Mystic Heart Odyssey

Part 7: Downtime

Chapter 20

Time for more magical shenanigans! And plenty of them!

-Llox

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Gleam awoke with a gasp and quickly sat up, clutching at her chest instinctively. She didn’t cry out, though, and started to calm down quickly when she realized she felt relatively normal… though she couldn’t help but feel like there was something new tickling the edge of her awareness. Kuna stirred next to her, but didn’t wake up.

Lykou, already half-awake himself, rubbed his eyes, then propped himself up on his elbow and looked over at the squirrel. “Everything alright, Gleam?” he asked quietly, trying not to disturb the sereva. “Another weird dream?”

Gleam nodded a little and checked herself thoroughly, lifting the poncho out of the way just so she could be absolutely sure there was no sign of anything strange on her chest. “Y-yeah… a-and I’m pretty s-sure about them being messages now,” she said as she dropped the edge of the poncho back down. “And I think it did something to me, but I’m not sure.”

“Oh?” Lykou asked, eyes widening a bit in alarm. “What’d it do? You feel okay?”

“I… think I’m okay,” Gleam said, rubbing her head. “Something does feel slightly different, but I can’t really explain it.”

Kuna stirred again next to her and blinked his eyes open after a moment. “Kou?” he mumbled a bit, then slowly propped himself up and yawned. “Gleam? Everything alright?”

“Gleam had another one of those weird dreams,” the konuul explained. “And was about to tell me about it. She thinks it did something to her.”

The sereva immediately grew concerned and sat up more. “What makes you say that?”

“Just… something that happened at the end,” Gleam replied. “And it’s related to the glowy ball thing you guys talked about when I was… well, you know.”

“Oh you definitely need to tell us about it,” Kuna urged her. “This might be something we need to bring up to Lana and Daisy, or Zyn.”

“Um… well first it tried talking to me again, and when that didn’t work, it… showed me things,” Gleam explained, and went on to describe the full dream.

“Okay, there’s no denying that these are messages from the people that built this place now. Makes me wonder what happened to them all,” Kuna said when she was done. “You feel alright though?”

“I was just telling Kou I feel fine for the most part, but there’s… something else I can’t quite describe,” Gleam said, scratching her head. “And it was definitely… interesting, seeing the whole ritual thing for myself. You know, from the outside. Magic ball thing and all.”

“Oh yeah, I bet,” Lykou said. “From the description it sounds like that animal might’ve been turned into whatever Marja’s people are called.”

“Marja?” Gleam asked curiously.

“Oh, right, still haven’t told you about Kryckwood,” Lykou said. “She’s… someone we met there. Heh, I guess I should finish catching you up on our story today. Fair warning though, it’s easily the scariest, uh… ‘adventure’ we’ve been on so far.”

“Guess it’s a good thing you’ll be telling me in the daytime, then,” Gleam said with a slightly anxious smile. “I just hope I’m done with these ‘message’ dreams now. Would be nice to sleep normally for once.”

“Me too,” Kuna said, pulling her into a gentle side-hug. “Let us know if that strange feeling gets any stronger, alright?”

Gleam returned the embrace and nodded. “Will do.”

Lykou joined in on the hug, then patted her back softly. “Let’s get some breakfast,” he said, then smiled over at Kuna. “And you can tell us how your visit went.”

“Oh yeah, heh,” the sereva replied with a slightly awkward smile as all three of them started to get up. “They say hi by the way. And they’re really interested in you, Gleam. Especially Daisy. They didn’t believe me about you at first, but then Lana did this thing where they viewed my memory of when you, er, transformed. And Daisy did… something so it was like she saw it too.”

“Really?” Gleam asked after ducking through the exit to their makeshift shelter. “Sounds like a really handy power.”

“No kidding,” Lykou agreed. “Would be nice to be able to show people things that happened instead of just telling them about it. I wonder if you could learn to do that?”

Kuna shrugged. “Would be nice, but probably not much point unless I somehow figure out a way to travel to other peoples’ dream worlds like they do,” he said as he sat down and started digging around in his food bag. “I will be practicing soul magic more though. Apparently, there’s a way to make it so I can show others what I see when I do that, which would be pretty nice.”

“Definitely,” Lykou responded as he pulled out some cooked meat for himself, then grinned at the sereva. “Speaking of which though, I assume they weren’t as upset as you feared?”

The sereva blushed and smiled sheepishly. “Noooot really, though they played it up at first, just to mess with me.”

“Really?” Lykou asked, amused. “Even Lana?”

“Apparently, it was her idea,” Kuna replied. “But no, they weren’t really mad.”

“Told you,” Lykou teased, tussling the sereva’s hair lightly.

Kuna rolled his eyes a little. “Yeah, yeah. Apparently it is considered kind of rude to scry on people without their permission or special circumstances, though. So I have to be careful with it. Luckily, they said I could practice on them when Daisy’s out flying after sunset.”

“I hope you figure that ‘showing us’ thing out,” Gleam mentioned. “Because I’d love to see that. And them in general.”

“Me too,” Kuna said, then snickered. “Daisy really wants to meet you and hug you, you know. Kept gushing about how cute you are.”

“Oh gosh,” Gleam replied, blushing and grinning. “Really?”

“Mhmm,” the sereva continued. “She was begging Lana to find some way to visit, but they don’t wanna be that far outside their, uh, ‘domain’. Apparently, their power weakens outside of Clovaria. Something about their Sylthean side.”

Lykou frowned slightly. “Aw, that’s a shame. Would be nice to see them in-person again.”

“Power or no, it’d be nice to meet them,” Gleam said.

Kuna shrugged and took a sip of water, then stretched a bit. “Might be for the better for now anyway. Daisy might overwhelm you, with how rambunctious and uh… enthusiastic she can be.”

“So what else did you talk about?” Lykou asked curiously.

“Magic, mostly,” Kuna said. “Lana pointed out I need to practice dreamwalking on my own, and gave me a tip for how to do it. Which reminds me…” He paused and grinned, digging a certain familiar stone out of his robe’s pocket. “Believe it or not, this might help me do it.”

Lykou chuckled. “Really now? I guess she did say it had potential.”

“Mhmm. And since we always have it around, it makes sense for it to show up in my dreams,” Kuna explained, then paused for a moment and held the stone out in front of him. He tipped his hand over and let it drop, then picked it back up. “Juuust making sure.”

Gleam and Lykou both shot him a strange look. “Huh?” the canid asked. “What was that about?”

Kuna grinned. “Dream test. I have to start getting in the habit of doing that. If the stone ever floats or does something weird, then I’ll know I’m in a dream and can use my soul magic there.”

“That… makes a surprising amount of sense,” Gleam commented, staring at the rock. Her brow furrowed after a moment as she focused on it. She wasn’t entirely sure, but the strange sensation she’d noticed after waking up seemed to be get a little stronger when she was looking at it. “What’s so special about that particular rock, though?”

“Remember that little promise ritual thing I told you about when Ku and I first met?” Lykou asked, smiling at the sereva.

Gleam nodded, then widened her eyes a bit. “Oh, that’s…?”

“Mhmm. Still got a stain on it,” Kuna commented, smiling back at the konuul. “A constant reminder of what a sweet goofball Lykou is.”

Lykou chuckled and wrapped an arm around him. “And of how far you’ve come since we met.”

“And our friendship in general,” Kuna added, returning the embrace after putting the stone away again. He blushed a bit and relished the closeness for a moment. And just maybe, hopefully, something more one day…

“Aww, that’s so sweet,” Gleam said, following the stone with her eyes as the sereva put it away again. After a moment, she snapped herself out of it and smiled at him. “So that’ll help your dream magic stuff, huh?”

“It’ll help me know I’m in one, at least,” Kuna replied. “Hopefully, anyway. Just don’t laugh if I get it out and drop it occasionally.”

“Can’t promise that,” Lykou teased, then snickered as the sereva elbowed him lightly in the side.

Gleam giggled slightly as she munched on a carrot, then turned her attention on the canid. “I don’t suppose you had any interesting dreams, did you?”

Lykou shrugged. “Nothing I can really remember. I think there was a talking boulder and a purple turkey involved? Heh, you know how dreams can be.”

“If we see any purple turkeys in the next area we visit, I’m gonna have a fit,” Kuna declared with a wry grin.

Gleam and Lykou both snickered some more. “You won’t be alone,” the canid assured him. “Well, let’s finish and pack up. We’ve got another day of hiking ahead of us.”

*****

After finishing their breakfast and setting out, the trio made relatively good time along the trail. While Gleam still got startled a number of times, she handled each case better as she practiced using Kuna’s advice to keep her instincts in check. But she couldn’t shake the strange sensation that was still lingering since she woke up. Over time, she gradually realized that it seemed to fluctuate in strength, and seemed to draw her attention to different things- primarily Lykou, Kuna, and various things they were carrying.

When they stopped for a lunch break later in the day, she decided to test some things. “Hey, Ku?”

“Hmm?/Yeah?” the boys both replied a the same time as they looked up from their respective lunch in unison. They glanced at one another, then grinned and giggled a bit.

Gleam smirked and rolled her eyes. “Sorry, Ku_na_. Mind if I borrow that special rock real quick?”

The sereva glanced at Lykou for a moment, then slowly fished the rock out, though he didn’t hand it over right away. He hesitated and thought for a moment, reluctant to hand it to anyone but the canid. “Why?”

The squirrel shrugged. “I just wanna take a closer look at it. It’s… probably nothing, but remember that weird feeling I mentioned this morning?”

Kuna nodded. “Yeah, what about it?”

“For some reason I… er, I don’t know how to put it, but it feels focused around certain stuff, including that rock,” Gleam explained. “It might just be my imagination, though, so I want to check.”

Kuna and Lykou exchanged another look, then the sereva hesitantly handed the rock over. “Just… be really careful, okay? Don’t want to lose it. I know it’s technically just a rock, but-”

“Nah, it’s more than that, I understand,” Gleam replied with a smile as she took the rock. “I’ll be careful.” Once it was in her hand she furrowed her brow for a moment. She definitely felt something emanating from it. She looked it over for a moment, then held it up and slowly waved it around in the air a bit, occasionally drifting or jerking towards one of the boys. “...huh.”

“What is it?” Lykou asked, fascinated. “Feeling something?”

“Kinda?” Gleam said. “It’s… almost like I can feel how its related to you two, if that makes any sense? Probably just my imagination, though.”

“Woah,” Lykou said, eyes widening a little. “You mean you feel the… um. Er.” He turned to the sereva with a frustrated look. “What did Lana call it again?”

“Sympathetic link, I think,” Kuna answered, then turned his attention back to the squirrel. “That’s amazing, Gleam.”

“I’ll say,” Lykou said, grinning, then pulled out his knife and handed it to her. “Here, try this. Careful not to touch the sharp side.”

Gleam handed the rock back to Kuna, who quickly secured it in his pocket, then took the knife and started looking it over. “Ooo, pretty,” she commented. “Is this magical too?”

“N-… well, not that we know of,” Lykou said. “There’s a possibility it has fire essence in it, but Ku can’t really sense that, so we don’t really know for sure.”

“Huh. Well… I definitely feel it pulling towards you a little,” she said, rolling the knife around in her hand and admiring the way the light glinted off of it. “It’s for just… cutting stuff, right?”

Lykou nodded. “Yeah, and self-defense in a pinch.”

"Hopefully that won’t be needed,” Gleam said with a small shiver, then handed the knife back to him. “Lemme try something else.”

Kuna smiled and dug around in his bag for a moment, then pulled out the crystal Whironui had given him. “Here, try this. Something we actually know has magic.”

Gleam took the crystal and suddenly tensed up, her eyes widening slightly. “Uhhh…”

“Something wrong?” Kuna asked with a concerned expression, preparing to take the crystal back, just in case.

“N-no, I… i-it’s fine… I think,” Gleam said eyeing the object in her hand dubiously. “Just… feels kinda weirdly tingly. Um. I do feel the tie to you guys but also a… stronger one…” As she trailed off, her eyes drifted towards the sky in the distance.

“Well… it did come from a sky god,” Lykou pointed out in amusement.

“Right,” Gleam said, then shook her head and looked back down at the crystal. “Uh… how did you say this thing works?”

“While you’re holding it, try to picture the sunrise in your mind,” Lykou told her.

“Okay,” the squirrel replied, staring at the crystal with a focused look. After a moment, it started to glow. “Oh wow…”

“Try thinking about a light breeze,” Kuna suggested cheerfully.

Gleam nodded and sat still for a moment. When a breeze started swirling lightly around her, she jerked up and onto her feet, nearly dropping the crystal in the process. The breeze immediately faded and she sheepishly handed the crystal back to Kuna. “S-sorry, eheh…”

Kuna giggled and pocketed the crystal, then gave her a side-arm hug after she sat back down. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Funny how it never bothered me before,” Gleam grumbled. “But now it’s downright exhausting being so jumpy.”

“You’ll get better. You’ve already improved in a short time,” Lykou pointed out.

“Yeah, thanks to Kuna’s suggestions,” Gleam said, smiling at the sereva, then affectionately bumped him and hugged him back. “Thanks again, Ku.”

“You’re more than welcome,” Kuna replied. “Just keep practicing that stuff.”

Lykou perked up a little. “Hey, let her try the dream charm thing next.”

“Oh yeah, that’d be neat,” Gleam said. “Uh. If that’s okay?”

Kuna hesitated for a moment, remembering more of his conversation with Aelana and Daisy the previous night. “Well… okay,” he said as he dug it out and handed it to her. “Obviously, it won’t work while you’re awake though, and probably only works for me anyway.”

Gleam looked over the small crystalline sphere in her hand with fascination. Her eyes narrowed and she brought it closer to her face. “It’s… pretty.”

“Don’t try and eat it now,” Lykou playfully teased. “Feel anything?”

“I’m not gonna!” the squirrel replied defensively as she continued looking it over. “And yeah, more of that… weird tingly feeling. And I can feel the connection to you, Ku. And… something else…”

“Something else?” Kuna asked, eyeing her warily. After a moment, he started to become more anxious when he suddenly started noticing her fur gradually sticking out more and more. He glanced back at Lykou, who had just started noticing it, too. “Uhh, Gleam...”

Distracted by the shiny, pretty little oversized marble, Gleam brought it up in front of her eye, seemingly trying to see something inside it. After a moment she shrugged and grinned. “So when you use it, do you just… what, hold it up to your head when you sleep or something?” Before Kuna could respond, she did precisely that, holding it up to her forehead like some kind of decoration. “I bet you co-”

The moment it made contact, there was a suddenly burst of energy, not unlike a small burst of lightning, that sent all three of them flying away- with the squirrel being tossed further than the other two. Once they stopped feeling stunned, Lykou and Kuna quickly, albeit dizzily got to their feet and hurried over to check on Gleam. Kuna halted abruptly when the astral charm fell back down, after having apparently been launched into the sky, and bounced off the ground in front of him. He quickly snatched it out of the air and hurried to join Lykou.

“Fuck! What the hell was that??” Lykou swore as he crouched down next to the unconscious squirrel, trembling with worry. She didn’t look injured, other than a slight singe mark on the fur of her forehead. But he knew looks could be deceiving. “At least she’s still breathing…”

“Here, let me check-” Kuna began to say, only to jerk back when she suddenly sat up, eyes wide open- and twitching slightly.

“STARS. Muddy STARSapples going to,” the squirrel rattled off incomprehensibly, twitching and jerking around a little. Her pupils were different sizes, and she was slightly cross-eyed. She grabbed Kuna’s leg and tilted her head to the side slightly. “I am veryfreshROCKwhy too very…” After trailing off, she clenched her eyes shut and the twitching and jerking settled down. She shook her head, then rubbed one of her eyes and opened the other. “Ow…”

“Gleam…?” Lykou hazarded, carefully resting a hand on her shoulder. “Are… are you okay?”

“I… think so?” Gleam replied as she shifted to rubbing her head and opened her other eye. “W-what just happened…?”

“That’s what we’d like to know,” Kuna said, gently stroking her back. “You… kinda just started saying random stuff for a moment there.”

Gleam briefly sat in silence, staring into the middle distance. “Y… yeah… but why?” she murmured. “I… can’t really explain it…”

“Well needless to say, I think that’s enough experimenting with magical items until we figure out what that was all about,” Kuna declared. “Definitely don’t want that happening again.”

“Absolutely not,” Lykou agreed. “You sure you feel alright?”

Gleam rubbed her head some more, then took a deep breath and nodded subtly after lowering her hand. “Yeah, just… confused.” She started getting up and grunted, wincing a bit. “And a little sore, I guess.”

“Well, just take it easy. Remember, you can lean on your stick if you need to, once we get going again,” Kuna reminded her. “Not that there’s any rush, mind you.”

“Yeah, take your time to recover,” Lykou added. “Some more food and water might do you some good. Heck I think all three of us could use a little extra time to recover from whatever that was.”

Kuna nodded. “Sounds good to me. We should mention this to Lana and Daisy as soon as we can,” he said, then turned his attention to the konuul after helping Gleam back over to where they’d been sitting before. “You mind visiting them this time? I’m still a bit drained from last night as it is.”

“Sure,” Lykou said. “Under the circumstances, taking things a bit slow definitely seems like the smart idea anyway.”

“Sorry for being a burden again, guys,” Gleam said, frowning. “If I’d known that would-”

“Hush,” Lykou said, pulling her into a warm embrace. “You couldn’t have expected it, and you’re not a burden.”

“What he said,” Kuna agreed, joining the hug. “Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

*****

After the trio finished lunch, they continued hiking through the valley. A flock of birds scattered from one of the trees when they passed nearby, startling Gleam. Fortunately, the boys helped her recover fairly quickly. Later, they found another nut-bearing tree and, after noticing how it’d caught Gleam’s attention, Lykou and Kuna decided to stop and gather some more with her.

Lykou ended up telling the story about Kryckwood, along with occasional input from Kuna. The story did end up putting Gleam even more on edge, but Kuna reminded her the fact that they were still there showed that she was safe with them. That, paired with the amusing story of their species-swap experience helped her relax a little again. Finally, later in the afternoon, sometime after the story had caught up to the point where they met Gleam, the three of them saw another structure up ahead, not far from the trail.

“Hey, something else to explore,” Lykou said with a grin, leading the way towards the building. “Wonder what this one was used for? Only building around, looks like.”

“Uhh, do we have to?” Gleam asked nervously. “What if it’s dangerous? What if there’s another, er… altar kind of thing?”

“We’ll be extra careful, don’t worry,” Lykou assured her.

Kuna shrugged, then rubbed Gleam’s shoulder lightly. “Don’t worry, if there’s a lot of life or soul energy around, I’ll be able to sense it. Who knows? It might give us some clues about the people that made these places, and that might help us understand the messages they’ve been sending you.”

“Just don’t try to snatch something from me this time,” Lykou teased, winking at her. Gleam shot him a look, then stuck her tongue out at him, making him snicker.

“We’ll all be extra careful this time,” Kuna said, smirking and rolling his eyes.

“And hey, maybe there’ll be another magic item thingy we can use in there,” Lykou pointed out, then gestured to one of his bracers, then his axe. “Seems like ruins are good places to find interesting and useful stuff sometimes.”

“Riiight, I don’t think I wanna touch any other magic stuff for a bit,” Gleam said, rubbing her arm anxiously. “After what happened earlier…”

“To be fair, that was just with the astral charm,” Kuna said, scratching his head. “Which I’m still confused about. But Whironui’s crystal didn’t go wrong, at least. And if you are starting to sense magic of some kind, it’d be good to have more to experiment with. Er. Carefully.”

“Not to mention you should really have something to protect yourself with,” Lykou pointed out. “We’ve got our bracers and some knives, I’ve got the axe and this plated shirt, and Kuna’s got his magic. You need more than just a stick, just in case.”

Gleam slowed to a halt and shivered. “D… do y-you think we’re really likely to n-need that stuff?”

“Well, you’ve heard our story,” Lykou said. “I don’t want to scare you, and I certainly hope it’ll be an easy journey from here on, but I wouldn’t count on it. We’re likely to encounter more trouble sooner or later, and it’s best to be prepared.”

“Oh… r-right,” Gleam said, fidgeting anxiously as it finally sank in. As much as she was annoyed by her instincts to jump at every unexpected movement or sound, she realized she might soon have very real reasons to be skittish, once they left the valley. She held herself and started to tremble a bit. “S-so we… we’ll have to…”

Lykou and Kuna both took note of her nervousness and quickly pulled her into another group hug. “Hey, it’ll be alright, Gleam,” Lykou assured her. “We’ll be here to protect you. And we always try to avoid conflict until there are no other options.”

“I know how you feel,” Kuna said. “I was pretty jumpy and scared on this journey at first myself. But you’ll be surprised how quickly you can get used to things. And keep in mind we’re already a lot better equipped now than we were then.”

Gleam shivered and nuzzled each of them lightly before closing her eyes and taking a slow, shaky breath. “I… h-have a feeling I’ll n-need a lot more practice with these tricks of yours, Ku,” she said with a nervous smile after she opened her eyes again. “Let’s just h-hope things stay s-safe for a while at least.”

Lykou give her a gentle squeeze. “Even if it doesn’t, we’ll protect you,” he reiterated, then tussled her hair and started leading the way again. “That said, it wouldn’t hurt to have something extra, so let’s see if we can find something.”

Kuna rubbed the squirrel’s back and walked alongside her as she hesitantly followed after the konuul. “Trust me. You’re braver than you think. Sometimes it just takes the right circumstances to realize it.”

“If you say so…”

As they approached the building, they were struck by how different it looked from the rest of the ruins. Rather than the ornate, flowing architecture they’d previously encountered, this structure almost looked like a plain, smooth chunk of solid stone cut into a cubic shape, with thin vertical slits along the top, presumably to let in sunlight. Other than that, the only opening was the front entrance, which had a wooden doorway that’d somehow remained intact and appeared unaffected by the passage of time. The door was the only decorated part of the building. But instead of animals or stylized hands, the only decoration was a strange symbol- a set of concentric rings, with squiggly lines surrounding it. In the middle there was a star shape with a dotted outline.

“Well this is… different,” Kuna commented warily.

“No kidding,” Lykou agreed. “Think that’s a spirit sign?”

“Certainly looks like one,” the sereva replied. “I’m not inclined to test it just yet, though. Not without knowing what it’d do.”

“Good idea,” Gleam agreed. “I… don’t like this place. Something feels off about it.”

Lykou eyed the building for a moment, then looked back at the door and rallied himself. “Just a quick look, we’ll be careful.” Before Kuna or Gleam could stop him, he approached the door and cautiously pushed it open. The door swung surprisingly easily, but he jumped back when the symbol on the door lit up a pale light on its own- soon to be followed by lines and symbols on the walls inside.

“Well… that answers that,” Kuna said, wide-eyed and holding Gleam close. “Be careful, Kou.”

“I reeeeally don’t like this, guys,” the squirrel commented, clinging to Kuna.

Lykou readied his axe and took a deep breath, then pushed inside, peeking around the corner one way, then the other before stepping inside. He looked around a bit once he was inside, then turned and waved them in. “Looks safe. Just a big, open room for the most part. Something you might wanna see though, Ku.”

“Oh yeah? What is it?” Kuna asked as he walked towards the door with Gleam following close behind.

Once they were inside, Lykou gestured over to what looked like a collection of symbols on the wall. They were glowing along with the rest, but they looked different. After a moment, Kuna realized it resembled they’d seen something before. “Oh boy, strange writing again,” the sereva commented flatly. “Shame Zyn isn’t here.”

Gleam eyed the writing with fascination. “Writing…? You mentioned that before…”

“Yeah, it’s this… thing,” Lykou said with a shrug. “Something about using symbols like that to represent words. Seems useful, but we don’t exactly know how it works.”

The squirrel slowly walked over and traced her hands over the symbols, fascinated by them. Something about them seemed to be calling to her. “They’re kind of pretty…”

“Careful what you touch, Gleam,” Kuna warned. “Remember, that glow means they’re magically infused right now.”

Gleam yelped and took a step back. “R-right…”

Meanwhile, Lykou was exploring the other side of the room, checking out a vertical tube-like stone structure in one corner. There was an opening on one side, and there were some kind of crystals embedded in the sides. Across from it, there was a tilted marble panel supported by three cylindrical posts protruding from the ground. He walked over to take a look at it, then waved Kuna over. “Hey Ku, look… more symbols. Some of them are lit up, but others aren’t.”

Overhearing the conversation, Gleam eventually pried herself away from the symbols on the wall and joined them around the strange angled platform. “Some of those look like more of that ‘writing’ stuff, but…”

“Some are definitely glyphs of some kind,” Kuna finished for her. “Wish I had the slightest idea what they were.”

While the sereva and squirrel continued looking over the symbols, Lykou walked across to the tube-like structure again. Peeking inside, he could see that although the entrance was only a few feet taller than he was, the tube went all the way up to the room’s ceiling.

Kuna glanced over at him. “See anything interesting in there?”

“Nothing particularly new, but it goes all the way up,” Lykou said, then set his axe down and stepped inside, staring up towards the top, running a hand over some of the gems and lines on the inside. “More symbols and shiny stuff in here, though. And a big one up top is glowing so I can see the whole way up.”

“Careful, Kou,” Kuna warned. “Don’t be touching things in there until we’re sure it’s safe.”

As Gleam was looking over the strange panel covered in symbols and writing, a large bird landed just outside the entrance. It was another of the alleged squirrel-eaters, though it appeared to just be investigating the building out of curiosity, without any real predatory intent. Still, when it took a few small steps into the building and eyed its occupants curiously, she caught sight of its shadow out of the corner of her eye. When she turned to look, she let out a short scream and jumped back, catching herself on the panel in such a way that the palm of her hand landed squarely on one of the symbols. Kuna and Lykou quickly looked over to see what had spooked her.

All of the sudden, chaos erupted. Small arcs of some kind of energy jumped through her fur, causing it to stand on end, and flowed into the symbol under her hand. She immediately jerked away when she felt it, but by that point other things started happening. Runes and lines flickered and moved around on the panel, then all around the room. Some that’d been inert lit up, while the light faded from others. A buzzing sound filled the air, scaring the bird away.

Just as Kuna was about to say something, a startled shout from Lykou drew his attention back to the tube. Suddenly, there was a shimmering, semi-transparent barrier of some kind over the entrance to the tube, and the konuul within was looking a bit distraught as the tube began filling with some kind of mist. The gems all around it began flashing and pulsing with light. “LYKOU!” he cried out in a panic. “Use the-” Suddenly his blood ran cold when he saw that the konuul had set the axe down just outside the tube.

Lykou tried pounding on the barrier, but then drew his hand back and winced when it zapped him lightly. “Try your magic!” he called out to the sereva, pointing back to the panel. Though he did his best to keep the panic out of his voice, he was clearly distraught.

Kuna frantically looked over the symbols and the various colors they were lit up with. But the kinds of energy seemed to keep changing, and when he manifested his own magic, he found that they all resisted any attempt to pour any more energy into them. “It’s not working!” he shouted in a panic.

Gleam rushed over and tried picking up the axe, but stumbled over backwards under its weight when she hefted it up. Kuna hurried over to help her, and they both swung it desperately at the barrier. With a burst of energy, the axe was ejected from their grasp and thrown across the room.

“You’re not attuned!” Lykou said, then started coughing a bit and stumbling around from the fog that was filling the chamber more and more. “T.. try… maybe….”

“LYKOU!” Kuna shouted with tears in his eyes as he stood in front of the barrier, frantically trying to find something, anything that he could use to stop whatever was happening.

Gleam rushed back over and tried to help him search. In an act of desperate frustration, she tried clawing at one of the pulsing gems. A sudden arc of energy zapped her, shocking her into stumbling away. Without thinking, she reached out towards the barrier. The resulting sudden explosion spawned by making contact with it knocked Kuna onto his back and dazed him. But Gleam took the brunt of the explosion, and ended up tossed clear across the room, where she smacked into the wall, then flopped to the ground, with slightly singed fur.

The pulsing lights went dull, and the runes and lines all around the room began to settle back into their previous state. The area in front of and around the entrance to the chamber was slightly blackened, and the barrier had vanished, allowing the strange fog to seep out. Fortunately, no more was being generated, and it dissipated quickly once it entered the main room.

After his head stopped swimming enough to get up, Kuna got dizzily to his feet and stumbled over to the chamber, waving away the remnants of the strange-smelling mist as he tried to peer inside. “L… Lykou? Lykou please speak to me! Please…”

There was a brief, terrifying silence. Then he heard a faint groan… or was it a whine? It didn’t quite sound like how he expected at all. As the fog continued to clear, he saw a lump on the floor that he recognized as Lykou’s clothes… on top of something else. He thought he could make out fur, so he quickly hurried in to try and help the most important person in his world up, only to be met with a shock when the creature under the clothing stirred and groggily sat up. There was no mistaking it- he was looking at the feral konuul-like creatures they’d seen depicted in various murals and statues in the valley. Tears leaked out of his eyes anew and he shivered uncontrollably. “L-lykou…? Please… please tell me you’re s-still…”

The canid blinked a few times, then shook his head and clenched them shut. He let out another small half-groan, half-whine, then lifted his paw in an attempt to rub his head, but he found it oddly awkward. “MmmnKu? ’atyou?” the canid grumbled, the words sounding slightly off coming from the feral creature. “Whahuppen?”

“Oh thank fuck you’re still you inside!” Kuna blurted out with relief, throwing himself at the canid and wrapping his arms around him as tears flowed freely down his cheeks.

“’nsi-” the konuul started to reply, then blinked again and furrowed his brow as he was fully wrapped up in the sereva’s arms. Something didn’t add up. “...Ku, d’ju get biggr?”

Kuna reluctantly pulled back and sized up the canid with a somewhat bewildered expression. “Uh… n-not exactly,” he said, gesturing vaguely at his freshly-transformed friend. “Er…”

Lykou tilted his head in confusion, then tried looking down at himself while sitting up fully. Only he suddenly found that balancing without his front paws was a lot more awkward. And that’s when it clicked. He glanced down at his former hands and his eyes widened. “W-whatda…” he blurted out as he started examining himself with increasing concern. Finally he furrowed his brows and rolled his eyes up in frustration. “FUCK!”

Another groan from across the room caught their attention.

“GLEAM!” they both said in unison, then hastily darted over to check on their other companion- though Lykou found running a bit awkward at first.

Kuna knelt down by the injured squirrel and quickly started using his magic to patch up anything he could see. After a minute, she started to stir and slowly sat up, wincing as she did so. “Woah, take it easy Gleam,” the sereva gently urged her, stroking her back while the other hand continued tending to her injuries. When he thought he’d done as much as he could, he dismissed the magic and held up a his hand. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

Gleam blinked and wavered a bit. “T...tw… thr… no two… I think?” she answered quietly, still clearly a bit stunned from the impact. “W-what happened…?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Kuna said with a frown, then glanced over at the canid that’d finally caught up to them. “But, ummm….”

“Is she okay?” the canid asked with concern.

The altered voice immediately caught Gleam’s attention, and she turned to look at the canid. Her eyes widened as her vision cleared up more. “Ly...kou…??”

Lykou smiled a bit awkwardly and nodded. “Yyyup. Looks like this place reverse-you’d me.”

“Physically, anyway,” Kuna said, pulling the canid into his arms again tightly. He sniffed and shivered. “Spirits, I was so scared you were gone, Kou…”

Gleam tilted her head at the canine, then rolled her eyes up and fell backwards, fainting again.