[Remedy]

"Alright, thank you for your permission.  I'll go get it and help it out of the temple,"  Kira said before cautiously stepping into the pool.  With a deep breath, she swum down to where the Tricky was and tapped it lightly.  Once she had it's attention, she motioned up, trying to show it that it needed to go to the surface.  Then she swam up herself in need of a breath.  

Once she got to the top and got out of the water, Kira shook off and turned to see if the Tricky had followed.  She was hoping she wouldn't have to go back in again, because although the water was nice and cool, running out of breath always made her paranoid.

[Shieba]

Ashur glanced at the Slydra; he would have liked to help their new friend to find a way out of here, but right now, Hakai needed his assistance and he was glad the Slydra was out of harm's way. It was bad enough that Hakai had indeed picked another fight. "Hakai, be careful."

"Yeah, yeah." Hakai grinned at the approaching Musim. "That guy is a total nutcase. How does he think he can hit me if he makes himself vanish? He obviously needs to become solid to strike - and if it's just going to be his teeth, I'm gonna knock them out first."

"He might have other powers, be careful." Ashur readied his light magic just in case. "I don't want to aim magic shots here or something could collapse, but I'm ready to heal you."

"Whatever, just stay back and let me handle this." Hakai was, in fact, quite grateful to have Ashur back him up, but he wasn't someone who would let others fight his battles for him. With a growl, he charged at Musim.

[AnimeTheia]

Pickle:

The tricky startled slightly as it was tapped by the Lucain, curious it followed her up to the surface wondering what the Lucain could possible want. After all the tricky hadn't been doing anything wrong as far as it knew. It had just been lazily swimming around in the gloriously cool water, reviving itself after the intense heat of the desert.

Acenath watched anxiously from the side of the pool, thinking of all the work she would have to do now
that the horrible creature had destroyed the sanctity of the Goddess' pool. Not that she minded too much she was a very hardworking little Shinzo and would do practically anything for her adopted parents.

Congratulations you have won the Tricky, the pet has already been sent. The tricky is now yours and can be controlled by you.

~~~~~~~~~~

Shieba

Musim scoffed aloud at Hakai's stupidity and bravado, needs to become solid to strike indeed he thought. Allowing Hakai to charge straight at him Musim screwed up his barely visible face into intense concentration. All around them things began to vibrate and many objects lifted up off of the ground. Musim glared at Hakai his eyes glinting in the darkness. Braziers, pebbles and rocks began zooming through the air towards the Lucain as Musim cackled loudly in delighted anticipation of his revenge.

The slydra meanwhile had ducked behind a column, it was no longer safe to be beside the blocked up doorway as Musim's power intensified by being inside his Goddess' Temple and Throne Room had even begun to pull chunks of rock out of it, and the Slydra had already been struck by a few smaller pieces.

As you already know the Slydra is yours, the pet has already been sent. You may take over controlling the Slydra if you wish or I can keep controlling it until the end of the contest.

[Shieba]

(I still haven't managed to come up with a personality for the Slydra, so you go and do it with whatever you had intended for her until the end of this all?)

Hakai quickly dodged the first few rocks thrown at him and charged for a few more meters while Ashur quicky raised a defensive magical shield. Noticing that, Hakai growled and fled into the safety of the force field, but not without getting struck a few times. "Damnit! You coward, can't you fight fairly?! Are you that weak!?" he yelled at Musim.

"Are you sure making him more angry is smart?" Ashur mused, still sounding rather calm. "We don't know what else he can do or how great his powers are - I can't hold this forever and you are obviously not able to counter this. And no, I still don't aim magic here."

"This is stupid! You are a coward, too! Just blast this guy already so that I can hit him!" Hakai freed himself from Musim's robe and shredded it with his claws in his rage, just to hit something. "So what should we do now, oh great master? Flee? We can't and I don't want to!"

"Hmm." Ashur looked at the blocked up doorway, glad the Slydra had obviously managed to get away from harm. "Actually...go and make him more angry, I think." He chuckled when Hakai looked at him dumbly. Ashur tried to direct Hakai's gaze towards the doorway. If they could get Musim to open it up with his powers, they could get away.

"Oh yeah!" Hakai nodded. "We get him to open that up and outside, we have more space!"

Ashur sighed. Not only was Hakai dumb enough to inform the enemy, he also still believed he could win against Musim. Ashur really didn't feel like duelling with magic and just wanted to get away, but things were, in the end, never easy with Hakai...

[AnimeTheia]

Musim laughed maniacally at Hakai's attempted insults, he didn't care what the silly Lucain said. He did care what the silly Lucain did however. His eyes glowed with lava-like intensity as wrath and anguish built up in him. His precious robe, one of the few things left from his previous life and that disgusting Lucain creature had not only dirtied it and dishonoured it by putting it upon his person but had now also shredded the rich heavy fabric! A wail rose up from within him, piercing the quiet of the desert for miles around. Musim's ghostly form tensed becoming more visible, his bushy tail whipped back and forth rigidly behind him, his facial features turned into a grotesque masque of mixed emotions; pain, ire, sadness and disgust.

Ignoring the two loathsome creatures' discussion Musim continued with his assault, intensifying his efforts to get at his tormentor. Larger rocks began to zoom around the room, several more were wrenched loose from the doorway allowing late day sunlight and sand to trickle through the gaps. His anger was so intense that the hundreds of years old pillars themselves began to tremble, disturbing dust and sand into the air. It became apparent that Musim was quickly losing control of himself, many of the dangerous objects flying around the room, though mostly concentrated at hakai, flew in every direction threatening both Ashur and the Slydra as well as the Lucain.

The Slydra let out a low hiss of fear before throwing itself onto the floor as flat as it could, it suffered from several scrapes and scratches already, the floor seemed like the least dangerous place to be right now as there was no way to get out of the room.

[Shieba]

(Sorry for the slow answer. D8)

Ashur quickly put together two and two. "Hakai, I believe you made him rather mad by shredding his robe." He sighed when he spotted the poor Slydra and expanded his magic field so that it shielded the other creature as well. "This is worrysome. I can hold this for a bit, but the whole place might crumble before we can get out."

"Bah." Hakai looked at the pieces of robe at his feet. "So he's giving me shit for destroying his piece of trash, but he himself can level his whole temple-thing and doesn't think twice about it? Moron." Hakai snorted, but it was pretty obvious that he had no idea what to do. "I wanna smack that guy one, I totally do!"

"Yes, well, that will be difficult", Ashur commented. "Hm. We have no chance to flee right now, so all we can do is hold out. Let's hope this place won't fall down on us. Mister Musim seems to lose control rather quickly, but at this rate, his power should be drained soon. Or at least I hope so. I must admit, I feel a bit bad for him. That robe seems to have meant much to him. He probably used his magic to protect it from decay, even."

"So if it's that important, why did he make it a piece of a stupid riddle, wasting our time? It's his own fault, really", Hakai answered, though he maybe felt a bit bad. Maybe.

"Who says that was him?" Ashur looked around, trying to recognize something beyond the flying rocks. "He seems to have been an important person here, but I doubt he was the ruler."

Hakai looked at the Slydra. "Hey, you, how powerful is that guy? Doesn't he have a boss or someone who can knock his teeth out for trashing this place?" He almost had to yell to make himself understood, with all the tremors around them.

[AnimeTheia]

The Slydra slithered slowly towards the other two as it realised that they were somehow remaining safe from the bits of flying debris. "Very powerful" it nodded at them as it raised itself back to full height, "But, he can't leave the Temple without his mistress the Goddess. She is the reason he has so much power, but if she were to use her power this place probably wouldn't exist, not even as rubble, by the end of it!" the Slydra trembled slightly. "I haven't met her myself, but there is a little Fuyuzakura Shinzo living here that told me she was adopted by the Goddess and Musim, that little girl seems very friendly so I believe the Goddess Amunet can't be all that bad".

As if she had heard her name being spoken the Goddess herself suddenly appeared flapping her wings slowly so she hung in mid-air between the trio and Musim. Musim's power intensified as the Goddess appeared loosening yet more rocks from the now half blocked doorway. Amunet glared around at the trespassers and Musim, growing in size she bellowed at Musim "Stop this nonsense!", Musim immediately and somewhat sheepishly obeyed; the pillars groaned and stopped shaking, the rocks and braziers dropped suddenly to the floor with loud clangs and thuds. Amunet then turned her attention to Hakai and Ashur, she glared at the two, taking in the dishevelled torn robe at Hakai's feet. Her voice was flat and cold as she spoke to them "I can forgive the behaviour of High Devotee Musim, but I cannot forgive those who show such disrespect to my home and my subjects! What have you to say for yourselves?".

[Shieba]

Ashur slowly lowered his magic field when the attack ceased for now, though he remained wary. There was a goddess here now, after all, and she was maybe rather hostile, considering the blood offer they had made to enter the temple.

"Well, that moron over there--"

"Hakai, quiet. Let me do the talking here." Ashur nodded at Amunet. "I must apologize for my rather violent spiritbond-partner here, though it is not fully his fault. As you are probably aware, we got trapped here after offering our blood at the entrance to this temple. We have gotten this far by solving riddles and one of these consisted of Hakai wearing these robes. Now while I must admit that Hakai wasn't very careful with them to begin with--"

"--they were butt-ugly and--"

"--it still remains a fact that including them into the mechanisms here made they rather susceptible to get damaged. Of course not as they are now; that's because your High Devotee and Hakai here were trading hostilities and, being unable to attack Mister Musim otherwise while getting assaulted himself, Hakai kind of used them as an outlet for his anger, for which he is sorry."

"Wait, what?! I'm not sorry! Not at all!" Hakai growled. "This bastard there was too scared to fight a fair fight with me and get beaten up! Coward! If you want my opinion: A guy who is hiding behind his ghostly magic and who is so stupid he would bury himself alive doesn't even deserve fancy crap like robes."

"Hakai..." Ashur sighed. "I really apologize for him. We just want to leave this place after we got trapped here. Hakai is rather unhappy right now, hence his comments." Ashur really wanted to solve this peacefully because he doubted they had a chance of winning, but as always, things were difficult with Hakai.

[AnimeTheia]

Amunet nodded thoughtfully to herself once the two trespassers had given their apologies (or in Hakai's case snide comments). She could see that the use of Musim's robes in the games she had designed was the cause behind the situation, though she hadn't expected such a disrespectful creature as that Lucain to enter her realm. The Goddess paced in circles as she slowly lowered herself to the floor and considered her options. After a tense silence she finally stopped pacing and facing the two she spoke "The usual punishment for desecration in my home is death!", her facial expression was cold and emotionless, she let the words ring throughout the throne room before finally relenting "But! As you provided an offering I am feeling generous and so, I decree that your punishment shall instead be lifetime imprisonment in the Catacombs." Amunet smiled graciously at the two, as if she truly believed she was doing them a huge favour. "Musim, take them down and chain them up!", Musim, who had drawn himself up regally beside his Goddess, grinned with pure malice. He began to advance towards the pair, drawing upon his magic as he did so.

Amunet, having delivered her verdict flew up to her Throne to rest, she mused to herself about how useful it would be having living prisoners inside the Temple that she could take offerings from whenever she wanted.

[Shieba]

Hakai just snorted. "Well done, Ashur! You're clearly a master in negotiations!" He got into a fighting position again.

Ashur was feeling kind of helpless as well right now. What was that goddess thinking? Was she completely out of her mind? He guessed that there was probably no way to get out of this mess without a fight, though he wondered if it was smarter to fight with the goddess and Musim here or try to escape from the catacombs once they were alone again. But then, he didn't know how huge this temple was to begin with. Both options were rather bad. "Oh goddess, if I may speak again..." He made a last attempt at trying to solve things peacefully. "As you might see, I am a Seraphent. We are creatures of the air and of light and not of catacombs. Imprisonment would mean a certain death for me in a short time and, thanks to being bound and alive only though my magic, Hakai would perish as well once I die. I understand that getting rid of us seems to be a smart choice for you, but could you not just let us go? I have no understanding if we won or lost at the game you set up for us and the others, but I feel like we did nothing that would merit such a punishment. I promise we would not return to this place once we leave."

"Nice speech there, but do you really think that will help us? They're obviously both crazy in the head or something. The perfect couple, really? Bet they get turned on by inventing stupid games and stuff." Hakai eyed the approaching Musim, ready to fight. "I say you use your magic instead of your mouth and we fight our way out of here."

[AnimeTheia]

Amunet had been stretching, preparing herself to curl up cat-like and nap in the relatively cool heat of the room. Interuppting her was most definately not a good idea. Glaring at Ashur she began to grow in size, "Musim, lock them in sideroom by the gardens, there will be new chains there ready for you". Musim nodded curtly and enveloping the pair in his power he teleported them all to the gardens.

The room was large, with slants of late light filtering through the high up windows half buried by sand, "I hope you enjoy your sunlight" he sniggered at the two, never had he had as much fun since his death, which he still mourned. Of course before his death he never would have dreamt of doing or even enjoying such things, but the event had changed him drastically, the only part of the old him that he had managed to keep hold of was his devotion to his Goddess. Even she had changed since being all but forgotten and having her temple fall into ruin, Acenath their adopted daughter was their only ray of sunshine in their lives now.

Strong shiny new chains snapped into place around Ashur's tail and Hakai's back leg and with a simpering sarcastic bow Musim vanished leaving the two alone.

The side room had no door allowing the two a view of the gardens, troughs filled with earth consumed much of the room, plants filled about half of those troughs, the rest looked in dire need of repair, but the freshly swept broken mosaic floor and recently rebuilt wall of a nearby trough suggested that someone or something was definately trying to get the place back together.


((I hope this is okay, PM me if you want me to change it... I am having far too much fun now P: ))

[Shieba]

(It's okay~ I'm normally not a fan of godmodding like this, but I admit that I lacked any ideas to get out of the situation, too. XD It does not make Hakai happy, though. Mind putting a PG-13 tag into the title because of strong language?)

Hakai was dizzy from the teleport. He had never been teleported before and it definitely wasn't the best experience of his life. As such, it was actually not until Musim had left them that he regained his voice, just to then curse profusely for two minutes before actually talking to Ashur. "Very well done, Ashur! Yeah, let's try diplomacy! If we had smacked that bitch around before she could open her mouth, we wouldn't be stuck somewhere under the earth!"

"Yes, well, that indeed didn't go as planned." Ashur sighed. The goddess hadn't even listened to him. So much for the peaceful approach. "Well, we should not waste time, I guess. There is sunlight here, so we're close to the surface. Let's get out of these chains and find a way out of here. I hope that poor Slydra is alright." Ashur got a closer look at the chain holding him captive and used a simple spell on it. "Yes, I can break this, though it will possibly hurt. Well, that's what healing magic is for." He chanted a stronger spell of Ray into it, bursting the chain, before quickly closing the wound the spell had inflicted on him. He then quickly worked on Hakai's chains before the Lucain could complain. Hakai didn't even flinch when the spells hit him, he just waited until Ashur had finished his work.

"Well, what now?" Deciding that thanks wasn't necessary since the Seraphent had gotten them stuck here with his stupid talk anyway (and because it was Ashur, simply as that), Hakai inspected his prison. "Plants! Who the heck keeps plants under the earth? Morons!"

"Well, it isn't the most cheery place to begin with." Ashur stretched his wings. "The room is pretty large. I can attempt to fly. Try climbing on my back and then smash that window up there. I hope this works."

"At least you have an idea." Hakai tried to get on Ashur's back without scratching him or being in the way of the wings. "Now get up there! This place sucks!"

Ashur flapped his wings, trying to rise into the air. He indeed managed after a bit, but it was hard to get close enough to the window without smacking his wings against the walls. In his struggles, he knocked over some of the troughs, creating quite a bit of noise.

[AnimeTheia]

((Yeah, I was a bit stuck too, and I really didn't want to do a cliche 'Well here's the door, The End.'))

In actual fact the Slydra was okay, it had slithered into the shadow of a pillar when the Goddess had appeared, it hadn't gone unnoticed, but it seemed the Goddess and Musim were unphased by it's presence. It supposed they had got used to having it unobtrusively slithering around in the background as it had been doing so for some time now. Once it was out of sight the Slydra headed to the blocked up doorway, it was a good quarter unblocked now and the Slydra had little trouble in squeezing it's length through. Outside it was hotter than the Throne Room, but the sun was getting very low to the horizon so it would probably get cold and dark very soon. Though the Slydra was pleased to have finally found a way out, it was worried about it's new friend Ashur, it hoped that Ashur would be able to get away somehow, maybe with some of that magic he had? Slithering over the sand the Slydra decided to stay close to the mostly buried temple in the hopes that Ashur and Hakai would find a way out somewhere, for the Slydra did not know where to go.

~~~~~

After a few minutes the sound of quiet pattering started echoing around the garden room, the pattering stopped suddenly as a little creature popped her head curiously around one of the two doorways on the far side of the room.



"H..hello?" she called nervously, crashing sounds didn't usually happen by themselves and now that the female Lucain and Ringed Tricky had left the Temple, Acenath had thought that the place was once again empty.

[Shieba]

"Someone's coming, hurry the heck up!" Hakai called to his partner when he heard the footsteps. Ashur was doing his very best to fly closer to the window, but couldn't get high enough to make it possible for Hakai to break it.

As such, the two were still stuck in the room, hovering in midair when suddenly a Shinzo looked into the room. Relieved that it wasn't Musim (though he still wanted to smack him a good one) or the goddess, Hakai looked down at the little intruder. "Are you a guard? If you are, I'll hurt you!"

"Hakai! That's a little girl!" Ashur sighed. "Please excuse Hakai, little miss. We're stuck here and are escaping right now. If you are a prisoner just like us, I'll gladly get you out as well." The Shinzo didn't radiate any evil aura so far and Ashur wasn't concerned yet. If this was the place prisoners got put into anyway, she probably was caught like they were.

[AnimeTheia]

Acenath looked up at the two "Prisoner?" she asked confused, she hadn't met anyone here before who referred to themselves as a prisoner, "No i'm not a prisoner, My name is Acenath" she came into the room and held out a tiny front paw towards the pair in polite greeting.

"If you're looking for a way out my parents might be able to help, I know a few backdoors but i'm afraid you're a little too big to use them" she explained. Then she noticed the broken troughs, "Oh no! I only repaired this one last week" she looked close to tears, scurrying over she began trying to scoop the precious earth into the trough and place bricks and stones back into place. After a while she slumped, then suddenly seemed to remember she had guests "Well, I suppose it was probably an accident. Why don't you two follow me, there's a shortcut to the Sun Room over here and I think we could all do with a wash" she said brightly, smiling again as she looked down at her dirty paws and feet before jumping in the air and hovering off towards a hidden doorway.