The Castle (Rebma, for the heck of it, but don't hesitate!)

[Stygian]

A bit annoyed with the frog's tone, the bat nevertheless turned her head against him and replied levelly.
   "I would say that it's much like Dante's interpretation, but not for all intents and purpouses. This is, after all, only a representation of the crossroads. Not the real thing. It's like a smaller model, built on the same blueprint, with some variations for function's sake," she said. It seemed an awfully accurate analysis. But then, she seemed like she had the knowledge to tell.

[Aisha deCabre]

To put it simply, Aisha was awestruck, after stepping through the painting and gazing up at the beauty of the surroundings that lay before them.  The last thing she remembered, it was storming on the outside of the castle...but where they were, the heavens were in perfection, or would have been were it not for the feeling that the place emanated.

And then she gazed out on the path in front of them and could see why it was like that.  Listening to Sebastianette and Jeremiah speak about the painting's relevance, a path between an eternal paradise and an eternal abyss, she couldn't help but feel somewhat intimidated even though it was only as real as their eyes could percieve.

"Creative," she muttered as they made their way toward the stairs.  Were they to end up out of the castle in one piece, Aisha had the thought to write all of this down in a travel journal someday.

[Gareeku]

Looking up at the beauty of the surroundings, Gareeku was awestruck like Aisha was. Listening to the others speak, the wolf smirked slightly.
"This place just gets more interesting by the minute..." he muttered as he continued to look around at the surroundings. Heeding the bats words, the wolf stayed close as they walked through the hall.

[Cogidubnus]

Mirth seemed to have left Cog as he walked through the deceivingly beautiful hallway, and he studiously ignored the music flowing throughout. He merely rested a hand on his blade and stepped as softly and lightly as he could.
"Let's hope this isn't the second terrace, then." he murmured.

[Stygian]

The bat laughed and looked around for a second, almost at the first steps of the stairs.
   "Have we been blinded yet? I don't think so. And you've still got your clothes on, wolf. I'd say that's as good an indication as any. Now, let's get going," she said, and began descending the stairs, against and into that dark archway...
   The stairway was broad, going around in wide and deep circles like a corkscrew, and while at first made of the same flawless marble as the hall, it quickly became rougher and cracked, the darkness beginning to stain it and the surrounding walls equally. Down ahead hinted the first level, the walls opening up, and the stairs and stones beginning to show withered images...

[Malicious]

The canine frowned at Bambi's guesture, then arching a brow he lets an inaudible sigh of submission pass his lips.  Raising a paw he places it in her hand, following her through.  
                His eyes widened at the magnificence of the scene before him, the room was very much alive with colour.  The light shimmering in through the ceiling cascaded down around the group ahead of him, alluminating them.  He forced a crooked smile to Bambi and nodded in approval, releasing her hand he slowly moved off to the side as the group advanced, flanking a pillar and staying outside of the centre path.
            I'll watch them from back here, and if anything gets the drop on them I'll be safe to flank it and maybe get past it.. he selfishly thought to himself, scanning side to side around the room.  Looking ahead at the group, he eyed Bambi and Mel, his eyebrows arched softly and he looked down his body, then back up at them.  His shoulders slumped as he moved and he sighed softly. Well... maybe if something does jump them, I can help out if I'm over here the canine reassured his conscience.

[Sunblink]

Unsurprisingly, despite the sympathies of the others, especially the condolences of Gareeku, Keaton was utterly and uncharacteristically silent throughout the short trek across the hallway and into the room that held the painting. Hands remained where they were, grasping at her upper arms in an uncomfortable, awkward embrace, one not for comfort but to keep her from mutilating her wings in an unexpected, sporadic surge of rage. Other than some resentful bitterness lurking behind the glaze in her newly-crystallized eyes, Keaton seemed quite chastened.

Opting to remain in the back of the group, as far away from the others as possible, Keaton retained a slow, ambling pace, scraping her heels against the splintery floor with each trudging stride. For someone who's eyes were so adamantly glued to the floor, it seemed as though she had no regard as to what she was stepping on or whether or not she would bump into someone. Though at the speed she was going, there was little to no threat of the latter ever happening.

Keaton gladly kept up her despondent demeanor even as they arrived at the foot of a magnificently designed, elaborate painting, perhaps the finest and most realistic piece of art Keaton had ever seen in her five hundred-year-long existence. Glassy aquamarine globes raking over and saturating every insignificant detail in the picturesque canvas, Keaton stood there, entranced, happily letting this spectacle reign over her more hateful thoughts, until her eyes darted to the side just in time to watch Stygian melt through the surface of the painting and materialize on the other side like one would enter a portal.

Jaw dropping open, Keaton had no time to further gape at the scene, as everyone else was following suit, leaving only her standing outside of the painting-portal. Sighing in resignation, Keaton held out her hand tentatively, allowing her fingers to slip through the barrier separating the painting from the rest of reality. Withdrawing her hand and ceasing her experimentation, Keaton finally bounded through, staggering somewhere behind the canine and the blue-haired feline.

Keaton checked her body once, making sure that no part of her had somehow come loose during the transition (though some part of her would've been grateful if her wings had been excluded from her transportation), while deliberately avoiding the feathery wings that, she had to concede, were NOT a nightmarish figment of her imagination. Thrusting aside her depression for the time being, Keaton examined her surroundings, finding them even more heavenly and breathtaking as they were as a painting.

It all seemed real enough and not some elaborate illusion. Considering the events that had transpired beforehand, Keaton wouldn't have been too surprised if it WERE a mirage.

Stygian started to descend the stairs, accompanied by the rest of the group, giving Keaton no other choice but to follow, but with a notable amount of acceleration in her step. She didn't want to be too far behind in this surreal, fantasy world. Even in her detached state, however, Keaton was able to notice how the once-ambrosial walls and patterns around them were taking on a wretched, corroded state, and was exacerbating as they steadily approached the first tier...

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Stygian]

The moment that the bat set her foot on the step where the symbols and images began, a fire moved up it and across her body. She kept on walking though, trembling silently, before the fire slowly died down on her skin. Slowly, she moved down into the darkness of a chamber of black and white, where darkness sizzled with flames that spewed out in tongues through glowing cracks in the floor. Ghastly shapes, whipped by the flames, their eyes averted downward, could be seen moving like shadows around the winding stairway.
   "Just keep walking. It will be allright if you keep walking..." she said, keeping on stepping ever downward...

[Boog]

"Right, walking..." Jeremiah muttered nervously, eyes darting back and forth as he resisted the urge to add any more sage wisdom? It was rather easier than usual; probably had something to do with his as of late overstimulated sense of paranoia.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

PBH was also awe by the stairways and the music. but she was sadden to leave the Heavenly stairs and follow the group into the darkness.  I felt like alone star falling into a sea of blackness.  PBH stay close to Mel and  the rest of the group, as they continued down the stairs and slowly lost track of the canine.  She try to stay focus on the female bat, but she pulled into herself as they went down.

PBH  

[Aisha deCabre]

As the path moved ever further through the realistic atmosphere, the appearance of the scope through the stairway becoming a little more tainted and morbid by the passing moments, Aisha's eyes were drawn to the patterns that the darkness before them had taken, withered and drawn of life.  She idly glanced back around the others, who seemed to have these same thoughts of foreboding as they had seen now so many times before.  Even Keaton seemed attentive to it, whence she had directed from what looked like self-repulsion.

Aisha crossed her arms and kept walking, following the bat ever downward into what seemed to be close to the bowls of the earth, or the castle...or the image, whatever they were coming upon.  There was a quick pause however as she observed her literally walking across cracks where fire attempted to eat at her.  "You sure?" she had to retort upon seeing that, and upon viewing the shapes taking place beyond that threshold.  The panthress gulped and followed suit with light steps, closing her eyes in passing for the brief moment that she did.

[Cogidubnus]

Cog walked silently through the runed floor just as he had walked through the stones of purgatory, but his ear twitched and he grinned for the first time since he had entered the painted world. He could hear it, distant and yet there, the soft music of the purgatory being replaced by a dirge, deep within the darkness.
His grin soon faded, however, and under his breath he sang softly with the dirge, simply letting the flames lick over him.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel followed along with a fairly good show of bravery, distracting herself by analyzing the hints of magic she saw until they got to the flames. She froze as her heartrate and breathing doubled. Her heritage of ice made her particularly vulnerable to flame. Even when Sebastian told them to keep walking her feet were stuck in place. She watched as the other's preceded her. With a deep breath and wide-wild eyes she skittered forward like a bug.

[Stygian]

Stygian knew that dirge. She kept silent though, descending ahead of the groups through the torment of fire, and down the rings of stairway winding into the depths. The second lap they made went through chilly water and gardens, where voiced whispered for them to relax and sit down, to have a taste of the fruit and stay. Stygian urged them on, with the knowledge they would never leave if they decided to stop there. The bat whipped out a bit of her darkness even, to snag anyone who would dare stray.
   The third lap was immensely hard. The second they began to walk down the first few steps of it, their bodies became heavier and heavier, their limbs weak and harder to move. Again, Stygian was determined to keep them going, even if force would be needed. But they were adventurers, after all. However much tavern-frequenters they might have been, effort was something they were used to when it was needed.
   They began the fourth lap, and suddenly they were fighting through a crowd of shadowy, greedy-faced shapes, trying to push them upward with their sheer numbers as they ran past them up the stairs, while the adventurers themselves began feeling tired and fatigued.
   The fifth lap was covered in thick, acrid and acidic smog, which numbed their senses and clouded their minds. Faint, panicked screams and distant faced could be hinted in the dark, far away, between the smoke that poured out through fissures in the floor and walls...
   "Keep going!" the bat kept saying. "Whatever you do, don't stop!" Her words were the guideline. Down here, they could feel a malicious presence from all around, like eyes staring at them from the shadows, watching for the slightest hesitation...

[Gareeku]

Narrowing his eyes and he observed the flame that the female Sebastian went through, Gareeku then turned to Mel with a reassuring smile. Watching her skitter through the flame, the wolf followed; walking calmly as he kep his eyes and his attention on the path ahead. Following the bat as they descended the stairs, Gareeku heeded her words, focussing on the path and the female bat ahead as he refused to hesitate.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

** PBH runs into Mel, which wakes PBH out of her gloom,  She sees the others going through the fire **

"Mel Come on Mel  The fire is just an illustion If it does not burn me it should hurt you, "  Says PBH as she stands halfway through the fire wall.

** Gently and firmly, PBH trys leading Mel through the flames and on down pass them**

PBH

[Aisha deCabre]

Aisha opened her eyes after a while when she crossed the threshold of fire with the others, if only really to make sure she didn't trip on the stairs.  She had almost figured that as they were descending, things would only get darker, but that it had piqued her curiosity was a sign that it certainly wasn't the case.  As the group seemed to go further downward, it had started to become a test of their very will.  Aisha wasn't hesitant to pass through them...she didn't trust anything that the castle had at this point.

For each lap down the stairs, Aisha had her ears pinned straight against her skull to keep out the powers of suggestion flowing around them, focusing only on those in front of her...the bat at the head of them, and her voice and shadows urging them onwards.  She didn't stop even when she really wanted to, taking it as a challenge...how easily could she keep up with the others?  If the panther fell behind, she took trotting steps ahead to see how far she could go, even with the illusion of the burden of weight and that of the shadowy figures, she gritted her teeth and trudged on, even threatened to draw her sword when it started to get annoying.

By the time the fifth lap came around though, Aisha wondered if everyone else was starting to be drained of their toleration, as she was.  The darkness enveloped them, and it felt like they were trudging beyond the point of no return...if they hadn't already.  "How much further?" she inquired, her voice soft compared to those of the spectral ones around them, while she held her mouth against the air.  At the insistence of Stygian, her bare paws trudged onward.

[Boog]

Well, this just keeps getting more and more pleasant, Jeremiah thought to himself as he was jostled by crowds of specters much like the flow of a stream. He knew enough not to stop in the garden; anything that pleasant in  this house was obviously a very unkind prank, at best. The further laps made it much more tempting to just sit down, even for a little while.  But that was a bad idea, according to the only person who actually knew what this place was likely to throw at them. Grumbling, Jeremiah followed...

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel kept reminding herself they had a goal and everything around them was just distractions from the goal. They were built to be distractions from the goal. Keep ignoring, keep descending, keep humming in her irritating, off-key, tuneless way to counteract the hypnotic sounds trying to lure or frighten her from path.

[Cogidubnus]

The oppressions of hell left their marks on Cog, although he managed to stride through them without breaking step. He began to prepare his various charms about his neck and wrist, ready to fortify himself with holy magics at a moment's notice.
This abyss was infernal, it was plain to see, but not so much that it was beyond endurance. Anybody with a spirit could tell that there was malevolence here, that hell was afoot. The various curses flung upon them stunk of infernal origins. Sirens upon a glassy sea, a physical impediment of weight and lethargy, hordes of the dreadful wretches of hell blocking the path, stinging, biting smoke, and now the shades of things most terrible to see. Whatever had placed these here was trying to soften them up, he knew. Cog merely steeled himself and wrapped his torn coat about him, keeping smoke at bay with the cloth and shade at bay with a minor flick of holy energies.
"...and with flutes of fear they filled the ear, as their grisly masque they lead," Cog sung along, the surreal surroundings cracking his stoic face into a smile. "And loud they sang, and long they sang, for they sang to wake the dead..."

[Prof B Hunnydew]

" And Whisper a happy tune, and no one will spectic I'm ..mmmm"  giggles PBH which quickly turn to tears and sob..."nono I am alright I can do this, by god and goddess..."

  PBH shuts her eyes but continues on breathing calming deep breaths and then opens her eyes  with mask of detachment and profession matter. She continues down the stairs...

PBH

[Stygian]

"Just two more laps now..." the bat called back to them from within the dull fog. She pushed deeper through it and arrived at the end of the lap, into the sixth trial. And almost stopped. The path seemed to divert here, the surroundings becoming cleaner and more tidy, and Sebastainette found herself wearing a proper, trim and fine skirt and blouse to fit the place, which slowly seemed to turn into some sort of ballroom or meetingplace. The shapes here were dressed finely, their faces joyful. They stood talking to each other, or sat down reading, or were doing some small work or just simply sociable things. And they were watched over from the far side of the hall by some beautiful, blessed being, which one could somehow immediately sense held incredible wisdom and power. It seemed a pleasant place, restful, quiet, peaceful and with everything one could wish.
   But Stygian would hardly let herself be fooled by that. For it was plain to see what was wrong with the place, once she just remembered and decided to push on. The people, smiling and cheerful, were indistinguishable from each other, their faces blurred and without personality or real thought or emotion. The all-powerful being at the end of the hall was supposed to represent God, or God's holy order. But however all-wise and powerful and supposedly good-natured, it was a devil behind a mask for its intentions; it dulled the minds of the people there, and there were thin glimmering trails through the air as if from silk, threads by which it played them like puppets. Omnipotent and omniscient, it still did not care for them so long as it had them in its grip.
   "Curse you, and your order!" Stygian shouted, and spat over her shoulder, as she walked through the imagined floor and her appearance returned to its normal state, the surroundings once again becoming dark when revealed for what they were.
   When they reached the seventh lap, suddenly there was as if a weight on their back, huge and pressing their heads down, forcing them to keep walking while looking down at the steps themselves. And there, painted in slightly withered colors but in incredibly detailed relief, were their fates. The images told of how they would fail; how they would be ripped apart, forced on their knees and into servitude, burned alive or cast into the abyss; how the house would collapse on top of them, or the crossroads itself would crumble and trap them inside, or how they would be simply let up and join the Angel willingly. And all around there were whispers again, playing in their ears, tugging at their minds, telling them what fools they were and how they should stop and let it be, and try and keep order instead by helping the Angel that held the place together, and how she would understand and release them once things were restored to balance. The whispers themselves seemed to come from voices that they all recognized; from friends, family, loved ones...
   "WE'RE THERE! DON'T STOP!" Stygian shouted under the strain of the weight, and took the last step...

[Gareeku]

Looking at the pleasant scene they stumbled upon, Gareeku raised an eyebrow. How could somewhere so peaceful be located in a hellish place like this? The answer would soon come to him, however, when he saw the expressions on the people's faces. They were essentially puppets, causing a look of disgust to make itself present on the wolf's face.

Following Stygian further down the stairs, Gareeku immediately felt the weight come down on him as he arrived at the seventh lap, forcing him to look down at the steps. It was then, however, that with widened eyes, Gareeku faw his "fate" depicted. It showed himself being mercilessly torn apart by some sort of shadowed figure. The wolf would be filled with even more shock, however, when he suddenly heard whispering voices in his ear.
"Don't be a fool, Gareeku...just turn back...you'll be alright if you just turn back..." the voices whispered. What was most shocking, however, was the fact that these voices were the ones of his family...his mother...his uncle...and even his father.

Snapping out of it as he heard Stygian's shout, Gareeku realised what it was; it was a dirty trick to get him to turn back. Filled with anger and hatred for the person who was responsible, a new wave of determination and resolve welled up within the wolf as he followed Stygian, a snarling grimace of rage on his face as he itched to get his hands on the person responsible for having the indecency to use his family's voices, especially his deceased father's...

[Cogidubnus]

Cog took care not to look too closely at the psuedo-heaven, unswayed. For one, the notes of that dark song still echoed in his ear, and it would take more than fine clothes and a bit of light to fool him into thinking the house was really good. At the very least, his ragged jacket spoke to the place's true nature.
He continued to walk through, unimpressed. As he stepped into the seventh layer of the circle, however, he stopped and gasped for air a moment before catching himself right before he faceplanted into the ground. To his dismay, he found he couldn't straighten again, and his eyes focused on the stone beneath him.
Carved into it was him...and a wolf. His own body was twisting, writhing beyond his control, and was itself becoming the werewolf. But the other wolf in the picture had eyes of inlaid Jacinth, and had sunk his teeth into Cog's neck. A red ink trailed down from where the teeth met his throat. Wreathed around the whole engraving was a full moon, immaculately carved and inlaid with silver, and Cog knew that it wasn't a moon that would ever set.
And whispering into his ear was the voice of his family, his mother and his father, and his teachers of old, all telling him what a fool he was for opposing this Angel. It had the opposite of the intended effect. Cog snarled at the picture, and instead lurched forward as best he could with the weight on his back.
  Unseen or felt by Cog, small, bright arcs of lightning produced by the rage he felt were snapping between the fingers of his right hand...

[Malicious]

The canine had awaited the arrival of the angel to the stairs before proceeding down himself, putting several feet between themselves and the rest of the group.  He had feared that the depression she had been forced to suffer through would make her most likely to break under what lay ahead, it would be in his best interest to keep her ahead of him.
              Proceeding down the stairs following the group, as each trial of each level assailed him, he grimaced yet bared his teeth in determination and moved on.  Each level's ascending difficulty forcing him to clench his eyes shut and use the rail to guide his descent.  He did not notice the ballroom scene, he could hear it however he would not open his eyes, lest he fall foul of the Angel's tricks.
             Upon reaching the bottom level he felt the great weight upon his shoulders, straining to keep his balance he slowly shuffled foward.  Pressing a hand to the wall to guide him, he was forced to open his eyes only to see everything was black, the adventurers gone, everything except the blackness... and a man.
             The man had a pretentious sneer across his face, in a suit similar to the canine's.  He stood over him and said in an unwavering, unsympathetic voice; "Hello, 75. Here we are again."  The canine grimaced, clenching his eyes shut. Saying aloud in his hallucination that the others would here; "..Don't.. Don't call me that Sir.. please..."  The man snarled and turned to face away from the canine. "That is what you are 75, don't deny what you are."  The canine stammered, speaking to the floor upon his knees; "I'm.. I'm not-" The man hissed at the canines impertinence "You are nothing! You are number 75! You exist only because it benefits us! Don't prove otherwise with your lip!"  The canine bowed his head and looked to the floor, he noticed his hands were red, so was the floor. Raising his hands he saw they were drenched in blood, looking around to see hundreds of slain bodies, his mouth hung ajar in horror.  The man smirked "See? This is what you are 75, you don't have to accept guilt for all this, a man would.  It can all end you know, like we always said from the start, the killing can end. But you know the price that would entail.."  The canine opened his eyes and looked up at the Man, he felt his heart suddenly feel cold and heavy.  sinking into a ball upon his knees in reality, he buried his head in his hands and succumbed. "..Yes..let it end..."  The man grinned in sinister triumph and turned, walking away into the black, his voice fading as he dissapeared. "Pleasure doing business with you 75."  As he faded, the canine felt himself slipping away into the black.

[Aisha deCabre]

Aisha was becoming somewhat winded and discouraged now throughout these trials across the levels, each one a little more harrowing and playing on different aspects of their minds.  So tired was the group by now, that the sixth lap looked so very enticing, and yet the panther knew as the rest of them that such a scene didn't belong in such hellish conditions.  She ignored it.  And then it passed...only one lap to go.  Just one.  Just one... her mind chanted, over and over again, as darkness enveloped the stairway again.

And that's when she felt such a great weight on her shoulders, the tired panthress couldn't hold her head up any more than the others...as if the spectral entities in the chamber were forcing them to walk as if in shame, eyes diverted to their feet.  But the things that Aisha saw on those steps made her want to close her eyes again, or at least squint to make them look blurry and undefined.  She saw demons and shadows slowly tearing her apart, mocking her, forcing her into submission, wearing the faces of the ones who had before destroyed her home and her life.  When she did close her eyes, there were the voices again...in Aisha's ears, easily recognizable, the voices of her loved ones...mother, father, brother, and even her friends from the Healer monastery and her mentor...urging her to go back.  "What are you here for?  Why do you let this torture keep you?  You aren't strong enough.  Don't be foolish!  Your headstrong nature will kill you.  It's okay if you go back...just stop..."

But again it was the female Sebastian's voice that snapped her out of it, just as her will was starting to become bent.  The panthress had a snarl on her face that would have even made a demon recoil, upon recognizing what this was.  Aisha mentally tossed the voices aside...she knew her family better...coming from the blood of adventurers, none of them would have told her to turn back.  Her friends would have been right there with her.  As for the shadows in her own images, she forced a smirk on her face, imagining them being ripped apart and burnt to the core, until the final step was reached.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

PBH walk past the beautiful garden with it's millions of books and infinite knowledge, because the people become to her as cyborgs and then robots that dance an dance of programmed beauty without joy or feeling.  She continues on.

With her next step, she gets her all the knowledge of the universe, the weight of knowing all there is to know, but unable to tell anyone or to help anyone from their blind mistakes.

 PHB finds herself on the platform in LAB #3 at the university where her uncle and she worked...  beyond the platform is just darkness, yet she can see spotlights on each of the other adventures, each caught in their own private dramas or tests.  She knows that each is a test, that they must break free from.  But how can she talk to the others, Will they hear her? How can she communicate them?  

PBH stands alone on her platform with her greatest invention and failure, the Tesser Gate, a huge metal arch with six spheres around it.  The first test of the gate was under the direction of Dr Morgan who created a hell gate to her world, which she had barely stopped.   And, with the thought of Dr Morganna, the old female Badger appears and step out of the tesser gate,

"So the little Hunnydew is still playing around with my invention, you never got it work did you?  I made it work!" says Dr Morganna

"it wwas MY theory, my project, and my invention, so the Science Council want it to speed up the project, and put you in charge.  But it wasn't going any fast with you in charge, and When things won't going any faster for you, you had to force your algorithms into my graviton generator and throw the switch.  Yea it worked.  You had to open the door to the Hell.  Your pride would not shutdown the Tesser gate even when it going to explode and take most of the tristate area with it."  shout PBH back..."You wouldn't listen to me... and I don't need to listen to you.  you are dead.  you went up in a cloud of smoke try to stop me from shutoff the power override."

"Ah That is right, but for your first experiment, it got you dumped into Lost Lake, and Pyroduck had to fish you out of the water" laughed Morganna, "And now no one back home knows if your gate to the stars will work at all"  She Laughed and laugh....

With sadness and depression, PBH turns from her own past and watches helplessly as "Tough Guy"'s past plays out.   She could see and hear the drama with man in black and 75 curls into a little puppy ball in his Spotlight.
"Come On TOUGH GUY,  You Don't have to be a Gun, you can choose not to kill others or yourself for no reason. I love ya, I Believe in you." screams PBH into the darkness at the Canine.  Did he hear her?  Can any of others hear her?  Can she cross the darkness to her friends?  Just one more step ...Just step off the platform and run to the canine, Bam.
As her old enemy laughs at her attemps, PBH stays and watches helpless as each adventurer goes thru their trails and she is unable to help them. 

PBH

[Sunblink]

Trying to shove the mental image of Stygian set ablaze by the illusory flames into the deepest, most wretched wastelands of her mind, Keaton wordlessly proceeded with the rest of the group, opting to remain surrounded by her companions rather than limply shuffling in the back.

The next trial consisted of a monochromatic chamber, the ground pitted and cracked, flames escaping from each snaking laceration in the stone. Specters swarmed the room, sweeping about the room, carried by the flame, with translucent eyes directed down towards the ground. Watching one of these ghostly apparitions fly dangerously close to her body, Keaton took a few, protective steps to the side, grasping her now very ruffled tail in both, white-knuckled hands. Unnerving, yes, but it was bearable.

Just barely.

All throughout it, Keaton kept lingering among the others, her pace quick, her beryl eyes darting back and forth at every minor change the backgrounds shifted to. Persevering through most of the trials, it was no surprise that by the time they had dashed through the acrimonious smoke that had permeated the air that Keaton looked like she had run through a hundred-mile lap, sweat leaking from her pores. Unsurprisingly, her wings seemed to be immune to such lethargy, having been conjured from unnatural means, and remained as pristine as before, albeit with some slight dishevel to the luminous plumage.

One of these levels even resembled a sacrosanct ballroom of sorts, entrancing, a pure salvation from the nightmares of the castle that awaited them beyond that point. Some part of Keaton desperately wanted to join them, but she kept her head resolute, trying to keep her eyes averted as far away from the divine gathering. Two more laps. That was all.

As unpleasant as the previous trials were, they would be nothing more than a leisurely stroll in a butterfly-filled meadow in comparison to what was to occur. Nothing would've prepared her for what was to happen next.

Suddenly, an immense, crippling weight slammed down on Keaton's back, nearly making the jackal drop instantaneously to her knees. Suppressing a yelp of shock, Keaton tried to lift her head, but every muscle in her neck resisted, too labored by the invisible restraints that confined her movements, even the shifting of her eyes down to the corroding steps. Struggling, trying to flare her wings behind her but failing at every attempt, Keaton growled and took one step forward—

--and withdrew her foot immediately once what appeared to be a face materialized, emblazoned in filthy paint, on the steps before her.

It was a familiar face, one she had easily identified as her own, of course. Although something seemed terribly amiss. It took her a moment to decipher it, to piece together every detail which started to flesh themselves out in this macabre portrait, but Keaton was able to absorb every meticulous change to the image. Rivulets of what she assumed was blood was pouring from her left eyesocket, spilling down the mirror image's neck, her tattered chest...

..All the way down to a massive, gaping gash in her midsection.

Now where had she seen this before?

A trembling hand, pushing against the insurmountable gravity weighing down on it, gingerly touched her midsection, fingers splaying over the gnarled scar etched into her flesh.

Oh no.

Oh GOD, no.

Around this macabre depiction of her mutilated being, collapsed on all sides, were hundreds of corpses, each severed or damaged in one way or another, each marred with an archaic symbol, vaguely resembling a white '7' flanked with roughly-carved triangular shapes...

Without realizing it, Keaton felt giant, salty gouts of tears slip from the corners of her eyes, raining down her cheeks in cleaving, bitter trails. An irresistible gasp wormed its way out of the jackal's throat, which reflexively tightened, barring any air from fleeing into her throat. Hands leaping to her neck, clawing at the strangling grip, Keaton could clearly hear her own, pulsating palpitations in her ears, pounding away like thousands of hammers against rigid, cracked stone...

Memories that Keaton had long-suppressed, had long worked to bury, had long abandoned and left to rot, flooded her mind like a tempestuous whirlwind. Memories of a clan massacred, of a family destroyed, of seventy years of servitude under the creature that Keaton loathed the most.

Neglecting her rapidly constricting throat, Keaton's hands leapt to her hair, fingers gluing themselves against her scalp beneath her bedraggled, pallid locks. The jackal was resisting the urge to scream with all her might, tiny whimpers exuding past the straining muscles of her esophagus. Wraithlike voices were crooning to her on all angles, beckoning to her, pleading to her not to proceed, to just surrender and spare herself the pain.

"Don't end up like us, Katherine."

"I didn't want to die, Katherine."

"We love you, Katherine."

Keaton was close to sobbing at this point, up until the final image warped the picture she couldn't bring herself to look away from, of cranberry eyes and feathered wings, of a leering beak and silvery feathers. Mocking her, encouraging her to listen to her damned family and clansmen with its presence alone.

A lone thought crept into Keaton's mind against all heartbreak.

'I wonder if he would've ended up in Hell?' Keaton idly wondered, maybe out of morbid interest, maybe just to keep those terrible, spectral murmurings at bay, maybe to banish them from her thoughts together. A split second later, she found her question answered, bringing a virulent smirk to her pallid, tearstained lips.

'Ha.

'I've already denied him that salvation.'

Somehow, that managed to bring her a significant amount of comfort.

She took the final step, fueled by this spite, by this hateful bloodlust.

Just as she always had been.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel was tiredly plodding down the stairs, her eyes half-closed against the visions, still humming loudly to drown out the voices when the design in the stairs caught her eye. At first it didn't register what she was seeing as anything more than a pattern inlaid into the marble but she came to a horrified halt as it finally sunk in. It showed the battle to come and everyone ending up worse than dead and it was her fault. She wouldn't be able to hold her part because she was too little and too weak. And her failure would endanger the others. As soon as she stopped humming the voices came, reminding her of every time she'd failed due to her size, her poor health, or her vision problem, telling her that she had now endangered others besides herself. She had to stop, to stay right here so that the others had a chance to make the plan work.

A new voice, Sebastian, cut across them, urging her to move. But the other voices had 150,000 years of familiarity that were hard to ignore. One voice came through more shrill and hostile than the others and Mel concentrated on it. Her cousin, her hateful tormenting cousin. Mel clung to the affronts for strength and took a few more steps. Proving Belle wrong had been a chief motivator for much of her life and it would be again today. She began talking back to the voice, insulting the phantom in return, until she remembered that she was supposed to be a leopard and cursing in draconian wasn't in character.

[Stygian]

Stygian crossed that last, hardest step, her clawed foot stepping from rough and sole-wearing painted stone onto a dirty marble floor, not much unlike that of the great chamber above, except...
   This hall was no hall. It was a vault. A cavern. Chains and blackened metal bars hung between cracked columns between and behind which hinted a darkness that the bat's own senses could not penetrate, against all rhyme and reason. At least, against what was rhyme and reason to her. The canopy was dark, the pillairs that loomed losing themselves in shadows many, many spans above, through which hinted a cracked and rough roof, as if the hall were submerged or dug out from under a mountain. And to the sides there was nothing; they were standing on a platform elevated in endless darkness on all sides, the floor coming to an abrupt end behind the second row of pillairs. They felt at the same time a horrible acrophobia, and as if an enormous weight was threatening to crumble down onto them, the roof perilously close to collapsing down and reducing the gargantuan cavern to a sealed tomb forever, with them at its heart. And there would be a worse fate for them than being crushed or asphyxiated if it did. For as the bat could already tell, the darkness down here was alive; it was what had slowly seeped into the castle they had come from and poisoned it over the years. Down here though, the darkness was still much stronger...
   In his, or her, heart, for the first time in a very long time, Stygian was truly, deeply afraid.
   Still though, the adventurers were not at the real heart of it. Something else was. Someone else who had been chained up there for much longer than the bat himself, and who now awaited them down in the shadows. A hundred metres down the vault or so, in the light of a few braziers burning with unearthly flames, they could see a stone coffin, chained up and hanging between a pair of pillairs. The front of it was carved out in a relief of a woman's body, her back winged and her face with dark, empty eyes. Eyes that nevertheless seemed to gaze at them.
   "Hello, cousin..." Stygian said in a very low voice, slowly beginning to walk around the large round opening in the floor of the platform before them while holding the now catatonic yet still crying ferret by the neck, around that well as dark and deep as the chasm that surrounded their tiny shapes.