1567/Withering Tree

Withering Tree
Date of Scene:	14 February 2015
Location:	The Deep Valley
Synopsis:	A clockwork fortress goes to drain a giant tree of magic. A fight ensues.
Cast of Characters:	Maya, 202, 347, 546, 626, 631

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Nox (546) has posed:
    By now, the modus operandi of the recently infamous xelor is nearly impossible to miss. Not only have reports flooded in of a wave of dessication spreading through the giant forest surrounding this world's southern world tree, but this time the reports haven't come in fast enough to prevent the clockwork fortress itself from showing up: Horologium. It seems the gigantic mechanism has been on a steady march through the ocean of green that greets anyone coming in, stretching over the horizon in every direction in which they look. Somewhere behind it, a perfectly circular area has been turned to grey dust, leaving nothing behind but layers of ash and semi-disintegrated treestumps in the middle of a ring of twelve hastily built wooden towers.

    Between that circle and the giant walking clock, is a burned up trail of destroyed vegetation, still in progress as the machine's spiderlike legs stomp ahead to catch up with the advancing line of obliteration. Tiny blue lights can be seen swarming to and from the clock, alighting on the trees in its way, stripping them of their leaves, and turning them into ash, before flying back in through a gate in the I numeral in the massive dial. By the time anyone arrives, the thing is almost upon the tree that dominates all the others, rising out of the foliage like two skyscrapers stacked upon each other, actually significantly taller than Horologium

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    There is an additional figure hanging off one of those massive clock arms. Literally hanging, with a fist clutching either end of the long chain linking together the figure's manacles. It doesn't seem to be a terribly comfortable mode of transport, but there is little reasoning with Vrenyn Kuhn under any circumstances, and she has abstained from taking further assistance from the one following in the sky. Adelyn Lysen is here in person, to witness and support, though she is hanging somewhere back, behind the walking fortress, keeping herself aloft with the Wind magic stored in the memory of the tome in her hands, Pure Guardian.

    Adelyn is running a series of detection spells as they advance, tracking the presence and acquisition of energy by the drones. Vrenyn is merely swinging herself back and forth, legs occasionally tucked under her.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    The reports didn't come in fast enough. Nor could Kyra really arrive fast enough, it seems. Even as she speeds in riding atop her Called chocobo, she sees that the destruction the Horologium has wrought is already pretty widespread, if easy to follow. It does also provide a very clear view of Nox's target, the enormous world tree, in the distance. The event is less than a surprise to the white mage given the behavior she's seen Nox exhibit so far-well most of it.

    Kyra is privately quite glad that Nox did not try any of his energy-draining shenanigans on Galianda. A blessing, really, that the world was lacking in things like giant aetheric crystals and world trees.

    She doesn't wait around for other Union members or interlopers to arrive, knowing that they're VERY short on time at this point. But in the time it takes her to get there, she at least tries to set herself up with a Wall spell, which adds a layer of physical protection and magical protection to her. Fortunately, the white magic functions as intended today.

Maya has posed:
Maya was a bit late rin arriving than Kyra is she wasn't always much to look at. Maya normally looked like she fell out of a post nuclear wasteland. Leather, metal, an undergamen that' the love child of a swimsuit with normal sensablityes also did I mention crazy blue hair? Also Maya's quite magically strong to those whom can sense it and ther'es no way she can hide such a she follows after Kyra into thing she's already moving to unshoulder her rifle at this point as she sizes up Nox there's a chill. He reminds her of horror's she's encounted before. Nightmareish machines containing the souls of a long dead race that feasted upon the living, stripping entire world sof life.

Nox was in a way even more of a scare as unlike the things he reminds maya of? He's clearly got gears still turning and is not mindles no he's certainly fairly animated all things to be considered as she closes in.

"Party time's over

Reker (631) has posed:
    You know Reker had just been talking the other day about wanting to engage Nox. Now his opporitunity was presenting itself already. Reker is driving towards the area that is under attack, although he's running behind the other members of the Union who are on their way.

    His truck is built for off road travel, so it's easy enough to drive through the terain that presents itself. He'll have to keep himself out to the edge of the affected area for now, as he looks for a spot to engage. The truck is staying on the perimeter for the time being, as Reker looks for his shot.

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    No actual command is necessary, as standing orders had already been given. As the first responders arrive, chains slip from the clock hand, and Vrenyn slides down and away. As she comes loose, she kicks off the machine, takes three, widely spaced steps against the rods and gears of the Horologium's legs, and finally lands upon the ground a hundred yards distant from her starting point.

    She's a dark blur as she advances with streaks of white and a flash of gold, though no light at all shines from the blade she draws. Green makes a fourth color, but those oddly glowing irises will be visible to her target for only the barest moment before she strikes, her entire body spinning like a sideways top as she attacks without preamble.

    Her first target? The one aboard the land-bird.

Nox (546) has posed:
    This being the fourth time that nosy heroes had come to interrupt him in the middle of business, Nox would have to be much less intelligent than he is to have not learned from the experience, Several of the energy harvesting drones are set up in the air around Horologium, and over the forest, looking out for the first signs of interference while their master watches through their eyes at his main station, surrounded by the usual array of jeweller lenses. Three this time. A little less than usual, but it wouldn't do to underestimate them, even with Adelyn's help. Or more likely, the help of the eccentric girl he had allowed to dangle off Horologium for the past half hour.

    As is custom, he simply teleports straight out of the heart of the giant clock and into the air directly in the group's way, fizzling into existence with a flicker of blue static, arms behind his back, tabard fluttering slightly in the breeze. "Greetings monsieur, madame, and madamoiselle. Please excuse me for sparing the pleasantries today, as I am very busy, and this arrangement of affairs is growing very tiresome. I have a lot of things to look after, but it would be rude to simply leave my guests with nothing to do, so I'll leave you to play with someone else."

    Lifting an arm skyward, Nox lets loose a bolt of cerulean lightning from the pam of his hand, vanishing into the sky before rocketing back down on Horologium a moment later. The quadruple hands spin in alternating directions as the electricity crawls over them, driving the internal machinery behind the dial, activating something inside. Teleporting in much the same way the xelor had, appear a pair of human figures wrapped from head to toe in bandages, save for black eye sockets that glow with glaring red pinpoints of light, and gaping holes in their chest that issue forth a steady blue glow. One of them wears a trailing red bandanna and has what appears to be a tattoo drawn all the way up its left arm. The other is wearing archer's gloves, is adorned with long white hair, and clutches a mechanical bow set with an interlocking set of gears, with a flickering string of light.

    "May I present two of my favourite puppets, Frisco and Tartufo. They'll keep you entertained while I'm away." He waves his hand dismissively towards Maya, Reker and Kyra, before zapping out of sight.

Maya has posed:
Maya finds Nox is calm it's disturbing how calm the man is. A lot of normal verbal tactics she suspect won't work on him. She however readies her irlfe as she looks at them for a moment. His actions speaks of one confident enough in the actions of his minions to handle them. This guy is dangeorus, like few others she's encoutered. Not to say others are not dangerous but it seems Nox may be able to keep a cool head, she readies her rifle and it whines to live as the living portions start to grow ammo.

"I see, We'll have words when I'm done with them."

She can't go after Nox yet she'll get her back shot out shw turns her attention to the pair and now pulls out a speull card in her off hand. I a fit of irony? It's the speed card as maya engaged in some temporal magic of her own. She speeds up and ther's a faint green glow, also there's blue fire that leaches from her body into the card before she casts. She moves to open fire on Archer.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Although vaguely aware of Reker's truck and Maya's arrival, Kyra can't help but wish they had something a little bit bigger to engage Nox's Horologium. Like an airship. Yes. A nice big airship to bomb the /hell/ out of that walking, life-draining timepiece. As she grows even closer, she realizes that there seems to be very few people for her to get behind right now and that makes her very nervous. "Ugh, I feel so exposed."

    Even through Nox's greeting, which still manages to be a pretty distinctive one despite being 'curtailed' as he notes their presence and dismissively summons a pair of (undead?!) minions for them to deal with. Her first thought is to try the good ol' healbomb trick on them both...

    ...but out of nowhere, Vrenyn streaks at her. Kyra catches a glimpse of green eyes before she's slammed off of the Chocobo and sent tumbling and sliding on the dessicated ground. Without a rider, the Chocobo immediately vanishes in a scattering of green motes of light. Wheezing out a breath, Kyra's quick to scramble to her feet, snatching up the ornate red and golden pistol at her hip. The gun, a notable crafted gift from a talented Union officer, is at the very least unique to her since it didn't function on Galiandan physics-that is to say completely normally and with bullets that use a gunpowder-like substance. The Luna's resolve also sported holy-aspected bullets, fitting for use by a white mage.

    "Healer aggro!" she calls out in dismay, opening fire on Vrenyn, trying to keep her at range.

Reker (631) has posed:
    Aggroing on the healer is never a good thing when somebody like Reker is around. Sure he's not a tank, he's a DPS, but he's never going to be the type to let the healer take aggro if he can avoid it.

    His truck comes roaring over a small ledge, sailing through the air a few feet, as Reker moves from the driver's seat to the gunner's seat. Now in the turret, he racks the big .50 caliber machinegun and turns it on Vrenyn, starting to open fire with the heavy machine gun, "Hey! Healers are off limits, jackass! Why don't you pick on somebody your own size!"

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    "Gishur." Adelyn addresses her other tome--naturally, the only one of the two capable of responding to natural speech. As powerful as Pure Guardian is, and as much memory resides in it, it lacks an intelligence of its own. "Bring up our battlefield awareness. Then, see what we can do to establish a support connection to the knights below." 'Minions' is another word that would have worked, but the important distinction here is front row versus back row.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Gishur, grimoire of all that must be known! The Abstractum floats up near Adelyn. "Ah, Mistress." The tome says. The little eye looks around briefly as it opens, then focuses on her. "Of course. Tac Driver now powering." The book's pages begin to glow an unearthly green, the book slamming open with a crack at the binding, and the pages begin to flip rapidly. The glow from within the pages begins to project a map of the area, showing all data available from Adelyn's spells, Vrenyn Kuhn's sight, and even Nox's own puppets and minions due to his consent. The flickering green map hosts nodules of magical energy, interface constructs allowing Adelyn to hard-channel her magic directly into any of those compatible entities even from far, far away.

    "This ought to be the most efficient way of making this battle yours right away. Watch for anyone's ranged fire trying to get clever, last time was a bit too much disrespect for the both of us. I'll have my eye out for anyone who tries that nonsense this time too, for a bit of advanced warning."

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    To Kyra's great fortune, Vrenyn is, in fact, undead. Holy-infused abilities will be exceptionally dangerous to her--assuming they can hit. Green-black eyes over a white mask focus on her prey, body stock still as the chocobo disappears. When the gun comes up, Vrenyn's sword comes down, and the first shot, rather than puncturing her body, is deflected with a shower of sparks. The white mask of the sword-servant's face splits in toothy flash of a grin as she moves so quickly as to nearly disappear, escaping amidst the jingling of her chains before a flurry of holy shot can destroy her.

    So focused was she on enjoying the fight that Reker's machine gun catches her off-guard. She makes to dodge out of the line of fire, but not before several rounds strike. Her sword doesn't catch all of them, as one unlucky shot blows off a portion of her left hand, and another jerks her about as it grazes her chain--which seems fairly impenetrable, for how little damage the golden material took.

    Tch. "Already having trouble." Adelyn views Vrenyn's position on her map with some disapproval. Gishur's assistance is taken as a matter of course, in all respects, and thusly without comment. "Healing would be inefficient. That vehicle will need to be destroyed, first."

    Back on the field, Vrenyn's sword glows as she leaps into the air, hissing through her teeth and swinging it down toward Reker's position--despite being at a good range. A crackling ball of energy, lightning arcing between it and everything on its path, flies from her swing and toward the machine gun. Juking quick and low to the ground, Vrenyn follows closely after it, making what use of the terrain Adelyn's and her senses can give her.

Nox (546) has posed:
    Whether or not the puppets know Maya is about to fire is anyone's guess, but whether they're deliberately attempting to cut her off before she can fire, or simply that aggressive, is irrelevant. The moment Gishur connects to them, the both of them launch straight into the attack. Frisco, the bandanna'd one, suddenly explodes into a blur of motion, racing across the barren ground as if propelled by rockets, kicking up an enormous plume of dust behind him in the blink of an eye. The moment he's within arms reach of Maya, he'll grab hold of her with both hands, spin around halfway, and launch her directly back towards the archer. Tartufo's part in the assault is to stand back, pulling the string of his bow until it hits a certain point where it conjures a blazing arrow of blue-white energy against the gear rest, sizzling wildly as if barely contained into its shape. The moment he has a clear line of fire, ideally if Maya is flying at him, he'll let the arrow fly, aiming with frankly inhuman accuracy to intercept her, where the arrow will immediately detonate like a bomb, kicking up and impressive fireball and shaking the earth beneath the tires of Reker's truck.

Reker (631) has posed:
    With nobody driving the truck, it's going to be impossible to actually dodge that attack, especially with the ground rumbling. Reker hops up onto the edge of the truck's turret and dives off.

    He lands and rolls a couple of times, even as the truck takes the full impact and explodes. It doesn't explode like normal, though, instead exploding into shards of digital data. With the truck gone, Reker is going to have to do things the old fashioned way, as he pulls his SOCOM-47 out of his inventory and moves for cover. Once he's found his cover, he peeks out and fires a five round burst at Vrenyn, "It costs a lot of credits to respawn that thing. I hope you're happy!"

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    A dark look crosses Kyra's face as she hears the sound of bullets being deflected by a sword. It was a technique that she was familiar with and unfortunately meant bad things for her since the majority of her weapons were guns of some kind. Great. At least her cries of 'healer aggro' do not go unheard.

    She lets out a sigh of relief as the machine gun fire takes the attention of the green-eyed demon and immediately switches her own tactics. The gun lowers and a hand swings over to Reker, white magic following, flowing through that open hand. The spell, also a Wall spell, immediately settles around Reker. The faint flicker of the Protect and Shell magic is seen, combining to create a faint light blue glow.

Maya has posed:
Maya's now facing down the puppet and she's started to move. The fight has started Maya's moving fast thanks to the speed spell which is what's helping her a lot at this point. She ses him trying to to b ut he's got hert and she's throws up into the air that's where things start to change she shifts her rifle and the housing open even as she's iar born May zeems ot have some idea an that's when she's fireing small seeking missiles which will move to intecept the incomming bolts nad Maya hits the ground rolling. A bit worse for ware fromt hat.

"...Bette thaqn expected."

She turns up the heat a bit as now she's loweirng he rifle and starting with the magic a lot of blue fire forms from her body into the card as she rips magically a portion of the gorundf fre sending it hurrling at the archer.

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    Vrenyn is pleased by the destruction she's wrought, though this triumph is dampened by the knowledge that it was only a summoned vehicle. "Really. A /vehicle/ summoner?" Adelyn is the one who asks that question, observing from afar the truck's destruction. "Or, no--that wasn't summoning magic. Some other peculiarity." Vrenyn shares neither her thoughts, nor her curiosity. She merely continues her charge.

    The first bullet is perfectly deflected, the second barely, and the third and subsequent shots not at all, as the firing rate of the gun, together with the unpredictability of its spread, surpasses even Vrenyn's inhuman reflexes. Only the third shot actually hits, but it's a solid strike to her arm, and does give her pause. The pain is minor, if present at all, but being unable to advance without being pierced annoys her.

    Coincidentally, Adelyn's next spell is similar to both Kyra's and Maya's, along different axes. As Vrenyn strikes the ground, Adelyn's Earth magic flows from her weapon, hurtling sections of into a cloud of dust and a dozen walls of airborne earth between the sword-servant and the GGO pro. It's through that defensive field that Vrenyn makes her advance, this time uncaring of whether she's struck, so long as she can bury her black blade into Reker's body. She is already dead, and can be repaired.

    This leaves little attention for dealing with Maya, but the geo strike disrupts the earth enough to allow Adelyn to quickly replicate a similar spell in the same area. The ground will shift to launch Nox's puppets where they need to go, assisted by her tactical oversight, in dealing with that attack.

Nox (546) has posed:
    As Maya anticipates, the arrow detonates against the first missile that strikes it, catching the others in the blast radius and adding their detonates to its own, clearing a wide, ashen crater in the layer of grey dust that fills the path of carnage Horologium has carved through the forest. Through the cloud of smoke and embers, the rocks torn out of the ground fly, the first and largest of them connecting directly with Tartufo's chest and sending him hurtling back, crashing into one of the still standing trees at the edge of the long clearing, snapping it in half like a toothpick. He remains motionless for a split second, the lights gone from his eyes, before sputtering back to life, vaulting over the rock and nimbly flipping out of the way of the second behind it, ducking and rolling under the third and fourth, before launching off the earth Adelyn summons to clear the line of fire entirely, sliding into a low crouch and rapidly firing off a quartet of energy arrows in return.

    Frisco remains behind Maya, taking a moment to look for her in the smouldering ash and assess the situation, using the Abstractum's sensory network to acquire alternate viewing angles to better locate her. Spotting her engaging with Tartufo, he throws out his tattooed arm, and the black that wraps around it from fingertip to shoulder suddenly unravels, launching itself towards her like a striking snake. The strangely organic black cord splits as it reaches her, aiming to ensnare her in a crushing grip, pinning her arms by her sides where she can't use them.

    Meanwhile, Horologium has all but reaches its target. Its spiderlike, gear driven legs stab into the ground one more time as it settles position at the base of the grand tree, before the casing at its front pops open slightly, and allows it to unfold a set of multi jointed arms, which each produce giant, quadruple needles with a sharp, electrical hum.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Were Vrenyn to glance back to where Kyra was moments ago, she would notice the white maage completely absent. She's on the move again, running at a 90 degree angle away from her previous position, moving to flank Reker. The most favorable position for support would be behind him though the demon's capabilities so far left her wondering if that was an ideal place for Kyra herself to stand. It would put her in the path of danger pretty firmly which was something she wanted to mostly avoid. Mostly. Instead, her movement carries her forward, which would put her in a better spot to watch both Maya and Reker.

    Attentive to the fight and their opponent, she sees the magic suddenly merging with Vrenyn's strike. Geomancing? Sword magic? It seems to be a little bit of both, the weapon being used as a conduit for magic that didn't seem to come from Vrenyn herself.

    She knows exactly what to do about that. A grin forms on Kyra's face as she focuses her counter-magic, Dispell, upon Vrenyn, seeking to sever the magical assistance being, unknown by Kyra, doled out by Adelyn herself.

Reker (631) has posed:
Despite the attempt Reker is making to unleash all he has on his target, his bullets, striking home when they do, don't seem to be doing a lot of damage. Maybe it's because his target is dead.

When the walls get up in the way, he tries to prep himself for the incoming attack, but it doesn't seem to be much use. His magazine clicks empty and he soon finds himself trying to reload, until the sword finds it's way into him. He jerks visibly when the blade impacts, but there's no blood, no spray of vital goo. There's a red mark in his body around the blade, and his health bar visibly drops down by quite a bit.

He looks at the blade inside of him for a second, "That hurt. Did you see how much that chunked off my life bar? Holy crap." He swaps hands quickly and pulls his handgun up, deciding to fire at point blank range on his target. No way he can miss from this range, and it'll be hard to deflect when the blade's in his gut.

Maya has posed:
Things are getting crasy but damn it's showing the calibure of Nox's minions and she wonders what Nox dirclty would be like. AS she's now going over possible counters, but some would possibly cause issues too. SO for now she's trying to keep from getting wrecked here, as there's something else tha thappns the arror drtonates and she's going to try to make use of that. She seems to have got a good hit, but doesn't asumee it's down. This is good as it does get back up in short. She soon has a hostile incbound and Maya attempst to open fire on the incoming attacker even as he attemps to catch her with the cord. She's caugh and is attemping to get lose now she howeve ris flaring up with something which is clearly magic a fair bit of it she's up to something but owhat even as she struggles to get lose as she knows what's comming, the bot will try to finish her.

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    The Earth magic might have been good for a few more strikes, but the tenuous enchantment is removed by Kyra's dispel. Vrenyn is not very bothered by this, though Adelyn immediately notices. Another peculiarity, and an important tactical consideration, but the connection itself between summoner and servant is not so easily broken.

    Vrenyn is much more bothered by the lack of reaction to her sword getting into Reker's gut. Her rictus grin turns to a grimace, eyes squinting down. Kyra's Wall may be partially to blame for her present lack of success, but she doesn't realize this. No, far more important is this lack of reaction.

    For her part, her body jerks with every impact. It's natural to be damaged when shot, and so her body is damaged. She's magically animated, but that doesn't mean her strength isn't tied to her physical condition. Enough fire is going to put her in serious trouble.

    "The DEAD," comes a horrible hiss-screech of wildly fluctuating volume, broken rhythm and shifting tones, "do not SCREAM." Her good arm, the one that hasn't yet been shot, wrenches the blade to try to cut Reker entirely part. The other, the one with two missing fingers and a bullet lodged in the forearm, tries to loop her gold chain around his neck.

    Adelyn is not presently paying attention to that matter. She is concentrating on supplying a wind enchantment to Tartufo's next attack. Ideally, it will actually allow the shot to curve around around obstacles, by controlling the airflow between archer and target. Vrenyn is on her own for the moment.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    By Kyra's approximation, what with the sword in Reker's gut and the overt attempts to cut him in half entirely, it seems time to give Reker some much needed healing. Only this time she doesn't invoke her own magical ability for some reason, even as she grows farther and farther away from the two, trying to get closer to the Horologium. Ultimately she wants to stop the machine from draining the tree-or if not, then to try to minimize the damage that it's doing. But would she be able to pull that off AND the support of Reker and Maya? Unlikely. There was also the matter of those glowing, insect-like drones accompanying the Horologium. Who knows what those could do yet.

    From where it is strapped to her back, Kyra pulls a very golden and very shiny rifle down, keeping the strap around her. She pauses briefly to take aim at Reker with the Aurumal Autodoc.

    When fired, the unusual weapon unleashes a laser-like burst of white and blue energy that in fact heals anything it hits. Wounds fixed by the rifle retain a blue glow for a few brief moments afterwards. One hit with the "weapon" is actually a pretty weak healing spell on its own. However, moments later Kyra demonstrates that the rate of fire on the Autodoc is actually good, covering the weakness of the healing when she's able to focus fire.

Nox (546) has posed:
    Gunfire slams into Frisco at full force, the puppet making no attempt to dodge it. Bullets puncture the bandages to spark and spang against something metallic inside, causing the steady blue light from the hole in its body to flicker intermittently with every few new ones. It holds Maya still just long enough for Tartufo to continue firing, now guided by Adelyn's wind spells so that the arrows converge inwards from all directions. Its hand on the strig is a blur, firing over and over again with impossible speed, needing no pause to draw fresh arrows so long as the energy bow can keep generating bolts. The storm of deadly accurate projectiles hammers into Maya from behind for as long as she remains still, shaking the air with explosion after explosion and flattening trees to either side of the trench. Only after she has either suffered extensive damage or tries to break free does Frisco finally reel her in. The moment she comes close enough, he'll swing a deadly uppercut for her midsection, fist flashing with blue light as internal conduits amplify the force a hundred times over.

    Horologium continues uninterrupted in the confusion of battle, reeling its colossal arms into place around the middle of the world tree's trunk, and then slamming them inwards with a hiss of discharging pistons, puncturing its thick bark in eight different places. The forest is filled with the sound of high pitched keening as the machine's clockwork circuitry spins up, followed by the steady crackle of arcing electricity as cyan bolts writhe and crackle along its limbs, drawin inwards towards the fortress' interior. Almost immediately, the trees leaves begin to brown, flaking off at a pace that steadily increases as they lose their colour, until it looks as if it is raining.

Reker (631) has posed:
The blade inside of Reker tears it's way out of him, reducing his HP bar down by another huge chunk. He decides that maybe he should start taking this seriously at this point, as she starts trying to choke him. He tries to reach his hands up to grab the chain, his other hand reaching to try to grab a hold of his combat knife from his vest.

Once he manages to get the blade into his hand, he swings it in a wide arc, trying to cut the chain, or at the very least, the hand that's holding onto the chain. The whole idea is to try to get the attacker off of him.

Thankfully the heal gun is in place, and Kyra is hitting him with it, so his HP bar is starting to fill back up. Reker is really glad he saved the healer, because now she's saving him, "You're outnumbered! No way you're going to beat the both of us!" He calls out, trying to swing the knife back around a second time.

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    "NEVER alone," Vrenyn hisses with malice aplenty. The knife can't break her bone that easily, and the chain itself is extremely sturdy, but cutting into the wrist of her already-damaged arm reduces how much power she can put into that choking attempt. "You canNOT cut the BINDS, can never FREE me, DEADMAN."

    It's true that she isn't alone. Adelyn's magic needs only a moment to flow into her blade, a glowing, red rune appearing on Vrenyn's sword in that fraction of a second before it's swung for Reker's neck. A nick will be all it takes. Even with one arm useless, and her body full of pistol rounds, the undead hero's swordsmanship is flawless in its brutal efficiency. One nick, or one impact against anything, and the rune will swallow the target in a fiery explosion, burning itself away.

    If she can't chip away at her opponent's health, she'll just got for a critical hit, with all the force of master and servant.

Maya has posed:
Things are going bad she's able to do some damage with the shots she fired earily however she was forced to drop the weapon when she go hend but her legs are still free and she's going to use them leas she gets wrecked. She's able to roll free and is just able to keep from getting caught seriously these two have some very damn good team work and it's wrecking the rather disoraganied response from the untion. This is where however Maya's finally able to wriggle free of the line while she's down and she starts to cast a spell as she pull too cards free focusing on the melee expert of the pair. There's a huge spicke in magic from Maya as she's casting actively now powerfull spell in one hand, is the law card. In the other? Chaos and that's when reality might start to break a bit about nox's minion as for a moment she attempt sto attack the fundametal bits holding them togehter as it were break them apart and then reality go wait what and pull them back together.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "GO FOR THE HEAD!" Kyra calls out, finishing off the sudden burst of healshots. She lets the rifle hang by its strap over her shoulders again before briefly abandoning the fighting pair now that she's managed to get in close enough to the Horologium. Inwardly, she cringes as dead leaves begin to rain down all around them.

    The big machine is daunting and clearly quite durable-looking. Ultimately, she wants to try at least something against it to say that she /did/ something. With a frenzied flourish, she pulls the front zipper down to her hoodie so she has better access to her host of potions and mixtures. From her options, she selects two flasks, one held in each hand, one of yellow liquid and the other of red.

    The yellow liquid, actually a collection of old, rancid cooking oil from one of Kyra's kitchen disasters of several weeks past, is hurled at the closest of the construct's legs to coat it as much as possible. The second flask follows which immediately explodes upon the flask breaking, the liquid napalm igniting upon contact.

Reker (631) has posed:
He's gonna have to make this quick if he wants it to count. He sees the blade coming in, sees the strange glow on it and knows that he won't really be able to do much to deflect the blow at this range.

His non-knife hand goes up to his vest and yanks the pins out of the two grenades there as the blade decends on him. When it strikes, it does what it was designed to do and detonates. Reker's HP bar drops to zero, and his body explodes into digital shards.

Those grenades that he pulled the pins on drop to the ground after his body disappears, though. One last ditch attack from the trooper before he has to go through the respawn process.

Meanwhile, he gets to look at a nice black screen with a simple message on it:

YOU DIED

Nox (546) has posed:
    As the law and chaos cards hit Frisco, the bindings seeking Maya dissolve as part of the strange magical effect, letting her slip free entirely for a few precious seconds as the spell destructively reassembles the puppet. As the constituant particles slam back together, the puppet suddenly lets off a blinding flash of light, pseudo-electricity coruscating over its form as something delicate inside is put back together incorrectly, interrupting the flow of energy. Though not damaged badly enough to be destroyed, Frisco falls onto the ground face first, the light leaving his eyes. Tartufo however, is still up and swinging. While Maya is busy casting, he pulls back a fresh arrow and holds it fully draw, causing the 'arrowhead' to suddenly swell into a blazing sphere of raw power. A violent wind kicks back from the charging arrow, blowing his long hair back in a current of airborne ash, before suddenly reversing direction and rocketing forward with the white-hot bolt launched by the release of the string. Whatever the arrow impacts will go up in a spherical, cerulean blast that levels over a hundred meters of trees to either side, incinerating everything within its globe of influence before halting abruptly and dissipating.

    Meanwhile, one of Horologium's legs goes up in flames. The disadvantage of using so much brass is that it has a rather low melting point, causing the metal to glow cherry red ascending into orange almost immediately. As Kyra watches however, the process of melting appears to be happening extremely slowly. In fact, judging by the way the droplets of molten metal fall to the earth at a surreal crawl, it may actually be happening in slow motion; an effect immediately triggered in response to damage so as to contain it. Displeased by this turn of events, a miniature swarm of noxines detach from their flight path, buzzing towards Kyra in an angry column, before remotely detonating their payload of energy in a rippling daisy chain of violent explosions.

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    Vrenyn would probably have something more to say to Reker at this point, but he's already escaped. She has not, and likely will not. Adelyn recognizes the danger, but her mental order to withdraw will come late. Vrenyn's image of a 'grenade' is in a different technological style, and working out the nature of the attack from context is unfortunately slow.

    However, her legs are uninjured, and she retains her superhuman reflexes. When the grenades do go off, she's gained a few feet of distance. Not nearly enough to be outside the killing radius, but more than the point-blank explosion it would have been. She's knocked the rest of the way as a rag doll, injuries now spread throughout her body. Without any support, it will take her some time to recover, and she won't have the same speed as before, even then.

    Adelyn has again shifted her attention. She is now looking directly at Kyra. The bolts of raw, Arcane energy, enveloped in guiding Wind, will take a few, long moments to reach their target, simply because of the significant distance involved. When they do, Kyra will need to deal with a blasting, explosive force of air and a heat strong enough to flash-melt the ground. The archmage prefers not to allow the clockwork to be disrupted.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    The fire seems to be a bit more effective than Kyra had expected. As she sees the melting occuring, she realizes that the construct is made out of brass. Yes. Low melting point. If she set it on fire more-wait.

    The melting rate seemed to be extremely slow. While she could reason that it was due to it being an extraversal alloy of some kind, due to Nox's nature, she's more liable to suspect it as some kind of time magic. Slow, maybe? That could be dispelled too and casting the spell is clearly Kyra's next course of action.

    ...or it would be, if her spellcasting wasn't suddenly interrupted by a swarm of the blue-glowing bug drones suddenly descending upon her. Kyra's eyes widen as she grabs another flask of her liquid napalm and hurls it upwards into the oncoming swarm-which, unfortunately, only makes the resultant explosions only bigger. Luckily for her that the Wall is still in effect, meaning the blast does not immediately paste her into the ground. It does send her flying away from the Horologium.

    Before picking herself up off the ground, she tears a syringe free of one of her bandoliers and jabs it into her arm, using a potion on herself in this manner since turning the Autodoc onto herself was unwieldly and clumsy to do. As she stands, she realizes that Reker is no longer there. As she frantically looks for him, she feels a prickle of oncoming force moments before Adelyn's magic strikes. Again it is her own protective spells that prevent her from being boiled alive along with the ground underneath her but it doesn't stop her from being hurled in a completely different direction.

    "Urgh...where the /hell/ did that come from...?" Scrambling to her feet, she runs for the Horologium again, striving to finish the Dispell before something else explodes her and finally fills her explosion quota-at this point she's looking very worse for wear.

Maya has posed:
Maya sees that Frisco is down finally, and she's glad there's still a lot to worry about here such as the archer. Seriously these guys are /good/ at team work. This is fairly stunning and she's going to need to fig up more on Nox. Howver that's a hecll of a big arrow omming her way. Maya's gong to hve to bring up a barrier of her own to tank that there's no way she's going to be dodging that blast.

Nox (546) has posed:
    Unfortunately, the noxines passing by Horologium's leg couldn't have failed to notice the napalm burning away through the superstructure, which leaves Nox with no choice but to intervene. Setting the clockwork fortress to autopilot, he abandons his command station once more, teleporting to interpose himself between Kyra and the burning leg. With one hand levelled towards the conflagration, he fires off an unstable blast of temporal decceleration, slowing the vibration of air particles without intefering with their overall timeline, resulting in the ambient water flash freezing into a shell of ice that spreads over the damaged section, extinguishing the fire. With his other hand pointed towards Kyra, he compresses space several times in upon itself into his palm, before releasing it as a violent pulsation of negative gravitational force, expanding outwards in such a way as to hurl anything caught in the way far, far away.

    "It seems I wasn't entirely prepared enough. You three have been enough of a nuisance already. Move along now. I'm sure you've damaged enough of my equipment to make yourselves happy." The blast shields over the lenses set into the xelor's mask narrow to slits, as if to express his intense displeasure. The aperture in his hand begins sucking into tiny motes of blue light, spooling up with an electronic whine as he prepares to unleash a spell should Kyra try to charge him again. He seems to be making no movement to engage her however. It seems he's already had enough of her group, and would rather they retreat rather than use up more assets fighting them.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Kyra's hand reaches out and words rumble from her too soft to make out over the fighting and operation of the Horologium. Just as she is about to finish the spell, Nox unfortunately appears in front of her. A yelp of alarm escapes her and she instinctively dives sideways, unsure if her action would do much since she knows he can stop time and pop up in front of her. But in this case, it does spare her the pain of taking a direct pulse of gravitational force that would have sent her flying very, very far. Instead, she sides across the decimated forest on her back.

    It's around this time that Adelyn starts threatening her on the open broadband. Kyra cringes-she was right, they just didn't have the strength to keep this up. "Maya!" she calls out, looking nervously over at Nox, reaching to wind up what looks like a steampunk egg timer on her belt. "We're getting out of here! Now! Before we get gibbed like Reker did!" The chocobo appears again in a flash of green light and through no small effort of Kyra, she hauls herself up on the animal and retreats.