Depths of Madness (For Elwytrek)

[Reptillicus]

"Often times things are not what the seem.... especially on the surface level. often its all just a cover for what's really going on underneath. This is true for both people and places.....", quote from Fie-Dan, great poet of the first Zei dynasty.

The road to the town of Gerst was a long, winding, and generally an unpleasant trek to make on foot. On the heavily forested path walked a girl with a cart behind her. She was a short but curvy girl with green, scaly skin, amber eyes and a tail swaying above her nice wide hips. she was adorned with a red coat and pants with a gold trim, a small red hat, sitting on a head of short black hair and a bun in the back. her face was young and rounded with a slight muzzle, holding sharp triangular teeth. They would be somewhat scary if it weren't for the nice kissable lips that ha just the barest hint of pout. She wiped some sweat off of her brow as she moved the cart forward. "May you have to ask yourself; why did you pick this road?", she said to herself as she pulled a cart of filled with jars full of tonics, ointments, and all manner of herbs. May couldn't help but feel like she was being watched as she made her way through the conifer forest, and kept looking back only to find nothing. Ahead of her someone else also walked the path....

 

[elwytrek]

Koda stumbled a bit, yet another rock catching beneath the heel of her boot, and nearly throwing the cumbersome packing crate she carried from her grasp as she struggled to right herself. Thankfully, with the routine deftness she'd developed while training to be a courier, she managed to catch the cargo before it could truly slip, saving herself from a sure earful from her betters, though tragically at the expense of her fair mood as the leather coin pouch she'd set atop the crate slid off and fell to the ground. It hadn't been a good day as it was, but watching her sparse earnings scatter in the nearby dirt was the straw that broke the camel's, or rather, prime marten's back. Not knowing anyone was nearby, she cursed under her breath, setting the crate down in annoyance as she scrambled to find the coins gone askew. In a climax of all the day's frustrations, she struck the ground once with her newsy hat, before putting it back on and continuing the search.

 

[Reptillicus]

May had seen Koda's coins spill out into the dirt as she approached and she wanted to help but she hesitated, unsure if she should just walk to and start picking up someone else's coins.... she didn't want to look like a thief or anything. On the other hand the girl looked like she was having a hard day as well, "certainly she would appreciate the help...", she thought. Talking to people wasn't one of her strong suits and talking to people she met on the road always felt quite intimating to her as she could never guess how they might act but she took a chance. May parked her cart and the picked up on of the scattered coins. "Um, excuse me.... but might this be yours.", She said in her soft feather light voice.

 

[elwytrek]

Koda's disgruntled gaze turned tense at the sound of another voice, only to relax again at the gentle tone. "Yes, it might be. Seems like I'm having all kinds of spills today, but this one doesn't seem so much as a bother if it's drawing in a friendly face." She said with a sigh of relief. Her respectful air would strike most as trustworthy, but tired, surely worn down after a day of honest work on the road, but as she turned around to face May, the Zei saw the fluffy, effeminate face and calm brown eyes of a race that the land's stereotypes would have deemed anything but. The Marteisian courier looked like no scoundrel, but the slum-dwelling roots of so many of her ancestry could give a different impression.

 

[Reptillicus]

May didn't know much about the other races of the grand continent, she only had hearsay. It was said that the Marteisian people were a bunch freeloaders that cared only for sex and lazying about. May however, was not a very judgmental person. Koda seemed like decent hard working sort and May felt at ease after hearing her friendly response. "Oh, well let me help you with that.", she said as she knelt down to pick up more of the scattered coinage. While May wore rather modest clothes Koda could tell upon closer inspection that May was a rather busy girl her coat and pants hiding a most likely voluptuous and curvy from. "My name is May by the way... were you headed back the way I was gong or towards Gerst?", she asked as she helped gather the more coins to hand to Koda.

 

[elwytrek]

Koda daintily plucked each coin back from May, smiling at the girl's gracious nature as she hurriedly stowed them back away in the leather pouch. A bit of embarrassment showed on her sandy furred cheeks at being caught like such a klutz. "I'm heading to Gerst. I've got a package for somebody." She casually said, not even realizing the innuendo as she stuck out a hand to shake. "Koda Hadley. Rookie courier. It's a pleasure, May."

 

[Reptillicus]

May perked up a little "Oh you're heading to Gerst too?", May said giving a small smile. Then she finally noticed Koda's hand sticking out she grabbed it awkwardly and gave a quick shake, blushing only slightly at her lack of observation. Any possible innuendos about koda's statement would thankfully go right over May's head, as she was just too innocent of a girl to get them. "I'm heading there myself. My uncle is supposed to be there.", she said looking down the road. "Um, maybe.... we could um.... go together?", she said a little sheepishly. The forest path was lonely and more then a little unnerving to the young Zei girl so she hoped Koda would walk there with her.

 

[elwytrek]

"Safety in numbers, right?" Koda beamed, dusting off her olive cargo pants and standing back up on her feet. "You warn me about incoming rocks, and I'll drop this on anybody who tries to pop out at us." She chuckled, indicating the large package back into her hands.

 

[Reptillicus]

"Ok sure.", May said with small nod. She then got her cart of medicines and began pulling again. They started back down the road with May behind Koda. As they walked May couldn't help but stare at the martens tail, it was so soft and fluffy looking to her... She really wanted to touch it for some reason. She shook the thought out of her head. "Ahem, uh so Gerst is full of mammals right? Even those strange looking ones that are called humans?", she asked hoping that Koda hadn't noticed her staring.

 

[elwytrek]

Koda took no notice of her staring, but from the nearly hypnotic sway of her fluffy golden tail, practically feathery in its softness, it almost seemed as if she were taunting the entranced Zei. If her gaze followed to its base, she'd see a plump little butt to compliment her lithe, furry form. "So I'm told. Then again, as a rookie, they don't tell me too much about where I'm going or what I'm carrying. I'm just more of a step-and-fetch grunt right now." She hums, looking to the sky in thought.

 

[Reptillicus]

May's eyes hovered on that nice little butt as blush formed on her face. She never did find out were she was on the gay-straight spectrum, but now she was wondering why she was staring at Koda's butt as she walked. She shook her head again embarrassed with herself. just then the ground shook and rumbled for a whole 3 seconds then stopped abruptly. May shrieked and was staggering around until she ended up falling into Koda's back and reflexively wrapped her arms around her.

 

[elwytrek]

"Woah! Agh-" Koda stumbled with the sudden quake, as well as the surprise weight that'd been thrown onto her back. Narrowly missing her own feet, she slammed the crate to the ground, leaning over it for support to avoid falling flat. So, there she was, bent over a storage crate with May's bountiful breasts pressed into her back, and with the Zei girl's own hands close to her own B-cups. She stood silently, coming down from the whimper she loosed during the earthquake, and suddenly red and the face and wide eyed as she waited for May to get off.

 

[Reptillicus]

May was shaking slightly in the grips of fear for a few seconds. then was relived that the shaking stopped..... but then she realized the position she was in and her face turn super red and hot. She quickly pulled herself off of Koda with a squeak. "Oh g-g-gosh! I'm so sorry! It-it was an accident! I-I didn't mean to....", she said waving her hands from side to side in a short and quick manner.

 

[elwytrek]

Koda was about as poor for wear herself. "W-what? N-no. It's all fine. I barely even noticed you were there!" She lied, looking a bit wild eyed as she tried to recover from the slip. She couldn't blame May for falling, but still avoided her eyes out of sheer embarrassment. "Aha... real silly of the ground to go and start rumbling like that." She babbled, one hand scratching the back of her head through wavy, caramel colored hair.

 

[Reptillicus]

"Y-yeah... um... well as the great poet once said: The road is as unpredictable as the sea, one can never predict either when they set out.", she said trying to regain her composure and go back to her smooth feather light tone. Now that May thought about it... this was weird. There were never any earthquakes in this area the last one had been hundreds of years ago according to her uncle and in the back of her mind something felt very off about it all. "I hope your package is ok... it would be a shame if something broke.", she said looking off to the side.

 

[elwytrek]

"Oh uh-no, no. It's fine." She stammered, still leaning protectively over the big crate. Truth be told, that wasn't the only package Koda had to worry about. A slight tent was showing in the crotch of her pants, a tribute to her herm anatomy, and she didn't dare turn around for fear of pointing it at May. "So uh... crazy earthquake, right? Those don't happen often here. Never been in one." She gabbed, putting her focus on anything other than her groin.

 

[Reptillicus]

May didn't catch a glimpse of the "other" package thanks to her tendency to look off to the side when she was embarrassed. "We should move carefully. That may have been just a tremor... more may follow in its wake-", May began to say but then the ground began shaking violently again, and this time it didn't stop! May cries out in terror as the ground nearly begins to feel like liquid under their feet then the ground spits open right beneath their feet! An endless abyss of darkness appearing in the opening maw of the earth. May screams as they fall into the inky blackness as she gripped with a terror perilously unknown to her.

 

[elwytrek]

The crate falls to the ground with a crash as Koda whips around to face May. Her face tightens in a wordless scream, either extending a hand out to try and grab her, or bracing her own self as she stumbles through the splintering earth. There's no escaping gravity's pull into the darkness, but she still struggles, shrieking in fear as the abyss swallows her up.

 

[Reptillicus]

After that every thing feels hazy as the fall through a seemingly endless abyss. the light above them getting fainter and fainter eventually it becomes just a small spec of white in the dark. then for reason that May could never explain even long after this the feel asleep in free fall, the darkness of the abyss seeming to blanket their very minds.

Sometime later Koda and May find themselves laying on a cold, hard stone floor, their heads spinning. Koda is first to fully wake up and she find May laying on her side next to her in a dimly lit stone room, seemingly carved out of what looked like granite. it was a small room only about 12 feet wide and 12 feet tall. with the only exit being a small square door frame leading outside... where ever outside was. May groaned on the floor as her head throbbed with the remains of a strange dull headache.

 

[elwytrek]

A shiver wracked Koda's form as she rose from the cold floor, face screwed up in a pout when her aching head fell down into her hands. Slowly, her eyes began to open, settling on May with blank confusion before snapping into consciousness. "You! You're the reason why we're here?!" She blearily accused, pointing a trembling finger in the Zei's direction with fear plain in her features. Before she could speak further, a deep sigh escaped her lips as she got the hunch that they were in the same boat. "Except, you're, uh... not the reason, because you're too nice?"

 

[Reptillicus]

At frist May was scared and gasped looking around trembling in confusion and terror and then waved her hands from side to side once the accusing finger pointed her way. Then her gaze shifted around after Koda's last statement. "too nice? well that was an interesting thing to say.... but oh gods! where are we!", she thought with terror creeping back into her expression. "How.... How are we not dead.... certanly I fall like that... it should have killed us...", May said as more and more confusing and terrifying thoughts ran through her mind.

 

[elwytrek]

"Oh no... what if we are dead?" Koda's eyes widened in growing panic, eyes scanning each corner of the square room for anything to suggest otherwise. "You don't think this is purgatory, o-or... Oh my gosh there's a door!" She almost screamed, pointing with the same ferocity that she'd had in May's accusation at the simple exit. Realizing how silly she was starting to sound, she thumped herself on the forehead in the hopes of calming down.

 

[Reptillicus]

"Gack!", went May as Koda overreacted just a smidgen too much about a doorway. Then she looked onwards to the stone exit and blue grey dim light that was filtering in. She took a breath to clam herself, and it worked a little. "ok was have an exit but where are we?! We need information...", she thought as she looked over herself. Her clothes appeared unharmed for the most part, oddly there was sighs of small burns on the sides of her coat. "how did that happen? friction? no that wouldn't leave something like this....", she pondered. "Um, can you stand?", she asked as she staggered to her feet and offered her hand.