Uncharted

[Caira Ayryn]

Chapter Six continued: A Struggle to Survive

He nodded and acknowledged the pain searing his left shoulder. In the desert having an injury meant certain death. How could this have happened? How could I let this.. He felt for his pistol, that had been dislodged from his holster. "Why am I alive? Cai- you have to run. Now." His eyes became very stern and resembled that of a vaulted fire. "Don't you know what this place is?"

"What? You weren't safe to move and I wasn't sure if you could even stand.. There's no way out and you had already lost a lot of bl-"

Then, suddenly the chanting began. Echoes along the walls and distant drums filled the crevices. 

Of course she didn't know! How could she? Yet now the cadaverous Merik stood in the wake of the most deadly thing in this desert and the thick ebony stream nearby began to rise into a black liquid sludge that he knew as the Tar Pits.

"Listen Caira!" He shouted, his once cool tide of charisma was now growing frantic, "Do NOT let it get into your wounds," he looked at her arms that had been severely cut. It didn't seem he remembered he [i]was the cause.

The female didn't waste time asking the idiotic [i]why? as he winced, bracing his hand against the slick rock and strained his body into a standing position.

The stream of liquid began to make the rocks, the walls and the very air fervent with an astounding heat. Had she not been in the desert, she would have collapsed at the intangible abrasion. Her hands fumbled for her hoverboard as the sludge congregated in a sticky mess around their cornered feet. 

It closed in as the sludge pressed against the wall, she helped Merik onto the silver board before mounting it herself. Her foot stepped onto the sleek silver board just before the circular dry puddle of land around her foot disappeared under the cloggy rank substance.

The pungent, insulting smell stung in her eyes and the weight of the two people on the board, no matter how light either of them was, threatened to sink and skim over the sludge in the minute two inches of pooling space just below them.

Suddenly, as though set out from a cataclysmic eruption, the tall walls rumbled under the great force of a huge black seething wave. It's mouth craned as the pac-man wave haunted their movement and slowly crept, hissing at their heels.

Merik, who was behind her, moved his feet appeared as though he was going to jump into it. "WHAT are you doing?" She thought the idea of anything other than fleeing the incessant undead wave was completely unimaginable.

"This board isn't made for two, and we are moving too slow. If I jump, there'll be a chance for you. I know what I have to do. And hey, you saved me once." He looked down at his arm, his pale skin and gaunt face spoke for how he was feeling. His body was crippled even to stand, Merik considered himself a deadweight.

As lovely as this gesture was, she scoffed and disregarded his implied sacrifice with a hint of obstinate anger, "You honestly think I'll let you jump? A little wave of death is no match for a telekinetic mastermind and a knight of the Kingdom!" 

Her words had acted as a passionate slap in the face. This seemed to quell his haste and renew his hope as the wave grew closer and bounced from the great walls of the crevasse; the level of the tar continued to rapidly rise beneath them, this added height gave them a chance.

"Hang on!" She warned him and realized what she meant, as there was only a slab beneath him and as the wave neared, he used one hand to latch onto her and she leapt into the air about five feet. Higher than a normal person could jump, he observed as the board followed them in the air and the wave of dark stinking slush rolled past the three of them and evened out.

Caira quickly aligned the board underneath her feet Merik's footing seemed to slip from the silver surface. Perhaps he had still been in a daze from the heat or fatigued due to his wound but he twisted his arm as he hung from the hinge of her shoulder and his feet dangled almost skimming the slop that still flowed in a tremendous current below. "Hang on!" She steadied herself and sunk low on the board before heaving his torso over and his slung shoulder was stretched painfully. 

The boiling asphalt continued to rise, there was no space or time for Merik to stand and Caira slowly navigated the pair upstream. The thick air hung with a sweating stench, making her gag as she breathed against it. Soon the crevasse was filled with the liquid, the wave made a full circle and rushed with froth underfoot. They were nearly at the top, and daylight was visible as the tar flow nearly brimmed at the lower cliffs of the canal.

The edges of the surface were just within their grasp. Riding the wave had helped but they were just out of range from jumping; the dark walls rimmed with a lacking of just twenty feet of liquid. 

[Caira Ayryn]

(Somewhere in the distant dunes...)

"What the Hell?" Their black hatted friend had waited to see the job through, yet nothing could actually be 'seen' that far down in the darkness. The tar looked as though it had began to submerge the many interlacing cave systems and the cowboy was about to turn his horse when he heard a rumbling. It shook the ground he stood and the horse he had mounted reared him off and ran for it's life in a distempered gallop as the tidal became closer. To the highest point of the crevasse. And a shimmering silver glint caught his eye against the black fluid. Life.

"We have our chance! Are you ready?" Caira called down to Merik whom had gotten comfortable with his slung position, feet on one side and arm and head on the other. Still he was sturdy enough and ready to escape this terror.

"I sure am." He coughed and managed as he inhaled the acrid fumes of death face first.

"Okay, on three. One.. Two.."

A bullet whizzed past her head, horrified but not quite petrified, she continued her countdown, "Three, now Merik!" She commanded with a little haste and he sent a wave of force downward, flinging them upward as she synchronized her jump from the board which gave an energized start upward and conducted the tangled mess in a heinous landing on the other side of the gap. 

Caira lay sprawled in the dust as the dirt had been burnt into her wounds, she had used her arms to brace her ribs against the impact but nothing could muffle the thrashing painful blow of their crash landing. The salt in the sand stung in her wounds as the granules filled them painfully.

Merik tumbled a bit more gracefully as he clung onto the hoverboard for support and dragged it underneath him parallel to his body. His arm scathed into the shredding ground and the board bounced from the juggling impact a distance into the desert before resting on the sandy ground. He never thought he would be so thankful to see the crispy heat rimmed sand, and, had he had the strength to move, he would have kissed the hot sand dunes once again beneath him.

Another bullet swiped Caira and nicked her forearm, she was still in a crumpled mess and during the crash, the prime had hit her head. Dizzily she began to kneel against the oncoming attack but had no way to protect herself. She still didn't see the attacker as the bullets swooped around the sides of her ears, her vision rocked into two versions of spinning gravity and her eyes struggled to stay straight.

"LEAVE." Caira warned, though it was evident she was in no state to battle with the gunslinger. With a minute's pause, another bullet skimmed into her braid. "Tch, that does it." Though Caira read the proximity of his aim much better and felt as her whole body were on fire, her tangled receptors told her he had hit her several times and the lead bullets now melted with her own blood.

Without another thought she took an unbalanced aim and quickly deployed a dagger, which sailed over the ten foot crevasse - which was now a river of death. The dagger hit near his feet and bounced into an explosion that startled him and swept the dust all around him. She was unable to tell if it had it, and collapsed while relinquishing her prideful kneel into a doubled-over brace as she attempted to catch her breath. It was much too shallow. Heaves of air slowed into her lungs as she saw the pools of mirrorlike blood coat the cup of her hand.

There was something about the poisonous fumes of the tar pits, that had surely affected her as wooziness melted into every groggy, dizzy, and disoriented sensation and she fell into the ground. She no longer felt the burn of the sand as it scalded hot against her scraped cheek, and her closing eyelids sealed off the sun.

[Caira Ayryn]

Part six, third installment: Outlaws

"I'd have never thought to be a match for it! If it wasn't for her we'd both be dead..." Merik's muffled voice roused her from the black depths of unconsciousness and brought her right back to the pain in her arms and abdomen. Immovable. No matter which way she tried and attempted to squirm there was no movement without a burning agony as a result.

I can't be.. Paralyzed..? I can still feel the.. Fabric on my toes? With the excited and fearful mumble from her lips the soft murmurings from the other room ceased. 

As the noise and clatter of dishes dwindled slowly back into her ears, she sprung up from the sheets she had been laying in and hobbled to the door, it was open a crack. Within her line of sight, she could see Merik and two other figures he was talking to. She hobbled outward and stood half behind Merik, who was sitting in a wooden chair.

"Oh.. You're awake.." He said too slowly for her movements.

"What are we doing here.. With.." Her eyes fell over the dark hatted figure and the man with the white hat as her battle ready senses poised in defense and she hastily grabbed Merik's pistol from the holster around his belt and held it up to the dark hatted man. Their enemies. Her voice tasted with venom, "Them."

A clear shot, all she had to do was pull the trigger and a single bullet would drill itself through the cowboy's skull. 

Merik's eyes bulged with surprise as she placed his hand non aggressively over the wrist of her functional hand. She winced a bit but held her ground. Their eyes hinged together. Hers violent and wild, his were neutral, and threatened acute menace.  

"Ah, don't worry, it was merely a misunderstanding." His voice cooed, too softly for Merik's brash, logical taste, the sweetness could only be identified as manipulation.

Irrational still, from her ringing head injury, she retaliated, if only for a moment before she was able to get a grip."A misunderstanding?! He tried to kill you!"

Merik shook his head, "Sure, but that was before I told him we were looking for work." His cool red eyes paused on her as he waited for everything to sink in.

The danger passed with the calm of Merik's words and she allowed the pistol's aim to bow out of her sights and into his hand. Her cooperation was met with a smile. 

"You see," he explained to Caira with the two men as his audience, "They attacked us because we were outsiders, thought we were invading, rather than actually looking for work." 

"That's an easy mistake to make in a place like this." She agreed and leaned on the rim of Merik's chair feeling the threat still prickle her neck. 

"That's right. They saw two strong Primes and assumed the worst. They could only act as though their lives were on the line, they had no way of knowing that we were runnin' from the law ourselves." The lie that the Cowboys believed relieved her adrenaline-filled tension, so that the numbed pain came back in a new, heavy wave.

Merik continued, "Then, Clide here saw us evade the Tar Pits like no one else had and thought we were worth getting out of the heat and into somewhere safer to discuss our... Future together."

Caira simply nodded, though slightly suspicious at Merik's too convincing accent, and noticed a new weight on her left hand, the gleam of a golden ring in the licking lamplight. The fading light flickered but she couldn't quite see what it was about, Merik spoke once more, reading her face as though it were an open book. "Then I told them about the engagement and the baby. I had to, so they would know you were my fiancé rather than the strange whispers of a nuisance named Ayryn who they mistook you fer' at first. Yeah, I tol' them we came in contact with her and she attacked us to try and steal our supplies before we had a few shots at 'er before she ran off into the desert. Turns out she's nothin' more than a pilfering wench-" Caira elbowed him in the ribs, silencing his words but not wiping the amused smile from his face.

It was a good lie and recap of a story he had told their spectators. Now Caira wanted to know why Merik hadn't just killed them rather than create this elaborate lie. "Thank you dear for getting me up to speed, I think I'll sit down now..." She said before swooning for show into a chair as Merik acted the part of a worried lover and was so very relieved that the chair had caught her with the bullet-scarred arm he could not extend. The two brothers enjoyed the drama and savored a reason to be worried along with the reassurance of her vulnerabilities. "My that desert sun is hot on a girl..."

"This here is Bobbie and Clide, they are two brothers and have a ranch south of here. Bobbie, this here is Caira, my fiancé." Caira cringed as he said her actual name.

"How do you do? Pleasure to meet you." They nodded the pleasantries to one another. "So I hear you're havin' a baby together?"

"We sure are." 

Lie! Her eyes went to Merik hastily, whom smiled as though everything was under his control but Caira didn't like the sinister look gleaming in their eye. It spoke of greed and darkness. "So you have a ranch outside of here?"

"We do indeed." Another lie! Words were bait in this tangle of lures.

"Well, I'd love to ride with you some time. Ever sense I was a little girl, I've loved horses..." She made herself out to be much more feminine in demeanor, which might corral their minds rather than allow them to rise in skepticism to her concealed identity. She noticed now that the sword on her waist was gone.

"That would make me very happy." Bobbie chimed back and hung his white hat up so his softer features were revealed. "You remind me of my late wife, she always had a sparkle in her eye just like you."

Merik and Caira took the complement but before she could verbally move his mind onto another thing, they were trapped into a conversation about her death. "Yes'm she died during the last war, poor thing. I miss her every day."

"The last.. War?” Caira knew of only one war in the Omniverse, and it was a great one between two clashing factions.

Meanwhile, Merik confidently leaned back in his wooden chair with a look of complete satisfaction beaming in his eyes. It seemed as though it was all going according to plan.

[Caira Ayryn]

She couldnt remember the last time her body had warmed into a soothing bath. Her shoulders sunk low into the pool of fervent water and she realized that her propped sword leaning on the edge the porcelain tub was a distant reminder that she was never truly safe. It had remained concealed, in size by her magic bag from Dalaran, but she had taken it out, just to be sure. Merik had told her to "take five," but that didn’t mean her inner peace had to be disrupted by the eternally waging wars of life.

She came out, feeling cleaner than ever, the grime that had found itself in every nook of her body had been wiped clean, leaving only polished pale skin in its wake. She toweled the suds from her hair as she treated the wounds. The question: "How long had she been out?" certainly ran through her mind a few times, as even the deepest of her wounds had seemed to have been healed.

Caira blinked and her fingers touched the silver coating over her wound. There was barely any pain, despite the throbbing that had caused her so much suffering only a day before. As she had expected though, the next hours weren't easy, and their relationship with Bobbie and Clide went south.

It had happened quickly, the two brothers had asked the sex of the baby, malice touched their eyes as Caira responded the best she could. They then invited the girl to their "ranch" and Caira couldn't spring her defenses quick enough.

"The girl stays with me." Merik's eyes narrowed, his pseudo-southern accent lost.

"Aw, we ain't meant nothin' by it. She just said she'd like the horses."

"There are no horses, Merik." Caira said the truth.

The flint in the men's eyes met, as Caira unsheathed her sword. Pistols were drawn, and the blaze was about to begin.

[Caira Ayryn]

Merik caught the bullet in his hand, well, through his hand. The crushed ball of lead embedded in his palm seared like flint as the fire of pain began. He was lucky the bullet hadn’t passed through and landed a fatal blow, however as his mind traced back the events that had seemed to occur in a slow motion, and yet now he recalled them in faster than a blink. At the last second his offensive telekinesis had acted as a mainly stopper to the bullet mid-air.

Now, as though leaching into his flesh like a venomous poison, he looked at the bloodied palm and realized how horrifying tangible pain really was. The crimson wound dripped and draggled with waves of throbbing agony.

Everything had gone south. As one can expect, the two bandits had turned their pistols on them, and a shootout ensued. Tumbling of wooden tables, the splatter of splinter shards in the room, and the fresh explosion of crystal liquor bottles spraying glass everywhere. Classic, old west style, and everyone raced to their stallions.

A flurry of bullets thrilled the air, and the two Primes were chased off through the rocky mountain range once more.

[Caira Ayryn]

Part Seven: Flameless Dunes

“Cairaahh! I’m beginning to think that you have some very, very bad luck.” Merik exclaimed with a scowl as they raced away from the threat of danger, the incisive outlaws were left in the dust and rubble to loiter with the barren terrain and occasional tumbleweed.

“Hm? Why? I think we got away nicely and we didn’t even have to hurt them!” Her smile widened as the cold night air splashed into her lungs and fluffed up her hair so that it looked much like the rumbling steed’s mane that lifted with speed whirling below her.

Merik rolled his eyes, and considered his still tender palm, “Yeah but-”

“Besides, I don’t believe in luck.” She stated matter-of-factly and the distance between the outlaws continued to grow, while the light from the transport and camp was no longer seen on the hue of the horizon.

“Hmph. Well I do, plus I think you have some really crappy luck.” Merik's voice pricked at her.

“That’s just because you’re...” She stopped herself from finishing the sentence that might come off as vindictive.

“I’m... What?” He parroted back with an unamused look on his face that was disrupted as his hair too, fluttered in the light of the night. Merik thought he knew the last word, that hung on her lips. Cynical he had heard it before, and the echo of a memory fogged his mind.

“Well, you’re not exactly the kind of person I would expect to-” Wait. There was no light at night and the full moon had passed, so what was she looking at? Caira’s eyes drifted to the horizon-line in search of what had made Merik’s blonde hair appear so bright. Unfolding before them as the dunes seemed to glow and glitter, alit with fire against the starless navy sky. “Merik, what is that...?” Her voice was etched with as sharp fear that began to grow.

“What is what?” His eyes followed her gaze and his expression suddenly contorted before hardening in the face of untold adversity. “That’s your luck.”

...

[Caira Ayryn]

An Island and Sand Sirens

Their horses took a few moments to come to a halt. Even then, they didn’t seem to be able to escape the growing wave of glittering dunes. Whatever it was, they were closer now and the waves of light seemed to be traveling towards them. The blobs flickered with each movement and appeared as a glowing fire; the dunes themselves appeared liquid and resembled an inferno in the night.

Caira had no explanation and had never seen such chaos, however Merik on the other hand seemed to know this tragedy all too well. It had happened to him once before. He had been with Elana that night and were riding toward Coruscant to do some mafia business as well as trade his anti-assassination services when the couple had rode upon the same light in the night.

All those years ago, Merik and Elana had discovered, however beautiful it appeared to be, that it was not a sight to be seen by the living. They had learned it the hard way.

“Listen, I need you to get as far away from here as possible. If you run RIGHT NOW, you might just survive.” Merik had snapped back into reality.

“What? Why? Listen, I’m not leaving because of a little fire, we are too close to give up now.” Caira's tone was jagged and on edge.

“That’s no fire.” Merik said with despair. “It’s death. In the most tangible form possible, worse than the tar pits, worse than the bandits- Damn it, I don’t have time to explain! But I need you to do as I say."

Convincing the strong willed girl might take more than that, “No." Resolution rimmed in her voice. "That’s what you said about the Tar Pits but that turned out alright.” She pointed out in her right.

“That was just DUMB LUCK that we both made it out of that one alive.” Merik tried to persuade her.

“Luck?" Caira challenged with a raised eyebrow. "Let’s not argue. I want to know what I’m going to face.” She ended the banter. There was no convincing the girl to bow in defeat of any challenge she had yet to face.

As it grew closer, Caira could finally see that the flame in the distance was not a fire on the sandy face of the dunes, but something she couldn’t quite understand. Her eyes strained to filter the lights and pinpoint their movement in the contrasting darkness. What she could make out, was a sea of small little orbs dancing and moving in swells of currents above the sand. They looked like a swarm of fireflies and she distinguished that they were carried in their direction by the flowing of the wind.

“Those, are a nameless destruction.” Merik’s voice was shadowed with utter fear. “No one who ever sees them, lives to tell the tale.” He gulped and in his red eyes the thick fulvous light reflected as his gaze quivered. “Only Primes really survive... And they don’t always want to afterwards..”

Caira looked at the anguish woven into his creased expression. She had never seen a man so crested with pain. “Ah, so maybe it is my luck.” She attempted to take his mind off of the oncoming wave but his gaze remained unwavering from the onset of doom.

There has to be something. I’m not going to be a victim of a lifeless sea of fireflies. She told herself and caught an early glimpse of their destruction as a lizard of the night had strolled into the wrong part of the desert and the horrible 'bugs' surrounded him with the fire of their being. Caira lost sight of the lizard in the swirling orange cloud that surrounded it, but could only hear the wallows of the creature's pain. After the flurry of light was done with the reptile, they disintegrated and dispersed away from their prey, leaving only a skeleton in the sand.

The specks of glowing light seemed to whirl with the wind, resembling a party of tuna that swam on the currents of the ocean. The deadly fireflies didn't appear to take any more shape than the beacon they became when close together. Their movement continued to flicker closer.

“That’s not even the worst of it,” Merik briefed her, his eyebrows rose with dread and he appeared as though he would begin to cry, “Before you die, they torment you, not just with physical pain, but they will show you things. Horrible... Horrible.. Things that you can never possibly unsee. All in an instant until your mind overloads and you JUST can’t take it anymore.” At this point, his voice was shrill and it could be that he was panicking. “I’m so sorry Caira. If I had my pistol or a banishment circle, I would give it to you... So you would never have to know the worst thing about this world.”

With a petrified gulp, Caira quickly dismounted from her horse and disintegrated the pair into Omnillium. What was she supposed to say to that? The heat of the buzzing light source grew near and Caira charged an attack as her eyes fixed on the horizon with enraged determination.

Merik heard the whirling of noise and seemed even more distraught. “What are you doing?! You can’t attack them, it just makes them angry.” It was sad to hear the weeping in his voice, but Caira wouldn't back down simply because of his focus on defeat. They hadn't even begun, and apparently they couldn't outrun her. She hoped there was enough time to complete the charge of her forming energy.

However, the ocean of beading light was nearly upon them, suddenly Caira was shaken with trepidation as a wave of dark energy tore through her soul and threatened to eviscerate her. Howls of torment sounded from the small blobs of illumination and she lost the grip of the energy that formed in her palm.

Struck like lightning. Her stomach sunk her heart fell in her chest and shattered with every sense of hope that she had. Their last chance at defeating whatever monster or magical entity they had. And she had dropped it. Caira stood in disbelief. She never dropped it. Silently she cursed. Suddenly she knew the deepest fear in Merik’s being and tackled him as she shouted, “Hold your breath and close your eyes!”

The pair of Primes fell to the sand as the Vortex of airless suction surrounded the two hunkered beings. Their defense was just in time as the wave of enkindled droplets swarmed around the mass of air. They hissed with anger and bayed with agony as they could not battle the torrent of wind to get in, or else be smothered by the same airless stream of wind.

Their hollow cries prompted an empathetic response in Caira, however she fought against it, knowing it was simply bait and used the image of the dying lizard as pathos: A persuasion of proof in a situation that would otherwise have killed them both.

The two Primes huddled and grasped the grains of sand below them as well as each other; their grips brought them back to the present and kept them from obeying the haunting chants that cascaded into their ears and called their souls to drop their defense against the inferno of screams. Senseless temptations of fear descended within her as the casting spell of their song slowly reached her ears.

After an eternity, the screeches of the sirens dissipated and the whirling wind of Caira’s cyclone and otherwise airless vortex had dissipated as well. Caira almost forgot to breathe as the tornado had finally settled and her shirt was coated with sand. Her body shook with its remaining energy and finally, with Merik’s prodding tap on her shoulder, she gasped for breath and was brought back to her quaking senses.

He stared at her in disbelief. Confounded. Dumfounded. Caira had no way of knowing that they had just defeated his worst nightmare.

Wordlessly, her eyes fixed on the ground as she knelt in the ridged sand, regaining her composure and her eyes fell on the island they now stood on. Yes, island in the dunes. The shining beings had eaten or destroyed the sand the two had braced on, and an entire chunk had been taken from the dune so it now appeared that Caira and Merik were left on a little pillar that stood ten feet above the freshly entrenched doughnut shaped moat.

How that narrow pillar of flimsy sand was preserved into the shapely column that saved their lives, they will never know, and after that, Merik couldn't stop staring at the girl who had saved his life, again.

[Caira Ayryn]

After the unlikely event of their survival against the sand sirens they had faced, they agreed never to talk about it (unless warning someone) and continued on wordlessly for a few days, both cast in a drifting haze of sorrow.

‘The Sand Sirens,' as Caira would write about them in her journal that documented each and every threatening affair she had encountered in the Omniverse, 'Are soulless beings. They will try and steal yours and they will succeed, if you let them. I still hear the hauntings clawing at my chilled skin and threatening to tear apart my thoughts. They are the enemy of mankind. If ever you were to fear a singular thing, fear these beasts. For they are the sheer meaning of inevitable doom.

Merik told me only what they did to people, (for he had endured their power and lay as a surviving witness to their destruction) particularly their psyches. In an endless torment they will show you your worst fears, emphasize them, then they will show you your worst faults and sear them into your skin so that you cannot face them. Then, they show you images, so surreal that they feel tangible. “These images,” he explained to me, “Show you the death of your loved ones a hundred times over and in each a worst possible way. They bring out all the negative feelings you could ever imagine and then they leave you with a curse that is based on your worst fears. A curse that seems endless.”

Don’t worry! He told me I wasn’t cursed because they hadn’t physically touched me. However, he left me on a sort of cliffhanger as I could not ask him what he thought he was cursed with. It left me with a vague sense of portent macabre. He implies with his tone that he wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I can now understand why he wanted to banish me away from the pain of suffering, sorrow, and malediction.

Between you and me, I think it effects his freewill..

Caira finished her sentence and felt a flood of relief. Perhaps now, her warning on her documented travels to this verse would save someone from a similar fate.

[Caira Ayryn]

Part Eight: Excavating Ruined Treasure in the Desert Part One

“We all have our demons, Caira.” Merik said in a distinguished light.

Her lips remained sealed at that truth.

“You know Caira, most people let others control their lives and never choose to seize anything for themselves.” Merik began to talk about his time in Coruscant, and how he had been such a fool.

“Well, we are here in the Omniverse because someone else tore us from our worlds...” the female Prime pointed out.

“Yeah, tell me about it,” he grumbled and wondered if his life would be different. “Hah, you know it’s kind of funny that we are like Omni’s Secondaries. In a weird sort of way.”

“Does that mean you think we are recyclable? Or continue to exist in our own worlds?” she inquired passively as the time progressed.

“Hm. I've always wondered about that. It’s not like we would know it if we were copies of ourselves, but I guess that's something you'll have to ask him.” Merik thought out loud as the idea of cloning came to mind.

“Are our adventures for his fun?” Caira voiced demurely.

“No, of course not. They are definitely for our own amusement, something has to make the time pass.” Merik said, "Sharing those would make it less of an experience."

“Does that mean Omni knows my name?” Caira looked with distance growing in her eyes.

Merik raised an eyebrow, not knowing what she was going on about and continued, “Your name?... Er, anyway, if he knows our dreams, he wouldn’t want to grant them. Because then we would settle into the monotony that was a Secondary’s life. The abilities he gave us as Primes make it so we can achieve it on our own.”

“I mean my real name... And oh yes, I forgot how you dislike the Secondaries. Man, its been a while since then.” Caira recalled when she first found Merik in the tomb of a cave he had suffered for ten years in.

“Not long enough.” Merik mused and then a long silence ebbed in the air.

Cavities. In the Earth, they had reached what Merik had called ‘the Hallowed Hollows’ and marked it as a desolate area which wanderers make camp, beasts nest, and enemies lie waiting to trap the unsuspecting under the cover of abandoned oil rigs.

“So, what is it?” she said as her eyes drifted into the darkness, the Prime had never seen anything like it before. Quite frankly, there were actual holes in the dunes, they looked to be of tanks of some sort.

“Coruscant’s scars.” Merik muttered and began to walk, “Best be on your guard. Beast and man alike will hunt from within the shadows. At night we are at a disadvantage, for once.”

“Coruscant... The war..” Caira put a few things together in her mind before trying to keep pace with Merik, whom had stopped to check his sources. “Merik! Don’t stand there!” she warned sensing the hollow vibrations beneath the disguise of sand, much like how their story began.

This time, he fell.

[Caira Ayryn]

Caira too, clattered with him as the trap door slammed them into a submerged darkness and they fell flat on their faces, painfully, into a steel wall. “What the He-” Merik asked himself and rubbed his bruised nose.

“Why does it seem like I always end up falling when I’m around you?” Caira joked in their peril.

“Don’t know," he scowled, "But we have to get out of here.” his voice hissed with urgency.

Caira nodded, “I know, I know, I’ll look for a doo-”

Light streamed in, Merik launched himself forward as their captors shocked him with electricity. She heard a low voice warn, “Do not try it girl,” as they jousted her with the stick-like, taser weapon.

Merik remained asleep for some time, while their foe had plenty of time to strap them both to chairs, working in the dark. Light suddenly beamed down on her, as she was now in the limelight that looked more like a glowing spotlight.

“Hey! What’s the big idea!” she shouted.

“Haha!” an ominous voice began to cackle behind the shroud of shadows, “Don’t bother with asking questions. They no longer matter.”

“That’s never stopped her before,” Merik said as his bobbing blond hair rose to show the foe his fierce gaze. “Release us now, or there will be consequences.”

“Hah! Prime, you must think you’re pretty tough," the man spat, "Well, think again! This vessel once used by Coruscant has steeped many years into the ground and now we have turned it into a cage for Primes and enemies alike!” the enthusiastic voice continued, “You are now my prey! And like the mice that you are, you will be trapped in this power-suppressing cage! Wahahaha!”

“What good does that do for you?” Caira wondered the point of stealing people, it wasn’t as though their unnamed enemy could prosper from it.

“You see little girl, I am a scientist.” the voice started.

“In this desert? Seems a little absurd to me.” she pointed out with a smirk.

“Wha-no more questions! Now, the game you will be playing is survival. In these three tubes, there are two poisons. One however, is a cure for any ailment you might seek. Some may even call it an anti-death potion, but who knows if that works.”

“So you want us to choose?” Merik’s bulging red eyes sifted through the darkness.

“But there are two of us.” Caira said innocently, not understanding the real point of the game: Desperation, betrayal, and of course, death.

“Hah! What is a mere child doing in a bandit-filled, carnivorous desert such as this?” the voice amplified.

“You're the one who wants to play a game.” she launched back weakly.

Merik formed a smile as the the guy bit his tongue with anger and made disgruntled grunts, “Tch! Just choose you imbecile... You have one hour.”

[Caira Ayryn]

Ultimate Game

“One of us is going to have to choose death.” Merik told Caira candidly, “Neither of us can afford to be stopped here, not after we’ve come this far. We both have our goals as to what is out there.”

“All our work, everything we did, our progress. Gone. That isn’t the game though, it’s to figure out which one is which... Right?” Caira attempted but was matched with Merik’s absolute silence.

“It might be easier if we act on random.”

“How am I supposed to drink it if my arms are in these restraints?” she challenged the omnipotent voice of their enemy, speakers blasted overhead in response.

“FINE, I’ll release you girl. But, no funny business or I will kill you both.”

With the chains released from her wrists, she went over to the bottles and examined them, then brought them closer for Merik to see. All three were identical in content, however could be distinguished by three different shapes of glass bottles: A square, a prism, and a circle.

Caira held them up to the light and neither cast an opaque shadow. Each were as clear as any water she had known. “Any ideas Merik?”

“I haven’t the faintest,” he admitted with a defeated sigh.

Time lingered and loitered, passing lethargically in the darkness. Their countdown began to glow in red analog numbers on a timer now at the thirty minute mark. Caira continued to analyze and smell the liquid, doing all the creative things she could, even shaking to see if bubbles were created. The Prime lit a match underneath and yet there was no visible effect to the heat.

“Hm, even the vibrations are the same. Say, voice-man, are you gonna give me a hint? Or would you rather I chuck this hunk of glass at the wall and you can give me your best shot?" she challenged.

Suddenly a roar of applause and laughter surrounded her and the lights came on to show that they were in an underground stadium. An audience. She saw the stadium, surrounding the two Primes, they were in full view of her spectators. Video cameras scoped toward them and and prodded in her personal space all at once.

“Welcome to the Ultimate Game! Where you play to win the ultimate prize, your life.” he announced in his television voice.

“What is this Merik?” she looked to him for answers.

“TV shows are for bored people looking for a thrill, you wouldn't understand. But I guess life isn’t perilous enough for them, so they have to put other people into a seat of death and make them do tricks, while baiting them with a single bone.”

“Huh, that so?” Caira pondered.

“You asked for a hint! So we revealed the cameras. At ten minutes we also give you a FUN fact!” he announced to his audience and his voice rooted on and analyzed her actions for her to hear, “Stay tuned to see our two Prime prisoners choose their fates! What will the girl do next to save her lover? Or, will she attempt to escape on her own and save herself? Find out after this short break.”

...

“Oi, old man. We aren’t together.” Merik pointed out, as though his dignity was on the line.

A menacing threat protruded from the now-visible announcer’s lips, “Shut up you. This show is live. L-I-V-E. You hear that? You’ll put on a good act if you want to live.” The man wore a suit, had slicked back black hair, and a not-so-flattering malice in his brown eyes as he threatened the chained Merik.

The ten minute mark flashed in red analog text against the black wall. “It looks like it's time for the FUN fact!” his enthusiasm was only surface-deep, “In order for either of you to escape and be set on your way, you must drink all three of the bottles.”

“What? All three? Why? Doesn’t that just mean someone chooses to take double the poison and the other lives? Assuming it's even been distinguished.” Merik was exasperated, something about the restraints seemed to be effecting his energy as he panted in heaving singular breaths.

“Huh. That makes it easier.” Caira reasoned to herself as the announcer watched alongside the crowd and she began to open one of the bottles.

“How does that make it any easier?” Merik demanded through curt exhales.

Her eyebrows raised, “It’s simple, I’m going to drink all three.”

[Caira Ayryn]

The audience gasped with anticipation, the host quoted her words in an annoying tone, “Does she really intend to do this?”

Merik held her gaze for a moment. Caira explained, “I’m not going to give you any, they’ve already done something to your energy. And if this room really is Omnilium suppressive there really is only one choice.”

Before he could protest, she put the prism bottle to her lips, followed by the sphere and the cube. All three seared down her throat in a rolling cascade of fire. Her trachea strained and her esophagus became an inferno of heat. The crippling Prime fell to her knees and began to grasp her abdomen in a grieving agony. Her hair streaked with changing colors and turned from its usual dark brown to a faded blue before morphing into every color and settling at last, into black deeper than a raven's feathers. Her throat croaked out the words, “Let’s leave.”

Yet the Prime could barely stand, much less adventure once again into the dangers of the desert again. Merik’s expression grew into a pale horrified gaunt as their host responded, “What? And let the audience miss this?”

The comment enraged Merik who growled, “Why you-!”

Suddenly the chains around his arms broke free and his palms closed the announcer’s neck. Silence descended into the stadium and later laughter as another hostess came on the field and spoke, “Wow, looks like Frank bit off a little more than he could chew, let’s look back at the Prime girl and see how she’s doing.”

Cameras zoomed in on the Caira’s agonized expression, her nose had wrinkled in dismay of all the dark magic that burned her from the inside. Her eyes paled into silver as her agony that she fought with the convulsions of her stomach that slowly subsided into calm waves. She surmised the strength to stand on her wobbling legs and leaned against a tripod, the female reporter shoved a microphone in Caira's face and asked her a few questions regarding her 'husband.'

“Huh? I’m not married,” her eyes glanced over to Merik, whom had grown a crowd of security guards around him and even that didn’t stop him from beating Frank up.

“But, surely you must be. There’s a ring on your finger.” the reporter like woman reasoned.

Caira blinked, the announcer was right, there was a gleam of gold on her finger. The weight hadn't been relevant enough for her to want to discard it after they had lied to those bandits, but even responding to the question was painful, and Caira was only able to do it with a grimace. “Nope. Holding this for a friend... It isn't mine.”

“What’s a pair of Primes like yourselves doing in the middle or rather outskirts of the desert? And what do you plan to do now?- Oh wait, the producers are telling me to add in a bonus segment! This is very exciting ladies and gentleman! A Prime Special on the Ultimate Game!” Caira didn’t see what relevance any of the questions had as they continued and it felt like she was going to puke up blood.

What's this lady saying? Caira couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea of television,“I don’t need any bonus segment. I’d like to leave.”

The host looked befuddled, “Oh! But if you stay we can offer you a reward beyond anything you could possibly ima-”

Merik came from behind and loomed over the hostess who recoiled in fear, “Didn’t you hear her? We’re leaving.”

Two vaulted doors were opened to show the light of dawn as the anchorwoman annotated their departure, “Alas, two the great Primes depart from the stadium and head off into the world of infinite sand. Who were they? What are their aspirations? We may never know. JOIN US NEXT TIME on theee Ultimate Game!”

[Caira Ayryn]

Part Nine, An Unholy Act

They walked for some time as the sun rose and she was able to gain a better look at the empty tanks that appeared as great apertures in the ground, finely carved and connected by visible tracks that seemed to be once lined by a railway. Coruscant's scars.

She took an open breath and shook off the horrible feeling of dread forming in the pit of her stomach - assumed aftereffects of the death potion she had taken on the set of a 'television' show. Whatever that was.

Another day passed and the two soon closed in on a graveyard near ruins on the outskirts of dunes. Caira's distant eyes fell upon the tombs and marking each was a distinct cairn. “Doesn’t resemble buried treasure in my experience. But I suppose it depends on how you look at it.”

“The map says it’s here...” Caira suggested with a trailing of her voice, before catching a look of sorrow weighing on Merik’s eyes as his eyes fixed on three, relatively new looking graves, though they had been battered by sand and sun, they were clean and each singular stone was engraved with a beautiful insignia, like flower petals that surrounded the three names.

Caira frowned, and immediately sensed the change in Merik’s composure. There was an immediate threat that emanated from his smile. Horror cleansed her bones with a chilling effect.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” a sympathetic tone noted her words, allowing a hint of genuine concern to transgress and take that mourning expression from his face. The look that replaced it warned her to run, though Caira was reluctant and Merik smiled for a moment and looked at the stone. It was all he had left of those he had lost all those years ago. Dark, gently chiseled rock and memories obscured by time. "I could summon them again you know, as a Prime. But my own desires have betrayed me, ever since..." his voice trailed off only to return to their objective. “Caira, the treasure I promised and the final key to finding him is buried next to my family, on the edge of this world and away from Coruscant’s clutches, so that they may never find it, nor hold it in their power. However,” he rose, his towering height assumed power over her effortlessly. “When we dig it up, I want you to be warned.”

“Of what, Merik?” Her tone was flat, she didn’t need any of his chicanery, the whole way she had prepared herself, the journey across the Dunes for treason and deception and the nagging in her stomach that wouldn't go away. Would it all turn out to be true?

“You’ll see.”

[Caira Ayryn]

They did some digging, lifted some rocks; it was nice that it was dark and they went without the suns rays to add to their grueling manual labor. A chill could be felt yet the full moon spread a layer of light over the dark ground, this tomb, was deeper than six feet. After ten feet, they reached the wooden coffin, it was not an exact rectangle but it looked more akin to a shape that wore a trim head and shoulders, all boarded with wood.

They hoisted it out of the whole, and it now lay above ground next to the dug up grave. Caira braced herself for the smell, or the expected sight of remains as she read the text engraved in the wood.

Here lies: ONLY DEATH

It was rather fitting, perhaps a dissuading notion considering they were in a graveyard but Caira couldn't help to gulp at the sense of foreboding that caught in her throat.

Caira’s eyes followed her "partner" suspiciously as Merik unbolted the nails of the coffin that had remained shut all those years he spent in the slammer. His eyes hinted at a guile notion behind as he lifted the pressed cover of the wooden coffin and asked for Caira’s help to pry open the last inch of the lid. "Give it a nudge."

At her touch, Caira felt herself being warped into the tomb, a portal like sensation sucked her body in, she was crammed inside, and horrifically enough, it was just her size. Somehow -magically-she had been knocked out by the compression of space and time, her eyelids shut and she grew immobilized but in the distance her ears picked up on the nails clacking and hammering in her fate.

Bastard.

After about ten minutes, she looked around in the dark dizzily and found the air to be stagnant and the smell of wood and dirt was both fragrant and pungent as the same dust clumping in her lungs. Merik continued nailing her shut, “I wasn’t lying you know,” he said with a sigh, as though he was being forced to trap her to her death. “The treasure is beneath your feet. However, it will take you some time to die and then venture the Dunes alone, coming back to retrieve it. And if you succeed, it is yours, let's just hope you don’t die of dehydration, or starvation on your way there first. You won't be able to conjure any food in there either. My apologies for such a slow death, I owe my life to you, after all.” His voice came through the wood with a smirking muffle, Caira’s body shuttered. Not only was she in her own grave, she had dug it herself. Had Caira tried to conjure food for herself, there was a force that repressed her from being able to do so and would have caused her to suffocate to death within the second, perhaps a second ‘bewitching’ to this jail.

Now defenseless, she hated the fact that technically Merik had kept his promise. He had taken her to the treasure, and buried her there. How close was she to Omni? Would Merik make it first? Banish her? The possibilities were endless. And the taste of failure was bitter on her tongue.

There were no words for her to speak to him, and he was disappointed to hear a lack of screaming. “Don’t you get it? You’re going to die.” There was a slight, “Humph,” as he seemed to want her to ask why. “Maybe you are dead already, you were a fresh prime after-all.” A small cackle could be heard at the end of his comment.

“Oh, I’m quite alive, Merik.” Caira spoke with confidence as she struggled not to make it sound as though she choked on the sand that began to slip in through the cracks above. “And I thank you for the treasure, you may assume I’ll use it well, but nothing will bring back the real treasures that you have lost. Your honor.” The taste of sand and spite could be heard on the repulsed edge of her words.

She heard him curse at her comment, her heart’s beat sent out vibrations as she analyzed an escape route and piles of sand grew heavier, securing her deep within the ground. Maintaining her composure, she resolved she would fight the coffin’s strange defenses after she had sensed him leave. Though this was not the time for her pride, yet for some reason, she felt as though she could afford it.

“Caira you really were quite foolish,” he shouted triumphantly through the piles of sand, and knowing some of her abilities, he knew she could hear him well, “To think that anything given doesn’t come with something taken.”

“So you took it into you’re own hands then? Instead of being a man?” she shouted, not bothering to conserve air. She couldn’t be sure her voice had been heard, but ten feet above her, Merik stood for a time on the freshly entrenched mixture of earth and sand looking wistfully down at his peer. “Those who have a meager sense of justice will abuse the same power all the more.” she remembered a phrase, rather an equation of probability, he had presumed evident in the human mind.

“Caira, there was one thing that struck me, back when I was a prisoner-” he began.

She interrupted smoothly, words becoming a fountain on her lips, “Yet you still are. What have you truly escaped by dumping me off here?”

He ignored her with a flexed eyebrow in agitation and his red eyes glinted down in her direction, “You recall, you were asking questions to that poor sap, but you knew, and I could tell this by the way you asked the questions that talking wouldn’t save him, and perhaps you knew this from your own experience which is why even now, you held back your words for a moment. Yet you still offer nothing in return for a freedom you have granted. To me, and to those you have given mercy to. For all you knew, there might have been a chance of sympathy for you even from me, as you so empathetically freed me. It was a debt to be reciprocated. Was.”

Caira stayed silent. Words never saved anyone, nor begging, nor screaming. Neither would help her to escape.

“Hah- even now. Well I don’t really mean to gloat, young one, but you have much to learn. Camelot soldier?" he spat, "Naive girls are sure not to make the same mistake twice! But, I hope you don’t mind if I keep the gift you gave me?” He gestured to the music player she could not see, shoe Caira had to assume Merik meant his freedom.

"If you're curious, Caira, this curse will never be broken.” he murmured under his breath and felt the pain of guilt weigh on his shoulders.

"Tch." the girl had no words as Merik walked away and Caira found herself, deserted in the dunes.

[Caira Ayryn]

Part Ten: Resurrection

Trapped like a corpse, she waited another five minutes before beginning to strategize how to maneuver her fist to the plank in front of her, with enough room to apply at least some force. Slowly the pounding began, the pounding on her very own coffin. But the pressure of the force overhead was great, ten feet of sand had filled the crevasse, after all. It would have been easier if she had enough room to twist her body and pound downward, but this was as treacherous as it could get, and if she moved her weight that much, she had reason to think that spears would come up from the baseboard. (Caira detected the metal fragments of the contraption and didn’t want to risk bleeding out into a slow death, even if she attempted to use the hover board she lay on as a buffer.)

Thud, thud, thud. The noises of her own fist against the magic reinforced wood. It was evident it was not just bewitched with Merik's own 'magic' but had hired a mage who mastered in black magic to do some dirty work.

The sound of her own pounding was maddening as it began to match the racing beat of her heart, (or the sound of someone knocking on her chamber door...) She could feel the trickle of blood smear on the roof of the casket, and the bruising only became worse after she began to reinforce her efforts with an impact punch.

Still, with every punch, the vibrations reverberating seemed to show a hint of progress as the nails outlined to have moved about a sixteenth of an inch (basic Senses). Great, just a thousand more and I’ll be free. she thought sarcastically, and had now began to alternate her fists rapidly yet at a pace that might conserve energy.

It became more stuffy, and though the heat from the sun did not puncture as low as ten feet below, she could feel a sticky warmth encase the sand above that told her the sun had come out, and it was probably high noon.

She allowed herself a short break and felt how raw her knuckles had become, yet, though her feet could probably do more, it would take actual space for a swing of a kick to do any real damage. Her balled fists didn’t want to move from their tense position, yet with some wincing Caira forced them to press against the roof, with the added pressure of her feet. As she did this, she hoped to slide the plank off of the nails some, and it worked, so she continued as it applied a good amount of force for a smaller amount of effort.

Her breaths drew in and released with sighs at the end of every single one, I won’t die trapped she tried to keep her mind determined but there wasn’t enough hope to avail for his transgressions that seemed secure.

Caira was sure her bone was being scraped away as the wood grazed the bone, she would sooner crack the wood in half (and be smothered alive by the sand) than the nails simultaneously unscrew themselves. Still her pounding knuckles continued against the sand, another impact punch almost shattered the wood, but made great progress on the nails. The end was in sight, or so she hoped.

With a heavy breath, she repeated the impact punch, and immediately the casket’s lid imploded, her left hand reached for her hover board as sand filled the coffin that she would have slumbered in if not for her speedy reaction.

Now her figure idled in sand, having caught a half breath and squeezed her nose shut with her right hand, she could sense the hover board’s switch, her savior, as she inched toward it, still suspended.

Her fingertips traced the sleek body of the board before hitting the button that would grant her air. The silver board immediately caught her by surprise and with an “oof!” as the remaining air was forced from her lungs, the board burst with air that propelled her to the surface.

Her eyes winced at dusk’s irritating light, making her flinch due to her now adjusting eyes and she had never been happier to have been slammed in the chest by her hover board.

She caught her breath and the mounds of sand slipped from off of her back.

[Caira Ayryn]

...

After retrieving the treasure, her treasure, she glanced down at her painful fists and looked at the silver color of her blood, smearing everywhere and was sure she saw her bones. After tending to her wounds by summoning some gauze to bind her bloody fists, getting water and enjoying the eternal sustenance that was air, she took off on her hover board to the ruins to get some sleep after seeing that Merik’s camel tracks had vanished after a few feet. The chest that she wasn’t ready to open was propped up on the end of the hover board, in tow. And Caira’s sachet around her shoulder as she neared the shadowy ruins that gleamed in the moonlight. “If ONE snake touches me. I’ll blow up this whole place.” she muttered to herself, half out of fear. She had no real means to do that impossible, and by now, her words weighed with fatigue and her eyes had turned a pale silver, melting with the moonlight.

The sun’s hot gaze roused her from her slumber, and she looked around, she was still in the shade of the ruins, “How am I supposed to find my way out of the desert now?”

“Who says you want to escape?” a lizard skunked out of its hiding spot in the shadows.

“What?” Caira had never met an animal that could speak before, “Oh no, I’ve gone insane and hallucinated a friend!” she rationalized, “Oh well, it could be worse, I’d take this over an army of real scorpions any day.”

The lizard chuckled, “Oh I actually can talk, a wizard came here and cast a spell on me some ten years ago, I’ve survived well since.”

“Alright, I’ll play along,” Caira smirked to herself, her subconscious must have been a great comedian.

“Still, I wouldn’t joke about the scorpions though, horrific beasts, they are.” the lizard's tongue stuck out from its lips, almost like a dog's would, panting happily

Caira inclined her head to the strange beast, half tempted to poke it, but she could sense the vibrations it emitted, at least my subconscious is convincing. She took a swill of water from the canteen she had conjured and listened to the strange lizard.

“If you go the wrong direction, they’ll attack you, and then once you’re dead go straight for town, straight for the gate which you escape from.” the voice coaxed.

“How am I to know what direction is wrong?” Caira was slightly fearful. Alone in the desert and massacred by a fiend-like beings was not how she wanted to end her day.

“Even I don’t know my way around, and, in this form I’d die before I got across the desert.. I’ve been stuck here since the.. That is.. Unless you help me.” his voice now slithered with temptation, like a snake. Like Merik. That backstabbing, honorless scum!

Caira sighed, she didn’t even know its name, and now she was to help another being after what happened? Don’t make the same mistake twice. The words echoed in her head, same scenario too, only this one didn’t have the incentive of treasure, though perhaps the being could read her like an open book, as she valued life more than loads of wealth or honor. Even, perhaps, herself.

“I’ll consider it... Now tell me about these scorpions.”

[Caira Ayryn]

The lizard continued to inform her that they were becoming problems for the bandits over time, and that they were the size of a huge bear. Caira didn’t know what a bear was, so she had to approximate the length using the columns of the ruins they now stood in.

“What other threats are there?” Caira was inclined, Merik had warned her, but not enough to let her survive on her own.

The lizard didn’t know, but showed her around the ruins, it wasn’t every day someone visited his ‘home’ nor did Caira plan on returning. “So, who were you before you were turned into this?”

“Ah, my curse, well I was actually a grave robber. Horrible, horrible, deed to do to the dead, I’ve had my years to regret it, and though I was a bandit, I plan on going the the islands if I return from this place. Hopefully a mage will return me to my form.”

"Do you mean Dalaran?" The creature bowed his head and Caira certainly didn’t volunteer any information, “So, you’re a secondary then?”

The lizard nodded to the Prime.

“Huh.” she thought for a moment and fell through a trap door as she had paced the room. A trap door that she wasn’t searching for with her senses, nor did the two pound Lizard, later to be known as Karn.

She hit her head on a stone as the wooden board that had hidden the cool room from sight had caved in at the touch of her feet. “Just my luck,” she said clutching her head while everything still seemed to be moving at the speed of light. The room was dark, and actually rather uncharacteristically soggy for a desert.

Crystals glowed and stalactites grew out of the many corners of the room, the Prime’s eyes looked up to see the lizard peering down in fascination. He as now at the top of the tunnel-like opening, she, at the bottom. She had been swallowed in what she could best describe as a well, and fallen down about fifty feet. Luckily, the pile of skeletons broke her fall. Wait... She paused before feeling the surge to scream, Skeletons? the stench wafted into her nose, she almost did scream and would have if she hadn’t been so repulsed by the disgusting scent that urged her to throw up.

Caira slowly rose to her feet as bones snapped beneath her. She froze at every 'twig' snap. For someone who valued life so very much, it was her worst nightmare to have landed in a pit, with hundreds of bones. Perturbed, and horrified, she felt a trickle of fear chase her spine. Each sound, louder than the last. Each break, weighing heavier on her conscience, though she was not the one who had killed these people, She as the one standing on their remains, desecrating them. Her thoughts went to the slimy lizard, Grave robber, no snap back, you're here Caira, and you have to get out. You have to survive, you've come this far, you've nearly won. Get a plan, hold to it and give them hell. “I’m either in a cage, a well, or ..” her voice trailed as she found a strange looking door with crossed bars on it.

Did they die of starvation, dehydration? Were they unable to climb up or did something strip the flesh from their bones and leave their carcasses... she asked and tried to gauge their wounds. No real bones had been broken (before their death) from what she could tell, but the skulls were too pristine, for this climate for them to have decomposed naturally in this way.

“Show yourself.” Caira said to the walls, her words echoed and stood at the center of the stream of light that helped her see the room. She liked the glowing crystals, and grabbed one and stashed it in her pack, it was hot to the touch but, she put it in a canister. Now she waited for a ferocious beast or foe to visit her upon her calling, no, upon her arrival. After looking around, Caira got wise to the turn of events and scowled back up at the lizard.

“Say.. Karn! Why didn’t you follow the wizard that turned you when he left the desert. Or the gentleman that buried me alive?” There was no reply from Karn, he had gone elsewhere or was detained by whatever threat she had unearthed.

She felt the quivering of the walls and looked at the door once more. If I blast it, it could hit me right back in the face, or whatever is behind it will know how much power I hold. The Prime decided not to risk it, and instead, dug underneath some of the bones. Every once and a while she cringed as she looked at just how shiny the skulls and bones were, it was as though they were crystalized too, by this place. Her digging brought no reward and she found the ground which was damp somewhat dry for a well.

Maneuverability was quite poor, the walls were slick, the ground began to sink, little by little, someone without her senses might not even notice, but she did, and soon daylight was out of reach.

“What is this place...?” she asked after some time. There was a reverberation on the walls, where her voice echoed, her still adjusting eyes looked around, now it was dark, and only the crystal’s light showed anything while the skeletons glimmered in the damp darkness and surrounded her in the five feet of space that she could extend her arms out but not much else. She muttered, "So much for 'exploring' the place."

[Caira Ayryn]

Caira waited, she was good at being patient, though sometimes her other 'great' qualities got the best of her. Luminous eyes swept the room once more and noted that the very radiant crystal seemed to make the room boil. “Ugh.” she groaned in the heat and wondered if that was what had melted the flesh off of the poor souls below her.

“You aren’t far off.” A voice answered, through the door a figure had appeared, and apparently, it could read her thoughts.

“Yes,” his echoing and deep voice agreed, “I’ll tell you, you have a good eye for treasure, bounty hunter. The crystal allows me to do that, read thoughts, while in this room. The skeletons... Well, after I have killed them, the room turns them to crystal, therefore, enhancing both my power and my profit.”

“Wha.. but why?” Caira found the concept to be extremely lacking. Mainly the part where the cloaked figure gained from the death of another.

The answer was sudden. “Do I even need to say? It is sad a Prime has wandered here, I’m not sure you’ll be worth anything to me. Usually after death they-you- disintegrate. . .”

THAT, didn’t sound too pleasant Caira offered only a grimace, Then why not free me?

“Can’t." it hissed, "I have never freed anyone from this place in years, and I won’t start with the likes of you!”

“Is this .. So.. You make crystals out of people’s dead bodies, and then, what? You sell them? To who?”

The creature toyed, “I don’t sell them.”

Caira blinked, “Well, thats a lie.”

“Hah, you’re a strange one, alright, I sell em’ to some folks all around... Coruscant, Camelot, Pale Moors. All that o' course, and I also eat them.”

Caira’s jaw dropped. “That’s gross.” was all she managed to say. It was all she could say.

“...But I’m afraid I’ll have to put an end to you’re charade though, and I’ve had a long day so I think I’ll make it quick.” It was implied to be generous. Caira growled and in it, rose a challenge. “What power do you have girl?” The figure shrouded in darkness questioned her.

“Can’t you read that too?” the Prime challenged and looked around as she began to break more of the bones and threw a skull, now heavier than a rock, at the figure’s head. He dodged.

“Those are my prized possessions!” he said angrily.

“You wretched- Don't you get it? They were worth more ALIVE!” Caira said angrily, “Release me, or I not only will I escape, but I’ll break every one, including that one huge crystal, and instead of blasting the walls, I’ll blast the floor, because you probably didn’t enchant that with a spell... Oh, and then I’ll come for you next.” This was said with great effect, as she held a glowing blue skull in her hands, and squeezed it into dust.

The creature gasped, “Fine, Prime, you win, but you’ll never make it back across the desert alive.”

“That so?” she said and began to prepare to blast the ground below her, which was hollow.

Suddenly the creature froze, he did not open the door, Caira shrugged and broke the floor easily with a single, powered-up punch.

Falling. Suddenly she was suspended, a she pulled the hover board from its place secured on her back and powered it up in the nick of time. It broke some of the impact from the fall, but she quickly bounced off of her ride and following her own speedy collision with the ground was the seemingly endless clattering of a rain of bones, heavier than stones.

She returned the returned the board to her sheath as her eyes looked around, but it was very dark, so she had to rely on her senses and the vibrations, and only in the diminishing dust and haze could she see the the pale blue hue that the array of bones on the ground. Though no light emitted would have been enough to gauge the huge dome shaped room she had entered.

[Caira Ayryn]

“What dangers lie in this horrible darkness..” she said quietly, and whispers of dark returned her voice to her, as pairs of eyes fell on her from all sides, glowing red and yellow but their forms undetectable as they fell captive to the shadows.

Caira froze, her demeanor stiffened, the enchanted bones had kept them away from her, as she was in the center of their scatter, however sooner or later one would begin to slink its way across the labyrinth of light. The Prime’s eyes fell to the light, and Caira noticed that the creatures, intangible, could not touch it as they lunged in her direction, but with heinous growls to show their frustration.

“What are you...” her voice grew horrified, perhaps they were the distorted and banished souls of the very skeletons that the cloaked figure had desecrated.

Another shadow beast burst from the shadows, wild teeth aimed at her shoulder, it was in the shape of a vicious wolf, but twice the size. Her sword came out of its sheath and lit the room aglow, suddenly, the baying of the creatures became less, and the eyes of the beasts dissipated. They responded well to the light, as all creatures of shadows should. Caira’s eyes began to look at the still magnificent beast that stood, searing in the rays of light reflected from the skeleton bones beneath its feet, and the light that gleamed from her sword. Would it be enough?

"What’s wrong, beast?” It had yielded before attacking her, which was uncharacteristic of a foe about to rip her freaking head off. It certainly wove fear into her more than pain from a bite would have.

The beast bowed to her.

The Prime was unfamiliar of the battle between the shadows and the light, and knew nothing about what the gesture meant. Time echoed through the dome’s walls, Caira kept her sword high and ready to strike with the glow, but the beast remained tame.

Many moments passed, and after what felt like hours, her legs started to creak with fatigue, just like the walls. Caira relinquished her offensive pose, and switched her sword to a defensive posture, and the beast rose once more as she willed her sword to a dim, its pale gleam could still be seen through the skeletons reflected the gloaming away from her.

A voice came from the beast’s head, but it had no lips for words to exit, only horrible teeth that looked as if she had been bitten, she would have fallen into the same abyss they had. (Later, she would read, these were called either shadow wolves, or werewolves.) The sleek, deep, and aggressive voice sounded as though it would attack her once more, at least, until she considered its request.

“Cleanse this place. Free us, and do not return.”

The beast fell back to the shadows and closed its eyes, waiting. Caira had been shown mercy, if that was what she could call it, and she would do the same for it.

“You dead yet? Torn apart by the hounds from the darkest depths of hell?” The iniquitous voice cackled from above, it was the cloaked figure whom had called with an echoing voice through the barred door.

A frown weighed on her lips. She’d have to kill him.

[Caira Ayryn]

Not only that, but the creature of the dark expected light to stream into the room and banish them from existence. Caira sighed and conjured something that might just do the trick. “I”m sorry.” she said to the beast after a moment, she held a luminous star in her hands and let its light burn up the room, the shadows dissipated with screams, of both agony and joy as the star hung high and reflected against her face, though her high cheekbones and hollow sockets saved her eyes from the bright gleam that might have been directed to her eye, the light traced the cavities of the empty room and it was so bright that the many accumulated skeleton bones disappeared and sizzled from sight.

She crunched her foot on the large crystal that had remained intact in the fall, and its light went out and she crushed it into dust. Caira, however, had forgotten the small portion she had taken and stashed in a container, as the canteen shielded its light. The star she cupped in her hand, streamed enough light so that she was able to find a small exit tunnel, with no lock on the door. This was lucky, however Caira attributed it chance. “I guess shadows don’t need locks.” Caira said to herself and took one last look a the empty room. It now had a somber feeling, but there were no living shadows there anymore. Caira placed the star in her mouth -there was no use in letting good food go to waste- and readied her sword to fight the cloaked figure. It slipped out of its sheathe with a shhhnk!

To her disdain, she was unable to find the rogue no matter how far she searched, so she recalled her compass and held it in her hands, whatever that creature had been, it had vanished with the crystal room's demise.