Recounting The Skara

[iJP with White_Caribou and Cindy[/i]

There was a concern in having the egg in the temple. The Sister didn't trust it wouldn't just hatch open and a baby one of the giant nightmares would spring forth from it. Attacking her with its hive mind over and over until Islana...

Stop it. A female voice whispered inside of the redhead. *The one that attacked you is dead.*

However, in the moment that didn't reassure her very much. Shalia pulling over her chair seemed to help more.

"I should let you know. A lot of things happened to me on the Pilgrimage. I won't get into everything, right now but I do need to back up a little so everything will make sense."

Hopefully, that was explained well enough. Islana swallowed and began.

"There was one point where I was fooled by a mirage thinking I had found water but I ended up stuck in quicksand. A large jackal, a Sk'elep, came and pulled me out. I would find out later a Sk'elep is a spirit of the desert."

There would be a reason why that was important but the explanation would come with the rest of the story.

"Several days? - really I have no idea how long it was. Several days later I met a young girl, Madaya, who was hiding from a Skara. Malaya was also on the Pilgrimage and we teamed up at that point. We came to a valley and decided to stay their overnight. The next day we explored the area. There were ancient ruins."

Her added information was a way of delaying the hard part but it was only temporary.

"It was the next day we ran across the Skara. I tried to communicate with it with my mind. I just wanted it to leave."

There was a long pause, her breath quickened before long deep breathes calmed the young hunters enough to say.

"It attacked me ..my mind. It damaged me, caused me to collapse on the ground. I couldn't move. I was bombarded by images from its mind but it's not just one mind. Its thousands of mind all linked together. I was shown the history of the Sakara and how the hive mind came to be. It bombarded with all kinds images of it being killed by people and it killing people. All the terror, and hatred was sent to my mind."

The last part of the retelling might have been the most difficult. "It stole my memories. I mean I still have them but it also has them."

I was able to get up eventually and I decided to fight the Skara because if I hadn't it would have eaten both Madaya and myself. The Sk'elep appeared right when the Skara had grabbed me. We fought it together. Madaya helped by using her ability to make mud under the Skara's feet. And Kaithak did what he could. We ended up killing the Skara. I took the stinger and later it was made into the knife buy a man who one of the Sept Caravan who took us in."

Islana went to pour herself more water and found her hand to be so shaky she couldn't manage it.