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Half a day of hiking later.

Nithya sits on a fallen log, wiping the sweat from her brow. She takes a deep swig from her water bottle, which thankfully they were able to fill on a mountain stream earlier. At this point she doesn't care for any perfect purity of the water, it's water.

She takes a long look at the valley below them, with more treetops beneath them than above them now. Following vaguely where the treeline stops should see them to view of Severnyee Koryaky in perhaps another day of walking. Something they certainly can do. And from there, they can thanfully take some kind vehicle soutward.

She idly adjusts her pants. They haven't felt perfectly 'right' all day for whatever reason.

The temple, and whatever actually happened there, keeps coming back to her mind. Something went wrong there, everything is telling her that but she can't quite put a finger on what it was.

Clay sets his pack down to give himself a stretch. He's been sweating as well, both with the exertion of the hike, and because it's slowly felt like the day has gotten much hotter over the course of the day.

He takes his own water bottle out and takes a drink, no shortage of fresh water out this way. "We made really good progress today, but I feel wiped out. You thinking you want to go until dusk?"

Nithya nods: "If at all you think you can do it, yes. We're technically not in a hurry or schedule, but just... you know. We have to forage for every day we are out here."

She stretches her legs a bit, feeling a bit odd and sore, more so than usual, but it's probably just the stress talking.

Clay grins, "Oh, yeah, I get it. Just don't want to burn ourselves out either. The weather's getting a bit hot for this time of year. If we keep going, I'll might take off my jacket."

He pushes the sleeve of the jacket up just a bit to itch as his wrist.

Nithya glances at Clay. "It is kind of getting a bit hot, isn't it. But that... I guess it's theoretically possible. I'm no meteorologist." She looks up at the sky and shrugs.

Clay shrugs in turn, "Me either. I took a class on it, but... eh, it didn't quite stick with me. I just know even with the breeze today, it's felt... I don't know... like I'm cooking in my clothes."

Nithya nods slowly: "...so am I. Think we have caught something? I hope not. I'd prefer to get back to civilization before I get sick, if it at all possible." She shifts her position a bit, something in the seat of her pants just not agreeing with how she's sitting down right now.

Clay glances at Nithya as she squirms, his face turning to one of concern. "Got a cramp? That's why I was saying maybe we shouldn't push it any further today... just a suggestion!"

He continues to scratch at his arm, the sensation feeling strangely good as he pushes his sleeve up further.

Nithya takes a breath, then sighs and nods: "You might be right." She looks around, pointing to a spot a bit downhill: "I think we could set up our tent down there."

Clay looks down to the spot and nods, "I just think we'll make better time if we don't rush and get ourselves injured, that's all. I know, not like me to be the sensible one... you just seem in an awful hurry, and I get it, but, we can manage this. We've both managed wilderness survival before! Now then... yeah, that spot looks fine."

Nithya sighs. "Sorry. Something about that place just... got to me." She frowns a bit, takes a deep breath, attempting to center herself. "Some rest might help. And setting up camp usually helps redirect thoughts. You know."

Clay smiles warmly, "I know. Hey, I can hardly blame you if you've got a gut feeling. Would be a hypocrite if I didn't trust you in this... but I'll take the turn as the voice of reason." He glances towards the pack. "You want to put the tent up this time?"

Nithya nods as she gets up. "Can do." She hefts her bag onto her shoulder and starts slowly walking downhill. "You find a bit of firewood. We have very little camp rations left, I at least want to eat them heated up."

Clay gives a half-salute, lifting up his own pack as well as he turns to head towards the woods, "I'll meet you down there before too long."

Nithya smiles tiredly even as she again adjusts her pants a bit. "Yeah. Let's try to do some good old fashioned camping and for the moment forget about... crazy mysterious temples that freak us out."

Clay calls back as he heads to the outskirts of the woods, "A proper night under the stars will do us wonders!" He takes his time gathering loose firewood, cutting a few overgrown branches free, and returning not too long with an armful of mostly dry firewood.

Nithya in the meanwhile has gone about setting up the tent with her usual fairly methodical precision, picking the smoothest spot possible in the uneven ground. By the time Clay comes back she has tossed her outdoors jacket to the side, feeling the increasing warmth relative to the seemingly cool weather all too well with the exertion.

She smiles upon seeing her friend, though. "I see you got a good haul."

Clay nods, "Yeah, good enough for sure! I guess I really got into it. I don't feel like I worked too hard, but I'm definitely sweating." He sets down the wood far enough from the tent to safely start a fire, then at last takes off his hiking jacket, tying it around his waist.

He reaches up to rub his arm, stretching a bit, not quite noticing the soft brown fluff that has begun growing along his arms. "Ah, that feels better."

Nithya smiles, then gots down to her knees next to the fire pit and starts working. "Yeah. Let's try and relax, shall we?"

As she gets down, she shifts her position again after the first go, frowning at something really not feeling right around her hips. Problem for later. Immediate problem that is making fire, first.

Clay grins, "Singing campfire songs and... okay, maybe not." He sets his pack down by Nithya's, then walks over to take a seat near the imminent fire, something feeling off about his own pants as well, now that he's stopped moving and tries to get comfortable.

Nithya works on the fire as she starts slowly speaking. "One heck of a morning, though. What we saw down there... it made no sense, right? Like even with all we saw, just pieces missing left and right. Why a temple up here? Why deer?"

Clay shakes his head, "Maybe because of all the deer in the area? But the location is so strange... and the craftsmanship we saw, and the level of preservation... no, it really doesn't make any sense."

Nithya sighs and shakes her head slightly. "Maybe going through all those pictures will help me understand, once I can look at them properly on a big screen."

She nods as the fire is going nicely, then turns to dig through her backpack for a remaining ration. She blinks as her hand touches something strange. Feeling for a few seconds before fishing the object out...

She stares dumbfoundedly at the stone tablet in her hands. "What. How."

Clay blinks, "Hmm? What is... is that..." He stands back up, "How? We couldn't even get back in after..."

He thinks back to the photos they took, the mysterious photos they didn't remember taking "...the days we can't remember?"

Nithya nods slowly, just staring at the tablet full of cipher she can't read. "...guess so... just... somehow took this... after all... but don't remember doing that..."

She swallows, her mouth feeling a bit dry. "W-well, guess I get to try and decipher this after all..."

Clay slowly sits back down, trying to process the strangeness with a nervous laugh, "Yeah, well, I did say if anyone could, it would be you."

Nithya gives a weak chuckle. "Guess so. Huh." She carefully puts the tablet back to the bag, wrapping it back up into her clothes. "This just keeps feeling weird, doesn't it."

Clay nods, "It's... really starting to get a little Twilight Zone, yeah. Could it possibly get any weirder at this point?"

Nithya gives Clay a look. "Please don't say that. Next we're going to get attacked by wild deer or something if you say things like that."

Clay holds up his hands in surrender, "I'm joking! I'm joking! It... it's just really weird, and really... I don't know... It's... creepy. I'm trying to cope."

Nithya sighs as she digs up the cooking supplies and what's left of their camp rations. "Yeah, me too. Sorry. This all has me on edge and I really don't like the way it does."

She shifts on her seat again, just seemingly unable to find a comfortable sitting position on the ground.

Clay sighs, frowning again. "It's weighed on me too. I'm just trying to keep spirits up. You know me. Always the kidder..." He grows silent a moment, then looks back up at Nithya, "The cramp again? You sure you're okay?"

Nithya glances at Clay, then sighs. "No. Probably not. Just... I need to see."

She gets up, and without bothering to be ashamed at all since it's just her and Clay, unbuckles her belt and starts to lower her trekking pants. She feels a jolt of something really strange as she does, which makes her catch her breath. With more than a bit of trepidation, she lowers her pants the rest of the way, showing a clear bulge in her long underpants, right above her butt.

She gives Clay a look that speaks volumes of her mind racing at the moment.

Clay watches carefully in concern, no humor in his face as he sees Nithya's expression, "What... is that? Did a rock or something... is that a lump or something... Nithya, what's wrong?" He stands back up stepping closer to help if he can. "...do you want me to check it out?"

Nithya swallows, then shakes her head. "No, I..." She moves her hand to lower her underpants enough to reveal the bulge.

A soft, fluffy, brown, if for the moment also pretty tiny tail is growing out of her tailbone, peeking over her underpants.

Clay 's eyes go wide... "That... that can't be a... no, that... something got stuck to you? We just gotta... it's... it's not a ... deer tail..."

Nithya looks like she's about to tear up in sheer disbelief, but gives the tail a tug and lets out a yelp. "Ack! O-okay, yeah, d-definitely felt THAT." As though to confirm the notion, the offending appendage gives a small involuntary twitch after she lets go.

The tan woman swallows deeply. Now her throat feels very dry indeed.

Clay can't pull his eyes from the tail, his thoughts trying to catch up to the impossible, "Okay, definitely... some kind of hallucinogen in that temple. So, we just gotta stay calm, and we'll figure out what this is and we'll ride it out together, okay?"

Nithya nods dumbly, but hallucination or not she's pretty careful pulling her pants back up now. "Y-yeah, it's... it's..." Several visions of her either going insane or turning into one of the deer depicted on those murals, or possibly both at the same time, flash through her mind.

"...f-figure out. Yes."

Clay steps closer, "Hey. Don't panic. It's not anything we can't get through! It can't be what it seems, right? People don't just..." He stops, not putting that concern into actual words. He moves towards Nithya, offering a hug with his arms extended out, complete with soft brown fur from his shoulders down to his wrists on each arm.

Nithya takes the offer for the hug and squeezes tight. But once her face is close to Clay's shoulders, she freezes again.

"Um... This might be a really bad time to notice this but... I think your arms have quite a bit more hair on them now."

Clay hugs, giving Nithya a bit of support until her words hit him. "A bit more... hair...? What do you-" He stops as he looks at one shoulder, spotting the fur. "O-oh... oh... that's... it's... ha. W-well, of course! Why not? I... I'm just growing fur. No big deal, right?" He pulls back from the hug to look down his arm, reaching out to touch the fur gently.

Nithya feels a bit faint and forces herself to sit down again. "... Well, I think we f-figured out the deer part of the equation."

She shifts in her seat again, but now that she knows why, she's able to do so without any actual pain, just moving... That thing... To the other side.

Clay laughs aloud, a desperate, uncertain laugh, "Oh shit... the murals. The deer Bowing to their goddess. It all makes... sense. Insane sense. No, no no no, that's just... it's all just a bad trip."

Nithya swallows. "A very bad trip, and one we're apparently sharing." She peels up her sleeve, but she's at least not growing further hair on her arm.

She attempts to take deep breaths, but they come pretty hastily regardless.

"This... This isn't happening."

Clay nods, "Sure... sure... shared psychosis... a delusion shared by two people in a stressful situation... that's a thing that happens. And we have just had a very stressful situation. We can't even remember the past few days, maybe for good reason... and the stress of this... just... insane deer temple... it's coming out with a shared hallucination of the two of us... growing a tail and fur like deer."

Nithya winces at Clay's words.

"Yeah, but... But..." She trails off.

"... We need to eat. Real or not, getting starved will not help." Slowly, methodically, but with her eyes still wide, she pours some water and the dry food mix into their small campfire pot and sets it over the fire. Entirely focused on making the food now.

Trying really hard to not think about the tail.

Clay nervously watches Nithya, turning towards the woods, as if expecting the eyes of an army of deer to be upon them, but finds only the usual sights of the wilderness. After a moment, he brings himself to sit back down at the campfire. "Right... Food. Food is good. We can manage food."

Nithya watches over the food, but once it's softly warming up, she finds herself distracted once more.

She takes a deep breath, then relents. Shifting on her seat, she slides her pants down just enough to examine the new addition to her tail bone. Feeling her hand over the fur tuft there's no doubt she has bones and muscles underneath it now. "It feels... It's impossible, but it is very much part of me. Like it's... Grafted on or something, but a thousand times smoother."

Clay stays quiet, watching the food cook. He pulls the jacket he tied off around his waist back on to cover his arms, no matter how uncomfortable it feels. He ignores the nagging little discomfort at the bottom of his own spine as well.

"It's just not possible... It can't be real..." He swallows, "And if it were real... What does it mean?"

Nithya: "Beats me ", the dark-haired woman answers morosely. She continues feeling her tail, and feeling through her tail. " But unless I can imagine pain like this, feeling... This... Whether or not this can be real... I think it is."

Clay chews on her words, "Some... Kind curse then? Curses aren't real... Magic isn't real... Freaking deer people aren't..." He sighs, "Bad rations or... Fungus in the temple... Or something. We'll figure out something."

Nithya frowns at Clay, before her expression softens. "I don't know. My brain is telling me to wake up, but it's like it's also rewiring itself to understand this new part... Of me..." She trails off, suddenly a bit angry at herself: "... I shouldn't think of this as a part of me!"

Clay frowns. "Do... Do we fight it? I mean... We have to fight it. It's not real. It's not part of us. It's... I don't even know what it is."

He rolls up one sleeve of jacket to look at the soft brown fur. "...easy enough to shave off a bit of extra hair, right?"

Nithya nods, giving Clay the tiniest of smiles. "You should be able to."

Her tail twitches as though to remind Nithya of its' existence, and her smile wanes. "... I don't think I can do that."

Her mind is slowly giving up trying to give a rational explanation to the three or four inches of extra furry appendage she didn't have this morning. Although now that she thinks about it, she's been scratching at her lower back all day.

"... Itching seems to be a prelude of sorts, come to think of it. So if... I-if more happens, we might..." She swallows, afraid to even entertain the idea. "... Be warned."

Clay frowns, thinking back on the day, "My arms too... it's not been 'itchy' but it's been... I've definitely been scratching them all day, now that I think about it. And the heat... not the weather, but a discomfort like wearing too many layers..."

Nithya winces as a thought occurs to her.

"I... I absolutely hate to say it out loud, but... Deer don't wear clothes."

Clay furrows his brow, rolling the sleeve of his jacket back down to cover the fur. "Yeah, well we're Not deer, Nithya. We're not."

Nithya nods. "Yeah. I just... You know. Mind not do good right now. Maybe best if we eat and try to sleep. Maybe there's nothing to worry about come morning."

Clay sighs, immediately regretting his outburst (such as it was), "Yeah... you're usually right. Been a long day... let's just... eat... and then see if we can actually get some sleep."

Nithya sighs as well, turning her attention to their soup. "Not like we can do much but see what happens, I guess. Hopefully nothing."

She ladles herself a portion, and for a bit just eats in silence even as her thoughts eat at her.

Clay nods, and gets himself a serving as well, upset with himself and with the situation, and not much in the mood for his usual upbeat attitude. "Yeah... It'll... be fine."

Nithya just nods as she eats.

"I have never wished more that you are right."

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