Bright Spark's crossing was awkward and painful, in a way it had never been before. It could no more understand why it was experiencing pain than it could comprehend the quirk of temporal mechanics that had been allowing it to cross from one realm to the other in the first place. But it did know pain and this was unlike anything it had experienced before. Not the worst pain even, that would have had to be the time its tail had been stepped on by the large, stinky, hard footed thing that pulled the wagon for the locals hereabouts. No, this was an odd kind of electrical current that wrapped itself around, over and through its own energetic signature as it made the passage from incorporeal to a very much solid bundle of toned muscles moving beneath a healthy coat and plumage.
It landed amid the barrels in the storeroom with a heavy thud, in a tangle of arms, legs, torso and tail. It skidded across the floor, bowling over the stout oaken casks with the momentum of its arrival in its natal space and sending them spinning. Lying prone for several long minutes, Spark strove to untangle itself and shake off the lingering ache that centered on a spot far deep within its breast as it struggled to breathe. Air was proving difficult to draw for the winded creature and it spent its next several moments struggling to simply coordinate the acts of inhaling and exhaling until it stopped feeling like an imaginary wagon-beast was sitting on it's chest and the nauseating vertigo and ringing in its ears began to ease. Almost immediately as it was finding the rhythm that ought to have been natural to it, the coughing fit began.
After several more rather unpleasant minutes spent in clearing frothy phlegm from its airway, it heaved a great sigh and took its first deep cleansing breath, followed by another and then yet another. Allowing itself to relax fully and simply lay still for a moment, it took stock of its situation before trying yet again to win free from its tangled landing to successfully sort out its own appendages. Shakily at first, with diffuse pain lingering in its bones, it gained in confidence and sureness of its footing. Staggering forward a few paces, Spark finally managed to shake off the majority of the remaining disorientation and made its way clear of the cluttered space and out into the next chamber over ... ignoring, as it did so, the pained groan that floated up behind it from where it had landed so ungracefully.
The scent trail of the dark things was much stronger here than it had been on the other side. A composite and cloying odour, it burst upon Spark's olfactory senses unpleasantly carrying with it the unmistakable aroma of putrefying flesh and death decayed. It's growl was no longer high frequency and sparking, now it manifest as a deep rumbling and angry sound which echoed and reverberated within its ribcage with each breath drawn. Its tail lashed angrily from side to side and its wings, as tightly folded as ever to its sides, hummed ominously as minuscule muscular contractions in its still under developed flight muscles caused the large, membranous, and heavily veined wings to vibrate rapidly against its flanks. While looking fragile and delicate, strongly reminiscent of the wings of a dragonfly, these were in fact remarkably strong and sharp edged. Their purpose in the species was not simply for ritual display in breeding but would be, should Spark succeed in attaining its full adult size, an active part of the little predator's defenses.
It craned its neck and tested the air with a quickly darting tongue, investigating the currents for all the information carried by each errant breeze that gusted by. The growl got louder and more determined as it began to pick out the scent of living beings amid the corruption. Spark oriented itself upon the smell of live flesh and sets cautiously out to track its way to the source.
~Ams protek ...
It growled angrily to itself as it loped across the room and scaled one of the roof support columns to silently avail itself of the intricate network of ceiling beams, joists, and rafters which allowed a small enough one to travel from one end of the brewery, the Inn and the Tavern portions of the high walled building. It had learned early on in its tenure within the complex structure that the resident creatures rarely looked upwards and the shadows pooled sufficiently in the open ceiling space to allow a cautious one to travel from one end to the other relatively unimpeded. A quick and easy hop was all Spark needed to cross from the brewery to the Inn's portion of the ceiling. With the practiced ease of one grown comfortable with its ability to avoid the locals, it scrabbled quietly up one beam, across a rafter and down a column in a circular spiral and onto the floor not more than a stones' throw from the large, double reinforced doors to the walled courtyard all without breaking cover.
Flattening itself into the shadows on the floor behind the pillar it had descended, it made itself as small as it could as to avoid notice. A task made suddenly tougher by the fact that Spark was now almost double the size it had been the last time it had spent time this side. Still, it was not too difficult to go unnoticed by the residents and their paying guests considering the chaos unfolding before its eyes.
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