Sinister Path: Awakening of the Lion King

Introduction
The sun was shining brightly this morning day as the country road could be seen stretched for miles towards the horizon, in the middle of the road were two people in cloaks walking on it as the sun beat down on them throughout the walk. They eventually made their way into the forest region, one taking off their cloak and revealing herself to be Celeste Lilith while the other person slightly moved their to reveal Debo Hawkin with his mask showing.

"Well here's a good spot of any to rest up" He said looking over at a nearby stream as he went over to drink some of the water from there.

"I would advice against drinking from that stream Debo, streams that are this easy to reach usually have some kind of pollution." She didn't even look at the stream he was going to while warning him, instead she looked to the trees around them before starting a small campfire. "Like i said before, if you don't know the area it is dangerous indeed."

"True, but I didn't say I was gonna directly drink it from the stream" He replied, grabbing some in his canteen before walking over to the small camp fire and putting it inside. "I usually boil the water for a bit before drinking it. Besides, one good thing with our masks is that we have iron stomachs" He said taking it out right after he put it in and began to drink it.

"While that may be correct, those masks don't give us immunity to poisoning, so you might want to cook that water a bit longer with a higher temperature." Pulling out a bottle of water for both Celeste and Debo, she placed one of them in front of him before taking a seat with her back to the road. "The reason this area is deemed as treacherous by most people is because it is hard to know which streams are polluted with toxic waste and which are still clean enough to drink from."

"In any case, we didn't come here for the streams, we came here for this" Debo replied as he put the canteen in the fire for a bit longer as he pulled out the map he had gotten. "According to this map, the well itself is a hard thing to find, for some reason it is cloaked most of the time and is only revealed in the presence of chaos" He said handing the map over to her to read. "If it's any indication, with our masks, the well should reveal itself to us when we get closer to it".

"A well that purifies, only becoming visible in the face of chaos..." Looking at the map he pulled out again, she tried to find a few points to orientate the location. "If that is true, why did i never find that well in the past? "  Finishing tracing a few lines that where supposed to be rivers and streams, she looked at the north direction with a slight frown on her face.

That map was either false or old enough for the area to change as much as was needed. If one would believe that map, there should be a waterfall to the north if they traveled for two whole days after all, but the only one she knew of within that same amount of time was in the west, not towards the north.

"Maybe because of your magic, because you used Take Over as a sort of mask over the mask, it must've caused a camouflage of sorts that hid the chaos away from it" He said taking out his canteen and putting it in the river with the cap closed to allow it to cool down. "It might be that the only way for us to both find it is to have our masks out and about".

"To mask the chaos with take-over... seems my mask had more uses than i originally thought then." Turning towards Debo this time, her face showed her doubts over what he said. "How old is that map anyway? Some of the landmarks on it are wrong, making it a bit trickier to navigate with it than it should be."

"I honestly have no clue, the man who gave it to me only told me that it was the last remaining copy to the location of the well, in any case, we'll have to adapt and figure out where it is ourselves" Debo said looking back at her, noticing that she seemed troubled by something, "Is everything alright?".

Jumping out of her thoughts, she shook her head as a sign that there was nothing to worry about while faking a rather convincing smile too.

"It is nothing, was just thinking a bit." Releasing her mask, she shot a quick glance at the map for the names of cities. A rather primitive way of figuring out where to go, but it was still better than to search without any clues.

"Approximately 4 days traveling from sarlot malo, 1 and a half day from havroue and 2 days from narge's..." Guessing the most likely distances from those city's to her current location, she pointed to a point almost 2 days away from where they were at the moment. "If my guesses are correct,we should be there in two days if we use a good pace. So, would you like a small dinner now or after we had a hike like mountain goats?"

"Hi-ho mountains, figured it's better to do the job now and get a good reward afterwords, it's what I usually did when I travel alone" Debo said as he stood up and went to get his canteen out from the river, putting it in his backpack before putting on his cloak and heading over to Celeste, accidentally tripping on a rock, and landing right on her as he grabbed her shoulders to keep himself from falling.

"Sorry about that..." He said moving back a bit as he looked at her, noticing that their faces were closer than usual.

For once, Celeste was happy that these damned masks didn't show any facial expressions or else he would've seen a rather embarrassed face. Slowly backing away, she turned towards the mountains the moment she stood again, using jizuru as she ran. While her body was still human, her speed was already scary but the moment her body changed into that of jizuri, her speed increased beyond what the human body should be capable of withstanding.

Debo did his best to follow her, using as much of his strength as he could to keep up with her insane speed, he knew that she was embarrassed, but decided not to say anything since he was just as embarrassed as she was. He eventually found himself on the other side of the mountain with the sun already down as he saw that Celeste had already set up camp and was cooking something that she had captured on an open fire. "Wow, I gotta admit, you really gave me a work out, I haven't run like that in a while" He said sitting down on a nearby log next to the fire as he used it to warm up his hands.

Mumbling something about being slow, Celeste gave a plate with fish, bugs, herbs and a piece of goat meat to Debo with a sealed bottle of milk before returning to the campfire for her own meal. At least there was one good thing about the whole situation, and that was that the whole camp and their dinner was already ready before the sun got down. "How did you manage to find me so quickly?"

"You may be fast, but the masks can sense where the others are in a way, I was able to detect you with my mask" He replied before taking a big bite of his food, deeply hungry after almost an entire day of running, "So why did you run off so quick? I hope I didn't do anything to make you uncomfortable" He said looking up at her before taking a large swig of his water.

Seeing Debo resort to his own water, she let the bottle of milk dissolve with requip to keep it ready for later. Hiding her own mask after hearing about how he found her, she filled her own plate with dinner. "You should know why I ran." Looking at the sky as she ate, her left arm made a few sounds as if locks where released. "There are probably 2 more days of traveling if we go at the same tempo as with the mountain..."

"Look, I know you got the insane speed, but maybe we can take it easy for the time being, we still don't know anything about this well, and we need to heir on the side of caution" Debo replied finishing his food as he put the plate with the knife and fork down before adding more wood to the fire. "Listen, I wanted to say I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you run from me, it was just a spur in the moment type deal. However, if you don't mind me saying, you really do have a cute face".

Resealing the locks on her left arm, her mask showed itself partially as if Celeste had some trouble with maintaining the cover over it. "If you want to take it easy, fine. Just give me the map while you ask around for more information while i will go towards that well. With my insane speed as you called it, it would probably only take a single day if i went alone." Her voice sounded rather irritated, almost angry as she spoke. "I see, look even if it was a good idea, we have no idea what kind of dangers there are and splitting up might be something we shouldn't do, especially since we need to work together to keep each other afloat" Debo said looking over at her with a sincere look on his face, trying to see if she could listen and calm down about something that was troubling her. Using a partial take-over on her legs, she appeared behind the backpack of Debo with the map in her hand while at the same time hiding her mask again. "Work together to stay afloat you say?" While she did try to keep her voice down, it was clear to anyone near her that she was getting more angry by the second. "Maybe it would be better if you learned some healing skills then while i go to the well." After a last look in his eyes, she seemingly disappeared again. This time though, she tried to keep herself and her mask hidden as she ran to the village barely one hour from where they had their camp.

All Debo could do at that point was just stand there, in his mind he kept trying to think of the past few hours, trying to think of what he could've done to make her angry at him. At that point he knew that getting her more angry wouldn't do either of them good, and decided to stay in the camp for the night, knowing that he had a pretty good idea where she went, he added more wood to the fire and laid down in his sleeping bag, trying to get some shut eye for what tomorrow would bring.

Troubled Waters
Daybreak had risen over the mountain side, waking many of it's inhabitants with it's morning dew and sunshine to signal the start of the new day. In the bulk of the morning fog, Debo had been walking for an hour towards a nearby village, using his mask to sense some of the negative emotions from there, to find Celeste after their spat the other night. Reaching the village, he only saw a few vendors starting to put up their stands while the rest of the village seemed to be sound asleep.

Looking around, he was able to find an inn, he figured that Celeste would still be asleep and went in with his cloak as he went to talk with the person in the front desk. "May I help you sir?" He asked as Debo kept his face hidden.

"Yes, sorry to be here so early in the morning, but I was wondering if you happened to see a woman with a prosthetic arm check in this morning, she's a traveling companion of mine and we were supposed to meet up in this town" He said with a sincere tone, trying to make sure he would at least try to believe him.

"Hmm, yes there was a woman like that who entered here last night, she was staying in room 1-3" He said looking through his paperwork, in his heart Debo didn't seem like the type to lie.

After thanking him, Debo walked up the stairs, reaching his destination as he stood in the hallway, looking at the door, and knocked on it. "Celeste, it's me, Debo" He said waiting to hear any kind of response from her.

Grumbling at how early that boy came to her, she threw her knife and fork through the door with enough force to pin him to the wall behind him. The only reason neither the fork or the knife went through the wall behind Debo was his body, while the throw was powerful enough to pin him to it, the throw was not powerful enough to actually pull him through the wall. Using requip to dress herself and get new cutlery of her own, Celeste just continued as calm as ever with her dinner as if nothing had actually happened just moments ago.

Debo pulled the knife and fork out of his cloak, looking at the door as he knocked on it again, "Look you can keep trying to hurt me if that will make you feel better, but just hear me out okay. I'm sorry. it's been quite some time since I've even been next to someone who didn't run away from their first sight of me. I don't know what else I can say to make things right between us, but whatever you may think, I do care about your safety even though you can more than handle yourself in any situation. Can we call a truce and put all this behind us?" Debo said looking at the door, waiting for any kind of response of her.

Sighing, she placed her cutlery down as she thought of how to reply. She already got the map, so she could just ditch him while using her speed again. But without him, she would've never known of that well or about other mask users in the first place... Thinking about the options, she picked her glass of wine up as she walked towards the open window, sitting on the open window as she threw a piece of glass through the lock of the door. "You can come in i guess, just don't touch the lock part since there might be splinters of glass in it." Her voice sounded rather sleepy, as if she was not yet fully awake while looking towards the sky as she watched the sun rise.

Debo pushed the door, being careful not to touch any parts that Celeste had broken using her weapons as he looked at her with his cloak hood down, "Thanks for not stabbing me" He said walking in before putting his bag on the floor and standing there looking at her. "Look, I know you may not like me, hell you may not want me here, but we need to work together on this, we both want the same thing and that's to be rid of this damn thing, so can we work together?" He said looking at her with a serious tone.

"We don't need to work together though, it would make some things probably easier but it is not as if it would be impossible to do it alone..." Slowly drinking of her glass she turned her face towards Debo while showing a tired expression, not one from exhaustion but from something else for a few moments before looking at the sun rising again. "And if i didn't want you near me, i would've used my speed to outrun you." Taking a deep breath, she showed a sleepy smile while looking at the town they were in at the moment. So calm, so peaceful...

Debo soften up as he saw her face, she was one of the few people to ever intrigue Debo, not because of her beauty, but because she had more to her than most. "I would call leaving me alone in the woods to sleep in a comfy bed outrun, but like i said, let's let bygones be bygones" He said cracking his neck as he took a look at the map that was on the table. "For the most part, it seems to me like we're nearing our destination... Although I've been feeling something strange since last night" He said looking over to her.

"I meant outrunning you this morning, not about outrunning you last night..." Frowning at Debo's statement, she went towards him after leaving her glass on the window-frame while charging a dim blue light through her organic hand. "Mind if i check something inside of you? Can't have a possible partner that is not healthy right?"

"Alright, if we're gonna be partners, I have to trust you" He said slowly walking over to her as she placed her hand on his chest.

Pushing softly while at the same time increasing the strength of the blue light, her hand seemingly went in his body. Slowly moving her fingers for a few seconds, it would probably feel a lot longer for Debo due to the pain he would likely feel in his chest area as if she was sticking burning needles through his heart and lungs without using anesthesia. Releasing the glow afterwards, there was no sign at all that she went inside his body at all, only the pain that remained for a few seconds longer. "Strange..." was all she said while walking back towards the window with a soft frown on her face as she went through the different possibility's for what could be making him feel something strange.

"It's not exactly something physical, more of a sense I often get with this mask, it was like there was a chaotic being somewhere close by" Debo said going to sit down on the sofa as he looked at her, "This morning I couldn't feel anything, but it was there, just something I thought you should know" He told her before putting the map on the table to look over it one more time. "We should head out soon if your up for it".

A chaotic being was what he sensed? Nobody in this village would fit that description, nor the animals around here. So, who was it that had enough chaos in them to be classified as a chaotic being? "If we use your tempo, it would still take 2 whole days before we reach our destination." She stated calm as she sat on the window frame again while looking to the sky instead of the map. "Already did some searching on that map, and the quickest we can get there with your tempo is two whole day's of traveling after all" Going through the forest this time wouldn't be a problem since there was supposed to be a nice lake with waterfall somewhere in it.

"Better to heir on the side of caution, we still don't know much about this well, and with that sense I had we need to be more on our guard" Debo said rolling up the map and looking over towards her as he stood up, "We should also gather supplies before we head out, I'll fill up the canteens" he said going towards the kitchen to find some water to pour into them.

Why he insisted on being on the side of caution was weird, but it probably had something to do with the reason he hid himself with that cloak of his. Finishing up her glass of wine, she crushed the glass while removing the shards to her storage while replacing the glove with an undamaged one before walking towards Debo. "If you want to hide that mask without your cloak, maybe I can teach you how to do that."

Debo finished filling the canteens as he went to put them in his bag, "So what, try and teach me Take Over the same way you do?" He said looking over to her as she nodded in response. He walked over to a mirror that was in the room as he looked at his face, in his mind he couldn't remember how he used to look like or how he looks now without the mask covering his face, he ran his hand over it as he looked back to Celeste, "How would it work though? Transformation like that needs an image of what I used to look like or even what I look like now without this thing, that's something I don't have".

"Take-over is probably a bit too much to learn right from the start..." her voice was light, her face as if she was telling a joke while speaking before her face turned to a slight frown. Frowning a bit as she thought, she snapped her fingers as she thought of something. "Lets start with a basic explanation of transformation first. Transformation is a deep and complex after all, but you could probably use it at a basic level fairly quickly." Changing into Debo, while remaining in her own clothes she continued. "Here is a basic level transformation into you Debo. As you can see, the clothes didn't change while i changed into you." Afterwards she changed the clothes she wore to suit the ones that Debo wore at the moment, turning into a perfect replica if one would simply look at them. "Move up to an intermediate level and you can change the clothes too." Changing her voice, she looked and sounded exactly the same as Debo. Probably even good enough to deceive his own friends and family with how she looked and sounded. "And if you move to an advanced level of transformation, you can even change the size of your physical body." Turning into a female hawk afterwards, she grinned as much as an hawk would be capable of grinning. "Go even further and you can transform yourself completely or partially to get new ability's, maybe even giving you an advantage in a fight or a hunt." Transforming into herself again, she crossed her arms while continuing the lecture. "The higher levels might be a bit too hard for you to handle at the moment, so lets start with the basics." Thinking a bit on how to continue her lesson she looked at the ceiling for a few moments before turning into an almost perfect copy of the barmaid of this town, the difference being in that Celeste herself didn't had as much experience as that girl with those high heels which impeded her balance a bit. "Take a good look at me, while building up a proper image. Afterwards, imagine your own face and body as the same face and body as i am showing you now and concentrate. Next, you gather your magical energy into that image, and release it when you have gathered enough in that image to transform."