Making her way down south again seemed like the obvious option. She didn't want to return to Tojo, but at least the weather was more tenable. Or it had been, until the earth started shaking and the sky turned red.

Skirting around the Hallows and making her way west towards the shimmering shore seemed like the easiest path back towards the runestones without tramping all over pack borders. At least if she walked in the water she wouldn't be leaving a calling card for the Hallows to run her down.

Pulling herself up onto dry land however, had her brows drawing down and lips peeling back from her water deer fangs. The fuck had happened here? It looked like a sounder of tusked pigs had torn up the smooth expanse of land that stretched from the shore to the Fossil Ridge. Her hackles rising as she made her way forward, quills bristled defensively, she took a moment to sniff the upturned soil. Dirt. It just smelled like regular ol' dirt.

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It's the movement of his siblings that draws him south to Auster. Not really a continent that he ventured often, but perhaps he should. The packs there were docile at best and friendly at worst so he never cared to keep tabs on them. They kept to themselves so why bother? He didn't care to ravel around Hallows lands. If someone wants to stop him for trespassing, he need only tell them he passing through to scout. His mother was on good enough terms with the Hallowed King for that to be allowed, no?

With the rising red sun to his back, he stops when he sees the rising rivulets of dirt. These surely had to be abnormal. When he looks left, he sees rolling hills full of bones and when he looks right, he sees sloping dunes leading up to glittering dark waters. This phenomenon appeared as if someone had raked their teeth through the earth in an attempt to begin a garden. He steps closer and then notices a girl not far off. At first, he's speechless. She's beautiful in such a peculiar way he can't explain it. Her hues of green and blue are striking even in the filter of red.

"Hope that look ain't aimed toward me," Scald jests as he approaches, noticing the guarded look she gave herself with the bristling furs and quills. "An' I'm guessin' you ain' got much answers 'bout these weird tunnels. If they are tunnels," his gaze sweeps from the pretty girl to the raised mounds of earth that wind this way and that way.

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A strangers voice had her tail drawing close and ears falling flat against her head. She rarely bemoaned the absence of her mushroom growths but at least when they sprouted around her mouth she managed a pretty fearsome display of green oozy foam around her mouth that served as a pretty good deterrent for anyone that thought to fuck with her.

It seemed he just wanted to talk, but she wouldn't lower her guard so easily. An eye flicked towards the torn-up landscape and then back to the stranger cautiously. Now he mentioned it, she supposed it did kinda look like collapsed tunnels....

Another furtive glance towards the stranger and he hadn't made any sudden moves so she relaxed her lips and unfolded her bent limbs, raising to her full height to get a better look at the destruction before her. "M' first thought was pigs, but i' does look like a collapse, dunnit?" Tension still rippled down her flanks, but he hadn't made a move that warranted her defensive stance beyond her own distrust. "Th' fuck is goin' on 'round 'ere?"

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Scald doesn't blame her for the defensive guard raised around her. In truth, she is a terrifying specimen. Not only in height, but mutation as well. He's seen similar though. Aside from the mushrooms, which were unusual, but he wasn't one to judge. His own spine was lined with quills, his father's lined with crystals, his mother wore horns. At face value, one might find her terrifying, but he merely saw her as intriguing.

Unmoving, Scald waited. He was patient, more so lazy (semantics, really), and didn't move until she had relaxed somewhat. At least enough until he comfortable that she wouldn't attempt to maim him for one small gesture. Her gruff voice makes him wonder too if she hadn't been up north to see the spires. His head cants, wondering as he glances around the carved earth. "'Ave ya heard or seen the spires up in Boreas?" Scald mentions casually, attempting to not make it sound worrisome.

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When the rainbow marked man asks her about the Spires in Boreas her guard drops a little further, a solid shake chasing tension from her body, motes and spores dancing in the muted red light. "Can't say I've found much worth mentionin' in Boreas, certainly not Spires... They show up all 'o a sudden like this?" She tipped her head to the upturned earth behind them. "If 's'not tunnels, somethin's been tearin' th' earth up," But even bears weren't big enough to cause that sort of damage, were they?

Seafoam eyes flicked towards the strangers mismatched pair. "Wanna try'n get ter th' bottom o' this?" She turned her eyes back towards the field, wondering if it was advisable to step foot down there, or if they were better off skirting around it completely...

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He eyes the raised mounds of dirt curiously as he waits for her to lower her guard even further. Its inevitable because he presents no danger. Scald wouldn't hurt a soul unless he desperately needed to. Unlike his brethren, he cared not for violence.

Humming in agreeance, Scald nods. "Yea, one day they're 'ere as if they'd always been," he comments, his expression turning suspicious as he paws at the nearest channel. The dirt didn't feel any different, didn't smell anything. Just... dirt. Meeting her gaze for a moment, he can tell she's just as uncertain about this phenomenon as he is. At least he wouldn't be alone. "No one ever built a castle by not exploring the unknown," Scald comments with a shrug before heading straight toward where the channels seemed to begin. "Best to start at the beginning, no?"

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As if they'd always been... It was like icy fingers raked down her spine, and her memories were drawn back to her mother's stories about the witch in the swamplands, and the long night where everyone was suffering from some sort of growth like hers, crystal, or mushroom. The shrines that seemed to be there one minute, and gone the next. Something fucky was afoot, and while all her upbringing told her to run... well, she seemed to be running short on self-preservation instincts lately.

She was pulled from the stories built on memories that were not her own when a groan rose up through the earth. She splayed her toes and crouched lower to the ground straining with every sense at her disposal to try and discern just what was going on. "Somethin's movin' down there..." She angled her head to try and triangulate a position, like hunting for lemmings beneath the snow. Rocking back to bunch her muscles, she pounced, and began to frantically dig.

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Somethin's movin' down there. Her voice calls out from behind him as he follows along the channel. One step toward the channel as the ground beneath them rumbles and the next second, Scald is tumbling down into a tunnel where the channel once more. Or well, still is? He can't tell from where he is. Not quite a crumpled heap on the ground, but enough that his joints are all sore. Grumbling quietly, he gets up quickly and looks to the circle of red sky he can see.

"Aye, they're tunnels," Scald calls up to the girl who he suddenly realizes hasn't introduced herself. Names didn't really seem important when the world might be ending. "Wanna check 'em out?" He asks, moving to give her enough space to climb down into the tunnel if she so dared join him.

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When the rainbow pelted man fell through the earth, she barely managed to scramble back, blinking at the place where he had been standing with bristled quills and flat ears. She should run, right? Thats what self-preservation instincts screamed for anyway... but then she heard him shift about, and call back to her. They were tunnels.

She looked over her shoulder at the torn up land behind her, did she really want to run into what had caused them face to face? Then again, she was the scariest monster in Auster, wasn't she? If anyone could handle it, it had to be her...

Making up her mind, Morganna peered down into the hole, before stepping down with a little more grace than Scald had managed in his fall. "We'll have ter find a way ter mark our path so we know if we're gettin' turned about..." She'd never been so forlorn to not already have an oozing wound to put to use.

Gritting her teeth for the pain to come, she used her rear paw to knock off a mushroom from her ear. The sharp, wretched pain that burned like she had removed a limb rocked through her, causing her vision to blur at the edges. She wasn't able to contain the yelp of agony that came with the movement, the dampness that tickled from the wound and would continue to do so for days letting her know her goal had been achieved. She was leaving a dripping glow trail in her wake now, and she could smear it along the earthen walls to mark their way.

"Let's go..." She put the shore to their back, or at least, she was pretty sure she did based on their entrance. It was time to try and get to the bottom of this.

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coded by NachoMumma