Thorn shifted back into panther form and headed off down the tunnel, leading deeper into the caverns.
Fantasia hummed lightly to herself, settling her pack more comfortably and taking off after the only guide she suspected had more intelligence than Gaia gave a spark plug. Or a fire plug, for that matter.
As Thorn almost drowned them, she must be thinking of Lupus. Anyway. The cave was dark. Morin headed along close behind Fantasia, not at all staring at her butt or anything.
The dark didn't bother Fantasia at all, for reasons as yet unmentioned and unspecified which have more to do with her affiliations of old than her shapeshifter nature. Feeling the weight of eyes she glanced back, smirking for a moment and then continuing onward with a flirt of her tail.
Morin giggled faintly and blushed, and glad that it was too dark for anyone to see him blushing, he hoped at least. The tunnel came to a fork, and Thorn confidently took the left tunnel, which sloped gently upward.
Up was a positive thing, Fantasia mused, definitely a good direction to be taking when you were underground... provided they didn't run across that volcano Thorn had mentioned before. That'd be about her luck lately.
As if on cue, the ground started to shake violently and bits of rock started to break off from the ceiling.
"Are you sure one of you isn't cursed?" Lupus asked, increasing his gait up the incline.
Fantasia jumped about a foot at the sudden rumbling, though natural dexterity serving well to maintain her balance at least. She could make a remark about the cursed thing on a number of levels, but snapped her muzzle shut on anything short of a light, nervous giggle.
Thorn broke into a run, Morin taking the clue and doing likewise. Fortunately, they made it to the surface without the tunnel collapsing in on them, to find themselves overlooking an active volcano.
"No, I am not fully certain of that," Thorn commented.
"Oh yeah, greeeeeat," Fantasia muttered, looking out. "Let's just hope that the local volcano god isn't particularly hungry at the moment and let's make like a tree."
Morin peered out over the countryside for half a moment and circled his hand in the air, a portal opening in front of them. He gestured to his companions to go first. The view on the other side was of a mountain looking like it was still on Daresa and not too far away, but at least several miles away as there were no volcanoes in the background erupting in it.
Fantasia grinned brightly over at him, the idea a hell of a lot better than looking for some rickety path along the cauldron while trying to avoid getting thrown off by the rumbling. Okay, so there'd be a good point to that too in the right circumstances, but she just hopped readily through the portal without a word.
Thorn didn't argue, doing likewise leaping into the portal and coming out, indeed, on a mountaintop several miles south of their present location.
"Perhaps the spirits were angry that we decided to tread around inside." Lupus shrugged and hopped through.
Morin went through last and sealed the portal shut behind them as the volcano started erupting. To the north, a plume of dark smoke marred the colored stars in the distance.
"Or maybe they just had a sudden craving for hot dogs," Fantasia smirked, glancing back and waiting for Morin to step through before turning to look at the distant eruption. "Much prettier when you're not at ground zero," she remarked.
"Quite," Morin agreed unsteadily. The distant mountain glowed fiery red with lava that thankfully didn't come anywhere near them.
Fantasia grinned and darted close enough to lick Morin lightly on the cheek, ducking around him and returning to her original spot as she turns to Thorn. "So where now, oh fearless and luckless leader?" she asked brightly.
"Well, let's see, hmm, where are we..." Thorn mused, looking around. "Ah... We appear to be on Skunk Mountain. She wouldn't be here. Well, unless she didn't mind the smell and wanted to get away from it all."
"Skunk... Mountain..." Fantasia replied, muzzle tilting and whiskers twitching as she sniffed at the air with caution.
Lupus scrunched his nose.
There didn't appear to be any skunks in the immediate vicinity, though. Thorn said, "Let's go," and randomly headed off to the south.
"Sounds good to me," Fantasia agreed readily, nodding sharply, the idea of a mountain peppered with skunks having alllllll sorts of potential, but not something she was looking to take advantage of just now. She did, however, mark it on a mental map for later consideration.
After some walking, they wandered into a small village of crude huts in the middle of the forest on a plateau on the mountain.
"Mountainside rustic, how quaint," Fantasia remarked offhandedly, personally agreeing with Morin at the moment as to the benefits of city life as a whole.
The villagers looked at them as they appeared, rather startled. Well, at least they looked human.
Human was good, sometimes, though the lupus back home were perfectly capable of looking human while pulling the stupidest stunts imaginable to man or Gaia. At least they didn't look immediately hostile, she preferred that right before she was leaving a town not when entering.
At least up until they all panicked, turn into giant skunks, and start spraying the group.
Fantasia blinked as the villagers started to shift, then got a suddenly panic-stricken expression at the array of tail-turning in their direction. She yelped frantically and dove for cover as a small white fluffball, any cover at all! YIPE!
"Ghah!" Lupus snorted as he backed away. "Such territorialism!"
Thorn and Morin were likewise not hesitant to get the hell out of the immediate vicinity, perfectly content to leave the wereskunks the hell alone. Fantasia and Thorn managed to avoid being too badly sprayed, Morin wasn't quite so lucky, and Lupus seemed to get drenched with it.
"Oh, this is not going to bode well with the elders..." Lupus snarled as he shifted into crinos and began indiscriminately firing off bursts of electricity into the mass.
Fantasia streaked from the small patch of cover she'd found, a white blur that moved quickly away from the skunks. Gah! No wonder they'd been paranoid! It sounded like a joke and they were the punch line: a human and three carnivores walk into a camp of wereskunks...
The wereskunks seemed disinclined to pursue, content that the intruders were getting out of their place and leaving them alone.
Morin stumbled and coughed a bit and commented, "Skunk Mountain, you say..."
Lupus did not succeed in calming down the skunks, who continued panicking and freaking out.
Fantasia hacked and sneezed at the reek of musk, delicately pointed ears laid flat against her skull as she looked around and took count of their numbers... oh hell.
Lupus wasn't trying to calm them, he was trying to obliterate at least one or two. There was the smell of smouldering skunk as some of his strikes hit home.
Morin glanced back, hearing the lightning, and said, "What is that fool werewolf doing?"
Fantasia shifted quickly back to hybrid form and dug out the pad of paper, quickly folding a few sheets as she darted back in that direction with a snarl as her only reply to Morin's question. The paper airplanes were thrown into the air, gaining a life of their own as she ran back with a small squadron for company.
"He better appreciate this," she muttered to herself, sending the darting, harmless craft ahead of her to harry and distract the skunks... hopefully enough that they'd just run rather than deal with the idiot!
"Ugh," Thorn muttered, preferring to put some distance between herself and the skunk village.
They were miniature versions of World War II planes, Corsairs and Zeros, and they dove and swooped around spewing 'gunfire' and making all sorts of noise. Harmless, but definitely distracting.
Lupus got the idea and moved away, dripping with Eau d' Skunk.
The skunks scattered into their huts and left them alone to make their escape. Thorn resisted the compulsive urge to wash herself.
"Those bastards!" Lupus snarled as he stomped over, making nasty shlup shlup noises as he walked.
Fantasia snarled silently at the werewolf as he went past, the magic dropping away from the planes and leaving the paper to flutter lifelessly to the ground. She turned and darted back in the direction of Morin and Thorn, muttering hostile, un-ladylike things under her breath.
Thorn commented, "Skunk Mountain. Would you have preferred the volcano?"
Lupus decided he'd do something nice and shook off a decent distance away from everyone else, then reverted into human form.
Fantasia moved upwind of the reeking werewolf, casting a final baleful glare at him before the hilarity of the situation became unbearable and she dropped to the ground in a fit of laughter. She could only hope that no one had gotten really hurt back there, it wasn't like they'd been hostile or anything. Sheesh.
Lupus, being a werewolf, leaned more toward the "Maim first, ask questions later" mindset.
Morin said, "I have this urge to strip off my clothing and burn it, then peel off my skin, but I do not believe that would be useful."
Fantasia regained her composure shortly, rolling over to rest her muzzle on folded arms, and grinned lightly in Morin's direction. "I dunno, be good for morale, at least with a tomato soup bath." She wasn't going to say anything about what just happened, nope, otherwise she'd probably skin herself a werewolf while he was sleeping.
"I'm sure someone, somewhere, knows a 'remove scent' spell or something..." Morin mused.
Thorn headed off down the slope and into the valley between Skunk Mountain and the next elevatory geological feature.
"Can't help ya there," Fantasia chuckled. "Not my area of expertise, and I drank my last Clamata before heading off on this goofball quest." She pushed herself up and stands, brushing the dirt off her jumpsuit, then headed after Thorn.
Lupus's eyes narrowed and he grumbled all the way down.
There was the sound of rushing water. When the trees thinned out, they saw ahead a wide river with a waterfall pouring down into a pool.
Fantasia made sure to stay as far upwind of the werewolf as she could, crossing from one side of the party to the other as needed.
Looking over at the pool, she grinned at the two most severely affected. "Still fresh enough, maybe a dip will help."
"Thank Gaia. I thought my nose was going to shrivel up," Lupus said, shifting to full wolf and hopping in.
Morin didn't hesitate to take a dip. Thankfully there were no werepiranhas infesting the waters. Thorn did likewise.
Morin stuck his head out of the water and comments, "I thought cats hated water..."
Thorn said, "Hush."
Fantasia returned to homid form, not particularly wanting to spend the day... night... whatever drying out the acres of thick, lush fur, and took a moment to strip out of the jumpsuit before heading in. The suit had taken the brunt, and she rinsed it solidly.
Lupus waded out after clouding his spot with thick, nasty skunk musk, shook himself vigorously, and returned to human form.
Morin peeled off his sodden clothing and swam around in his boxers. He was apparently wearing boxers with hearts on them.
Fantasia smirked, catching the design as she wrung out the jumpsuit and tossed it out onto a rock before sinking to her neck in the water. Get a bit of the sulfuric stench out too, she mused.
Morin's face proceeded to turn the color of his boxer-hearts when he turned around and spotted her. Lupus had been ogling her himself, but noticed Morin's burning cheeks and chuckled to himself.
Fantasia sighed, the chill of the water bringing up a few old aches, and rose, stretching her back languidly before turning for shore to retrieve the jumpsuit. A faint, nearly invisible scar traced the curve of her spine and a fine spiderweb-mesh branched out from it along her shoulders.
Morin continued to stare, but at least he stopped blushing so much, momentarily distracted from her ass.
"Well," Lupus said with a cracked grin, "I'm feeling better."
"Well, that stunk," Fantasia remarked, either oblivious or paying no heed for the moment, and drawing the jumpsuit back on. She glanced over toward their recently acquired guide. "Think before leaping next time, okay? Who knows what else may have been around with the luck we've had lately. None of Gaia's kids should throw themselves away, y'know?"
Morin climbed out of the water after a moment, collected his discarded clothing and rinsed it out a bit, sniffed it to make sure it didn't smell too badly, and went to put it back on.
"They started it!" Lupus fumed.
Fantasia grinned. "Maybe so, but that doesn't mean that every problem has to be approached with claw and fang. Just be more careful, alright?"
Thorn said, "What do you say we just go find Shenzel..."
Fantasia chuckled softly, shaking her head as she returned to the hybrid form. "Sounds good to me," she replied, "Hopefully without too many other disasters on the way."
"Let's hope," Lupus said.
Morin agreed wholeheartedly, and added, "And then get out of this damned wilderness!"
"Amen, hero, amen," Fantasia replied fervently.
Lupus curled his lip up at the word "damned" being used to describe his home, but didn't say anything.
Thorn headed off in the opposite direction from Skunk Mountain. Good direction, Fantasia mused silently, settling the pack on her shoulder and heading off after Thorn. A flicker of memory brought a smile to her muzzle suddenly, and with it a quiet melody learned long ago at a distant moot.
They traveled down the valley, around wooded mountains and hills, through the wilderness highlands and thankfully near no wereskunks, orcs, trolls, or giant floating eyeballs that shot deadly laser beams.
The melody shifted as the familiar tune came to an end, Fantasia turning to improvisation to keep the gentle song alive as they crossed the miles. This wasn't so bad, she supposed, but she'd definitely be glad of a nice warm bed and a crowd to fight through in a city.
Then, after what must be several hours of traveling, possibly with breaks to snack on leftover steak if Lupus didn't eat it all and any survived the skunk barrage, they saw ahead on a cliff the form of a wolf outlined by Daresa's brilliant colored stars.
'My God, it's full of stars...' Fantasia mused irreverently, her step coming to a halt as they encounter the unknown wolf.
Wild or shapeshifter, now that was the question... what the hell, been a while since she'd practiced her telemarketing skills. She lifted her muzzle and let loose the plaintive howl of greeting, though Lupus probably found the accent horrid. Normally the Glass Walkers used cellphones for things like this, but they learned the old ways just on the offhand chance.
Lupus flattened his ears at the screeching noise, and started his own low howl, more of a personal greeting.
The wolf cocked its head and looked down over to them, ears flicking. Then it turned and loped along the cliff and disappeared for a moment into the foliage.
Fantasia trailed off, looking aside at Lupus with a smirk, then shrugged. "Wrong number, I guess."
A minute later, the wolf appeared again on the ground nearby, looking over toward them.
Lupus cleared his throat and shifted into full wolf.
Then again, Fantasia chuckled inwardly, the higher pitch of her own voice not well-suited to the Garou language but sufficing to the task even if the wise guys had ribbed her mercilessly on it. "Well hello there," she offered in that language in the direction of their visitor.
Lupus looked at the other wolf, attempting to discern if it was Shenzel. It was indeed.
Shenzel cocked her head oddly at Fantasia, then at her companions, and changed form into that of what appeared to be a young human girl with eyes as blue as the sky on a planet that actually had a sun. "Well, hello yourself."
Fantasia grinned, tilting her muzzle in greeting. "Sorry if we're hanging out in the wrong neck of the woods, just looking for someone named Shenzel." She didn't know, had no clue.
"I'm Shenzel Tirtas," she replied simply.
Lupus shifted back and bowed.
Fantasia expelled a heavy sigh, though the grin remains firmly fixed. "I've been looking all over for you, ever since Torn Elkandu. You have no idea the road I've seen."
"Well, judging by the faint whiff off you folks, I would imagine you came by Skunk Mountain."
"Uh yeah," Fantasia smirked, her muzzle wrinkling at the odor she'd started to get used to until it was mentioned. "Seems they were a little bit jumpy about us wandering into town."
"They tend to do that, yes," Shenzel agreed with a faint smirk.
Fantasia waved it off. "Doesn't matter, just glad to run across you and be done with this infernal trek. I have a message from Shazmar for ya."
"From Shazmar? Really?"
"You think I'd come all the way out here on a lark?" Fantasia smirked, drawing a bit nearer and acting as though she was reaching for the message mentally.
"Well, I can't say I know you very well, as I've just met you and don't even know your name, but I would not rule out the possibility," Shenzel teased gently.
Lupus chuckled and rolled his eyes. "With the way she flits around, I wouldn't be surprised either."
"Errr, right, I'm Fantasia." She laughed, then pointed to the others in turn. "That's Morin, Thorn you know, and the furball... ummm..." She blinked and hmmed. "No clue what his name is, never said."
Morin waved nervously at the girl, trying not to ogle her either.
Lupus smirked at her. "You got by fine without it, didn't you?"
"Well sure," Fantasia retorted. "But kinda rude not to introduce ourselves when asked. Sheesh." She stuck her tongue out at him.
"Now... What was it which Shazmar wished to tell me, that he could not simply come himself?"
"She knows who I am," he said curtly.
"I see you're making plenty of friends as usual, Lupus," Shenzel replied, rolling her eyes.
Fantasia rolled her eyes, turning away from the furball dismissively and returning to the reason that she'd come looking in the first place. "Right, the message." She waved Shenzel closer, stifling a giggle at the name but storing it for later. "Top secret stuff, whisper it to ya..."
"Well, my name is Whisper of the Night," she said with a faint smirk.
Fantasia leaned close as though to whisper, then grinned as she playfully licked Shenzel on the cheek. "Shazmar said to tell ya 'hi!'"
Shenzel chuckled softly. "Really now," she replied coyly.
Fantasia very clearly avoided looking at any of the rest of her party at that, stepping back and nodding brightly, "Yep. Cute kid, that one, as a black button nose."
"You mean we had to nearly get jumped by orcs, drowned, blown up by a volcano and sprayed to the third layer of hell by skunks, so you could tell her 'hi;."
Thorn yawned broadly and stretched. Morin smirked.
Shenzel said to Lupus, "You would be well to calm yourself and know that Shazmar does nothing without purpose, even if that purpose seems inscrutable at the time."
Fantasia grinned, glancing over her shoulder at the werewolf. "Besides, you gonna tell a cute little elf kid no? He'd cry! Tsk, what kind of monster do you take me for anyway? Sheesh. Besides," she added with a light chuckle. "That's what Ragabash do."
Shenzel looked oddly at Fantasia for a moment.
Fantasia caught the look, remembering that Shazmar had said where Shenzel had come from, and the grin broadened by a fraction. "What, too long since you left the tribe and went walkabout? Betcha didn't even hear that Blackie earned himself a name."
Lupus wandered further past the hillside, taking Shenzel's advice. He sat down and communed with Gaia.
Shenzel quirked an eyebrow in puzzlement at her. "What?"
"Uh, oops, sorry, that's a bit disrespectful of the right hoof of your tribe's totem," Fantasia replied with a hint of sheepishness. "The black Unicorn, y'know, Unicorn's defender and warrior? Anyway, there's probably a lot that's happened since you headed out... been out and prowling longer than I've been alive. heh."
"I would imagine so," Shenzel said. "I have been on Daresa ever since Shazmar's feminine aspect shaped this world, through thousands of years that have passed upon its lands. It has been long since I thought much of the world of my birth."
"Maybe I can catch you up a bit," Fantasia replied, then grinned slyly. "If you want to take the word of a Ragabash at face value anyway."
Shenzel smirked faintly and said, "Come, I have a cabin atop the cliff. We can talk over tea."
"Oh bliss, a hint of civilization and not a skunk in sight!" Fantasia replied with honest pleasure, she quickly corralled her companions and chivvied them in that direction, looking forward to the opportunity.
Shenzel led them up to the nice cozy cabin. Lupus followed, but stayed outside to continue his commune when they finally arrived.