1698/New Blood: The Secret of Eveningstar

New Blood: The Secret of Eveningstar
Date of Scene:	01 March 2015
Location:	Terra Majora
Synopsis:	A Shajem has been found under Eveningstar. Binding it proves to be complicated.
Cast of Characters:	12, Maya, 40, 92, 134, 168, 202, 253, 331, 347, 395, 546, Lezard Valeth, 701, Reiji Arisu
Tinyplot:	New Blood

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Elliana Fairchild (92) has posed:
    The Starshine Kingdom dislikes visitors from outside the kingdom. Insular but well-regarded by its citizens, it has a reputation for keeping its population happy and well fed, without resorting to slavery like the Windward Empire does. Due to a combination of geography and a strong national spirit, it is more trouble than it is worth for the Windward Empire to attempt to take over Starshine right now.

    Which is not to say it is all THAT difficult to get into the kingdom, with aircraft of sufficient speed or just taking a less-travelled road. The border patrols are meant to keep out armies, not a small group of people. The air force is also geared toward troop transports or small military vessels, and a well-equipped airship can blitz right past them, though it will draw the resultant formation of Eveningstar's air force out. Mostly small ships with cannon, as air combat in this world is still relatively low speed.

    Eveningstar itself, the capital of the Starshine Kingdom, is a breathtaking sight to any who appreciate such things. Built upon a large rocky uprising, set against a mountain, the palace of Eveningstar is a small city unto itself. Elaborate walls and walkways thread through the high-altitude fortress, making for an incredible fortification against enemies, even from the air. Smaller 'ledges,' each with acres of space, make up numerous boroughs of small towns, each one reasonably defensible even without the high walls of the main city. It's an incredibly impractical setup for any normal world, but apparently they have some means of providing food. Rumors say that the mountain beneath Eveningstar is a honeycomb of passages which can store years of food and water, and provide rapid deployment of troops throughout the city.

    The target, if Nathan Hall's source is to be believed, is somewhere beneath the mountain.

Nathan Hall (168) has posed:
    Nathan Hall is here. As per the norm, the man arrives with no emotion to his posture, no feeling to his tones. Slightly less normal is the fact that today he has pulled out all the stops on his equipment. A pair of goggles obfuscate his eyes and glow softly, a large machete with a complicated trigger system is sheathed at his back. His approach is aggressive and quick in a way, swift and not taking a single break. He's likely arrived via one of Psyber's vehicles, but his directions to Heaven or Hell's members, or various other assorted Union members, are to meet up with one of his contacts on-site.

    He's going to locate ETHAN BLOODSTONE, whose connections he has hopefully managed to use to secure safe passage to their objective location. He does intend to back the Binder up though, and use his own. He'll have gone through all available channels to initiate an investigation into DRAKE WIGHTSEER, using various bits of evidence of his past contact and the inarguable fact of his current Twisting, to acquire a warrant to search the area, or at least soften them up for Ethan.

    Which will, ideally, result in Nathan entering Eveningstar, if not the catacombs of the mountain itself, in his usual tunnel vision mode, taking wide steps to get there swiftly and seeming very, very obvious in the fact that he's focusing on one thing and one thing only, in his usual unhealthy way.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber is here! But not as you'd expect.

    Also Psyber is not 'here' in the conventional sense of arriving via ship. Instead, he's here via screaming metal cylinder careening into the ground from high up in the atmosphere. It whistles through the air and glows a bright red as it skims through the air, trailing fire. It is pretty big, about the size of a van, maybe larger.

    It drops from the sky right into the center of the city, making a cataclysmic-loud crashing sound as it skids along the ground and then eventually comes to a screeching stop somewhere in the center of the square. It wobbles a bit and then rights itself upwards onto tripod legs. Then three hatches open in it and slam into the ground with a THUNKING noise.

    Psyber walks out of the pod, wobbling a bit as he stretches and then places his hands on his back, "Man. That was a rough one. Skid landings aren't fun. Next time, I have to get them to angle it for a solid-impact drop. I guess it meant a smaller crater, though." He grouses, stretching and working out some kinks.

    Bitching aside, Psyber is geared for war today. He's wearing a more utilitarian outfit of body armor over a black long-sleeved shirt and BDU pants. He has a rifle slung under his tactical vest, which is loaded with ammo, as well as a couple pistols. He also has, of all things, two swords with him today. One, across his back, is a greatsword and slightly archaic and draconic in design: Adjudicator, his Abstractum. The other is kept at his hip and is a longsword kept in a battered hilt wrapped in dirty cloth. That one is new.

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    It's difficult to resist that drive toward experimentation, for natives of the research-focused Nation of Towers. With a new airship design using a just-prototyped, hybrid technomagical engine--how could she not? This is far too exciting. Adelyn Lysen is /far too excited/.

    "Increase the forward wind shield--the density has increased. We're ripping through with more strength than expected. The reshaping has proven effective, I see. Engine power? Still that low? Well, we'll push it another day. We're nearly there." The crew obey instantly, as well they should be expected to. Most of them, unusually, are bound undead, with ghostly, pale skin and glowing eyes. They're intelligent, but likely not good for much past their appointed tasks.

    The ship itself hails from a country not known for its high-speed aircraft, but this experiment has so far proven a success. Its weaponry will remain hidden beneath its armor as long as possible, while it simply rushes to the appointed meeting point. From there, it's either a matter of disembarking in the typical fashion (via ramp), or of using the ever-useful air magic Adelyn stores in her staff to carry her, and any comrades who require it, to land. The crew, at that point, will remain onboard.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
Lezard doesn't really care whether people like visitors or not. He goes where he pleases, as is the right of one who bears the power of space at his command.

Normally, Lezard would have a great deal of other things to attend to, but the situation that has arisen thanks to the timely notification of Mordred became something he could not pass up. Training has been undertaken. Tactics have been formed. Thus is it that Lezard Valeth, God-Foe and Necromancer of Midgard, has arrived upon Terra Majora with his allies.

He stands upon the airship, arms folded as he looks out over the terrain, the city below, and the rapidly approaching mountain. "This will be a time to remember, I believe." He comments offhandedly. When the time comes, Lezard disembarks via the ramp, his casual motions bespeaking nothing of the dire intentions to come.

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    "So, Psyber, you gonna introduce me to the new guy?"
    That was like an hour ago.
    "Oh man one of these? Well I guess you can call it bonding."
    That was like ten minutes ago.
    Now.
    The jarring, high velocity, hiss and whine of metal on re-entry would be an unnerving sound for most, but the landing is probably the worst part of it. With a HISSSS-POP of another panel on the pod bursting open, Amalthea unhitches her crash webbing and storms out on her feet in an instant. "I donno, Psyber, I've had worse landings. I've had better too, but I've had worse."
    The unicorn is also decked out for full scale assault, the heaviest plating straight from her armory, two swords sheathed at her hip, shield in hand, and other sundry tools of war and small scale destruction in the folds of her cape, belt, and weapon harnesses.
    "Hi."

Himei (331) has posed:
    Himei's arrival isn't actually an arrival yet. She's taken a lightweight aircraft, not jet-powered but fairly quiet and simple. She doesn't have the training to use onboard weaponry, so this one is unarmed and pretty unarmored. It has passengers, but it's a fairly comfortable ride... for now.

    Himei is keeping in the air, doing a slow and wide circle around the city rather than come down and enter the catacombs yet. This is partly to keep an eye on the Confeds. She invited them, but she wants to make sure this doesn't cause any more stress than usual. She tries to keep it at a polite distance from the air force, just circling around the entire area.

    "Looks like the others are starting to arrive. I guess we'll see how accurate this is now," Himei is saying, looking at her passengers.

Mordred (12) has posed:
    Saber of Red, aka MORDRED, is among those who disembark from Adelyn's ship once it lands. Fully armored from head to toe, including that helmet, those who have not previously met her are out of luck to recognize her; her voice masked, androgynous and metallic, while her appearance is covered by an odd, grainy filter that prevents getting a clear read on just how tall the knight is, or even get a good grasp on the true appearance of the armor. To some it may appear black and jagged, to others white and pure, but whatever the case it is obvious it's a knight, at least.

    BLOODY AMHAR, if it is so inclined to be awake, her Abstractum, is idle in one hand, the blood red longsword with jagged teeth the only part of the knight not so obscured by her helmet's effect. Her other hand does not bear a blade yet, mostly because it's awkward walking with two swords out.

Reiji Arisu has posed:
Reiji is presently regretting his life choices.

    As the drop-pod's doors open, a hand shoots out to grab hold of the metal doorframe. Another joins it on the opposite side, though somewhat more unsteadily. Reiji staggers out shortly thereafter, looking just a little more pale than he usually does. "That... Was unpleasant."

    In addition to his usual gear, Reiji seems to be carrying around a metal briefcase across his back. The pouches on his armor seem to be a bit more heavily weighed down, too. Something seems to suggest that he may have... overprepared for this trip. But can you really OVERprepare for fighting a god?

He clearly doesn't think so.

    "Psyber," Reiji grunts, shaking his head as his legs slowly start responding like actual limbs instead of unstable pillars of gelatin. "I could have used a warning about that landing," he mutters, then straightens. "So," he continues, transitioning into business mode at breakneck speeds, "Where do we go from here? I'll be following your lead 'till we get to the target."

Sakura Haruno (134) has posed:
    Flowers is in the back of Himei's aircraft, looking like she very much regrets the decisions that have brought her to this point. When Psyber and Hall actually agree on a path of action regarding this theater of affairs, she's hard pressed to argue much, but flying is always slightly stressful for the ninja and flying with Himei is a special kind of worrying.

    Though at least if they crash, she'll be on the ground again.

    She's not really looking at just where they're going, and so, her eyes shut and bending forward, she'll ask that most eternal and important of questions, strain showing in her voice.

    "Are we there yet?"

Eleanor Lamb (40) has posed:
    Eleanor... trusts Himei. She's a friend, an old friend. And she trusts Himei.
    She does not trust planes. The Big Sister is gripping on for dear life in a seat behind Sailor Nothing, grumbling about feet on the ground and aerofoils and elevators and the Bernoulli Principle.

Circe (701) has posed:
A dusky-skinned woman with a huge, fountain-like ponytail of flame-red hair arrives upon the airship with the others. She has stayed as far away from the crew as possible, preferring to not even share the same ground with them by levitating, and has kept a handkerchief pressed to her nose and mouth to preserve her from any undead-smells (imagined or otherwise). She finds these dead people extremely odious, intelligent or no, and thus should be quite pleased to depart into fresher environs upon their landing.

Instead she can only mutter about how dreadful that was and brush (definitely imaginary) corpse particles off her clothing before even bothering to take the time to look around. Once she does so, of course, she is quite pleased with the chance in decor and the impressive environment. "Good. Finally, a more proper place, which is suitable to my tastes and standing." Caster, of course, makes no attempt at concealing her appearance, though the number of people who have met her in-person remains low still, so that does not mean much. Her voice, at least, should be recognizable.

The purple-garbed woman deigns to descend to earth finally, feeling the ground beneath them with her bare feet and stretching her legs after being bent beneath her for so long. "Though I imagine we are not here to sight-see, and do not have time to take in the pleasures to be had from a place such as this?" the Servant mutters. Oh, well. Maybe another time. If the place remains intact when they are done here.

"You there," she indicates Lezard. "Fetch my luggage, won't you?"

Nox (546) has posed:
    Though maybe he should, Nox hasn't taken any pains to disguise his appearance either. It'd likely be far too difficult without the aid of magic to begin with, and furthermore it'd be incredibly obvious who he was the moment he started using his own. For a change, he takes the scenic route, hovering a foot over the deck of Adelyn's airship a short distance away from Lezard, casting occasional glances to the world below as the terrain scrolls by. His eyes fix on the capital as soon as it is in sight, at which he stares for a good, long while. "Indeed." Is all he has to remark to Lezard, mostly ignoring the undead on board the ship, finding no real reason to be repelled or distracted by them. Whatever look he sends towards Caster is thankfully impossible to discern through the mask, because it might be more than a little disapproving. As soon as the airship lands, he'll meander off it at a leisurely pace rather than teleporting, preferring to stick by the other Confederates present.

Maya has posed:
Maya had thought it best to come with others rather than go in alone so here she is on board with Himei and anyone else whos come along for this ride. Maya doesn't seem to put off by anything about the trip herself. She'd chatted a bit with Sakura and Eleanor if they were willing. She wouldn't have pressed it however.

"It does look that way, and your right we're going to find out shortly."

Elliana Fairchild (92) has posed:
    The air force is keeping a wary eye on matters, but it looks like Nathan and Ethan managed to arrange a sort of... reasonable expectation of peaceful investigation! That's good, right? At least, it should be. That's the plan, and all. The Council and Regent both agreed to it, and there should be an escort out to meet the new arrivals and Nathan, to guide them down into the catacombs.

    That was the plan.

    It is true that an escort has arrived for the others, made up of numerous troops that look to be the elite of the city. In fact, several are wearing armor and weapons not in the standard uniform, indicating some sort of Irregulars. They also arrive with the Regent: a young girl of no more than fifteen years of age, clad in fancy regalia. She is not a Blooded, one of the things that makes the Starshine Kingdom interesting. The Council is not there, however.

    The young girl steps forward, "Greetings, everyone!" She glances at the drop pod, and the large ship that Adelyn and Lezard and Mordred disembarked from. "I wish I could say welcome, but it appears that we have all been mislead. It is with a heavy heart that I must admit that you would perhaps have been better to... simply attack the palace, rather than attempt an investigation."

    Ethan, who is already nervous, tenses up at hearing the news, fingering an amulet at his chest. "Oh no..."

    One of the irregularly dressed men steps forward. "Shortly after meeting with the Union General, the Council convened privately. They were taking too long to come to a decision, so the Regent and I intruded, only to find them missing from the chamber. The catacombs have been sealed shut, but we have no idea what they might be doing beneath the city right now."

    As if on cue, a tremor runs through the streets. It's a small one, but enough for people nearby to stop and glance down. That's a mild concern, but then the tremor returns, much stronger, and the entire street /lurches/ to the side, tipping at a very slight angle that makes footing treacherous.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
Lezard pauses in his stride with Caster addresses him. Irritation flickers across his face for a moment, but it smooths out to an almost insouciant, pleasant expression. "Of course. Allow me to assist." He holds out a hand, and energy grows beneath him, rising up as he channels it into his invocation of teleportation magics.

The destination ring appears in the air, and Caster's luggage fades into view.

It then tumbles down into a nice mussy pig sty, possibly crushing the occupants. Lezard doesn't really care. "I believe you can take it from here." He comments to Caster, smiling as he adjusts his glasses.

And then to things that are actually important. Like the ground shaking. "Oh my. This is going to be interes-" He pauses, and then the ground lurches, Lezard actually being thrown to the ground. "Gah!" He hisses, and he straightens up, scrambling to his feet amidst the shockwaves. "We have to move, quickly!" He calls, forming up with Mordred and the others to prepare to assault the location where the Shajem is being held.

Nox (546) has posed:
    Footing isn't really an issue without feet on the ground, but even Nox can notice the sudden, nearly tectonic upset beneath him. Like many other people, he looks down at the street the moment it begins to tilt, his head moving with a little mechanical tick with the suddenness of the movement. Next he turns to Mordred, seeming to be the one most well versed in this world's affairs. What exactly the council running away from a peaceful confrontation means is up in the air, but the rest of it only takes an educated guess.

    "I assume the catacombs beneath the city are the most likely place for the Shajem to be sealed, yes? Would you care to forward any idea as to why the rulers of this city would suddenly abandon the pretense of cooperative investigation and rush off to meet their obvious demise?" He pauses for just a moment. "Though I suppose this only makes things easier!" He inclines ever so slightly towards the Regent, bidding her a possibly facetiously respectful "madamoiselle" before immediately teleporting to the first set of coordinates someone can forward, or failing that, repeatedly ahead of the group as they move towards the site.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    "Reiji, meet Amalthea. One of the closest things I have to a brother," Psyber says in reference to the clearly feminine Unicorn hanging around, "We're going to want to rendevous with Nathan and then get to work. If he's handling political negotiations, there should be no problem." Psyber notes, carefully striding along, "Also sorry for the lack of warning, Reiji."

    At the note from the girl and the city shaking, Psyber scowls heavily, "So they're trying to get in front of u-" He cuts off as a tremor runs through the streets and the terrain lurches. Psyber adjusts his footing and then says to Reiji and Amalthea, "We're going. Cover angles, move in formation."

    Slacker gone and transitioning into professional, Psyber brings his assault rifle up. The FN SCAR has its safety turned off with a click and Psyber is bringing it up towards his shoulder as he darts forward. His current plan is simple: Straight to the palace and try to get after the missing Council.

    Normally, the presence of Confederates would be a worrying point to him, but he at least is neutral to favorable on most of them. Mordred rates highly. Adelyn, Psyber respects if disagrees with. Lezard is a Confederate Psyber has some positive feelings towards. Caster he is indifferent to. Nox? Psyber dearly wants to beat Nox into a pulp after the Boston attack, but he restrains that urge for now.

    "Everyone. Try to minimize casualties if you can, but if you have to kill someone to get through them, do so without hesitation. Reaching the Shajem is priority one."

    This statement is loud enough for most people to hear, if they're moving on the palace from the ground.

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    Adelyn actually disembarks last, after taking care of something else onboard. It will probably not be important.

    While she can do the whole flying thing, that requires her to actually have some warning. She's in not much better shape than Lezard is, as is, stumbling mid-stride as the ground moves beneath her. With a snarl uncharacteristic of a detached researcher, she slaps the ground with a magic circle, her mental control of the mana immediately forming the intricate design necessary to force her will on the earth. Earth magic is one of her older specialties, and though she can hardly control an entire mountain at once, solidifying a path is a fairly easy feat. The effect begins at her immediate location, then spreads forward, running ahead of both her and everyone else here. Hopefully, its effect will be strong enough to prevent anything like a cave-in or a chasm opening up and swallowing the group, letting others focus on the matter of breaking through the barriers that were already there.

    "Go on, then! As the man said, blitz them!"

Mordred (12) has posed:
    Mordred is not BIG on political games. She can manage them, but they were never her forte. The exact situation of this kingdom escapes her, and she isn't immediatly aware of what the Hell the Union has been up to here, but evidently it's gotten the council's panties in a bunch. The knight rumbles, pretty much in sync with the tremors, as a sign of discontentment.

    "Whatever. If they're going to do something stupid then it's the last thing they'll do." Her footing seems fine, but then it'll take more than a slanted street to tip over a Servant.

    She strides along with the others headed for the palace. The mountain may be threatening, by virtue of being a god damn mountain that's moving around, but it isn't the Shajem, and therefore it isn't the Confederacy's problem here. The Union wants to save lives-- they can deal with it themselves. The great part about being evil.

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    Reiji immediately gets a pretty solid thump-pat on the back. "Oh come on it wasn't that bad. Like I said it could've been worse; the retrothrusters could have failed, pod crushed on impact, and the three of us killed instantly on impact, reduced to a mixed mush of red pasted and machine fluids." Introductions though. "Yo. Nice meeting you. Let's try this again over a beer or something next time, when we're not busy having to hit the ground full tilt."
    Because the news that drops means she IMMEDIATELY slides to Psyber's side. as he draws his SCAR, she draws her Vector .45 from the sling at her back. The Confederate presence doesn't go unnoticed-- a particularly withering scowl directed at Nox, before the takes to formation on the half-angel, motioning for Nathan to hunker up behind her miniature armored bulk.

Nathan Hall (168) has posed:
    Nathan is in a mood. As such, the news sets him into an intensity of hollow stoicism that borders on the insane. "I understand." He says, with a tranquil monotone as the street lurches around him. His EARTH MAGIC makes this less trecharous, or maybe he's just that goddamn stoic.

    "Show me, and Ethan, to the sealed catacombs. We will be creating the appropriate routes." He says. And from there, if she's following those directions, Nathan will immediately break into a mad, determined dash, going up to twice the speed you'd expect from a person like him. But of course, it'll be behind Reiji and Amalthea, potentially on a path wrought by Adelyn's own magic here, and he'll be giving his directions to the pair. Of course, Psyber is likely to be brought along purely by virtue of the fact that he needs to breach the catacombs as well. He'll likely wind up alongside Mordred pretty soon!

    PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: Make it to that fucking catacomb entrance with Ethan and their guide, and keep out of the way while Mordred and Psyber likely tear it open.

Reiji Arisu has posed:
    "Amalthea," Reiji repeats, inclining his head in greeting. "I am Reiji Arisu, exorcist and onmyoji. It's a pleasure." His gaze flickers towards Psyber briefly, an incredulous glimmer in his eyes. Can a female unicorn really be a... 'brother,' technically? "Sorry if I sound a bit terse. We can talk more when the job's done." He pauses, shaking his head, "Dwelling on those could-have-beens is kind of pointless now, isn't it? Let's just focus on the job."

    Well, at least the arrival was... More or less peaceful. For various definitions of peaceful that don't exclude 'orbital hot-drop.' The news they're hearing of the situation is somewhat less welcome. His lips turn ever so slightly downward as it quickly becomes obvious that a more... aggressive measures to resolve this situation. "Well that sounds like a problem. Why wouldn't they--"

    The ground rumbles. Reiji reflexively widens his stance to absorb the shock. Living in the City of Quakes makes you used to this kind of thing. Though he does slide ever so slightly to one side when the street begins to warp and distort. He grunts, hands moving instinctively toward his weapons... And then Amalthea opens the street beneath their feet, illiciting a quick nod from the swordsman. "As you say. Psyber, I'm going on ahead."

    And so he goes and does exactly as he says. He surges down into the depths, his free hand hovering over his portable arsenal to strike down whatever might rise to engage them.

Eleanor Lamb (40) has posed:
    Eleanor sighs a bit at the sight of the mountain moving, hands lifting up to plant on the wall of the aircraft. Bother. This just got awfully complicated. "Flowers, you can punch through large walls. Do you think, given the effort, you could shatter the legs of that... mountain beast? I assume it's made out of rock. Himei, think you can... ah."
    She screws up her face. "Get us closer (to the ground) and see if we can spot what's going on down there? Maybe there's more than just 'a lot of magic' working."

Circe (701) has posed:
Caster smiles pleasantly back at Lezard despite the haphazard job done with her 'luggage'. The squawking of some kind of tropical bird continues unendingly in its cage and a satchel of assorted potions and elixirs are both simply left where they fell. Her allies will have to do without her aid, it seems. She has no problem with pigs as long as she doesn't have to touch them. "Your assistance will be remembered," the redhead promises. But there are more important matters afoot, and playing nice is the order of the day. She lowers her head respectfully to the regent upon her approach. Diplomacy, etc. But the news that things have already gone not-according-to-plan means that the time for politeness might already be at an end.

As the ground shakes, Caster employs floating if things get too unstable, but Adelyn seems to be keeping the ground intact. However, as her allies head towards the catacombs, she chooses to remain outside. Going into a place with more dead things does not sound pleasant, and they need someone to keep an eye on things out here anyway, right? Right.

She flies up into the air, carried on air currents, and looks upon the enemy! ...Which appears to be a mountain with legs. Red eyes narrow into a squint. "...Almost Titan-like, isn't it?" she comments to no one. A Noble Phantasm in the form of a golden, thorny staff appears in one of her hands, but for now she holds off on attacking. She is a Caster. If she is going to attack directly, it should be when someone else already has the enemy's attention.

Himei (331) has posed:
    Plans are made, and when Himei relays that the mountain is moving, a strategy is made! "Right. Elle, you're with me, right? Maya too? Flowers, we'll get you as close as possible to drop you off." We. Right. It's up to Himei to bring the plane around closer, choosing one of the joints near the side with the great beast. The plane actually comes in pretty close, despite some turbulence, and she slows it as much as she can. "I can't exactly land this thing on there, can you jump from here?" She's pretty sure Sakura can do just that, and it's not that far of a drop for a ninja.

    Following the dropoff, Himei brings the plane up in a wide turn, coming in toward the city and coming in toward a street. Of course, with the fact that it's pitching about like crazy, this causes the buildints on either side to tear off the wings, sending the craft to a screeching halt.

    "See? Landed just fine! Let's go meet the others."

Maya has posed:
Mayadoes get the option to use less lethal force and will intend to given the situation, she'll follow her orders sure. She's however made sure to have said cards palmed and ready for when they were able to deploy. She's seen a lot but seeing a mountain come to life like this? That is something new and she watches with no small amount of awe as the thing is moving. She looks to Eleanor for a moment nodding it's a fairly solid plan.

"If needed I can take to the skies, so I can give airborne support and hum if it is just animated earth I might be able to do something with one of my summons."

She hold a small amulet that's about her neck for a moment.

"Sounds like a plan then and ya I can jump from here..."

Whelp there's no time at this point she has to hang on for a very wild ride. She can not throw stones, it's been better than some of /her/ landings. She's clearly looking a bit frazzled after the whole affair.

"We're walking away from it, I'll call it good, Himei."

They have a job to do after all.

Sakura Haruno (134) has posed:
    Once Himei's gotten them entirely close enough to the mountain, Sakura will bite back her distaste for what she's about to do and go over to jump from the plane. "Right. We'll meet up afterwards?" She asks, before diving from the plane towards the mountain.

    This is a dive in the classical, literal sense, with her hands stretched above her, going head first. This is because she's planning on diving directly through the mountain, carving out a deep, deep crater, and then trying to get to where the legs are under it. She could do that without leaving a hole through the mountain, but if it's really alive instead of just some odd enchantment, this might do real damage.

    Of course, it's always possible her jutsu will fail on the particular material, in which case she's going to be very embarrassed while healing her shattered arms and fractured skull.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber, after escorting Amalthea, Reiji, and Nathan as far as he possibly can, stops in the street and starts taking off his gear, "Alright. End of the line for me. Keep Nathan safe," He orders to both of them.

    Stripping off armor and guns might seem foolish, but he's about to go fight a mountain. He gets the impression maneuverability will be more important than the minimal defensive advantages of his current armor. And guns will be virtually useless. This means that he has to rely entirely on brute force and speed.

    "Jude, Gauntlet." Psyber says as he drops the last piece of his armor onto the ground on top of his rifle and vest. The sword unfolds off his back and wraps around his arm, creating a metal gauntlet.

    "Good luck, everyone."

    And then Psyber dashes off through the streets. As he does so, black wings erupt from his back and flap, the half-angel taking flight up towards the skies. Before he makes an opening attack, he wants to get some distance away and figure out just what he's looking at and about to be fighting beyond 'Monster made out of mountain'.

Eleanor Lamb (40) has posed:
    Okay, so to recap, we've just crashed landed a plane with Eleanor Lamb inside of it. In a defense mechanism, her Insect Swarm Plasmid overcharges, and there's a lump of beeswax holding Eleanor firmly in place in the seat, safe from harm and sparing her the indignity of screaming like a tiny child.

    Though, oncee they're in place, she stammers and peels herself out, shaking a bit as she follows Himei. She must really be shaken up, because instead of her usual wrenches, she's immediately gone for her favored 3-iron, the tip of the golf club crackling with electricity.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Adjudicator is pushing power into Psyber, extreme amounts of amplification. As soon as he touches the hilt of the sword, outrageous amounts of energy are pouring into his body and a red glow gushes down its length in seven sequential intensifications, before it folds into a hefty gauntlet around his hand. "Powering Strife Drives." It says, in a mature, calm tone. "Redshift Abstraction." Adjudicator pushes Psyber into Halo Shift, manifesting brilliant red lines of scripture on his body going up its right side, before suddenly forming the namesake halo of justice imagery behind his back. This is an emergency situation, and as such, it can push Psyber into its more extreme modes of enhancement.

    When Psyber does choose to strike, it will be with positively TREMENDOUS levels of weight and impact, titanic waves of red fire, and a terrain-shattering tendency to produce massive shockwaves.

Elliana Fairchild (92) has posed:
    MOUNTAIN GROUP:

    Those converging on the base of the mountain will see it's been torn up from the earth at the bedrock. It is definitely a beast, not magical rock, but being close to it the mystical nature of the being is pretty obvious. Sakura's dive burrows into rock, but at the very end she hits a carapace of some sort, which is still earthlike in consistency but not exactly dirt and rock. This is an earth-tuned beast, but not MADE of earth.

    As for what it is doing, the behemoth is slowly stomping forward, heading toward the north... and the Windward Empire, apparently. It looks sleepy rather than active, still waking up, with its head turning this way and that. It hasn't yet noticed anyone attacking it, though small bulges erupt at the leg nearest the hole Sakura made. These 'burst' into large, man-sized tick creatures, skittering forward toward the hole as some sort of defense mechanism.

Elliana Fairchild (92) has posed:
    The group clustering together to secure the catacombs gets help in the form of the Regent, who nods her head and gestures for the others to follow. It's not a long walk, allowing Himei and the others to catch up if they hurry. A small group of five or six sorcerers are chanting around a great vault set in the floor of the basement, a literal seal made of stone and magic. They've almost burned through it already, being familiar with the type of powers used. When it cracks open and crumbles to dust, it reveals a set of ruined stairs.

    Ethan and his Binders(he's brought five of them) don't appear worried about the staircase being broken up at first, but... there's a complication. "This isn't going to be easy," he notes, vanishing into a blurry form for a moment to reappear at the edge. This is because of the sudden screeching eruption of large, dog-sized batlike creatures pouring out from the hole, Shajem-corrupted beasts that are drooling acidic spittle and doing crazed dives at everyone in the room. One of the guards is already down, screaming.

    The other complication is that the beast below is walking, and thus the floor sways unsteadily and without an actual pattern, pitching at random times to make footing treacherous for those that rely on it.

Sakura Haruno (134) has posed:
    The good news for Sakura is that she's able to stop before doing any real damage to herself, coming to a halt within the ground, moving about within it as easily as she would water. With less trouble breathing, even. She'll feel at the carapace, and slipping her knife out, will start to cut at it. If she can open up a wound, she can start getting medical details on the beast; from there, she can perhaps identify weak spots, or just start punching with all her might over and over.

    Either way, she almost seems to have simply vanished from any outside perspective as she kneels down on the carapace and works at cutting it. This is not the dramatic massive attack she'd been expecting to do, but it's nice in its way.

Mordred (12) has posed:
    "Worried about a few beasts? Hnf. To think my master still likes you," Mordred grumps towards Ethan as he assesses the situation and the creatures start pouring out from the depths below. She clenches her Abstractum-- again, if it deems waking up, but even if it doesn't, it's still a sword-- and grins, stepping forward.

    "AMHAR! FEAST!"

    Though she has to watch her footing, having the Instinct skill makes it a lot easier than it would normally be. Glimpses of the mountain's moves appear moments before they happen, and the knight is able to adjust her flurry of slashes and her stride forward into the beast-infested lair accordingly. It goes without saying, but she's trying to brutally maim as many of the beasts as she can reach-- ideally, letting her sword drink their blood.

Psyber (253) has posed:
TEAM... 'IN THE BIG ROCK SHAJEM MOUNTAIN THERE'S A LAND THAT'S AWFUL AND SUCKS. AND YOU FIGHT A LOT OF WEIRD SHIT AND YOU KILL A LOAD OF SHMUCKS. WHERE THE BINDERS ARE ALL DOUCHBAGS AND SHOULD PROBABLY ALL DIE. AND THE BLOODED HAVE ALL FLOODED ALL THE LAND WITH THEIR DUMB LAWS. AND YOU SHOULD BUST THEIR JAWS. IN THE BIG ROCK SHAJEM MOUNTAIN':

    On some deep level, Psyber is both happy and disappointed he had to break formation. Sovereign will remain a secret a while longer, but he won't get to test it. More importantly, he gets to battle a mountain, so that's a treat.

    If Solanda 'Totally Not Caster' Songsteel wants to give him a potion, he'll accept it and drink it. But she's going to have to come to him, because he's airborne and has a desire to punch landscape in the face.

    Shift Two is good for this. In desperation, and if things get bad, he might try for Shift 3. But for now, he'll settle for Shift Two. As the power roars up around him and his Abstractum wakes up, Psyber slowly grins hungrily, "Oh it's been a while since we really cut loose. Let's make this fun."

    Slowly, his right hand curls into a fist as the iconography of the shift appears all about him. He shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath. And then his wings fold back and he's diving in towards the lumbering piece of terrain-monster. With all that power being funneled into him, that sheer destructive force at his fingertips, Psyber aims to come in fast and hard.

    He tries to uppercut a mountain square in the jaw before it can get too awake or gain too much momentum.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    "YES! BLOOD MAW!" Bloody Amhar calls out as the staircase fills with MEAT. Acidic meat, sure. But Bloody Amhar currently can channel power from a Shajem of its own, something to contain and devour the Twisted energies. The blade errupts with teeth, a jaw spreading from the hilt all the way down its length with unusual hunger. It's not just going for meat, it's looking to outright bite out chunks of flesh from these dogs and chew through them, gorging itself on blood despite the painful sizzle of acid on its surface.

    It will not be leaving much in the way of recognizable corpses behind.

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    Light magic is, unfortunately, not within Adelyn's specialties. She can manage some minor spells, but they're largely only available with the aid of Pure Guardian's memory function. At least one archmage before her must have been better-versed in such. Given this difficulty, she opts for the most efficient usage available--by combining it with her enchantment ability.

    "Have your weapon ready." All business tone, now, rather than her excitement over earlier experiments. There isn't time to control for experimentation at the moment. A pity, that.

    Hand motions and vocal chants combine with her mental control of the surrounding mana, running it through the conduits within her body and back through the spell circle forming in the air, as she channels it from there in brief, bright flashes of light aimed at each weapon that a nearby elite makes available. She'll offer the same to the guards, though only if she has time left over, given that she has a low opinion of how much use they'll get out of it before something eats them.

    Realm 'Light' magic, when combined with other elements, produces a 'holy' effect, which should be good enough to be applicable to these opponents. What she's supplying should be short-lived, but potent for that duration.

    "Gishur," she addresses her Abstractum, "See what others you can link to. We're supporting."

Himei (331) has posed:
    "Right," Himei says, coming in at the tail end of the matter. The eruption of the corrupted beasts from within gives her a focus, at last, and she twirls White Rose in one hand while she makes a run for the side of the entrance. Her body flares with silvery white light, in seconds leaving her in that silver-trimmed fuku of a Magical Girl. "It's been a while," she remarks to herself.

    Wings spring from her back as she makes a short leap into the air to meet the creatures one on one. "White Rose, give me a little extra speed?" It's a request, and it's easy to see why. She isn't going to be hurling bolts clumsily this time, she's thinning out the herd more dire<span class=" bold_fg_w bg_n ++ tly.

    chw">'Starlit Striker,'</span> Sailor Hope calls out, her off hand surrounded in a wreath of shimmering light. It's a focused effect, like a short range beam around her fingers. Short jabs strike at the wings, shearing a few off to send the creatures falling to their deaths.

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    "Go get 'em, Tiger." Amalthea says as Psyber departs, breaking off for the mountain. Though as he starts dropping equipment, she does snag his pistol, slotting the lovingly customized 1911 into magnetic lock at her hip for easy access. "I'll keep my eye on this one for you, I know it's one of your favorites." She promises idly.
    "Alright, marching orders, I'm-- following the crazy Servant, Nathan directly behind me at all times, Reiji, Psyber says you're good so I'm not gonna worry a lick about holding your hand." She barks, hustling for the catacombs.
    As soon as the stairs are revealed-- and the beasts come pouring fort, one floppy ear flits upwards, as Nathan rattles off directions, the Vector in her hand is already barking, braced over the lip of her shield as she holds it in front of her to present herself as a solid wall of armor, already working her way down the stairs. Her weapon is at the ready though, and the Light affinity flowing into the SMG results in a subtle flare of white with every muzzle flash as she starts surging down the steps after Mordred.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    "Ah, of course, Mistress!" Gishur says, with a gleefully smug sort of tone. "I'll ensure you've an easy path to help them." And it does! The floating tome flits in front of Adelyn, glowing green pages flipping rapidly as it manifests a magical interface allowing her to channel her magic to all those allies present in the Catacombs Excursion Group who are allied and consenting. "No idea what they'd do without us. Honestly." It says. There's an especially potent connection with the weapons BLOODY AMHAR, WHITE ROSE, IRONCLAD OATH, and UTOPIA, which are held by MORDRED, HIMEI, AMALTHEA, and ELEANOR respectively. They'll begin to glow with intense holy magics.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
Lezard exerts a small amount of power to lift himself off the ground, rushing along with the others into the catacombs.

the situation there looks moderately dire. He frowns at the sights of the seal. "What does this council even believe they are going to accomplish by doing this?" He asks no one in particular, mainly because there are more important things to concentrate on.

Like the horrifying acidic dogs that want to literally eat their faces. And the rest of their bodies, but mostly their faces. Lezard himself gets pounced on by one of the beasts, the acid spittle sizzling across his blemishless face with a painful noise. Lezard yells in pain, gripping the beast by the throat with a sudden surge of unexpected strength. "Get... OFF, YOU BEAST!" He hurls it towards Mordred, who liekly gleefully adds it to the butchery pile.

He withdraws his ruby-tipped scepter, a fury hot in his eyes as he levels the magical conduit. "MYSTIC CROSS!" He calls out, a flurry of bright sparkles gathering to shower upon the dogs and detonate on impact with light-elemental blasts. He's trying to coordinate with Adelyn's field control abilities.

Maya has posed:
Maya has been quiet on the radio for hte most part, not intending ot be insulting but intending to keep it more clear for vital chatter related to the mision. She looks now to see the thing is a beast it's not a animated stone, that shockes her almost evne more. She's knowns she might need to get to the iar so wshe uses the amulet muttering a spell and blue semi transparent energy weings form from her back and she hovers off the ground slightly as they start to flap he wings and she also casts a hase spell on her self. She sees the creeatures coming and well now that she's got some air that's where she's going to start with the fun fire, she did note she cna use holy magic but right now she's going to save it. She just is spraying fire trying to keep the swarm at bay for now, doing her best to support Himei.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    "Gotcha boss, little boost coming right up." White Rose says, unfolding from Himei's back in a dramatic flare and a rush of white, shining rose petals. "Powering Dash Drivers." Intense red light rushes through her, into her back and down her legs, filling her with vitality and energy, cutting the drain on her endurance and vastly improving her muscle performance. The wings themselves get in on the fight, darting forward and back to cover Himei's flank, slamming thick, thorny rose stems brutally against any attacker. "Been a while? More like too long!"

Eleanor Lamb (40) has posed:
    Eleanor Lamb's footing steadies itself as she walks forward, observing one of the guards being torn asunder by the evil critters. But now the game is afoot, and her galf club crackles with electricity, and holiness and light and there's less of a dread in her heart now, seeing all of these allies around her. Allies. Of course.

    More so as she can feel Utopia slide into a connection with the rest. Right. Homura may not be here, but one of her cartridges is. And Eleanor smiles as she stretches out the now glowing Utopia. "Utopia. SHIFT. CARTRIDGE ON. LET US SHOW THESE PEOPLE THE PROPER PATH." And she charges in. She may not have a Red Abstracum, but that doesn't mean she's out of place. From the Sister's body explodes waves of file, billowing, hot, aggressive, cleansing flames that lick out at the horrible evil twisted beasts. "Let us make this place extremely hostile to the Shajem, Utopia."

Circe (701) has posed:
//MOUNTAIN//

Caster flies up to Psyber, after diving down to retrieve her satchel and bird-cage from the pig pen delicately between two fingers of one hand and hooks the cage onto her staff. She only touches the handles, and uses a prana burst to disperse the filth from them both. When she gets close enough, the purple-tunic-wearing Servant offers a bottle with a purple fluid within to the half-angel. "I have a stronger one, but it has unfortunate side-effects I imagine neither you nor your allies would be pleased with. This one simply provides enhanced stamina and strength temporarily. Drink, and be merry in your destruction of mountain-bearing beasts."

The Greek woman then smiles brightly and floats back out of range, because she is not getting caught in what's about to happen. If she notices anyone else in need of aid, such as someone requiring healing or replenishment of energy, she is fully capable of flying towards them to provide such as well. But it's not an instantaneous process and going too fast uses energy of her own. She is avoiding using too much prana presently, relying mostly on her own reserves as she is, but flight is something she is quite good at, and she should only require a little bit of rest if she does not do it too much or go too quickly.

Really, though, she is just watching with great interest the demonstrations of power and skill being employed by the Union.

Things to remember for later.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    "I will ensure you do not falter in your duty." Ironclad Oath says, rumbling sternly. The bracer on Amalthea's body floods her with its own energies, and one can see strange red smoke from the gaps in her armor. Amalthea's ENDURANCE has been amped up severely, while her pain and exhaustion sensations are severely dulled, making her momentum unstoppable.

Nox (546) has posed:
    The looks of barely restrained hate cause Nox to chuckle ever so slightly, though he doesn't act so garish as to make a show of returning any of those glares. He's much more interested in seeing the unsealing of this Shajem more than anything, so entirely focused on this particular aspect of the situation that for a moment it seems as if he fails to notice the mountain moving at all. Amalthea, Eleanor, Himei and Nathan coming along for the ride is something of an annoyance, but at the very least, he won't be surrounded by a whole horde of Unionites as the situation unfolds, for the time being, he follows Mordred, Ethan, and his sealers.

    The normal thing to do when happening upon a room of sorcerors engaged in an ominous ritual to unseal an ancient, ruinous power would be to attempt to stop then, but Nox only summons his sword as the unbinding continues, the gear teeth rapidly settling together as it forms itself from nothing just in time to be 'blessed' by Adelyn shortly before the corrupted beasts spew forth.

    "Really? I see little reason to be upset about this. A small impediment." he intones, clearly confident in the assembled strength of the forces gathered in the catacombs. He makes a token effort of killing the animals that come close to him, zapping out of the way of their lunges with tiny, precise teleports and cleaving heads from shoulders or skewering them through their chests with alarming strength, but otherwise he allows his allies to clear the bulk of them rather than expending energy. As is the custom, he sends a handful of noxines down the stairs ahead of him, having caught up quickly from the ship. It seems as if it would be difficult for them to see anything, but he does it anyways, remaining in the room for a few more moments if killing any of the sorcerors becomes necessary before winking out of existence again.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    "Blueshift Abstraction." Utopia speaks up, suddenly gushing with blue light. The sea of life within Eleanor will quiet sharply, and her mind will experience an intense calmness and clarity. A sheer power boost to her plasmids is a wonderful side effect of this. The glove glows white and azure as it emits a wave of fire, as the HOMURA cartridge lets her establish timing that's in perfect tandem with Nathan's orders to intelligently assault clusters and masses of the creatures.

    Blue lines of genetic information have rapidly shot up Eleanor's arm, double-helixes of data combined with philosophy rushing up half of her body from that glove. "The path may crumble, but it is the right one, so walk it steadily."

Reiji Arisu has posed:
    "Got it," Reiji nods to Psyber as he departs, "Don't do anything dumb out there. Or if you do, make it count." Reiji waits for the others to catch up, before moving forward into the darkness. It doesn't take long, however, for them to reach... Something. A pit in the ground, a staircase leading deep into the earth, and a group of sorcerers undoing the seal upon it.

    Honestly it's just about as much as Reiji had come to expect when he was informed of the nature of this particular operation. What he wasn't expecting, necessarily, was the bats. That's not to say he wasn't prepared for it.

    "Tch, flying rats. Nathan, keep behind me," he grunts, a hand flying to the shotgun at the bottom of his weapon rack. It comes away with a click, spinning up into his open hand. A split second later, Adelyn's enchantment floods into his weapon, setting its barrel alight with holy light. A sliver of time after that, and Reiji depresses the trigger, filling the swarm of flying creatures with clouds of brilliant buckshot.

    One bat gets a bit close for comfort, its acid splashing across Reiji's jacket, sizzling away at the reinforced fabric. It's bisected a moment later, roaring flame mixing with the plumes of golden gunfire. Reiji replaces it into his arsenal a moment, later, and draws his pistol as its substitute. Heavy, oversized slugs scream through the air to try and obliterate the larger chiropteran creatures. Soon, it too glows as his shotgun does.

It seems like his solution to this situation is 'more bullets than anyone should have the right to carry.'

Nathan Hall (168) has posed:
    Nathan doesn't stop for a moment. The catacomb vault door crumbles just as he gets to it and if someone else doesn't do it, he's going to practically shoulder-check his way through the crumbling dust. Thank goodness for those goggles keeping that out of his eyes, they do something! "It as never going to be easy." He says, to Ethan. And as the group reaches the Twisted defenses, Nathan slows, keeps behind his guard, and immediately begins to call out tactics.

    The darkness of the crumbling stairs makes his eyes glow ominously. His face is completely stoic while he strides, combat and chaos raging around him, completely calmly and almost indifferently, despite the lurching below his feet and calling out the tactical data. He just advances with pure emotionlessness and determination.

Elliana Fairchild (92) has posed:
    MOUNTAIN TEAM:

    The Behemoth IS a creature. Mystical, perhaps, but it possesses organs and the like. Sakura slicing into the carapace reveals the back muscles, throbbing and twitching with some kind of mystical power. She can sense the chakra within it very strongly... but even more interesting, she can sense that the chakra within is stolen, in some manner. Mingled bits of /human/ energies, hundreds upon hundreds, possibly thousands of life forces flowing through the muscle and along the body.

    One of the tick-things is skittering up to the hole she left, burrowing into the looser earth left behind and aiming to get its pincher-probiscus or whatever it is on its head into her. It isn't really a threat, but it is a distraction.

    Psyber's incoming attack slams into the creature's head, smashing it openly and causing blood and bone to splatter across the base of the mountain. It staggers a little, but that leads to some screaming up above. There IS a city on this thing.

    But that definitely hurt it. The impact point is healing, but slowly... and the head turns to regard Psyber as a threat, letting loose a tremendous vomiting of hot mud toward him. It's thic and viscous and /burning/ as well, both with temperature and with unholy power. It also dries very swiftly, obviously intending to cake his wings and weigh him down in an attempt to ground the half-angel. Whatever of the mud misses will boil and hiss as it dries on the opposite mountainside it splatters across, causing the vegetation to wilt, then twist and sprout vicious-looking thorns.

Sakura Haruno (134) has posed:
    Flowers frowns as she detects the multitude of life forces within the mountain-beast, starting to send out a message regarding them. This is cut off when something starts to try to pincer her head, which causes her to perhaps unsurprisingly scream. She's also going to try to punch it directly upwards, likely spreading a blast of earth out in a fountain-esque pattern as it goes.

    If that's successful, she's going to go back to her detection and her work, trying to find just where those chakra patterns had originated at, cutting in deeper if she can. She'll start trying to cut her way down into the body, which is going to likely leave her even more badly needing a shower than she already does.

    All in all, she's having about an a-minus sort of day, discovering new life and such with only a few downsides.

Elliana Fairchild (92) has posed:
    CATACOMBS:

    It's true: the bat-dogs are made into mincemeat by the assembled power of the Elites. Bullets strike down several, without issue, and the crunching noises of golf clubs crushing, hands striking, or Amhar /eating/ the things creates a layer of dead bodies, some of which tumble down into the darkness. In fact, the group gets off with minimal injuries despite the acid drool. Some of the guards fall, but most of them retreat to let the more competent Elites handle it.

    Ethan answers Mordred, "These are not a threat, but they indicate that the power leakage from the Shajem is greater than we'd thought. It may already be awake, and has been growing in power all this time. It may not be one that is just waking up and weakened." He doesn't appear worried about the creatures himself... in fact, the Binders he brought with him line up behind him confidently. Ethan looks at Mordred, and then he notes, "Your Master, eh? My former student, then. You should know, for all her potential, there are things that she didn't have time to learn."

    He makes a few motions, familiar to those who have seen Elliana bind. But instead of sealing a single being, a shimmering web of energy leaps up in front of him, ensnaring any of the bat-things that come his way. This makes them easy pickings for Maya or Himei, for example.

    Actually descending into the catacombs is... not very catacombey. There are, obviously, branches and tunnels, but whatever released these creatures has left a massive hole boring down into the earth itself. Presumably it reaches to the Shajem itself, since a faint purplish glow can be seen deep within.

    But the second wave is coming up, and they are much more of a problem. Two giant, bulbous creatures are skittering up the sides of the tunnel. Spiderlike and massive, they have humanlike faces with screeching maws. Screeches that echo through the tunnel and cause the guards atop the entrance to bolt immediately, screaming in terror. This is likely due to the fact that the screeching causes a mystical clawing at the mind, the tendrils of raw, undirected terror reaching into the minds of all present. Even if they aren't affected, it's easy to tell what that screaming is trying to do.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    TEAM 'GO TELL IT TO FUCK OFF ON THE MOUNTAIN':

    Psyber is washed over with searing hot mud. The thick, burning goop is so heavy and so painful it causes Psyber to cry out in pain and plummet to the ground along with the flow of the attack. He never even got to thank Not-Caster for the potion she used to buff his strength.

    In the pool of caked mud and goop on the ground, a figure stirs. He slowly stands up, surpressing his desire to scream in intense pain. the searing hot substance can't corrupt him solely due to his conceptual nature. But it can hurt, and that shows. The parts of Psyber not covered by cloths: His face, neck, and left arm, they took the most visible damage.

    As the substance drops or is wiped off his non-gauntlet arm, blistered and peeling skin comes with it, clearly showing second and third degree burns up and down the length of his arms, while his neck and face remain (thankfully) covered in mud to conceal his burns there. He wobbles on his feet slightly, clenching and unclenching his fists as he tries to figure out which muscles took the deepest tissue damage and adjust his fighting style accordingly. It's an eerily calm system of determining his avenue of attack.

    When he feels like enough regeneration has occurred to allow him to fight again, Psyber beats his wings once and clears the mud off them. Their much tougher nature leaves them relatively undamaged. Slowly, he inhales and then exhales.

    And then he takes off in flight. The good arm is aimed towards a new target: Instead of the head, hit the joints. Psyber wants to avoid damaging the city, so best to immobilize this thing first. So, with that same crushing power as before, Psyber aims an airborn haymaker towards one of its 'knees', trying to see if he can maybe cripple it.

Nox (546) has posed:
    Nox isn't quite so far removed from human concerns that he can't feel a psychic presence of that calibre. He pauses momentarily at the same instant the guards run, struggling for an instant with second thoughts. Knowing full well that this is the Shajem's influence after experiencing that of the one sealed within Mordred however, he resolves to ignore it. Even without that knowledge, he's far too fixated on what lies ahead to be dissuaded so easily. When he gets into these situations, he pursues them with a relentless, single minded determination, perhaps only behind the General's at this moment.

    Teleporting ahead of the frontline fighters for a moment to give him a few seconds to fire without worry of collateral, he levels the point of his sword down the tunnel, causing a roiling conflagration of cerulean fire to bubble and boil at the tip, swelling like an angry sun until it drowns the corridor in blue-white light. The next moment, he releases it in a raging torrent of barely contained magical energy, deliberately filling up the whole hall so that the spider beasts have nowhere to dodge or take cover, letting the blaze abate just in time for someone to run ahead of them and finish them off.

Nathan Hall (168) has posed:
    The thing about trying to make Nathan Hall feel terror is that Nathan Hall is always feeling terror. Terror, fear, and fright are not strangers to him in any way. So trying to compound that is mostly ineffective. Unfortunately, that just means the stream of tactical data is steady. It will not mean that those present will, necessarily, have the presence of mind to act on that.

    He will stop and keep behind his bodyguards, and move or continue when necessary, but can do little else but [SCAN] the beings, his goggle shining white in the darkness for a moment, to report their magical or anatomical weaknesses to the party in calmly called statements.

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    Down, down, down, descending into the pit, Amalthea pot shots a few of the webbed up fliers, courtesy of Ethan, before ejecting the spent magazine from her Vector and sliding a new one into place and priming the now sanctified gun for another go. "If it might have already been awake how did the hell did we not notice until now?" She grunts at Ethan.
    Before something gives her pause. Like a deer in the woods, listening for a predator, the unicorn goes dead still, ears lifted as she tilts her head back and sniffs the air.
    It is the scuttling ascent of the spider-like beasts rising the meet the group that makes her head snap back down. Tucking her gun away, she draws not her sword, but her lance, the silvery gleam of the Wishblade flickering with a butterfly light in the gloom of the catacombs.
    "Yo Reiji. I'm leaving Nathan with you for a few."
    With the familiar, and oddly chillingly relaxing feeling of Ironclad Oath numbing her body, she takes a much more reckless approach. Even as the monstrosities reach out towards her mind, she draws a steeling breath. But she does not let herself quail, despite the stiffness of her body that she can't- or perhaps refuses to acknowledge. A sudden burst of force and she leaps upwards, before vaulting off the nearest wall and aiming herself on a course for one of the creatures, lance first, a sudden extra surge of acceleration from the jump-pack lashed on her back, sending her careening down at it in breakneck speeds.

Eleanor Lamb (40) has posed:
    Elenaor skids to a stop, the holy flames still billowing from herself and Utopia when the spider monsters launch that psychic assault on the party. She stammers and staggers, eyes going wide at the height of it, gripping her hand tight at the leather and cloth of Utopia, the gem-eye of the Abstractum a hard point for her to focus on as the mental energy batters at her ego.
    The Sister's feet plant themselves though as she looks up at the remains of the Council. She dimly watches Nox fly into the tunnel, and then lets out a ragged breath. Right. This we can still do. Both hands grip her 3-iron like a bastard sword, and Eleanor charges at the Spider monster on the right. If they are going to attempt to scramble her brain, she will return the favor. "BOTHER IT ALL. WOULD YOU KINDLY KNOCK THAT RACKET OFF?" And then she leaps, her golf club BLAZING with fire, an arcing, terrible pall of light streaking over her head and towards one of the beasts.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
Fear battles with anger in Lezard's mind as they advance. That emotion, something he hasn't truly tasted in some time, strikes mentally and causes him to pause in his advance for critical moments as he attempts to do battle with it not in the realm of the flesh, but of the mind. "These beasts... are quite effective." He grimaces, working to keep focus as the Binders form up. "We will have to work together in order to beat back these abominations." Even so, his attempts to focus are shaken as he tries to gather up the power. Knowing the mental presence is being imposed from outside does not make it much easier, though it lacks the touch of something with true finesse in such matters would have, making it more vulnerable to defeat through sheer willpower.

In the meantime, he is forced to take shelter behind the others as he comes to grips.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    The Abstractum as a whole are vulnerable to mental effects. Each buff they've provided wavers and falters somewhat; most of them will be pushing through their terror, but the beneficial amplifications will suffer somewhat as a result of their innate vulnerability to this sort of thing.

Maya has posed:
Maya :is looking at the horrible bat dog things and is very thankful for the holy power that's imunbed her, while she can use it herself it's only certain spells this seems to apply to even her rifel's attack and this is very useful. She takes her shots trying to shoot the things. Her rifle chatters away spraying shells as she does so. Still there seemsto be more shells than the gun could hold and Maya's not reloading it visable.

"So we hve to head down humm."

Maya gets ready to move but it seems there's new things comming. She stares at the new horror. She doe snot like spider like things, spiders on her world get to the size of things like dogs or wolves, she does not like them /at/ all. She takes a moment shifts her rifle and fires a napalm canister at one of the, which with the power she's been effected by? It might just be holy napalm!

Mordred (12) has posed:
    Amhar feasts. All is well in this world.

    Mordred continues grumping at Ethan though. "That's fine. There's tons of shit you couldn't have taught her and she learned. Give and take, huh?" She really must not like him. Maybe it's because he's a goody two shoe and Elliana likes him.
    Could be jealousy.
    Or it could be the fact his purpose here could potentially fuck with hers. It's also possible it's just Mordred being Mordred.

    They go in deeper; she minds her mouth for a while, but then larger, more threatening creatures decide they want a go too. Are they screaming FEAR at the group? Fuck this Shajem. Mordred growls, flickers of fire bleeding through the eye sockets of her helmet. She sends a burst of rage outward, against friends and foes alike. Does cowardice stack with rage? We'll find out how that works.

    But rather than quietly observes, she dives forward, infusing Bloody Amhar with a raging fire and trying to violently and angrily cut and tear into anything that gets into her reach. She might even try to rip off one of the two massive spiders' legs and use it as a bludgeon with her free hand. Just, with a lot of fire. And raw mana. Prana Burst is kind of a drug.

Reiji Arisu has posed:
    As the last dregs of the bat-dog-things begin to fall under the elite assault, Reiji holsters his shotgun and pistol once more. His wakizashi replaces them, cutting down whatever Ethan's (rather fascinating) magical ensnarement catches. "When you say that its power is leaking, isn't that a good thing in the end? It'll make our job easier when we get down there," Reiji observes as they begin descending even further into the depths. "Unless that's something that only happens when it has power to spare."

In which case... Sealing it could be rather more problematic than he was presuming.

Considering that he was already assuming a rather difficult task to begin with, that's going to be... an issue.

And then there's a /scream./

    Reiji grunts as that terrible sound washes over his consciousness, clawing at the walls of his mind. His eyes sharpen, his will forming a bulwark of spiritual and mental might against the onslaught. For now, he's safe- but no man's will is infinite. They need to bring them down, ASAP. "Bigger ones," Reiji deadpans, "Great."

    Once again, he draws his firearms, slipping fresh clips into each one. Reiji stands between Nathan and the nearly fathomless depths of the earth. "You got it. I'll give you whatever support I can," he says to the unicorn.

    And then he starts opening fire. Nathan's information directs his shots, with Gold's penetrating bullets smashing into more heavily armored segments while Hollywood pounds at the fleshier bits on the creatures' bodies. Each one still glows with holy flame-- he's going to have to get him some of that magic.

Elliana Fairchild (92) has posed:
    MOUNTAIN:

    Sakura's punch LAUNCHES the tick out of the hole, whre it bounces off the side, bounces off a leg, then lands with a crunch on the ground. Predictably, the oblivious Behemoth stomps on it without realizing, just a moment later. It continues lurching onward, without even noticing. This gives Sakura some freedom to analize the bloody muscles, reaching ruther down to notice blood vessels and chakra lines. Well, that's not what they are, but that's what she can perceive them as being. It's definitely human chakra... and a lot of them. This thing has been growing for CENTURIES like this, probably with regular sacrifices. It's a familiar enough circulatory system that Sakura could probably /follow/ it though.

    Psyber's onslaught slams into the knee with a loud, very disturbing CRUNCHING noise, echoing out and causing a bellow of pain from the giant beast. It staggers, but doesn't fall. Regeneration starts to work on the knee, but knees are innately vulnerable joints. It's paused the Behemoth for now.

Circe (701) has posed:
//MOUNTAIN//

Caster I mean Solanda delves into her satchel and retrives six vials of extremely potent sleeping potion. She is not keen on getting close enough to distribute them to the beast itself, but she may need to get close enough to hand them off to those who can do so for her. Therefore, assuming Psyber and Sakura are into that, the redhead goes flying towards each of them, intending to offer three vials to each. It may take more than a moment to visit each person, however, so the potions are not available instantaneously. Especially given Psyber is in the middle of trying to break a monster leg and Solanda doesn't want to get caught in the shockwave from such an attack.

Or the flying flesh bits and shockwaves of Sakura's own attacks either.

Shockwaves are generally unpleasant to be caught in, on principle.

But sacrifices must occasionally be made, and she is durable on account of her nature.

Maybe just not AS durable as these two juggernauts of strength and fury.

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    Magic can do a lot of things, and Adelyn has spells across a large set of magical disciplines. She also has a set of arts in which she has no ability whatsoever, for the nature of her affinities. Unfortunately, for this moment, that latter set includes direct acts upon the mind. Psionics are well outside her field. As such, she's forced to take the full brunt of the attack, with only a generalized field of disrupting mana standing between it and her. If it really were a spell from her world, she might be able to counter it with an oppositional force, but that's unlikely here.

    Mentally, she retreats to a prepared defense of a differing emotion. Physically, she enhances this mental shift by biting her fingers hard enough to draw blood. This is the necessary catalyst for her to transform her present emotional state, albeit temporarily, from one side of the fight or flight response to the other. She was terrified; she is now enraged. She is also bleeding and in some degree of pain, but that's entirely secondary.

    The upside is that she is now able to act. The downside is that she will have a harder time planning those actions. This counter itself wasn't well-planned, but that's an unfortunate consequence of the nature of the attack. She did not have time to think this through.

    Adelyn makes a sweeping gesture that seems to grab and compress a light into her hand. When her fingers spread, the magic circles appear as if an afterthought, circling the white-hot beams of energy that leave sizzling, ionized trails through the air, between her and her targets. She's firing at any point at which she has a clear shot. It may fall to Gishur to continue coordination, such that she doesn't accidentally hit any of her more mobile allies.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Amhar tears forward. FEAR being counteracted with RAGE means that some of the Abstractum, Amhar included, can provide their buffs, but with less regulation, less accuracy, less coherence. The teeth are jagged, mis-shapen, inaccurate. But they are still teeth and still devouring strongly. Amhar makes every slice into a goughing maiming attack, replacing all the faculties lost by terror with rage instead, thanks to Mordred.

Himei (331) has posed:
    Himei streaks downward, but when the scream rattles out she pauses in midair, staggering and almost dropping instead of flying. She flaps her wings, biting her lip and grunting. She starts to flutter upward for a moment, but then... a brief flare of power surrounds her, and she narrows her eyes. "Remind me to thank Yuri for being a giant dick to me," she says with a growl.

    White Rose is whipped forward, and she slots two cartridges: an ELLESTARIA LVL 1 and a PSYBER LVL 2. Then she dives into the side of the tunnel to brace, sending a lance of pure white divine energy down toward one of the spiders, her aura EXPLODING into silvery light.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Gishur looks a little green around the gills. "G-gods, at least Mistress' aren't so..." It manages to quietly trail off there, but the connections with the group are still faltering just slightly, making the holy effect waver and flicker like a dying lightbulb at times. Still, it keeps strong as it can keep, and maintains the connections necessary for the buff to keep in effect, trying its hardest to not let its User down here and lose face.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Ironclad Oath is one of those affected by Mordred's ENRAGING SHOUT during its vulnerable time from the fear. Instead of faltering in its effect, the effect becomes overwhelming at certain points and times, spread somewhat unevenly in its severity. It's TRYING its damndest to keep going, and uses the enraging as a motivating element, but the mental effects are still substantial for it.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    So this thing is vulnerable to damage, for all its massive size. After his attack, Psyber backs off a bit and lands on the ground with a skid. He exhales and tries to catch his breath, huffing and puffing as the beast pauses in its movement. There's a long moment of pause,

    The half-angel slowly brings his hand to the sword sheathed at his side. The sheath is old and worn, with dusty wrappings caked in dirt and a battered leather exterior. Since its recovery, Psyber had been scared to draw the weapon. Or rather... Psyber had been scared he COULDN'T draw the weapon. A single line from Timothy Merriheart has stayed with him:

    'What I wouldn't give to have one of THOSE here... but they say the Hundred choose the wielder, too, so maybe it wouldn't do much.'

    A frightening prospect for him: What if the sword wouldn't allow itself to be wielded by him. What if Psyber's months of planning and searching came to a single object that never wanted to be in his hand in the first place. So paralyzing was the fear of being wrong, that Psyber had not found the courage to even attempt to draw the blade since it was recovered Friday.

    Time to do or die.

    "Let's hope I'm worthy, Adjudicator."

    Gauntlet-clad fingers wrap around the hilt of the blade and red eyes wince shut. Slowly, Psyber pulls his hand upwards. The half-angel attempts to, for the first time in decades or perhaps even centuries, draw Sovereign from its resting place. It's a pivotal moment for him, as frightening as it is inspiring. Attempting to draw this blade represents a number of symbolic things for him:

-The potential to be chosen by a world not his own.
-Taking a more literal stance as opposite to Elliana. Not her opposition, but the light to her dark, two sides of a conceptual coin.
-And honestly, maybe getting to wield a really cool sword.

    Barring any catastrophic failure on his part, Psyber would draw the sword and, unsure of how to wield one of the One Hundred, he simply dart-flies in towards the Mountain Monster again and tries to sever its leg right at the knee with a mixture of the blades power, his own strength, and Adjudicator's boost.

Sakura Haruno (134) has posed:
    Well, if there's a circulatory system, there has to be a heart in there somewhere. Sakura will sigh to herself before continuing to cut in, getting in to try and follow along the path of the 'veins', whether literal or not. She'll go as quickly as she can, but it's unlikely she goes unnoticed in this forever, given that she's basically going to be burrowing further into the thing.

    This is why she is not going to be accepting any potions; she's not really looking to put it to sleep, given the methods she's going about. Sakura's intent is to get to whatever will pass as the behemoth's heart and cut it out, possibly from the inside if it comes to that.

    "This is the grossest thing I've done this year." She grumbles to herself, which is actually quite a high bar.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    MENTAL EFFECTS! Utopia is specifically geared to deal with those. As a blue-type and as a psychology-focused Abstractum besides, it resists most effectively, leaving it capable of both sustaining the Shift and trying to help Eleanor Lamb. "Eleanor! Keep your focus on my voice. There is one challenge and one solution. The voice of the masses doesn't matter when you find a time like this. Dedicate your mind only to the path ahead, there's nothing to be gained from a debate about no choice at all."

    As it does, it's using PSYCHIC IMPULSE that it's capable of as Eleanor's Abstractum caretaker to get the damn sea of life to shut it a bit, mind-punching a few Rationalists who are getting uppity.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    Himei's SPEED BOOST falters, but it's the loss of the FLANK PROTECTION from the wings that's most trouble here. THough, hey, she's been encouraging her Abstractum! It can push a little more, further, trying to add a bit of extra oomph to Himei's attack by way of reducing the drain on her endurance. It can also help by channeling those CARTRIDGES! "CARTRIDGE INSTALLING!" It calls out, fright still quivering in its voice. PSYBER LEVEL 2 CARTRIDGE provides a tremendous boost that's proportional to VIOLENT INTENT from the target, meaning it's especially effective against mindless soldier-creatures. Meanwhile, ELLESTARIA LEVEL 1 CARTRIDGE provides an amped-up biological effect against mutations or biological engineering, seeking weaknesses in the creatures from their mutation.

Elliana Fairchild (92) has posed:
    CATACOMBS:

    Nathan's SCAN reveals that these things used to be Blooded humans, definitely. Probably Council members, really. They aren't very coherent, though, and their minds are probably wholly gone. They're entirely Shajem-twisted creatures now... and pretty strong.

    Fortunately they are STUPID too, so they shriek loudly when Nox fills the corridor with blue energies, blasting through it. They thrash about, but they aren't burnable like spiders should be. Carapace scorched, both of them LUNGE upward, spitting 'webbing' at everyone. It's not physical webbing, but some kind of mystical burning flame or something, like a concept of a web.

    When one of them lunges upward, it's met with a gory impalement from Amalthea's lance, spurting ichor across the walls. That one starts to skid back down, scratching the walls.

    Ethan answers swiftly, "I think that they did notice. The Starshine Kingdom handles their own affairs. If we'd been able to visit regularly, this could have been- nnf - avoided!" His Binders are following him, but start to retreat when the screeching starts. Without blinking, Ethan weaves another Binding, surrounding the group in a bubble that seems to calm them. "I can't maintain this and help the rest of you, though!" On the upside, this gives Lezard an advantage in calming him, if he moves over with the Binders.

    About then, the rocking and pitching steadies somewhat, as the Behemoth takes a moment to gather itself. This should help things, especially as Eleanor dives down and smashes a HOLY GOLF CLUB into the spider-thing that Amalthea impaled, crushing its head. It gurgles, cutting off ONE of the shrieks and weakening the effect. It's still 'alive' to a degree though, and flails madly with its spiderlegs. This is making it start to tumble down the shaft though.

    Mordred solves this shortly by leaping downward, tearing off two of the legs. The gurgling spider tumbles into the abyss, while its legs are then used to BEAT THE OTHER ONE, forcing it back and making it shriek more. It's a weaker effect even with the desperation though. Reiji's bullets are tearing into it in another moment, guided by Nathan's words, and it tears through the flesh thanks to the weakened but still effective holy buff. With Adelyn's shots peppering it, the spider goes on the offensive.

    Himei finishes it off, thanks to a rather lucky combination of cartridges and the fact that it wasn't prepared for a beam attack when Mordred was BEATING IT TO DEATH WITH LEGS. The violence-boosted blast of holy power is already something that tears into the creature, particularly effective against beings like the Twisted. The fact that the bio-weapon targeting is preacent means the lance of light twists and blasts right into the core of the being, which is somewhere in the join of the humanoid and spider parts, disintegrating the core and causing it to crumple and tumble downward, dead.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    "We will soon see." Adjudicator sspeaks quietly. "I shall plead your case." And then the rush of red fire dies down. One sword speaks to the other, the gauntlet humming gently as it conveys all it knows of Psyber to Sovereign. In its most basic level, the gauntlet acts not unlike a lawyer, presenting its evidence plainly in the brief trial that will be drawing the blade and wielding it appropriately. The Hundred choose their wielders, after all, but some mechanism must judge, and Adjudicator will feed it all the information it needs.

Circe (701) has posed:
//MOUNTAIN//

After attempting to come to Sakura to make with the team work by providing sleeping potions to the person who is both best suited to saving lives and should probably WANT to save lives most as a medic, Caster is ignored. Well, that's fantastic. She flies back to the creature, muttering, and just dumps all six potions into the circulatory system herself via the exposed injury that Psyber has conveniently provided.

Hopefully she doesn't get caught in any kinds of weird sword laser hijinx along the way. Maybe this will do something, maybe it won't. But Solanda's ability to aid and willingness to put herself in danger to do so have both reached their limits, so she tosses the satchel full of healing potions to Psyber once his attack is complete, whatever the result, and calls, "Everything left in here is healing or energy-replenishing in nature. You appear to have greater need of it than I do!"

Then, with shining staff, bird cage still containing a highly agitated tropical bird, and an absence of interest in getting squashed or sworded, Caster attempts to take her leave of the immediate battlezone. Too close to the action for her.

Of course, she might not get away without being attacked if this monster has more weird tick defenses or mud shots. But if those potions have any effect, it might be to slow it down enough with tiredness to not attack back. Hopefully.

Nox (546) has posed:
    Nox scowls invisibly as the web falls on top of him, raising his arm over his head to ward it off, only for the flickering flames that comprise its strings to begin sizzling into his armour, slowly sinking in to the swiftly glowing metal at several points all over his body. His ability to feel pain is relatively little, owing to his artificial body, but the conceptual web is offensive enough that he feels the need to get rid of it.. The Xelor is surrounded by the momentary, warbling thrum of something winding up, before a hemispherical blast of blue-tinted air is expelled out from him, shredding the web and likely cratering the walls on either side as they absorb the spatial explosion's energy.

    That taken care of, he pauses at Ethan's words, stopping to consider their significance. "So you suspect that the Shajem has already been unsealed, possibly a long time ago? In that case, what level of opposition do you expect we'll face, and . . ." he looks to Mordred again, still the one most familiar with Shajem. "What tactics shall we use?" He's already somewhat familiar after having fought her Shajem in the Field of Trials, but the differences between a spirit of rage and a spirit of . . . fear, perhaps, could be very significant.

    "If monsieur Ethan will continue to ward us, then there may be no issue, but I suspect the mental influence will intensify the deeper we go. The only feasible way forward that I see is a direct confrontation. I believe we will inevitably be forced to face it in combat if we are to weaken it enough for binding." Yes. Binding. "Though far from it that I would instruct our Union friends in what to do, I forward that it would be best for our number, being primarily composed of mages, to take a rear line role while your people stand in front under our armoured friend. There are some countermeasures I have in mind, which I will not discuss at this time."

Elliana Fairchild (92) has posed:
    MOUNTAIN:

    The beast is wounded, so Caster's potions are poured right into its bloodstream. Such as it is. This may later be a problem for Sakura, especially if she's headed for the heart... but she isn't. We'll deal with that in a moment. The major thing is that the turtle-behemoth slows, grunting heavily and slitting eyes. Then it snorts a glob of that hot mud toward Caster.

    Sakura's dive to follow the 'chakra' channels will prove to be messy, but not lead to the physical heart. Instead, she reaches a nerve ganglia of sorts, tearing through the body to find a hard carapace of some sort, attached beneath the top of the shell, just underneath the highest point. Everything is flowing through here, which appears connected to a piece of stone above, atop the shell and 'outside' of where she is. Something living is in the smooth sphere.

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    The jarring impact of lancing a spider-thing dead on does not stop Amalthea. Twisting in the air to plant her boots on the thing and wrench the Wishblade deeper, she holds onto the silver lance while opting to ride the beast back down with her sudden momentum, drawing Psyber's pistol from her leg and emptying the clip point blank at the former Blooded THING, when Eleanor joins her and smashes its face in.
    "Oh hey Eleanor. Here for the ride?"
    An idle quip as she opts to ride the skittering corpse down the rest of the shaft on its own gravity as Mordred rips and tears and finishes the job of it. She actually dares to hold her gauntlet-glad hand out to the Servant for the ride.
    "That went surprisingly well."

Eleanor Lamb (40) has posed:
    Eleanor's wide eyed gaze is still there, a counter to the fear and aggression that the spider-bloded had been thorwing off. But now she's in with Amalthea, and the attacks are lessening, and she lets out a quiet, easier breath. "Hello, ma'am." She smiles and curls an arm around one of the unicorn's biceps, murmuring. "I think we're doing fine tonight, just... a bit of a scare is all."
    She thumbs up with the hand withthe golf club in it, and sighs as they move deeper.

Elliana Fairchild (92) has posed:
    MOUNTAIN:

    Psyber leaps forward with a hopeful attempt at using an ancient weapon that hasn't been used or cleaned in centuries. The half-angel's blade is drawn, revealing a dust-caked, aged-looking blade that is apparently... nicked and dulled with disuse and poor care. Oh well. Too late to change the mind now, even though it feels like a normal sword, utterly without power or enough sharpness to pierce the scales.

    It's the moment before impact that there's a reaction. The blade flares to life, a brilliant bluish-white halo surrounding it for just an instant. When it pulses into life, Psyber's arm will feel an incredibly powerful, burning /heat/ travel up it, as if trying to tear and burn the muscles themselves. The painful wave of pure flame feels /wrong/ somehow, and it /does/ do damage as it reaches in, licking at his soul.

    In the same instant, just long enough to finish the swing, the blade erupts into an arching wing-like shape, pure energy and sparkling false feathers fluttering up from it. Without any resistance at all, it cleaves right through the joint of the Behemoth, severing it at the leg and causing a sudden wobble as the beast roars, shifting its weight to try to steady itself with one less leg.

    The moment it's through the behemoth's flesh, the blade returns to its normal dull, disused look, and the flaming roar in Psyber's arm vanishes.

Reiji Arisu has posed:
    Burning spiderweb spreads through the tunnel. Reiji growls, thowing himself between Nathan and the flames. In a smooth motion, he replaces his shotgun and draws his wakizashi, slicing as much of the webbing apart as his pistol keeps right on firing. Some of the fire gets through, searing his flesh and setting bits of fabric aflame. He grits his teeth and fights through it, only putting out the fire after the creatures were well and truly dead.

    He sighs, then, rubbing at some of the burns crisscrossing his face, "Could've been worse..." Reiji glances over his shoulder, "Nathan, you alright?"

    Nox's words draw his attention, then. The exorcist shrugs, sheathing his weapons for the time being. "Ostensibly, I'm the guy the Union's sent down to seal that thing away," he says, patting at the briefcase still strapped to his back, "Brought something down here to keep it contained until we can get it somewhere more permanent. Of course, that hinges on it being weakened to the point that the vessel will tolerate, which isn't exactly a guarantee."

    He frowns, then, rubbing at his chin, "Plus, I'll need to be working at the ritual to make sure it goes right. If I want to do that, then fighting it directly might be out of the cards, as far as I'm concerned."

    "Looks like we have some pretty decent front liners, though," his gaze flickers towards Mordred. "And I can probably help out for a little while towards the beginning, but getting this ritual started is going to take up most of my attention."

Mordred (12) has posed:
    The downside to going in like Mordred did is that she didn't really have a concept of defending herself. The spiders claws and searing webs would have struck blows-- while not lethally threatening, definitely a visual indicator that the knight's rage wasn't without drawbacks. She emits angry, mindless growls for a while, especially as she finishes beating the spiders to death with their own limbs, but eventually the flames subside, and the berserk knight regains what could pass as a slightly more peaceful personality.

    For a given value of peaceful. It's still Mordred.

    Dents and gashes in her armor are repaired with prana, at least visually. The injuries might be closed, but they're still very much there.

    She glares towards Nox, and then shrugs. "Yeah, listen to 'em. Mages to the back, us swordy folks to the front. Let's get this shit taken care of." She is unsure what other advice she could provide. The Shajem will be whatever it is, sadly, and her own is a poor reference frame. Wrathborn is rather different from the Lord of Rage, after all, so this one is probably pretty different too. They'll just have to hope it works out.

    "Not gonna lie, Bloodstone, you guys might want to get a bit more VIOLENT and DIRECT about shaking the assholes guarding the Shajem tombs into gear. 'cuz this is pretty damn awful. You coulda stabbed a bitch in the face and handled this instead of trying to play word games and waiting it out."

Sakura Haruno (134) has posed:
    Sakura will follow along, and along, and try very hard not to think too much about what she's doing. She's partly successful at that, too, because she's too busy being surprised at what she finds to concentrate on her own situation.

    This time she'll use chakra scalpels to cut her way out, feeling her poor magical knife may be too abused for the day at this point. Making her way to the sphere, she's going to make an attempt at something that may, truthfully, be rather foolish. The medic will take the sphere in her hands, and not knowing just what it is, she'll try to remove it from the structure, tugging at the connections to see if that will disrupt the behemoth.

    She'll put her back into it, and also totally cheat by using her chakra enhanced strength. She won't crush the sphere, though, not knowing just what's within it yet.

Maya has posed:
Maya sees her Napalm was overkill okay, they have a lot of fire power down here, and she's gong to press head in the Catacombs she looks to make sure Ethan is all right, she fades back a bit she doe snot run no she looks to both Himei and to Miss Lamb. Both would find Maya's casting, blue fire is leaking out of her body and into several cards she's holding, they seem to burn but they are not /consumed/ soon both would find their reaction times have gone up a lot and they almost blurr when they move at full speed, they would addtionally find they had been blessed and would be a good deal stronger up close, and the other forms of attack would also be improved.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
Lezard knows an advantage when he sees it. He quickly moves to stand withing the barrier, and the terror begins to die along with the spider-creatures. He inhales deeply, for a moment, as if gathering himself.

And then a low hum of Power grows around him, his eyes flashing with pride and anger. How dare he be manipulated by such a beast? How dare they tread upon his own sacred grounds of the mind?

He says little, cloaking himself in raw, unfocused power that he could unleash at any time.

Nox's words gain a comment. "Indeed. Our Binder associates will be little help if they are allowed to be attacked directly by the Shajem, let alone allowing any of us to do our jobs. Move quickly, steel yourselves, and /strike this being down/." The last is hissed with the weight of terrible purpose.

Nathan Hall (168) has posed:
    Nathan is terrified. Nathan is ALWAYS terrified. But Nathan is also trusting. His TANK, Reiji Arisu, will be intercepting those webs, no doubt, thank god for that. So hopefully Nathan can survive here, without getting burned brutally and lethally by magical fire!

    And then things calm down. "Thank you, Ethan." He says, calmly, and then begins to assess the planning here. Nox is nodded to. "That is correct. However, we will need to adjust the strategy depending on the arrangements required for the Binders in terms of their formation. Ethan, please provide details." He'll work out formations for everyone based on how the Binders need to be arranged, of course, likely in multiple stages based on how mobile and combative the Shajem itself is.

    Reiji gets a nod. "Correct, we have several individuals well suited to the task of combat in the front line." He says. "Amalthea, Saber of Fairchild, and any others who are especially capable are advised to remain on the frontlines at all times. We will need a great deal of focus on support for the Binders, so those of you capable of multiple roles in terms of ranged attacks and enhancing effects, utilize those more at your discretion. With luck, the arrangement of tactics will be condusive to weakening and sealing the Shajem swiftly. Unfortunately, we have little time. We must move out immediately." He's gonna try to get the group moving on shortly, after figuring out the appropriate contingencies.

    Mordred gets an aside on the way out, "Saber, you are preaching to the choir, as I believe it is said. He is the leader of the Binder faction that specifically wants that. Windson is the one you should take issue with, and you have my assurance that you should take a great amount of issue with him."

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber goes through a myriad of emotions in the time he's attacking the creature. The first is disappointment in himself for not planning this out ahead of time. Then fear of failure. And then incredible pain as it comes to life. This is mixed with shock and awe from the power the blade produces and its flame that sears down to Psyber's very soul.

    It is here that the concept dawns on him: If he were a full angel, this weapon might have killed him to wield it. Or maybe it hurts every user that wields one. He's not sure. Was this what the General's daughter felt when she held her lance? He's going to have to go consult with her on this point. These thoughts pierce him through the pain of wielding the blade.

    And as soon as the attack finishes, he sheaths the blade immediately. It was not to be wielded until he could research it more, which he fully intended to do. And perhaps see it reforged. Maybe it will hurt him less if he makes it whole again.

    When the satchel is placed at his feet, Psyber looks down at it. The gauntleted hand picks it up and takes out most of her potions. Psyber is not a medical professional and, more than that, Psyber isn't sure if the potions are topical or ingested. This means that his solution is mostly to crush them in his hands and then smear the concoctions all over his wounds. The healing will counteract the broken glass, right? Mostly.

    So then, covered in mud and potions which are healing wounds inflicted by the mud, Psyber adjusts his grip and Adjudicator folds off his arm and into a sword. For Psyber, it's a battle of stalling for Haruno to do her work. He feels confident he could win, but whatever the ninja is doing vastly overshadows his own decide to beat up a big monster. In his pocketed center of operations, Haruno is the VIP and Psyber is just a distraction to keep the monster in check.

    Owing to this, the half-angel wields Adjudicator in sword form and attempts to sever another leg with a mighty cleaving swing. One leg slowed it down, he's hoping he can get another and permanently halt it.

Abstractum.Net (347) has posed:
    The Abstractum are affected by the warding as well. They're all taking their chances to calm down and recover. Looks like being dependent on someone else's aura doesn't leave you with a lot of mental defense! Dang. They generally got hit pretty bad by that effect, but should be more prepared for it the next time, and therefore hit a little less brutally.

Himei (331) has posed:
    Himei glances at Nathan, squirming away from the webbing that's forced her to land on the crumbled stairs. It's burned her arm, but she got away mostly all right. Mostly. Internally, she's a little worried about the attrition their forces are taking. If they'd had less firepower...

    "I can go on the front lines as well," she admits. She swaps White Rose to her attacking hand, pondering the wand thoughtfully. "Well, I guess we won't find out how tough it is if we stand around just chattering. White Rose, don't try anything complicated. We're just going to hit it. I expect it will feel a lot like those spider things."

Circe (701) has posed:
//MOUNTAIN//

Scalded by EVIL MUD while she is in the process of retreating, Caster has only time to memorize the sight of Psyber's mighty blade strike and report such to her Confederate allies briefly, and then - struggling to maintain her composure while suffering pain and GROSSNESS - she takes her leave. She dissolves into motes of red light and vanishes from sight. She is sure the others can handle themselves without her, and she needs to attend to her wounds, and take the longest, hottest, soapiest fucking bath ever.

Seriously. MUD SNOT. UGH.

Elliana Fairchild (92) has posed:
    MOUNTAIN:

    The Behemoth ROARS as Adjudicator cleaves into another leg, causing it to stagger. It isn't as clean as Sovereign's cut, but let's be serious: It hurts a LOT less to use, and it's possibly more destructive in the general term, with all those strike drivers. The turtle is already starting to crumple, which makes the slope of the city start to tilt crazily but steadily.

    Then Sakura cheats her way to the middle of the chakra flows. Or energy flows. Either way, that sphere is pretty solidly set, but with her enhances strength the mednin manages to YANK it hard enough to make a loud *Crack* noise, pulsing through the flesh and blood of the creature. Immediately a horrible, rancid smell permeates the entire body as it begins to putrify at an accelerated rate, literally rotting out from under her.

Elliana Fairchild (92) has posed:
    Carefully, Ethan is already picking his way down the stairs with his Binders, keeping up the ward for Lezard and any others who want to benefit from it. "General Hall is correct," he says calmly. "I am the one who has been advocating action. Even doing this may get me excommunicated from the Order, that is why we have only these five with us. We need to spread them out as much as possible, which could make warding difficult. If you have some kind of power to expand our range, that would help. I know you offworlders have some unusual abilities sometimes." He frowns. "But it's going to be difficult if this one is full power."

    The descent opens up into a chamber that is quite large, with twisted heaps of bodies all around. It looks like the other Council members weren't quite so 'lucky' in receiving the 'gift' of the Shajem, and ended up dying from it. The Shajem itself looks... vaguely snakelike, like most of them do, but where Wrathborn is a one-eyed serpent and the Lord of Rage is a dragon, this one looks more like a weaseloid naga, thrashing about and darting from one end of the chamber to the other. At least until the group arrives, which causes it to huddle and curl up at one end, hissing viciously in an echoing voice. It looks much more solid than the newborn Amethyne was, more grounded in concept. It also starts emanating those waves of terror, though they are less focused than the ones from the spider things.

Sakura Haruno (134) has posed:
    There's good news and bad news as far as Sakura's concerned! The good news is her plan seems to have worked. The bad news is that her plan seems to have worked, and that she's not standing on what could properly be called solid ground anymore, and that she's still holding the sphere. She'll essentially drive downwards, the sphere going away as well, trying to shield herself from just what she's going through with chakra concentrated into her feet. If she's lucky, she'll hit air and/or ground to burrow into and get away from the remains of the turtle.

    If she's not lucky, that'll still happen. It'll just take longer.

Mordred (12) has posed:
    Nathan addresses Mordred-- this causes her to surge with anger again, taking a step to glare him in the eye. Well. Helmet to eye. It would probably be better if she took the thing off.

    "After what YOU did to my master I find you have a lot of nerve to try to direct me like that! You think I'll just FORGET? That you sat there and ENJOYED her fucking NIGHTMARES? You act high and mighty on that tall chair of yours, but you're just as fucking petty and amoral as the rest of us!"

    Huff. Well, Nathan's little statement isn't without effect. Mordred then turns to look at Ethan. "Yeah? Then fucking come with me and stay in the Drasillum for a while after this shit's over. Have a chat with my master. 'cuz if what you want is to force some sense back into the masses, that's what she wants to do too. And the Order'll be hard pressed to get to you there."

    Well, anyway. Time to head down.

    They reach the room; the council's dead.

    Mordred steels her mind against the terror the best she can. It's difficult to completely shrug off, but at least she's not quivering in her boots or anything like that. She crosses her arms to observe whatever it is Nathan intends to do. From here onward it's on Lezard's cue, anyway.

Elliana Fairchild (92) has posed:
    MOUNTAIN: Sakura plunges down... and out, erupting from the rotting undeerbelly of the behemoth with the sphere. It's not TOO long of a fall, but by now the outside is visibly rotting and falling apart as well, and the mountain is slowly correcting its lurch as the behemoth collapses.

    Someone should get Sakura out of there, before a mountain falls on top of her.

Nathan Hall (168) has posed:
    Nathan just stares at Mordred while she rants at him. His expression remains completely unchanged, quiet, and calm. He'll wait it out, and simply let Mordred continue. When she's done, he just turns and advances on with Ethan without another word. It should be clear even to Mordred that he's just not gonna have this conversation right now, but whatever effects it had, if any, on Nathan himself, his face isn't showing at all, behind those goggles and that stoic expression.

    "I am going to attempt something. It will likely fail, albeit hopefully harmlessly. Be prepared to initiate combat in the originally planned encounter when it does. But please allow me a short time." Nathan says, as he walks into the massive chamber. Even with Ethan's ward, he's abjectly terrified of what's in here, especially with all those corpses making him nauseous and scared. He knows Shajem power. He got eaten by a Shajem that one time. But he knows even more how to command his own fear. The first thing he does is walk forward, out of Ethan's ward, and towards the Shajem, perfectly calmly, and looking completely harmless. If there's one thing Nathan's very good at, it's looking harmless.

    He signals to the Binders, attempting to get them to spread out into their proper positions. And then, in the air ahead of him, he begins inscribing yellow lines in the air. A centralized spell interface crafted out of Hastur magic, designed to hook up with multiple external sorcerous constructs. A strange, labyrinthine spellcircle growing in the air in front of him. First test. Figure out of the ritual he asked for can even connect, compatibly, with the Shajem.

Himei (331) has posed:
    It's actually an effort for Himei to keep her mind focused on the task, because resisting that fear effect requires a level of anger that is hard for her to sustain... and dangerous, given some of the accusations flying around. Like Mordred's. The Knight yelling at the General gets a quick glance, but it wouldn't do for her to say anything that might be approval here, even if Nathan WAS pretty petty there.

    So she says nothing about that. Instead she moves to the side, angling near but not in Nathan's way. She takes a deep breath. Her powers would be useful against the Shajem, but are of the lethal variety when dealing with those creatures. She'll need to be careful.

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    Adelyn has taken this time to somewhat calm herself, though tasting her own blood has an effect on her that won't immediately dissipate. It's fortunate that the Shajem itself has a less focused version of the arachnoid creatures' attack. At this point, for the sake of being able to properly conduct their plans, she'll have to get through it with more mundane means of resistance. Really, she chides herself, they should have made some attempt to identify the type of magic by which the Shajem project these emotions. What a wasted opportunity.

    Warding circles appear in the air, mutating through new configurations several times per second as Adelyn tries to find something, anything that will have an effect in blocking off the emotions the Shajem is trying to feed her, through her standard method of disrupting magical effects that need to travel from one point to another. She can't spare too much time for this, but if she does find something that's even slightly effective, she'll pour more power into it, giving however much peace of mind she can to herself and those standing close by--Lezard, most likely. If not... she is, at least, strong-willed. She would be unable to accomplish what she has, otherwise. She would hardly be able to remain in her position, otherwise.

    What Mordred is saying to Nathan sounds terribly interesting, but also largely irrelevant to current events.

    Oh, they're waiting to try something? Well, that gives her a few more seconds to try to come up with a halfway effective ward.

Nox (546) has posed:
Nox spares a moment to turn and look at the exchange between Mordred and Nathan. He knows little about the former, and even less about the latter, and so the argument proves most interesting, if only as a judge of the Union General's character. He pays more attention to his noxines however, arriving the chamber a little ways ahead of him, and immediately settling into far corners and in the crevices afforded by the dead bodies, taking snapshots of the area with their tiny shuttered eyes. Seeing no immediate danger, Nox takes a deep mental breath and teleports down the last flight of stares, fizzling into existence at the entrance of the chamber where he can see the Shajem.

    To call it underwhelming compared to the Lord of Rage is an understatement. After the fear-exuding horrors that had clawed their way upwards, he had expected some kind of dark god of terror, too horrifying to even look upon. This thing however, seems to be fearful of them more than anything.

    "Hmmm. Could it be that this creature doesn't rule over fear, but the desire to run away? The primevil flight instinct perhaps. A Shajem coward." he thinks out loud, folding his arms behind his back. "Will it even be necessary to weaken it? It doesn't seem especially formiddable as it is, though I could be wrong." The lenses of his mask shut closed for a moment, before they reopen with a more intense glow, amplifying his vision so that he can properly read the flow and density of energy in the room. Obviously it has managed to kill a significant number of people, but he doubts they were terribly strong. In any case, he'll have a read on its overall power soon enough.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber sheaths Adjudicator in the aftermath of taking out the second leg of the mountain monster. Two legs crippled means this thing is functionally stuck where it is. He takes a few moments to flap and fly in the air, waiting and watching.

    It's after Haruno comes out on the underside of the mountain that Psyber starts to fly towards her. The half-angel extends his hand and attempts to either grab her after she lands or as she falls, trying to fly her out from under the collapsing mountain. Nothing too fancy or showy for the moment.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
Lezard isn't surprised at all that the rest of the Council are dead. The ones they just killed were the 'lucky' ones.

Lezard remains within the ward as long as he is able, but eventually he parts. One cannot have reward without risk, after all, and the Binders will be needed elsewhere. He drops into the center of the area, looking upon the horrifying... or perhaps horridied serpent with narrowed eyes. "Cowardly beast which crouches in the shadows, your fear will avail you naught." He hisses, beginning to draw upon the sight of this being... Whatever it is called, whether dark god, devil, evil spirit, Shajem... He desires to see the fall of these beings. The unfocused terror beats against him, but for now he seems to be resisting on anger and will.

He raises his hands, and a circle begins to draw itself to one side of the battlefield, a complex formation of Midgardian runes and sorcerous power while Adelyn begins to assist the well-being of her comrades in her own way. With any luck, it will be enough. Within them appears a crystal, looking at once both delicate and terrible as the air wafts around it in white puffs, a cold that is no mere absence of heat, but an absence of spirit. He moves to the side of the crystal and weaves his magic, focusing his power upon protective wards around the object.

Sakura Haruno (134) has posed:
    Sakura will decidedly take the help, especially given that she's plummeting and also about to maybe be crushed. Which doesn't sound like a lot of fun, really. Her hands were full, of course, with the sphere, but she'll do everything she can to hold onto it with one hand while getting rescued by the other.

    She still hates flying, and falling, of course. It's just slightly below dying on the list of things she doesn't want to do. Also, Psyber may also need a shower after touching her.

Eleanor Lamb (40) has posed:
    Right. Eleanor's in the chamber, her brain is boiling at the psychic assault and the efforts of Utopia to keep it all out of her system. Voices and lives threaten to pinch at her, but the Sister snarls, and flourishes a auto-injector of some sort from her gear.
    It's... EVE. The glowing blue fluid that powers her abilities, when she isn't making it herself internally. She hisses and swats the injector into her hip, the syringe shoving all of the glowing fluid into her. She bluhs and shakes her head, and looks much better, mentally.

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    The plan is simple enough. Heavy hitters stick to the front, let Nathan try his thing. Sit back and watch Mordred verbally haul off on the general.
    Amalthea gives Nathan a very 'you're on your own' look when the Servant vents her usual- if justified anger, over the nightmare debacles.
    The Shajem is up ahead. And the room full of bodies, while an unpleasant sight, is not what bothers Amalthea the most as she takes a position at the fore, but out of the way for Nathan. She can only mentally ward herself so well and for so long before things start to sepe in, and the spiders from scant moments before wore on her despite lack of show. In the face of the Shajem, her ears fold back, eyes widening as silver lips curl to show teeth. One boot scuffs the floor as she closes her eyes and enacts the best mental defense in her repertoire.
    "... Summer is a comin' in, loudly sing, cuckoo... Sing cuckoo, sing cuckoo. Sing, fucking cuckoo, fucking sing." Grumbling under her throat as she closes her eyes and tries to focus on the beat of her heart while the test of the ritual gets underway.

Reiji Arisu has posed:
    Reiji nods to Nathan, "Got it. I'll be doing what I came down here for, then." He inclines his head at Mordred when she... erupts? Spontaneously combusts? She's angry. Fortunately, she drops the issue in short order, and Nathan doesn't fire back, so Reiji simply moves on.

With preparations concluded, the group moves into the depths of the catacombs...

They find carnage. Carnage and a hungry god.

    Reiji's expression drops into a tight grimace as he regards the dark deity. For now, he stands towards the back- but he isn't going to wait for neither Nathan's success nor his failure. Instead he sets down his portable arsenal and unslings the briefcase from his shoulders and begins unbuckling its clasps.

Maya has posed:
Maya is pressing on now suppoting people whom she can she gets the message Nathan sems to want her on support to keep eveyrone up. That's fine she can throw in with magical or more conventional firepower. She falls in dept now with her cards ready she knows they got some serious stuff ahead of them.

"Right Himei we should try to get this overwith as soon as posisble."

Maya seems faiurly focused now and she's clearly ready to go. She listens to Ethan frowning. If he needed power? She could help she could give him a lot of tht but it seems that isn't the cse here. Maya does not like what she sees she sees the corpses she sees the think and part of her very being is screaming to kill it in fire. Thankfull ut should be listned to shortly by everyone else. She focus on her magic Ethan would find he's warded unless something will stop it, hopefully that can give him some protection, she does however start moving with her cards. Nathan would also find himself with an barrier, as would Reiji, strange runes would appear under thie feet, that might be ID as having perhaps something in common with the long dead nation of Babylon.

Elliana Fairchild (92) has posed:
    Coiling up, the Shajem hisses again, echoing and primal. A brief pulse of fear emanates from it, but it is once again undirected. Only Nathan's approach warrants a reaction, as the others aren't close enough, and haven't made any hostile moves at all. Nathan seems harmless, but that doesn't mean anything to a coward. Unfortunately, a cornered rat is pretty dangerous, so while the creature doesn't attack it does demonstrate just how dangerous this can be.

    The hiss is followed by a sudden wavering of the rock behind it. The shuddering of the mountain settling down with a crunching *THOOM* shakes the room... and it doesn't stop shaking until a row of crystalline spikes has erupted to form a fence of sorts between the Shajem and Nathan. It's a massive wave of earth-manipulating magic, and the Shajem did it much like it was ruffling its feathers upward, without any effort at all. Getting too close, or setting it off, could give quite the fight.

    It does let the Binders get into position, and they begin a strange whispered ritual, the words less sure than the earlier ones. Ethan frowns, but also begins. It's a Binding, but it's unlike anything he's tried before, or anything Elliana has done. It doesn't really seem like it's meant to CAPTURE the Shajem, strangely. Is this what Nathan planned?

    One Binder is near Adelyn, and gives her a small bit of help, "Do not think of it as blocking out the fear. Think of it as pushing it to the side. It is an emotion, slippery like fluid. You need to cut through it, not resist it."

    The ritual of the Binders is connecting to Nathan's magic, but stiffly. It's still fragile. Needs adjustment. There is no way this could subdue the Shajem, as it is.

Elliana Fairchild (92) has posed:
    CITY: Psyber and Sakura will find the city... well, it's like it's been through a large earthquake. It's built pretty solidly, though, and while there are some people trapped under rubble and some casualties, the city already has teams out helping people, and the casualties are remarkably light considering all the motion they went through.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    IN THE CITY:

    Psyber swings back around to the city after picking up Haruno, setting down on solid ground. For as gross as whatever she's covered in is, he also has weird, acidic bile-mud all over himself, so the shower was mandatory anyway.

    "Do you want to stay here and help with the medical part, or come with me to check on the binding?" He asks her seriously, staring hard at her, "I can still fight, so if shit hits the fan, I wanna be over there on guard duty."

    Regardless of Haruno's answer, Psyber darts off after she gives it, taking into a pretty heavy sprint to cover lost ground.

Nathan Hall (168) has posed:
    Nathan accepts the fence the creature establishes, as it matches the buffing that Maya has helpfully provided. Hey, if that thing wants to get a little barrier, that's fine. He stops at the wall, and forms his circle in the air, there. Both hands go out, fingers splayed wide, humming with the yellow glow of power. The Binding links cleanly into his interface, but there's no way it'll subdue as-is. Nathan intends to reconfigure, swiftly. In order to stabilize, he first must learn what requires stabilizing.

    There are two initial configurations. Let's call them the FEARFUL configuration and the TERRORIZING configuration. The central section of the spellcircle rotates for each one. He attempts to gauge the STABILITY and COMPATIBILITY for the binding based on both configurations, to see if one, the other, or even both manage to establish increased compatibility and therefore increased strength.

Sakura Haruno (134) has posed:
    Flowers will at least show the sense to ask the situation beffore deciding whether to stay within the city or go and help, and when she learns of the terror effects going around within the catacombs, she'll show enough sense to remember her general vulnerability to such things.

    Which is mostly to say that she'll be trying to assist the city in recovering from the turtlequake, and available after the group in the catacombs is done, but not particularly relevent for the next bit.

Elliana Fairchild (92) has posed:
    The FEARFUL Configuration seems to resonate the most, though both have the potential to sync up. That one seems to get the most resonance. Anyone who is working on a binding or something of the sort can see /some/ sort of mystical ward coming together, encircling the Shajem in a loose net of possibility. It isn't 'active' yet, it's just being set up.

    Ethan frowns at something, but he maintains his part of this. He just has to add, "It's... theoretically possible, but I'm not sure we can handle this right now. It needs refinement. But maybe if we can weaken it enough we can learn enough about it to make it more viable."

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    Fingers curl and unclench repeatedly around the haft of Amalthea's silvered lance. One loppy ear flicks, apparently picking up on that errant tidbit of advice for Adelyn and she sucks down a breath through her teeth, ceasing her litany of demanding some poor bird to sing for her mental state, and cracks her eye open and lean over towards the nearest person. In this case, Mordred.
    "Are they done yet?" She whispers completely irreverently.

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    Adelyn immediately takes this advice, reconstructing her wards with the swift efficiency of an author's pen. Redirection, diversion--it is as effective as direct blockage and disruption. So long as the effect does not strike its intended target, the result may as well be the same. She has even less time to work, now, because she would very much like Nathan to finish his attempt and for them all to just GET ON WITH IT.

    She may be getting antsy just because she has investment in the results of her own experiments and little in the results of his.

    Whether or not she does make progress, she then diverts her attention to other matters. Like Reiji and Lezard, she has her own preparations to make. These involve establishment of yet another spell circle, this one held high above the group's heads, shining white with Arcane energy, and swiftly expanding and filling out with such a level of intricate detail that it seems rather impossible for a single mind to, in present-time, even remember its full shape, let alone be writing it into the air. From the movement frantic, precise motions with which she pulls the strings of mana and establishes the interlocking mechanisms of the ephemeral circle, she is doing just that. Her fellow Confederates, here, may recall this particular configuration of magic, as it is quite like what she used against the Shajem of Rage--refined, of course, for the experience.

Nox (546) has posed:
    Nox gazes towards the crystal summoned by Lezard rather than the ones erected by the Shajem, seemingly taken in by something entirely different than the great being in front of him. It is most certainly powerful, that's for sure. Very powerful. That fact alone is what carries him through the ocean of bubbling fear that silently embroils his subconscious, rather than accentuating it. Excitement. Pure and simple. The high before the big payoff. The crystal is the signal to begin the /real/ reason Nox is here, quietly worked out ahead of time in secret.

    Removing one arm from behind his back, Nox raises a hand as if to signal anyone behind him to stop moving, causing the tiny glowing lights of the noxines spread throughout the room to hover upwards, gathering in a loose collective. Snapping that hand forwards, the miniscule drones suddenly surge forward, weaving through the gaps in the crystal barrier to get to the Shajem. Communicating by wireless magic, they converge into a perfect circle, then spin a complete rotation, drawing lines of cyan energy into the air behind them until it connects end to end. The circle forms into the shimmering surface of a semi-translucent portal, moving parts just barely visible from the other side.

    An apparatus roughly the size of a small tree trunk breaches the portal's surface, shaped of brass, gold and steel into the form of a complex series of clockworks terminating in a classical clock hand's point. Nox fizzles out with a little snap of static, reappearing on the opposite side of the crystal barrier to place it between him and the union as device fully exits the gate, leaving him to gesture towards it with one hand to hold it up telekinetically, and to use his other to fire a concentrated blast of temporal stasis at the Shajem to slow it down enough to give him time to move the machine into position.

    The rear of the clock hand, holding an hourglass in a glittering series of rings, touches against Lezard's crystal, letting off sparks of light as it makes the connection. The point moves until it is little more than a foot away from the target, and then a blinding, serpentine arc of cerulean lightning runs its entire length, collecting at the tip as a white hot star. Instantly, the Shajem's power is drawn away as if into a black hole, surging into the clock hand in a visible stream of crackling energy, causing all of its component gears to spin and whine like an electrical generator, filling the hourglass at the end. Each time one side fills, the glass turns over to deposit the energy into Lezard's waiting lacrima.

Eleanor Lamb (40) has posed:
    Bother all this magic nonsense. Eleanor's eyes start to glow faintly as the EVE takes a firmer hold in her bloodstream, the plasmic energy suffusing her whole frame. She looks over at Mordred and Amalthea and grouses.

    Eleanor likewise looks to Mordred. "Is your mother still a bitch?"
    Something the pair can bond over.

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    The circle completes. Once done, the thing is a good fifty meters across, smaller portions within it constantly in motion. It's a self-correcting spell with layer upon layer of redundancy in its safety measures, all for the sake of applying maximum strength toward a singular purpose. It's made far easier for Nox and Lezard handling bother other ends of the effort, and for having, this time, prepared everything well in advance. That singular purpose is actually quite simple: Grasping the essence of the Shajem, and directing it into the container. Simple, efficient, safe--as much as is possible. More than the other two, Adelyn is concerned with preventing any loss in the transmission.

Nathan Hall (168) has posed:
    Nathan locks in a configuration he wants. Semi-fearful. Enough stability. "Then it will be weakened." He says, tensely. He glances to what Nox, Adelyn, and Lezard are doing and makes a terse... Profoundly hateful noise. His eyes narrow at Mordred for a moment, his stoicism breaking long enough to shoot her a look so incredibly full of venom it might be painful. It's certainly beyond anything Nathan's ever done in front of people before.

    But he can't afford to stop now. He has more important business. Being stabbed in the back here is at a lesser priority than his plan to save the world. And so with the central element of the binding locked in, the second stage begins to spin. Terms, clauses, additional elements. It's sparse, liberal, less gaps in the rules, and more rules in the gaps.

    He tries three new second-stage configurations to see what can be done here. The PANIC CONFIGURATION, the ALARM CONFIGURATION, and the HORROR CONFIGURATION. Hopefully the feedback data will be easier to read for the Binders and for Nathan himself in the current state, even if this is damaging to his overall plan.

Reiji Arisu has posed:
    Unlike some of the more dedicated sorcerers in this mishmash of monster hunters, Reiji's magic seems to be more... subtle. He begins arraying a series of seemingly random objects on the ground around him. A saucer filled with burning incense, a lump of ore, another bowl filled with mercury, a lotus in a dish of water, a warmly glowing torch.

    Of course, the objects in question are hardly random. Each one was selected for its own particular elemental association. Each one meticulously prepared in ages-old, arcane proportion. In Reiji's left hand, there is a loop of sacred rope, in the nook of his folded legs, a simple, brass mirror. In front of him, there is a wooden container filled with a pure white powder that smells of the open sea.

    He sits at the center of the ring of objects. "Om," he intones, a sacred syllable tumbling from his lips, "Na-mu-ka-ra-tan-no..."

It seems like he's doing... Something. Exactly what that something is might be difficult to say for those uninitiated in Eastern sorcery, but Adelyn might note it to be... somewhat similar to what she is attempting.

Could this create complications!?

Maybe... Maybe.

Maya has posed:
Maya is down there ther is fear she can feel it it's constant the natural fear is there but hter emay be even worse. She's glad she was able to help NAthan get some level of protection, and Maya seems to be gathering magic for something else, likely if any other heavy healing or other magic is needed. She has a very wide spell book and that could be of use here as they look to deal with the Shajem she can only make ready. Nox however gets her attention. Maya has some small control over time but Nox? He was something else Maya also will providie magical power for the ritual as needed.

Elliana Fairchild (92) has posed:
    CITY: Sakura will find a turtle in the sphere, but when she offers to help, she'll also find medical relief in this city is REALLY well-organized, and quickly finds her things to do. So there's that.

Elliana Fairchild (92) has posed:
    The Shajem SHRIEKS as it feels its space invaded, and its power leeched. It's harder to yank away than the Lord of Rage's power, which is by nature meant to be external. This Shajem is an introvert by comparison, greedily clinging to its power and making the drag of energy slow and sluggish. Yet it DOES work, and it has a lot to draw from.

    Of course, this also means Nox is open to a sudden barrage of power as the weaseloid summons freezing lances of ice, sending them out in a more or less directed barrage at the nearest entities. Mostly Nox, but someone might want to protect Nathan.

    The 'ALARM' configuration seems to latch on best, and Ethan flinches, along with some of the Binders, as power flares through the room. Numerous bindings are coming together right now, but his is complex and difficult, with an uncertain purpose that seems to be threading through the Shajem itself. It's also very delicate, fraying at the edges as the Shajem thrashes about.

Himei (331) has posed:
    When icicles start flinging about, Himei finally moves. A quick blast of her power hopefully helps fight them off, but otherwise she moves to protect some of the binders, even though that gets her a grunt of pain for her motion. One of those icicles has embadded in her thigh, lancing right through and freezing the blood cold.

    "Hey, could we hurry it up?" she calls out. She doesn't fire directly at the Shajem though.

Nathan Hall (168) has posed:
    Nathan narrows his eyes. He locks in the ALARM configuration. If any of those icles impact him, they'll just tear right into his flesh, lacerating and stabbing him all over. Only if he's not covered, of course. The data is good, but the panic is not. He needs to come back, when this thing is less under attack. And he needs to prevent it from being under attack. He needs to refine his ritual. This won't be a functional Binding. He can't pull it off. For a moment, he considers cutting losses, going to plan B. He considers doing the rather entirely logical thing here.

    But what he wants, more than anything, right now, is to give a big fat "fuck you" to the traitorous efforts going on here. And he decides to give into that hatred just this one time.

    He modulates the ALARM configuration. Turning, twisting, optimizing. And then the whole spellcircle locks into place with a valid configuration. It's not good. It won't last. But it's better than the un-bound Shajem they found in the center of the mountain. "Do it." He says, Ethan. "We will have another chance. Release what remains of the original. We can improve this. And try again."

    He moves aside, out of the path from the Shajem to the door.

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    Amalthea has her moments of fun and games, and though just a moment ago she was jabbering about as maturely as a schoolboy in the back row of a church, in an instant she rips her attention back to the fore. "--I'm paying attention, I swear."
    In a sudden thrust of the jump pack on her back, she almost instantly crosses the necessary distance to put herself in the path of the ice lancing on course for Nathan, shield up.
    There's a CRUNCH of metal and a squeal of plating and joints as the frozen spears impact her shield, denting it- battering it- punching through it and through the arm behind them-- through her armor and several directly into the softer plating of her body beneath as she makes a wall of herself in front ot Nathan, gritting her teeth as...
    "... Huh. Oh shit that is a lot of blood." For a moment it's as if she doesn't even notice it.
    Until her eyes instantll glaze over with immense agony.
    It's a look that lasts all of a scant handful of seconds as the cool wash of painlessness re-takes her as she glances at the gauntlet on her wrist, and a very sick look seems to overcome the ancient knight even if Oath gets things back under control.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber arrives just in time to do nothing of value for the ritual as a participant. Instead, he places himself directly between Nathan Hall (and next to Amalthea) and the barrage of icicles. The sharp spearing shards piercing into him in multiple places and causing an intense amount of performation.

    Due to the sheer number of them, Psyber can't do much more than JUST shield Nathan, even with Amalthea here. Psyber, who was already suffering second and third degree burns from the turtle monster, is now at significant levels of damage from the icicle storm.

    Massive shards of ice stick out of his body in multiple places and he wobbles on his feet a bit, but plants Adjudicator into the ground to steady himself and remain on his feet. He looks immensely unhappy, though.

Eleanor Lamb (40) has posed:
    "BOTHER." Eleanor shouts out as Nathan gets tanked, and fishes around in her satchel. She's not in time to tank for the Librarian, but she can help out. She is a support after all, and supports get to do things like this. She scampers forward, eyes still glowing from the EVE injection teleporting once and swats a blue ball of energy into her palm. This she SQUEEZES, hard, a wave of energy flashing out across the room...

    And the Sister reaches out, mentally, for all the various wards and security systems in this wretched old catacomb... and turns them inwards, full throttle to defend Nathan and the rest of HoH. She even shoves Utopia into this one as well. "YOU ALL BELONG TO ME NOW."

Nox (546) has posed:
    Nox wasn't entirely unprepared for something like this. Unfortunately, while manipulating his machine, he doesn't have the leisure of simply teleporting out of the way. Damage to his body can be repaired, but missing out in the change to siphon this much energy is inexcusable. He throws his free hand out in front of him, just a split second too slow as the first lance of ice pierces through it and then into his chest just below his collarbone, letting off a flash of sparks and a squeal of deforming metal as it wrenches the clockworks it passes through, leaving an ominously glowing blue hole in his body after it crumbles. He withholds a bitter hiss of pain, able to feel that one pretty well despite his lesser sensitivity.

    The rest of the icy spears are a little too late however, as his spell completes regardless, throwing out a wall of off-coloured distortion that makes the air vibrate as it passes through, instantly locking the attacks in place, hovering in mid air. A second pulse follows up on the first, exciting space to shatter them to pieces rather than wasting energy continuing to hold them in frozen time. He begins charging energy for a more powerful spell if a second assault comes at him, fully prepared this time.

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    Adelyn is thankfully spared from icicles, by virtue of being far off from the action. Hooray for the back row! This leaves her free for important things, like working orthogonally to Nathan's spell.

    She is uncertain as to the exact nature of the binding being attempted, but with a /complete/ binding--which this is not, but if it is at all similar--with a complete binding, the transfer of energy would necessarily end. That would be suboptimal. The spell she cast earlier is there primarily to ensure that the transfer continues, but in its first useage, she didn't have all this setup. It was also what she used to grab onto Mordred's Shajem, and pull it out.

    This is going to be much, much harder, as she does not have the same hooking points of working with a Shajem that's already been pushed into something. She's working against gravity, so to speak, but she still has a lever. "Full power, then." The tattoo-like lines across her skin glow. This is often the point at which things start exploding, but... that doesn't seem like it's going to happen today. Not if she can finish this quickly, at least.

    Her magic, overrun with lines that seem to glow a black light, reaches for the Shajem and PULLS. She won't let it go quietly back into its hole, nor wherever Nathan would let it. No. Into the crystal with it.

Maya has posed:
Maya looks as Eleanor does her thing and she prays it works. Maya meanwhile is contiuning to barrier ward those with her she can't block mental or spirital attacks but she can protect from the more physical side odf things. She knows this isn't the best but swhe thinks this is the smartest thing. She doesn't wnat to mess up the ritual to bind this thing down like it should be. She hopes Adelyn is able to pull this off and it looks like she is. Maya is as ever supplying magical power where her allies need it.

Reiji Arisu has posed:
    Well, it seems like damn near everything is hitting the fan. Reiji's eyes are still half-lidded as he continues his ritual. Leaving the circle to step in and defend Nathan at this point isn't going to fly at this point. Not while he's still trying to force the Shajem into a little brass mirror. Fortunately, there are other people who can do that instead of him. This is a good thing! The downside is that at least one of them is hurting /real/ bad.

Thankfully he's off to the side and not in front of the door itself. So he's probably not going to get run over by a giant snake-god thing if it manages to get free!

    "-To-ra-ya-ka-" He drones on, scattering grains of salt between each of the five elemental foci at his periphery. The grains... do not go randomly across the floor. The pull back, pooling into fine lines that link and flow from one focus to another. They skitter across the ground, forming shifting glyphs of sacred significance. "-Na-mu-o-ri-ya-bo-ryo-ki-chi-" He drizzles salt over the pristine mirror in his lap, forming a miniature copy of the sigil manifesting all around him.

    Light, warm and inviting, begins pouring out from the polished brass surface, filling the circle and the chamber beyond. Reiji opens the gate for the Shajem to enter- and so he continues, ceaseless, words falling in rhythmic, steady notes.

    The air begins to whirl about him, the elemental forces churning with him at its focus. Reiji's eyes gleam with inner brilliance out from under his half-lidded stare. He keeps droning on, and on, and on...

Lezard Valeth has posed:
Lezard sees that Nathan is doing something using eldritch forces, but he's not sure exactly /what/.

It turns out that he has his own plans in regards to binding the beast. The Necromancer of Midgard sighs, and continues attending to the wards protecting the crystal. The unexpected attempt by Eleanor to hijack them results in a moment of surprise, and then a twisting of magic as he tries to wrench them back with his own will.

Adelyn asks for an increased transfer rate, and Lezard considers for a moment... And then suddenly Adelyn being hauling down power. Lezard's attention is forced to become focused entirely on ensuring the crystal remains stable. Stable enough, anyway. It wouldn't do for it to rupture into a giant blast of fear-power with him at the epicenter. That would be terrible.

Elliana Fairchild (92) has posed:
    A loud snarling hiss rises from the Shajem, with a writhing lash of tail thumping against the cavern wall. Ice crystals form all around it... then suddenly HEAT flashes through the entire cavern. It's not enough to damage, but it certainly takes its toll on anyone who feels fatigue from such. The Shajem is lashing out at random, though with less lethality than before. Eleanor's protections manage to blunt the attempt considerably.

    It's also being yanked several ways. The crystal fills with power, flowing slower than the Lord of Rage, but steady at least. It accelerates slightly when Reiji begins to pull it into the Mirror, materializing a significant chunk of the Shajem's essence within. It's resisting a full pull though. Perhaps if Ethan and the other Binders were helping, they could do so...

    The end result is a hefty siphoning in multiple directions, which also pins down the Shajem and allows the Binding that Nethan and Ethan are doing, normally too fragile to take hold, to latch down and finally complete... showing exactly what it was meant to do.

    The flow of energy is cut off from everything, and somewhat VIOLENTLY at that! The magical blast isn't lethal, but it's a powerful wave of force that pulses through the entire chamber. Those doing bindings can now see what Ethan and the others were doing, using NATHAN as a focus: a delicate, intricate system of bindings and restrictions that feeds into the Shajem's nature. Weakened as it is, it 'accepts' the Binding, and the lattice falls into place.

    Abruptly, the Lord of Cowardice shrieks and makes a bolt for the tunnel entrance! It has a binding on it, of some kind, which is restraining its fear aura... for now. And the Binding's energy is theoretically indefinite, because the power source is none other than the Shajem's being itself. How did THAT work?

Nathan Hall (168) has posed:
    Nathan has stepped to one side. His cloak flaps dramatically in a sudden rush of wind when the Shajem bolts, as he grimaces at Mordred. The trio of individuals she brought to steal the Shajem "Get out of the way." He says, simply, and with a tone of malice.

    "Do not stop it." He orders, to the Unionites.

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    Adelyn is in a prime position to both see and understand exactly what is happening. It's similar, in some sense, to a discipline of magic very close to her heart. And yet, entirely alien in many respects--but she understands it, all the same. She also understands that she has no way of holding it down while they attempt to siphon off more of its being. The thing is a spirit, and the airship full of minions she has waiting over the catacombs' entrance lacks a strong mage contingent. Unfortunate.

    The Shajem is let go. Adelyn makes absolutely no move to stop it, just looking at Nathan curiously, as if to question why he would even give those orders. She doesn't say anything more to him or his bizarre ideas. Nope, gonna save some ammo for later. Instead she smiles over at the crystal. Yes, they did get what they came for.

    She claps her hands together. "Excellent. This was a reasonably fortuitous, if not optimal, outcome." She looks over toward Nox's position. He did seem to get stabbed a bit, but also seemed alright to talk. "Come along, then. We're leaving."

Reiji Arisu has posed:
    Dark energies swirl down, down into the mirror. The flowing cycle of the five elements forms a whirlpool, drinking deep of the great source of negative energy. The mirror's light intertwines with the seemingly endless darkness, forming a tight, chaotic spiral within the truly endless depths of the mirror.

    And then the thing cuts abruptly off. Reiji grits his teeth as the wave of force smashes into him. The salt begins to scatter, but he focuses his will, pulling it back into its pattern for just long enough. With a quiet grunt, he wraps the sacred rope about the mirror's surface, tying it securely about its reflective surface.

    The elemental chaos within the mirror slows, light seperating from darkness. Beads of one remain in the other as they churn ever onward upon one another. With one last metallic gleam, the mirror's surface becomes inert once more, though emblazoned with the very same magical circle he had inscribed upon the ground.

    "What in the Hells," Reiji asks of everyone around him... As the Shajem charges. He leaps away just in time to avoid being slapped by a giant monster snake-weasel's tail, seizing his mobile arsenal in his now-free hand, "We're just going to let it go, then?" He looks to the Confederates and their crystal, and frowns.

"Oh," he grunts, keeping the mirror close to his chest, "I think I see."

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    And there goes the Shajem. On orders to not to follow, Amalthea decides to just get her arm over Psyber's shoulder, panting. Though her Abstractum dulls the pain to a large degree, she's currently not in much condition to do much any further as she gets her hand around an ice shard embedded in her gut and snaps it off, tossing it to the floor with grunt.
    For some reason she looks much more surly than she did moments ago.

Psyber (253) has posed:
    Psyber doesn't stop the Shajem, letting it go of its own accord. When an arm goes over his shoulder, Psyber looks at Amalthea. As the radio begins to escalate, the look on his face changes as if to say 'This is proving the exact point I just said to you'.

    "Can you stand? Or walk?" Psyber asks in a dull, distant tone to her.

    When and if he receives confirmation that she can, the half-angel elects to simply put Adjudicator onto his back, turn away from the group, and walk off. Amalthea is probably in tow.

Maya has posed:
Maya is about to unleash a number her spells at Nathan order she hopes he's going somewhere with this, but he also knows the situation than she does. She's only recently comes into this so she's going to have to just trust this and hold off she ishowever keeping magic here. She hears things play out over the radio and sees where this is going. This could work this very much could work. However things could get messy with the Feds or maybe it won't end up as such.

Nox (546) has posed:
    Nox has to watch the Shajem escape, unable to chase after it with such unwieldy equipment. The last few turns of the hourglass are self contained, keeping roughly half of the power divested to Lezard's crystal to itself, being the more dense of the energy storage mediums according to Nox's specialty. As much as he hates to admit it, Adelyn is more or less right. It's time to leave. Thankfully he'd kept the portal open, as this allows to him wave the specialist Shajem-draining device back into its place at Horologium, swiftly followed by the now empty noxines before the gate closes. "We will meet again later then." He spares a sideways glance to Nathan as he leaves, and then a little more of an intent one at Reiji, before abruptly disappearing in a fizzle of static.

Amalthea (395) has posed:
    "I'm alive, aren't I?" Amalthea chuffs to Psyber in reply. "Lemme just catch my breath like this."
    Off they go.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
The sealing is complete in its own way, the magical backlash almost knocking Lezard off of his feet, were he not prepared for such. He knew they were about to get cut off. When the event occurs, Lezard steadies himself and looks to the now bound Shajem, considering it for several moments.

He looks... unsatisfied.

But instead of taking action against the Shajem, he does not interfere, allowing it to escape as it wills. Instead, he focuses on creating a teleportation circle with which to move the crystal before the heroes get any more ideas to interfere.

There will be much to research soon.