always be gold, the same for the eyes.

The griffin carefully watched the zombie as he smiled in a way she really didn't like, before he clapped his hands for some unknown reason and left the table to walk back up the stairs. Goldfeather stood on all four paws with her wings half-furled, her head lowered and the large claws on her paws unsheathed. Something wasn't right... but before Goldfeather could make a leap to leave the room the floor disappeared and the roof began to fall.

That she could deal with, but but not the ceiling. Not without anything to stand on anyway. Goldfeather opened her wings fully to slow the sudden unexpected descent enough that she wouldn't break anything once she hit the ground below, yet kept her downward pace fast enough that she wouldn't get smacked with the ceiling. The griffin half screeched, half roared her outrage on the way down towards whatever lay beneath.

~You won't keep me down here forever!~ she sent to everyones minds within or close to the strange building ~I will get out~. 'And once I do' she thought privately 'I'm never going anywhere near any old buildings ever again'