Sequoia Coast A land of barbarians

Caiaphas, unabashed by the interminable lull of conversation, stared equally as blankly back -- though her eyelids seemed tense and her eyes hard with some sort of thinly veiled exasperation. There was something incredibly peculiar about the idiosyncratic creature -- even the manner in which her shrivelled body trembled suggested something faintly bizarre and objectionable.

However, Caiaphas was not offput by the female and her queer manner of chatter. She tilted her angular muzzle and gave her a sidelong glance, the shrewdness in her expression unmistakable as she pieced apart the unknown female's anxiety and wondered, what exactly, had shattered her psyche so profoundly and irrevocably.

When she directed the topic to Caiaphas' markings a faint frown drew across her muzzle. Caiaphas had no true answer to this question -- and while genetically one would call her a chimera, Caiaphas was not privy to this knowledge. So, the natural thing to do here was lie.

"It's a curse." She whispered, her voice hushed and her head ducked as if bobbing from the might of some unseen and wrathful shaman. She could sense that the anxious female was probably too nervous to argue with this ludicrous statement. She dropped her chest and both flat front limbs slid forward, and she peered wildly at Cthulu as she pulled herself forward as if struck then and there by the curse she spoke of. "The carapace I was carrying was an offering to appease the Monsters -- monsters which will eat Caiaphas and Cthulu and blemish our heads black if we do not feed them."

It was a grandiose lie -- but Caiaphas was used to lying.