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| Owner | Pose |
|---|---|
| Marigold | LAST TIME: http://www.multiversemush.com/scene/scene.php?id=9095 "How old is Roy, anywa--" "Why? What kind of person would take the Demon's na--" "Igrene... should we retrieve--" Sophia, Fae, and the old man all whip around to stare east past Roy's army, eyes suddenly wide. It's like they have a hivemind. ... Or like there was a gunshot only they could hear. How could Fae tell Mia and Echo were dragons, anyway? "Them again. In my time..." "Igrene...! Bern's close!!" "Fae's scared... it feels wrong..." - - - - |
| Marigold | THE NABATA DESERT, ETRURIA At the walls of the hidden village Arcadia. Everyone in the village knows to take the dragons' warning seriously. The chill that spreads through the human villagers catches to Roy's army; if anyone was disinclined to believe it, peer pressure pushes them to. The warriors lay hands on their weapons and the mages step back towards the village, away from the howling sandstorm-barrier. Acutely, you become aware that Arcadia's sloping walls were never meant to repel an armed force and that the village doesn't even have a gate. Igrene is only frozen for a moment. Then, as the village's leader, she whips around to address them. "Alright- everyone!" she shouts, gripping Fae's arm to pull her towards the village (and away from Lilian). "Hide underground in the cistern! The army says they'll protect us! Don't come out until my signal to--" The people are already obeying her, moving towards the low ziggurat-like 'temple' at the village's center, but she's cut off by Fae transforming. Light shines from the girl's blue gem until it washes out her features; then girl and stone morph together and grow, the glow only fading when it can reveal that precious feathered shape. Igrene is left haplessly clutching one stubby little foreleg on tiptoes, instead of dragging a girl by the arm. "Fae!" she hisses up, with a mother's dread. "You're a child! I am not going to let you fight! Turn back right this moment! ... Please." "--auu--aaa," Fae says in her crooning whalesong, stubbornly untranslatable. But you don't need mind-reading to tell what she means: I'm sorry. I have to. "Sophia. Please talk sense into Fae," Cecilia begs while hurriedly riffling through her spellbook. But she doesn't realize until she looks back that Sophia is already, for some reason, sprinting towards the temple-ziggurat with an urgency far beyond the other evacuees. "... Sophia! What's gotten into you?!" the general yells, but gets no answer. Roy should have the authority here. But he's only seventeen himself, even if burdened far beyond those years. There's shock, unease, and just a little understanding in his eyes when he looks at Fae. He disapproves, but can't bring himself to raise his voice. Most eyes are still on the encircling magical sandstorm, where Fae is staring like a watchdog. The village's protective shroud now works against it. It's hard to see anything through the howling wall of gray-brown dust, but easy to imagine you see menacing shapes in its shifting murk. BGM: https://youtu.be/pNSsy2XrUMc |
| Madeleine Cadrasteia | Madeleine is lucky - or unlucky - enough to number among the Excrucians who weren't around when the angels came to her world, declared it un-Real, imposed their laws. But she's heard the stories. She's seen the scars. Her very shape, she knows, is an injustice inflicted upon her kind, a forced compliance to the real. She knows, too well, what happens when the 'real world' comes calling at the doorstep of something it thinks impossible. She can't let it happen again. Madeleine cracks her neck, rolling her head in a slow circle, as she readies Drogrung from her back. A star falls across her eyes, moving in time with the single tear rolling down her cheek. Weeping for the end of an age. For all that will be lost today. The huntress stands close to Fae, glances at the beautiful, impossible creature. "Stay close to me. I won't let them hurt you. Not-" Her voice catches. "Not like they've hurt me." |
| Odette Raskins | "I 'lost' it," "But when I saw... what power like mine was used for... I hurled it into the ocean, and walked away. As if that could make me cleaner." "I... Nn." Listening to the old man with rapt attention, Odette bites her lip lightly while reaching over to give him a gentle pat on the shoulder, ready to stop at a moment's notice if it even feels like he might be flinching away from her. "You're... Braver than me, then. I-if I was in that kind of situation, I don't know if I could do the same thing you did. Probably would've just held onto it and... Still left, anyway." She chuckles awkwardly at that, clears her throat, then tries to give him the most reassuring smile she can muster. It's still anxious as all hell. "B-but maybe this is an opportunity to make up for that, then. Even if you can't fight, there's ways to help with this wohle.. ALl of this! I mean, I can't fight, but I've been here with everyone this the whole time, too. Any information you have..." Breathing out a sigh of relief as he starts speaking of Iounn, although the relief doesn't last long once he actually reveals who she is. It's both a sad story and frightening one all at once, between hearing thatshe might have been warped in much the same way Zephiel did, and also being brought back from the dead somehow. Before she can process more thoughts about all that, though, something grabs the dragons' attention all at once, and Odette turns her gaze that way as well. "What's...? B-Bern's here?!" Turning to the old man quickly, Odette hurries to clasp a hand around his shoulder as she attempts to put on a brave face badly. "D-d-don't worry. We'll keep you and the others safe. Find somewhere to hide and-" Right, Fae! Odette hurries towards Fae, nearly running into Igrene in the process before stopping to squat down at eye level. "Fae! B.. Be a good girl, and stay with grandpa and everyone else, okay? W..." She glances over at where the staring was directed, her teeth still audibly chattering as she tries to usher the younger dragon to safety. "W-we'll take care of this, a-a-and everything'll be fine!" When Fae transforms, Odette a similar dread-filled look on her face to Igrene, and she scurries to Fae's front to futilely try and push her back towards where the rest of the villagers are escaping. "F.. Fae, no, you have to stay with them! If not to stay safe, then to... Protect them?" She pleads, having that sinking feeling in her gut that Fae might already have her mind set on this. "... M-Miss Igrene. I've got plenty of meds, so she'll be okay." Her teeth are still chattering as she joins Roy in watching that sandstorm, hands clenched tightly around her bag and her staff in each hand. "Gotta... Focus. A-as long as nobody dies, we'll make it through this. Even if anyone dies... W-we'll all survive." It sounds like she's trying to convince herself of that more than Roy or anyone else, even though they've seen her practically do that a few times already. |
| Trudy Grimm | Every resident of Arcadia jerking their attention into the same direction and issuing various forms of distress and unease is all Trudy needs to realize what's happened. She lets out a sigh, her eyes closing for just a moment. Once recovered, she raises both hands to the Old Man, "You'd best get to safety, Grandfather, just as Igrene says." She glances over her shoulder, "Grimnir, go with them. Make sure Merlinius' people get to safety, too." "Naturally," The old sage is already tapping ashes out of his pipe as he moves past her, tucking it away inside his worn old traveler's coat, "I'm sure we old geezers have plenty of tales to share while you young folk take care of this." Reaching up as he passes Fae's reformed dragon shape, he gives her fluffy side a comforting pat, "Do as you will, my dear, but do please be careful, mm?" "As for you-- come on," The witch's gaze shifts from Grimnir to the Black Knight, slumped as he is against one of the shade-providing fig trees. The undead warrior makes a big show of sighing in exasperation, a massive feat considering he doesn't breathe in the first place. At last he reaches up, grabbing on to the hilt of his sword and using that to haul himself back to his feet. The Black Knight doesn't wait for further orders. As Trudy is unfastening the buckle of the Grimoire, her minion has already lurched forward. Approaching the sandstorm wall, he comes to a stop right where the sands begin to whip up into the storm, pulling his great sword from his back and planting it in the sand at his side. His free hand raises, beckoning any and all to approach him should they dare. The witch, meanwhile, is already at work. Others may take care of evacuations. She has preparations to make. The rune of Flame, Kaunaz, blazes to life above the seemingly blank pages of the Grimoire in vibrant red-orange-yellow sparks. In her free hand, she procures a handful of small fingerbones, each engraved with the slanted t-shape of Nauthiz, the rune of Necessity. Opposite of the existing rune, Kaunaz engraves itself into the sunbleached bone. A runic circle begins to expand around each and every one-- she drops them into her shadow. The lump of bone erupts out of the Black Knight's shadow. He ignores it as it soars up over his head and pops-- scattering the bones as fragments in the sand that the oncoming army must march across. Their numerous runic circles flare bright red, then fade moments later. |
| Dysnomia | Dysnomia shared a look with Echolalia, something unspoken passing between them. Then, she looks toward the nearest members of the League. Her expression is hard to read. "We weren't lying." Dysnomia said, as if to ambush an accusation. "We come from a different place. With a different history. With different ways of 'being.'" "...Nevertheless." She didn't look to the rest of Arcadia. "I hope what you've seen here makes it easier to stomach." Smoke uncoiled around Dysnomia...No. Not around. She spilled from her own body...Or what seemed like her body, like a person-shaped shroud. The Smoke-That-Was Dysnomia twined and coiled around herself, rising up and up and up, ethereal 'wings' spreading behind her... ...But she didn't 'solidify'. Not really. She was a torrent of swirling, glowing nebula-cloud hovering above the ground, winged serpent of mist in gleaming violets and teals, with a jagged, ugly scar? still bleeding at her midsection, with only that, the phantom shape of wings at her back and slitted, glowing eyes to set her definitively apart from a shape imagined in the fog. A half-dreamlike shape not seen since the fight for the end of the world, on the Busan. Her head turned toward Fae, even thing the mist of her substance struggling to pull protectively around her. She can't fight, she doesn't know how, we can't let her get hurt-- Dysnomia doesn't need to borrow the worry spiraling around her; she has plenty all on her own. But, she looked at Fae, and... I can't make her. "I'd rather you let us fight," a thought broadcast, to Fae--to anyone nearby. "But if you have to do something, keep them from breaking through into the village." "Let us do the hard part." A light burned in her chest, swelling up. A thick hiss of ozone burned in the air. Her wings rose, and she was off. Once, she flew around the edge Arcadia, but on the second, she angled her wings tight, flying sideways, almost perfectly parralel with the storm. Her maw--when did she start to have one? The moment she decided she wanted it?--opened wide, with jagged, gleaming teeth, and a fountain of plasma cascades over the dunes, carving a swath across where Sophia, Fae and the Old Man's attention had snapped. Her plasma poured over the sand, and in an instant she turned sand dunes into mounds of molten glass, cloudy and imperfect--and a true nightmare to step onto. |
| Aidan Proudpick | Ear flick. Nose twitch. Tail freeze. His eyes trail with everyone else's to the sandstorm. A casual glance with animal eyes only can detect the outline of a predator, the sense that something is in there. His eyes roam the wall of wind, counting silently to himself. Multiple shapes at least. White whisps trail from Aidan's mouth as he runs, a premium purchase particle effect trailing behind him as he leaps onto the wall of a building, scrambling quickly on top of it. The highest roof next to the place they are approaching. The best vantage point. The stray thought that he needs a banner or a cape bubbles through his brain, before it bursts like a bubble again, as so many thoughts do in his brain. Aidan straps on his shields, tying the large sized one to his back down tight. That white billows out from his lips, tendrils that Aidan can grab and tie with the wind itself around him. The time with the army has gone far to improve him. What were only skirmishes when he was sixteen have been full blown army manuevers. He grasps the skeins of wind in squirrelish hands. White spreads out above the city wall, a swirling permable barrier against arrows and dragon javelins. A glance at Fae, then back up. "As long as ya know you might make Igrene sad if you don't come back," he nods seriously. "Sorry you gotta do this." The wind stutters as he watches Dysmonia, his head rocking back at the see the (true?) form roil into shape. "Suffocate me," he whispers, the awe-filled curse of choice. He regains his senses, spreading his fingers flat to tighten up and tie off the weave, surveying the work of his knitted wall with a grin. |
| Khosa | Khosa was here before, with the army. The desert didn't bother her at all; to her it was familiar as the back of her hand, provided she had a guide toward Arcadia. The days are hot, but not as hot as Athas; contrariwise, the nights are colder than she's used to, but there's more supplies around to handle it. Water and food were the most concerning issues, and once she saw the qanats she became a lot less worried about even that. There is a definite chance people got to eat cactus along with the roots she scavenged, though. And lizard, if she could catch one. At least Khosa didn't even try to convince anyone else to eat insect (if only because the cactus insect life isn't quite what she's used to and she didn't see any red cactus grubs or renk). Khosa had remained on guard during the first meeting with the town, doing something she's done several times during the trip: obscuring their tracks, smoothing them out with quick bursts of telekinesis that fans out sand and dirt to look windswept like the lands around it, not walked over. Not that any of that matters if Bern already knows where they are. Or if they'd already planned an attack. "Oi!" Khosa raises her voice as much of the town starts to break away to the cistern, but critically not Fae. Khosa hasn't been introduced to her, precisely, but the last thing she wants to do is babysit someone who doesn't know how to fight who's trying to help rather than trying to stay out of trouble. "Sorry, fuzzbutt, but it's for the best! They'll go after you specifically if they see you. So go back, okay? Let us handle this one. Park yourself at the front of the cistern and make sure nobody gets in, but don't come out." Khosa is perhaps not great with kids even if she generally likes them. (People like Lugh and Chad are old enough to not count to her, anymore.) Khosa can't do any of the field shaping that some of the others can. No molten glass or minefield for her. Instead she digs in near the town itself - it has no gate, but she'll defend the gateway at least. She has one of her new-ish throwing axes in hand, and though she doesn't immediately toss it she's clearly got it cocked and ready to throw at whatever comes out of the sandstorm. |
| Flamel Parsons | Flamel Parsons comes out of invisibility in an abrupt rush. How long was he here? "Woah!" Fae's transformation is what gets him. "Woah woah, hey! Igrene, and, uhh-- Lugh! If Fae *has* to do this, I can link you up with her, so she can at least do it responsibly!" As for Sophia... huh? Why's she running? "Either something's *really* important in there, or something's *really* awful out there." He's gotten a bit of a feel for that dangerous dark magic, at least, the absence of self and the unpersoning of the soul. And maybe the ziggurat will bear some information out. His clairvoyance pings, a radar pulse that sweeps over the sand and into the storm. The shroud is powerful, but primarily visual, and he's got the psychic oomph to overwhelm a magical ward at very short range from within. It'll identify the foes and their positions through it, if he can, and it's a convenient psychic wave to ride for Igrene and Lugh to figure out some telepathy with Fae. Someone needs to win that argument quick, so that there isn't a set of hands occupied with internal conflict. When the foes are IDed, their arrangements known... fingers plant against temples and there's a sound like a flywheel. Once it reaches the right pitch, the signatures he's IDed for others turn bright red in waves, seven ir eight at a time in quick sweeps. Heavy orange beams, fist-wide, start to sweep, arcing through to them and pinging them with harsh kinetic impact. |
| Echolalia | "It does feel wrong, doesn't it?" Echolalia says to Fae. She exchanges some communication with Dysnomia and her pupils shift to a more serpentine state as she... She's stalled by Fae transforming first. "Hold on Fae--we can handle this--!" Then her gaze turns to Roy, she bites at her lip. If the leader of the army isn't saying NOPE, and Fae isn't saying NOPE--she's still basically a kid!!! ''I won't let them hurt you. Not- Not like they've hurt me.'' "Okay, let's talk about that later!" Echolalia says, her hair fizzing and popping with increased intensity before Echolalia explodes into light, harming nobody though it IS very bright, a swirling mass of all sorts of colors before the mass settles on a luminescent borealis-like hazy green that spills outward and around and larger and larger and larger until it gets quite big indeed! How big? Well, the form expands until it is noticeably larger than Dysnomia's own form by a few breadths, shimmering green wings taking form and fanning wide in the sky, and the outline of scales crackling across her legs, arms, and tail. Vines, bark, leaves and and flowers grow out of the amorpheous form until it forms a kind of battle armor, rendering a solid form around the borealis, antlers sprouting high above the head, small bright fires running down her spine as she rests, briefly on the ground. She snorts out green flame from her nostrils before her neck twists and creaks like a body made of wood, and bends down to heft Madeleine by the scruff of her neck and fling her up into the air and onto her back! 'LESS GO LESS GO LESS GOOOO'! She transmits to Madeleine's mind, pumping herself up for numerous reasons. She rears back with her head and breathes out her own flame to add to Dysnomia's, unleashing a truly horrible toxic cloud to make any approach extra perilous. 'Gotta fight for the cuteness!!' Maybe if they are real lickety split about it... |
| Desire Stars | "Them again. In my time..." "Igrene...! Bern's close!!" "Fae's scared... it feels wrong..." "They're nothing if not persistent." "You could say the same about us!" --auu--aaa. "Fae..." Neon frowns at her as she transforms. "I don't like it, but I understand. You love these people." "A promise goes both ways, Fae. I'm keeping my end. I want you to be there when I do to see the 'surprise.'" Ace and Neon each find their resolve and reach for their transformation belts and the Buckles that empower them. The rectangular devices fasten themselves to the waist. DESIRE DRIVER! Set! MAGNUM! Set! BEAT! The names of both Buckles hover on hard-light signage behind the Riders, each with its own visual identity; Magnum's rests in bold red capitals over a crosshair, Beat's looks like it could be advertising a dance hall. Ace inserts the white-red Magnum Buckle, the chambers of its revolver cylinder resembling magatama prayer beads. Neon, meanwhile, uses the electric blue-pink Beat Buckle, its keyboard-turntable waiting dutifully to be played. Ace turns to the left, his right hand swept in a circle and held before his downturned face like a performer reaching for the brim of his hat. With one knee slightly bent, he turns his head to the right, extends his hand, and snaps his fingers, spinning the Buckle's cylinder and pulling the trigger with his other hand. "Henshin." Neon lifts her right hand, limp at the wrist as it draws across her chest in imitation of a cat's paw. Flicking her wrist, she extends her arm and makes a circle--"Heeen..." Both hands just under her chin, she strikes a second catlike pose, before lowering one hand to glide her fingers across the Beat Buckle's keys and turntable. "Shin!~" Six red bullets and a winding ribbon of rainbow leger lines string out into the sandstorm as attacks unto themselves, before venturing back towards the matte black armor of the Kamen Riders who called them to form their armor. Na-Go's cuirass now sports the colorful hues of the Beat Armor, complete with subwoofers in the pauldrons and bouncing equalizers on the breastplate and bracers. Wielding the bladed Beat Axe upright (as a guitar), she fades from the frontlines to escort the fleeing villagers to the ziggurat. Her music puts a spring in the step as she plays it, helping to make sure even the most old and frail of Arcadia's vulnerable can get there in no time. Geats, meanwhile, takes full advantage of Flamel's clairvoyance, extending the Magnum armor's form weapon into its RIFLE mode. Shouldering the weapon, he prioritizes the shapes he sees the most of, aiming to attack morale by way of making entry as costly and intimidating as possible. |
| Lilian Rook | 'But when I saw... what power like mine was used for... I hurled it into the ocean, and walked away. As if that could make me cleaner.' "I know there's no use in me saying anything now. You've had more than enough time to come to the same conclusion on your own." Lilian says, and begins to turn aside; not unsubtle with her disgust, but aiming it away. "So bear with my saying it for those I know." "You surrendered. From the moment you threw away your arms, you should have been prepared for them to put you to the sword eventually. And no one here will ever think you were more noble for not protecting them." 'But they can't march a whole army through the desert. Where are their supplies coming from? Rout them here, then hit there.' Lilian turns to the group at the same time, casting her hand out to the sandstorm indicatively and raising her voice to be heard. "Until we have recon, expect that their numbers are small! They'll have adapted to the terrain and prioritized mobility! Assume they're bringing dragon simulacra, and assume that means they've concentrated their resources into a small and heavy-hitting troop! Don't take them lightly! The village isn't fortified, so get distance from it! There's no use taking cover, and the closer we are, the more collateral damage there'll be!" She pauses, looks back to Roy, bites her lip in thought, and then forcefully continues. "Establish a killbox fifty meters from the barrier! We don't have a choice but to aggressively press a counteroffensive, so we'll have to take advantage of the sandstorm and pincer them against it! Even if you're in danger, don't bother pulling back; you've seen what they do to a rout! Be prepared to move and consolidate force on our weakest position! We're the perimeter, so we can't afford them to break through somewhere!" Lilian has no idea what to do about Faye. What her age means to a dragon is something she can't decide on the spot. Even a child of their kind has that much power, yet she can't be sure that Faye even really comprehends death. A quick check of her thoughts tells her that she'll feel horrible if Faye is injured in battle, but worse if someone; villager or Lycian League; dies because of Lilian telling her to sit out. The deciding factor is spoken aloud. "This is her home, and there's nowhere else for her to go. Whether she stands her ground here or at the last second doesn't make much of a difference." Lilian doesn't actually have the ability to fly into the sandstorm; or at least, she wouldn't see much of anything if she did. There's little she can do save bury the handful of magical explosives she has on her in the sand, directly ahead of where she can precognitively sense she'll need to. |
| Marigold | The old man seeing Grimnir off scrunches incrementally at Lilian's critique, but he's so internalized it that he doesn't flinch. "She tells the truth," he says to Odette while unable to meet Lilian's gaze. "Brave doesn't mean right, I know. If you reach ten thousand, I hope the years find you wiser than me." Then he's helped off limply towards the ziggurat, which must have the cistern's entrance. Fae rumble-purrs at Grimnir's and Maddie's reassurance- "aa--uu..."- but doesn't take her eyes off the sandstorm for even a second. Her tail twitches, wings shiver. She's scared. "I don't like it, but I understand. You love these people." She scrunches her eyes tightly and dips her head for Neon. That doesn't need translation either. "Uh-- right! Got it, Mr. Parsons!" Lugh shakes off his 'dragon' apprehension and sprints over, shutting his eyes and assuming the Psychic Stance with a hand on Fae's side. Her big green eyes steel with soft determination, and the ticky twitching settles slightly. "It's not about whether she'll survive," Igrene says desperately, letting go of Fae to wheel around on Odette and Lilian. "She is nine. Do you realize what you're saying?" But she can't stop Fae. That's starting to dreadfully dawn on her. "This is her home, and there's nowhere else for her to go. Igrene balls her fists, swallows an objection, shakes her head sharp-bitterly, and unslings the bow from her back. "In my time..." she murmurs, while scrabbling up the village wall for vantage. Fae makes an awed little noise and wiggles- seeing Mia and Echo transformed is one of the few things that can distract from her current agonizing tension. She cranes her neck to peer at them both from all angles, glancing back at Igrene as if to say 'are you seeing them!!'. Most of the rest of the army reacts differently, scattering back on instinct to a good twenty or thirty feet. Roy can't help doing the same, but he forces a badly uneasy smile through his shock while looking up at Mia. "Is that what Durandal did to you?" is the first thing he says, about the scar. "But... it does. Make it easier. Um. Thank you for helping us, even though..." Even though. Lilian's orders override the scattering. "Do as she says!" Roy says in the moment of hesitation, and they do, forming a front line well ahead of the town. Shanna and Thea mount up and take to the sky, but the other horsemen don't bother in the sand; the two Sacaen archers take the wall with Igrene. The pause from there is agonizing. Echidna stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Khosa for a long while, adjusting her grip on Armads as a last line of defense, before impatience finally forces her to huff and move forward to join the left pincer. |
| Marigold | After seconds that feel like hours, Flamel makes about thirty pings through the sand- like Lilian predicted, a small group. He fires his arcing kinetic bolts; twenty-eight recoil, two don't even flinch. Those two radiate the only local dark magic, excepting Sophia. Magical explosives go off with their bangs. Men yell in pain or panic from the molten glass and toxic fumes, just audible over the howling sandstorm. Then roiling fire becomes visible through the sandstorm, like crackles of lightning inside a cloud. The first of Bern's forces to emerge are those who don't flinch. They shriek at the lower edge of human hearing, vibrating in lungs and thrumming sand, and Fae whimpers. The two Bernish dragons are each every bit as dreadful as the one at Juteaux was; fire not just as their breath but as their eyes, their wings, their spines, like evil flame resentfully donning flesh. But you had less of an army then, no Divine Weapon until near the end, and no local dragon to help. Still, as the two wretched scaly titans emerge from the storm's edge, it's hard to miss that Fae is at best half their size. Instantly they're both lit up with a terrible barrage of arrows and offensive magic. Klein strikes one cleanly in the eye to unclear effect; Lucius's great light-beam staggers the other as it winds up for an attack. Cecilia starts a complex air-distorting spell, but holds her gesture at the final point, delaying it for some unknown reason. "Holding...! Guard me!" But they weather that first beat disappointingly well. On open ground, there's no shield against their terrible flame breath driving the ground assault pincers back (and threatening to engulf Cecilia). Echidna weathers it behind Armads somehow, and swats back a retaliatory claw to deal a golden wound, but she can only be on one flank. One dragon turns to charge the right pincer; the other... "au--uu--?!" Fae pleads with them, a fraction of a second before she gets body-checked onto her back by the beast with a sound like a dull car crash. It plants a claw on her body to keep her down, and she cranes her neck to try and breathe a green-gold sparkling 'fire' at it, but it's threatened enough by that to pin her neck down with another foreleg and lean out of the way. "--ghaa...!" Roy strikes the Fae-assaulting dragon's ankle with his sword, driven by all feeling and no sense. No effect. |
| Lilian Rook | Two dragons isn't as bad as what happened at Pharae, but confirming both of them being exactly the same 'model' as in Etruria is the worst case scenario in every other way. Lilian's grip on her sword tightens from the tension of the memory alone. Even it'd been valuable experience, teaching her how to fight the monsters before her now, she remembers too well how powerful it was. What lingers with her, though, is what she knows of the dark magic that can sacrifice lives for dark simulacra. The tactical implications of what she sees are obvious and damning, but just as much, another thought sticks with her. "Are they . . . all the same person?" The results of the first volley make up her mind. A snap decision goes out. "Everyone who just hit something, focus fire! Leave the dragons to direct fire!" Lilian yells at the top of her lungs over the sound of battle. "We have more than enough to handle them as long as they don't have troop support!" 'au--uu--?!' Lilian moves automatically. She tells herself that it's to defend Roy. It partly is. Even acting on reflex, she is fully aware of him hastily putting himself in that risky position. She has no cover from the wave of flame, but can take to the air so quickly she'd be mistaken for Rutger, bleeding off upward momentum in a topsy-turvy arc that gives her a bird's eye view of the dragon as she accelerates down towards it, then collide with its head via meteoric spiralling descent, striking with combined falling and spinning momentum and "Taoide Fáinne Fí!" Her ricochet from the dragon's skull and scale and horns takes her nowhere and directly into its flaming maw, both armoured boots planted harshly between its fangs, her teeth grit against the heat, and her sword thrust out in the style of "Ar Luas Lasrach Roinnte!" with a flash and thunderclap at the roof of its mouth. |
| Madeleine Cadrasteia | From atop Echolalia's back, Madeleine watches the glowing shapes - alight with both Flamel's psychic IFF and their own fires - emerge from the sandstorm. Two enemy dragons is really what she should've been expecting, but it's still not something she was quite emotionally ready for. For just a moment she hesitates - if she squinted, they might almost seem like angels, wreathed in light and armored with scorn. She scowls, and readies her bow. Her first barrage of arrows land in rows on either side of Trudy's minefield, bursting on impact with the sand into clouds of acrid smoke to funnel Bern's foot soldiers into the killzone that Lilian ordered. Then she spies Fae get bowled over by one of the war-dragons. "Take us down!" she urges to the etherwyrm. As Echo approaches the war-dragon on the army's left flank, Madeleine peppers it with arrows. Though not strong enough to fully pierce its hide, the projectiles explode into creeping, clinging ice that resists even dragon-fire's attempts to melt it. Tendrils of the stuff begin to wrap around the war-dragon, slowing its movements just enough to keep it from crushing Fae. Then Madeleine's roughly in striking distance as Echo gets involved as well, and Drogrung knows it. Shifting into its spear form, the weapon briefly shares a glance with Madeleine before directing its attention once more to the enemy. As Madeleine thrusts with both hands, holding on to Echo with her knees, the midsection of the spear erupts into a mass of coiled flesh that then matches the huntress's lunge. Meters of serpentine muscle extend behind the steel spear-head - instead of manifesting its jaws, the lindworm is focusing all its force on a single point to shatter scales and tear through the flesh beneath. |
| Desire Stars | The attack on the soldiers coming in goes well--but not so well that the trump cards are taken off the field. *As good as we can hope for with them fielding dragons.* Holding... guard me! Geats makes a called shot on the dragon as its flame breath spews outwards-- MAGNUM TACTICAL SHOOT --sending a blunt pillar of red light racing for its chin. The impact carries considerable force on its own, but the explosion a moment after is the main attraction, and what the Kamen Rider intends to keep Cecilia from being engulfed in flame. Having stood his ground rather than fade with the rest of the ground forces, he takes collateral, grunting in pain as the armor distributes the heat of the flames where it can't disperse them. --ghaa...! Na-Go's music is the first sign of her return from helping the others into the ziggurat. As she re-enters the battle proper, she's met with not one but two enemy dragons, and one bearing down on Fae. "Get OFF!" ROCK THUNDER A swing of the Beat Axe at full sprint sends a bolt of lightning surging downwards from the air above the dragon's back to strike in dead center-mass. As she closes the distance and gets into close range alongside Roy and Fae, her music empowers them both, letting each hit a little harder and fight back a little more. % Everyone who just hit something, focus fire! Leave the dragons to direct fire! We have more than enough to handle them as long as they don't have troop support! "Got it." "Okay!" |
| Trudy Grimm | Lilian has the same precise thought Trudy does: The wyrm assaulting Fae must be dealt with immediately. Malice flips its pages, dispelling Kaunaz in an instantaneous flare of flaming sparks. When it settles again, a fresh rune ignites above the Grimoire; Laguz, the Water Rune. She pries the runic circle from the book and twists it into a greater circle created by Gebo, the Rune of Gifts. A similar, much larger circle shoots out around the assaulting wyrm's feet. This is a trick that hadn't worked before on mortal warriors, she reasons, but a drake whose power is entirely embodied by flame may have a different response. Her fingers claw inward, squeezing the rune in her hand. It crackles, snaps, and then shatters in her grip. In that same instant, water begins manifesting within the beast's body voids. Normally this would fill a man's lungs and drown him. A fire-breathing wyrm simulacrum may be able to endure that, but she's trying to remove Fire from its toolkit. On the other side of the formation, Echidna soon finds herself not facing that dragon alone. When it first exploded out of the sandstorm wind wall, the Black Knight shielded his face with his forearm and braced to keep his feet. No sooner had he recovered, he's whirled in place and leaned back. Lunging forward, he brings his hand down and hurls his greatsword at the dragon's flank with all his strength; then follows up by charging it with his hands empty. |
| Echolalia | Echolalia isn't really capable of chatting with words in this state she never learned to communciate in dragon but she can still laugh confidently which she does when Fae seems impressed. Echolalia LOVES it when she comes across as big and cool and impressive! She doesn't have a short person complex so much as she has a 'gotta appear badass and invincible' complex and bigness certainly helps with establishing that perception. She tries to speak to Fae in Fae. "Au--au....!" Which doesn't mean anyhing but is an attempt to be encouraging. Yes, she's--like--nine but if they're doing this, well, Lilian's not wrong. Lilian seems to be right a lot actually, which worries Echolalia, because she has called her both a stalker AND a cultist in the past. S-surely she's still not right about those things. Yes, of course. Anyway even if she was a Stalker, she's clearly an EX-Stalker right now so it's fine, it's fine. She takes flight, in keeping herself level. She fights fire with her own toxic flame which helps her weather the damage (and helps protect Madeleine from being on top of a dragon that's also on fire) but the wood armor doesn't seem to catch fire as easily as the trees she summoned back when they faced their first dragon. 'Bumpy ride.' She warns Madeleine before rushing towards the dragon imperiling Fae. She knows what her job is. She throws herself into the dragon and throws a claw towards its gut, a headbutt for its head, and then lashes out with her tail to grab the creature by its leg and swing it away from Fae. 'Fae...' She telepathically contacts Fae. 'I know how you feel, but according to Flamel--they were never real people. There is not enough there to convince. I'll try to keep them off you.' The implication being a suggestion that Fae strikes when she finds an opportunity rather than trying to tank the 'adult'. Echolalia isn't minding Madeleine so much, so it's gonna be up to her to figure out how to stay on her back while battling, but she is counting on Madeleine to tell her what to watch out for. |
| Flamel Parsons | Flamel Parsons turning invisible is useless for multiple reasons. The first, and most obvious, is that huge waves of wire are just aiming at everyone in that direction. The second, of course, is that when he's lit on fire, he instantly loses the effects, before his concentration even breaks. He's screaming from the heat and its both physical and psychosomatic effects, but at least he can roll it off in short order, and at least it doesn't knock anyone out of telepathy. "Are they . . . all the same person?" Flamel tears forward. The dragons have closed in enough that he can surge behind them, and as long as he stays out of the fire, he can focus on the troops. But that question's nagged at him. "I'll take a read!" He shouts. "If it isn't telepathy, then psychometry's gotta work!" Skidding in levitation as he whirls around them, spraying shot after shot into the troop support from closer range to give Lilian the space she's asked for, he uses the last of his focus to narrowly analyze the massive dragons with focused, intense psychic data-gathering. He's got the profile of the mind of the first dragon they fought. And now he's got two here. Is it the same fellow? A template-mind, printed by ritual? Are there any records, on these living creatures, of their creation? Were they pulled out of some ancient temple by the dark advisor, or made by her? Flamel should be able to focus-analyze them... |
| Odette Raskins | "And no one here will ever think you were more noble for not protecting them." "Brave doesn't mean right, I know. If you reach ten thousand, I hope the years find you wiser than me." "She is nine. Do you realize what you're saying?" Odette's still rolling those words around in her mind as she stands side-by-side with people far more qualified to get into a direct fight than she is, her white-knuckled grip on her stuff not quite loosening even as orders are shouted and people rearrange themselves according to Lilian's direction. That sinking feeling is made worse by knowing she's wrong about what she just said to try and reassure... She's not sure who she was trying to reassure, actually. The old man wasn't. Igrene certainly wasn't. Fae probably wasn't, either. It didn't even help herself feel any better about all of that. "Can I really...?" She looks over at the training staff in her hand, loosening her grip a little and immediately gripping it tightly once more when Flamel's pings start ringing in her ears. She looks towards the sand, sees the fire, and then she sees the first two attackers. It takes all of Odette's concentration to stop herself from screaming at the sight of the Bernish dragons, moreso at how they're absolutely surrounded by flames rather than just spewing them everywhere. Seeing all those attacks flying to meet them, then, gives Odette a moment to try and accomplish something herself. She raises her training staff, trying to will some kind of magic blast into existence as well. Nothing seems to happen, though, but she does't have time to get disheartened when the Bernish dragons return fire. Yelping as she dives to the ground, Odette shields herself as best she can with her bag, hissing painfully while peeling the melted gloves off her hands. Ointment, no time for bandages. After smacking the lingering flames off her bag and smothering them in the sand beneath her, she only has enough time to smear some of that goop on her hands before hearing Fae's desperate noises against the dragon pinning her down. Like Roy, Odette doesn't spend any time on thought and just joins in on assaulting the dragon with more feeling than sense. She yanks a jar and a bonesaw out of her bag, whipping the former at the dragon's face like a glass dart that shatters on impact to douse it in fast-acting acid. The latter is brought to bear against the opposite ankle Roy's targeting, with Odette trying to jam the saw between the burning beast's scales like she's trying to tear them off in the most painful way possible. |
| Aidan Proudpick | "She is nine." Aidan winces, but he turns his head with a nod. "It's awful," he whispers. But she's right. Aidan starts bounding over rooftops, going on all fours and scurrying across each one. A leap, a stretch over another, grabbing at the roof and scrambling past them. A dragon. Only really the second time he has seen a dragon, the last one from afar. There is something awe inspiring about them over a normal kaiju. The stories told of them. What they inspire in people, fear, terror. Fire rolls across the city, Aidan's excitement destroyed by watching people drown in flames. Fire rips across Aidan, searing his clothing, burning up one of his cloth gloves, turning his arm guard red hot. Aidan clamps down on his lips as he races through the fire, only to breathe out in a sudden harsh breath when he hits the edge of the roof. White wisps explode downward, throwing Aidan up into the air. For a moment, he pinwheels, arms and legs going wild until his brain asserts itself, his tail twists, and his body orients. Aidan goes for the other one, perhaps purposefully, either to avoid Lilian or to mirror her. Claws latch onto the scales and the squirrel scurries up the top of the dragon, scrambling over ridges and scales, dipping as Ace passes, only to clamber up onto the top of the dragon. He's basically squirrel sized to this creature, hardly more than an annoyance. Which is the perfect job for Aidan. "Up here, asshole." Aidan clings with arm and feet, waving his hand in front of the dragon's eye. "Why don't you pick on me instead?" There are so many things he could do that are more damaging. But when you really want to piss someone off. You jam a set of claws into their eye. |
| Khosa | Khosa can't control Fae and she's being overridden on telling her to pull back. She trusts Lilian to keep an eye on Fae if she's saying it's all right if she stays forward - which doesn't mean Khosa will *ignore* her but it does mean it's not her focus. Accustomed to working alone, or in small groups with clear direction, Khosa accepts guidance on tactics in some ways; pressing a counteroffensive sounds fine to her. "Finally," she rumbles, because that means the leash is off. Guarding the gate is a last-ditch, anyway; when Echidna moves forward, she moves too, though not as far so that she can get back if she has to. The roiling fire becomes visible, and Khosa grins, suddenly, showing teeth. Okay. It *is* dragons. Last time she wasn't prepared. This time... At the flame, Khosa dives. Literally; she takes two steps and leaps, crashing into the sand and simultaneously starting a shapechange while digging. She vanishes under sand and soil, leaving a heap behind, and remains out of sight for some time. --- Until something bursts from the ground *beneath* one of the scaly monstrosities - the one that isn't attacking Fae, by chance, as Khosa was blind and navigating by tremorsense beneath the ground. What rises up is clearly still Khosa, ultimately, but a segmented carapace starts from her forehead, rising up like a horned crest before going down her neck and extends down her back, all shining silvery plates. Her hands are enormous for her size, with heavy rock-digging claws. When she erupts, she *erupts*, exploding rocks outward and upward with telekinetic force, a veritable geyser of stone right into the underside of the dragon. And whatever she's done with the carapace, it is fire resistant - not flame-proof, nothing Khosa can make would be immune to that fire, but it doesn't burn well and the smoothed, angled plates cause air and flame to wash along her and scorch the outer layer, but not cook what's beneath. It also provides protection from the sandstorm for similar reasons. Khosa follows the geyser of stone upward, tearing into the underside of the dragon exactly like she just dug through rock and stone to get to it, before diving beneath the sands again. This kind of environment is exactly what she needs to do her hit and run and she's going to take advantage of it as long as she can. |
| Dysnomia | Is that what Durandal did to you? For a moment, she managed to swallow some of the bile she felt toward that thing. Roy was in front of her. Roy was what mattered. "Yes," she thought-spoke, matter-of-fact. "But... it does. Make it easier. Um. Thank you for helping us, even though..." "I thought a time like this would come." Dysnomia's head leaned down...nearly touching the sand, until she was at eye level with Roy, and all the other members of the League. "Where you'd be ready to see." A sign on the road she'd looked forward to seeing herself. A flag just over the horizon, that no one else had seen. "...No need to thank me." Her eyes find Lucius, then Marcus, then Roy again. There's an echo of fondness, not as well concealed from telepathic contact as she'd like to imagine. "You've made it easy to stand with you. And this is all more complicated than it looked...Isn't it?" Her eyelights cut off, and then came back on again. Was that a blink? "You'll find that things are a little more than they seem, I think." And then, she was off. ~o~o~o~ She was a streak of color across the sky, a contrail without a jet. Veering along the edge of the sandstorm as she turned in the air...as the Bernish dragons came storming through their blockaides. It was her error, she realized, heart sinking as they burst through. To think that they would even pause. To think they would even be delayed by pain. They had no instinct for self-preservation, no meaning of existence except through service. She leaned forward, wings leaning in, and then she was moving in a dive. Tendrils of mist congeal into claws, as Lilian and Madeleine strike. Dysnomia can't match up to the sheer reckless, blind power with something that's willing to push through all pain, that's honed down to its very razor edge with singular intent. But, as Madeleine and Lilian engage with the dragon, she sees another opportunity. She comes on the dragon with a crash, and her claws clench down, trying to pry the fiery worm's claw off of Fae's neck. Another claw manifests, trying to yank Fae free--another, to try to throw the creature off of the child. They keep coming, and as fiery wingbeats boils one away, there's always another to take its place, struggling to at LEAST free the little dragon to defend herself. |
| Marigold | Flamel finds that the dragons' minds are functionally the same- more or less juice, poured into the same mold. They can develop something almost like memories over time, something you could loosely call habits, but an utter lack of creativity or intentionality in design has left them lowest-energy-state cookie-cutter. Their shallowness-of-being allows for only faint psychometric impressions, but he gets a little. They 'remember' some great pain at the start, some suffering-mired root, but they only take on form when that woman 'Iðunn' gives life to shadow. If they were made with sacrifice, the sacrifice was some time ago. Lilian's crashing down-and-up sword art jerks the Fae-assaulting dragon's head back in pain, and it staggers its neck-gripping foreclaw off her. "--aa!" she gasps, and gratitude comes through. Odette wrenches off a souvenir-scale and sizzles its face, but its wicked attention settles on her next; when Roy scrambles away, getting the message from Lilian as much as the chip in his sword, he wraps one arm around Odette and drags her away too. But Fae's still pinned, and blood drizzling from the roof of its mouth doesn't stop heat from welling up in its throat. The jet of concentrated flame is angled straight down at her for a good two seconds before Trudy sputters it out with a great hiss of boiling water; before it can try again, Neon joins the assault and briefly convulses its body. Empowered by her music, Fae strains to push back against its pinning claw with her stubby little forelegs. Then Dysnomia and Echolalia are slamming into its side, and they do have the bulk and momentum to shove it away. While Fae is scooped up by Mia's claws, she finally manages to get off her electrum-gold, sparkly-foggy breath to wash over the fire dragon's side. Fae says thank you, big dragon-friend, she thinks back in a daze- but even though she'd been at the very core of its fire breath, only a couple bleeding claw-marks show her as worse for wear. Battered and hurled across the sand, Fae's opponent growls at Echo and Mia- "------," it says in a language they can barely hear and can't understand, but from its rudimentary mind, the meaning can't be far from 'die, traitor'. When it rises, it's to snap at what passes for Echo's neck, dig great claws into her, fling its weight against her to bowl her over and lash with its tail. But it's badly hurt. Where Fae's strange breath hit it, there's a great gouge along its side that's extinguished one flaming wing completely, exposing its black simulacrum-goop as if meat and armored scales had gently evaporated away. Khosa erupts from below to tear at its belly, and it barely gets off a hindclaw-swipe at her in retaliation for some of the gashes steadily bleeding- but if she's extra-savvy, she can hit that new weakpoint on its side too to do even worse. Something wrong with them, Fae thinks back at Echolalia while resting against Mia, mournfully. It shouldn't do that... they're all wrong... |
| Marigold | While picking himself up off the sand after the ill-advised Fae rescue attempt, Roy finds himself staring into the towering Dysnomia's eyes. He freezes for a second again- clearly aware of his vulnerable position- but then smiles, re-convincing himself she's a friend, and stands. "'Easy to stand with us'... is that really true?" he says, awkwardly. "It's never easy to stand on a battlefield. But thank you. Er- I'm not supposed to thank you, but- never mind." A pause. "You sound sweeter like this," he adds. Marcus is too preoccupied with martial combat to spare her more than a glance, but Lucius does regard her warmly while weaving another spell. The left pincer of Roy's forces largely neglects the Fae-attacking dragon, since the elites appear to have that one well in hand, and closes in on the one attacking the right pincer. Aidan's claws are the tragic victim of reptile (and, evidently, dragon) biology: a protective, incredibly tough membrane covers their eyes like a transparent second eyelid. His claws scrape off, but it twists to chase and snap at him, giving the troops reprieve. Its rampage scattering Roy's knights is halted by the Black Knight damaging the scales of its side and Echidna landing a deep leaping flesh-wound followup that traces the weakened armor of his lead. "Nice one," she says breathlessly, on landing. And back over her shoulder at Khosa: "Haah. Leave some axes for the rest of us if you can do that." The right-pincer-hounding beast knows better than to stick around Armads, and twists around to recoil. After another sweep of fire breath at the offending pair- "GET TO COVER!" Echidna says unhelpfully, before sheltering behind her axe again with blistering hands- it backs up and takes to the sky to get out of reach, where Shanna and Thea can hound it with their lances. They're not the only ones. "Thank you," Cecilia breathes behind Ace, resting one hand on his shoulder. The dragon taking to the sky was her cue. Just when it's risen to forty feet, she finishes the green sigil her hands had been tracing. The air all around it compresses into a blizzard of mincing green blades, insufficient to pierce scales, but enough to shred its wing membranes to pieces. The dragon plummets from the sky, landing hard on its side in a cloud of dust. "Hah! Now!" "Don't tell me twice!!" Echidna rushes in with Armads to fish for a killing blow, but its scrabbling claws might hedge her out until it can regain its feet. A smaller, but maybe thornier, challenge is emerging from the sandstorm's edge. Two dozen of Bern's veteran troops, half mages with fire-or-lightning tomes, and half practiced swordsmen with great kite shields nearly as tall as themselves. Khosa's hit-and-run is chancier with mages holding lightning spells to shock her when she emerges, and the swordsmen can tie up Roy's forces one-on-one for at least a few moments. Harder than defeating them is figuring out how you're going to treat them with Fae watching. Roy bests one of the swordsmen by disarming him after a tense struggle, but then hesitates to finish the job with a glance to the child-dragon, and the soldier picks his sword back up to menace Roy again. "Ghh- please just surrender! I don't want to...!" |
| Marigold | Flamel finds that the dragons' minds are functionally the same- more or less juice, poured into the same mold. They can develop something almost like memories over time, something you could loosely call habits, but an utter lack of creativity or intentionality in design has left them lowest-energy-state cookie-cutter. Their shallowness-of-being allows for only faint psychometric impressions, but he gets a little. They 'remember' some great pain at the start, some suffering-mired root, but they only take on form when that woman 'Iðunn' gives life to shadow. If they were made with sacrifice, the sacrifice was some time ago. Lilian's crashing down-and-up sword art jerks the Fae-assaulting dragon's head back in pain, and it staggers its neck-gripping foreclaw off her. "--aa!" she gasps, and gratitude comes through. Odette wrenches off a souvenir-scale and sizzles its face, but its wicked attention settles on her next; when Roy scrambles away, getting the message from Lilian as much as the chip in his sword, he wraps one arm around Odette and drags her away too. But Fae's still pinned, and blood drizzling from the roof of its mouth doesn't stop heat from welling up in its throat. The jet of concentrated flame is angled straight down at her for a good two seconds before Trudy sputters it out with a great hiss of boiling water; before it can try again, Neon joins the assault and briefly convulses its body. Empowered by her music, Fae strains to push back against its pinning claw with her stubby little forelegs. Then Dysnomia and Echolalia are slamming into its side, and they do have the bulk and momentum to shove it away, with icy projections hitching its movement enough to make it topple. When Drogrung's head retracts, the false angel's blood-turning-ink drips from it. While Fae is scooped up by Mia's claws, she finally manages to get off her electrum-gold, sparkly-foggy breath to wash over the fire dragon's side. Fae says thank you, big dragon-friend, she thinks back in a daze- but even though she'd been at the very core of its fire breath, only a couple bleeding claw-marks show her as worse for wear. Battered and hurled across the sand, Fae's opponent growls at Echo and Mia- "------," it says in a language they can barely hear and can't understand, but from its rudimentary mind, the meaning can't be far from 'die, traitor'. When it rises, it's to snap at what passes for Echo's neck, dig great claws into her, fling its weight against her to bowl her over and lash with its tail. But it's badly hurt. Where Fae's strange breath hit it, opposite the Madeleine piercing wound, there's a great gouge along its side that's extinguished one flaming wing completely, exposing its black simulacrum-goop as if meat and armored scales had gently evaporated away. Khosa erupts from below to tear at its belly, and it barely gets off a hindclaw-swipe at her in retaliation for some of the gashes steadily bleeding- but if she's extra-savvy, she can hit that new weakpoint on its side too to do even worse. Something wrong with them, Fae thinks back at Echolalia while resting against Mia, mournfully. It shouldn't do that... they're all wrong... |
| Marigold | While picking himself up off the sand after the ill-advised Fae rescue attempt, Roy finds himself staring into the towering Dysnomia's eyes. He freezes for a second again- clearly aware of his vulnerable position- but then smiles, re-convincing himself she's a friend, and stands. "'Easy to stand with us'... is that really true?" he says, awkwardly. "It's never easy to stand on a battlefield. But thank you. Er- I'm not supposed to thank you, but- never mind." A pause. "You sound sweeter like this," he adds. Marcus is too preoccupied with martial combat to spare her more than a glance, but Lucius does regard her warmly while weaving another spell. The left pincer of Roy's forces largely neglects the Fae-attacking dragon, since the elites appear to have that one well in hand, and closes in on the one attacking the right pincer. Aidan's claws are the tragic victim of reptile (and, evidently, dragon) biology: a protective, incredibly tough membrane covers their eyes like a transparent second eyelid. His claws scrape off, but it twists to chase and snap at him, giving the troops reprieve. Its rampage scattering Roy's knights is halted by the Black Knight damaging the scales of its side and Echidna landing a deep leaping flesh-wound followup that traces the weakened armor of his lead. "Nice one," she says breathlessly, on landing. And back over her shoulder at Khosa: "Haah. Leave some axes for the rest of us if you can do that." The right-pincer-hounding beast knows better than to stick around Armads, and twists around to recoil. After another sweep of fire breath at the offending pair- "GET TO COVER!" Echidna says unhelpfully, before sheltering behind her axe again with blistering hands- it backs up and takes to the sky to get out of reach, where Shanna and Thea can hound it with their lances. They're not the only ones. "Thank you," Cecilia breathes behind Ace, resting one hand on his shoulder. The dragon taking to the sky was her cue. Just when it's risen to forty feet, she finishes the green sigil her hands had been tracing. The air all around it compresses into a blizzard of mincing green blades, insufficient to pierce scales, but enough to shred its wing membranes to pieces. The dragon plummets from the sky, landing hard on its side in a cloud of dust. "Hah! Now!" "Don't tell me twice!!" Echidna rushes in with Armads to fish for a killing blow, but its scrabbling claws might hedge her out until it can regain its feet. A smaller, but maybe thornier, challenge is emerging from the sandstorm's edge. Two dozen of Bern's veteran troops, half mages with fire-or-lightning tomes, and half practiced swordsmen with great kite shields nearly as tall as themselves. Khosa's hit-and-run is chancier with mages holding lightning spells to shock her when she emerges, and the swordsmen can tie up Roy's forces one-on-one for at least a few moments. Harder than defeating them is figuring out how you're going to treat them with Fae watching. Roy bests one of the swordsmen by disarming him after a tense struggle, but then hesitates to finish the job with a glance to the child-dragon, and the soldier picks his sword back up to menace Roy again. "Ghh- please just surrender! I don't want to...!" |
| Desire Stars | Na-Go and Geats both affirmed that they'd break off to handle the troops, and they do, in short order, once the immediate threats to Fae and Cecilia are handled. Geats takes it upon himself to handle the mages among the veteran troop, pitting his range against theirs. He gives a 'you're welcome' by way of an upnod and a 'hmh' at Cecilia, before breaking off at a sprint towards one of the palms at the edge of the town's greenery. He runs up the length of the tree, and just at the moment his momentum begins to flag, locks his legs around its trunk. Firing into the air with the Magnum Shooter on its highest setting drives him (and the tree) down towards the ground, before the durable trunk swings in the opposite direction and catapults him into the air above the mages. Shouldering the rifle as he falls, he aims for staves, spelltomes and any other magical implements he can see, little red cones of light giving painful burns to stubborn fingers. It isn't without risk in the slightest--that kind of high-flying assault is surely a sore temptation for mages, and Geats lands with much less armor integreity than when he began, his chest heaving with a labored breath as he rises to his feet. Na-Go makes a similarly aggressive, similarly dangerous plan, charging the shield-bearers while Geats has the mages distracted, brandishing the colorful, bladed Beat Axe with heavy, battering, elementally-infused strikes meant to exhaust moreso than truly defeat, taking cues from both Geats and Roy's mindfulness of Fae's presence. Every impact of the two-handed weapon against the shields carries an explosion of freezing ice that sends blunt, fist-sized hail ricocheting between the phalanx, ensuring that more than just the shieldbearer directly engaged with her has to deal with her assault. |
| Echolalia | ''Die, traitor'' Echolalia isn't Dysnomia and has a different weak point. "Awww shaddup! I've never betrayed anyone in my life. My dream hasn't changed since I was seven. I'm gonna fight for a world where Mother doesn't have to shed her tears anymore, where we live in peace--This village proves my dream--you can't make me waver, you poor creature!" ''Something's wrong with them. It shouldn't do that... they're all wrong.'' 'Fae... I'm sorry. You need not watch. You've already fought so hard.' Echolalia thinks back. 'Just by being you you've done so much. Thank you so much for helping Mia.' Echolalia can see weakpoints too, especially if they are glowing but first her neck is chomped down into. The fangs have to puncture through wood first, but they do puncture through the wood, and the teeth clamp down on her neck. Toxic gas and green blood pour out from the wound. She is NOT tasty right now. Though Mia, of course, is an exception. With love, annything is possible~. But for now Echolalia is here to kill shadowthings. Her neck briefly returns to that ionized energy, pulling free from the fangs but she doesn't materialize again just yet-- --instead she thrusts her maw towards the wound, phasing through it partially before she materializes her head again partway through, breathing out fungal horror as nature seeks to claim the shadow dragon. |
| Madeleine Cadrasteia | Seeing the dragon that menaced Fae now recoiling and gravely injured, and a new threat of Bernish elite troops emerging from the storm, Madeleine makes a snap decision. "Take it from here," she says, patting Echolalia's neck before dismounting as the etherwyrm continues her attack. Then the huntress is gone. In the smoke, and the flame, and the chaos of battle, stealth is trivial for Madeleine. So much so that when she emerges at the rear of the Bernish formation to skewer a battlemage, she has to shout a challenge to get the rest of the force's attention. "Come on, face me!" she yells, tossing the gravely injured mage aside and trampling his tome into the sand with her advance. "You're going to die here," she says as the other spellcasters prepare their offenses and some of the footmen turn as well. "And for what? To ruin my day? You'll spill your blood in the sand for coin on the word of some king you've never met?" Battle is joined, but Madeleine keeps talking as she fights, positioning herself right among the mages to put them at risk of hitting each other with their spells. "You're going to die here, and all you've done is spoil something beautiful. I hope you're #-1 FUNCTION (ANSI,U) NOT FOUND." she snarls as a blade pierces one of her decoys and catches her in the shoulder. She counters it with an upward thrust that sends the foot soldier crashing into one of his fellows, then returns her attention to tearing into the battlemages with abandon. |
| Trudy Grimm | The dragon is more or less handled, or at least, it is far less of a priority now that Fae has been pulled free. Trudy snaps the Grimoire shut, then lets it fall open again-- this time, what crackles to life above its pages is the unmistakable shape of Eiwaz, the Rune of Death. "No more of that," the witch mutters, approaching the thrashing beast at a slow walk amidst the steam gurgling from its throat. She braces the book, raising her free hand-- clutching a green gemstone between thumb and forefinger. A circle of interlocking runes winds out around the dragon, extending chains that attempt to lock it in place, "That woman won't be using /you/ anymore." Out in the right pincer formation, the Black Knight catches up in time to collect his sword right after Echidna follows up. > "Nice one." "ERRGHF." is the only rasping acknowledgement she gets out of him as he hefts the greatsword back into a readied position. The drake responds with fire; the Knight rushes right into it, disappearing in the ash and smoke and flame. When the dragon takes back into the air-- the Knight is clinging to it, his sword slung as he scales the monster's hide using its armored scales for handholds. He only stops when the wind-blade hurricane manifests to shred its wings. As the beast begins to fall, the Knight gets an idea. He releases his grip and kicks off, hurling himself straight up. The greatsword is removed from his back and angled downward, placing all of his weight and altitude behind it; driving for right between where the wings attach to its back. -- Trudy scowls when what she was doing fails. She doesn't have much time to announce her discovery, though, as she is promptly floored by a magic lightning bolt from her blind side that scatters her across the sand in a sizzling heap. In recovery, the first thing the witch scrambles for is the Grimoire; the green gemstone is abandoned entirely. Even so, she doesn't use the Grimoire at all. Rather, she wheels about and gestures, shouting at a formation of Roy's archers-- "Shoot into your shadow! Don't ask questions, just do it!" As she gestures, the tiny shadows cast under the bowmen deepen more than should be allowable under the desert sun. In the same moment, the shadows underneath the Bernish vanguard, the shield-bearing knights, similarly deepen. A direct path for arrows to completely ignore shields. |
| Dysnomia | "You sound sweeter like this," When Lucius and Marcus and Roy saw through her, Dysnomia pretended not to hear or see. Maybe, without her usual body language cues, it would be harder to tell she was pretending...But... ...Probably not. ~o~o~o~ Later, while she was engaged with the dragon, pulling Fae back. She couldn't help but hold the girl a little tighter. They are sick. She decided, intervening into Echo and Fae's telepathic conversation. They were born fully grown, with...strange magic, and missing pieces. The people who made them didn't want anything from them but...To listen when talked to, and hurt people in their way. They... For some reason, a spark of knife-sharp self-loathing lanced through her thoughts. ...Don't know any other way to be. Smoke spread across the battlefield. Detrius from where Dysnomia was struck? But, it didn't have the distinct color of her blood. But then what was it? Was she controlling it...? ...No. As the smoke spread, tendrils of spirling color materialized into claws, seizing at the ankles of Bernish soldiers, struggling to rip sword and shiled from their hands...And crush them all in front of them. Claws with gleaming edges of plasma...Not dissimilar from the ones the League had seen her use before, as spears, or whips. As the veterans struggled to push through, in spite of the glass, in spite of the toxic gas...Dysnomia's eyes narrowed to slits, darting from one to another, more smoke following the trail of her glare. She felt Roy's worry like it was her own, and instead of crushing them, she fought to enfeeble them, break their weapons and armor in front of them, leave them with no choice but surrender. |
| Aidan Proudpick | Okay, Aidan DOES know about the nictitating membrane. He's seen a gecko-man before. But when the powerful membrane draws over it, Aidan is surprised to find it tough like a boiled leather cuirass. He pulls back his hand, going to his hip. He pulls out the threatened masculinity sized pistol, more of a flare gun, already with a glue bullet within. As the head snaps back towards him, Aidan struggles to keep the pistol aimed down at the dragon AND say his one liner, "Get ready for a load." The shifting of the dragon's head snaps him around and Aidan goes into the air, ass over teakettle. Squirrel brain takes over, twisting him in the air, tail and spine flexing to get him into a position to land on the sand and skid through it until he can stand up. This is a bad id- Everyone thinks y- You can't- Y- The dragon comes snapping around, barreling down on him. Away from the rest of the troops. The back of his mind demands that Aidan tremble. He looks up into the jaws and the flame that kindles within them, a dull red that swirls into orange and white. Teeth the size of Aidan's head stand against the heat of the flame, threatening to tear into his flesh should the fire not roast him alive. So Aidan charges. He pulls the massive shield off his back and rushes forward, leaning into the oncoming heat. Fire burns through his fur, across his cheek, singing it, singing his clothing, burning black marks up his hand. As teeth come down, the saber like canines drop into his shoulder, splitting open the scapula and tearing through flesh. Aidan has one quick moment, a shift of his large bronze shield into position, enough to keep the mouth open for him. No more one liners. All of his breath exhales. Then in a fraction of a second, Aidan pulls it back in. A thunderous shockwave snaps around the dragon and Aidan as all the air around them is pulled within Aidan's lungs. And just as quickly, Aidan lets it out in a powerful scream, letting out all that wind in a shockwave in the other direction, right from inside the Dragon's mouth. |
| Flamel Parsons | Flamel jolts back. These artificial beings always get to him. No matter how much he figures them out, no matter how much he encounters them, he can't get used to this hollowness. "They're templated!" He shouts, flickering out of his invisibility, hollering to Lilian! "They're-- Hrkk!" He recoils as a swordsman approaches, fluttering as he dodges a swing invisibility. Floating hand-shaped psychokinetic hands sweep, engaging the shields in massive-scale grappling and wrestling. He flutters out of invisibility between these, grunting aggressively as he works in the depths of these combined arms. Heavy chops, grabs, smashes, and psychic finishers that drain the will to fight. It's hard-fought, but with focus, he manages to evade even a shallow slice. And he shouts as he goes. "*SOMEONE BE NICE TO FAE RIGHT NOW!!*" He demands. It's primarily a demand to his allies -- but the minute he gets ahold of one of the mages, he actually shifts to making a different demand. "You!! You're fuckin' traumatizing the child!! *Drop the book, go be nice to her! Apologize!!*" He is not going to have a literal fucking dragon baby traumatized on his watch. This is literally his job. "*Apologize in a kind and caring way, NOW!*" Psychic force instantly attempts to overwhelm willpower and force empathy -- or at least compliance. Then he vanishes again. When he flickers back into visibility near Lilian, he shouts, "They're summons! Black magic poured into the same mold! I doooon't know magic, haha, can you do something with this? That woman... Iðunn, she has *so much* black dragonic magic to call on, where did she *get* it from...?" |
| Odette Raskins | Success! one scale down, however many hundred to go. Odette's not actually counting, of course, as she's just running on adrenaline in her efforts to get that dragon off of Fae. She's so focused, too, that she very nearly whips her bonesaw at Roy when he grabs her, stopping only once she recognizes that pile of red hair. "L-Lord Roy?! Wha.. Oh. Oh heck, heads up! Uh. Down!" She shouts in warning as so many attacks slam into the offending dragon all at once. Once again, Odette's in a similar position to the young lord as she sees Dysnomia right in front of both of them as well. Like Roy, she has that brief deer-in-the-headlights moment, then breathes out a relieved sigh and nods in slow fascination at seeing her up close. "Sick..." "I'm not supposed to thank you, but- " "O-of course you can. She's a friend, too!" Odette reassures with a quick clap on Roy's arm, looking back towards the melee surrounding the two dragons from Bern. "That's what we.. Uh. Th-that kind of... What we need, right? To show that there's another way to...?" She blurts out somewhat incoherently, feeling some of that adrenaline rush coming right back once she realizes that both of those dragons aren't completely finished yet. Almost, but not quite enough, and to make things worse... The dragons are being reinforced by Bern's soldiers charging out of the sandstorm. Whereas Odette had at least the potential safety of the dragons focusing their attention on stronger targets, she doesn't quite have that level of safety when it comes to the soldiers rushing everyone down. Getting shot at with lightning hurts. Getting bashed with shields hurts. Getting cut with swords, predictably, hurts like heck, and Odette doesn't have an immediate counter to any of it. She's holding at least some of their attention just by scurrying and bleeding outside of the heavier swordsmen's range, but what's she to do when she already can't really fight them head on to begin with? Don't, mostly. She still has plenty of toxins in her bag, and using them on humans would probably be a lot easier than on the dragons! Yanking another set of jars out of her bag while backing off, she shakes them up and jukes around some of those swordsmen like she's looking for an angle to pelt them with the jars. It's a ruse to get them to actually try and block the jars, of course, and after hurling those jars right at the shields to shatter them. On impact, the chemicals inside turn into a bootleg tear gas, ideally blinding or even crippling the soldiers long enough for her companions to take out the mages! |
| Khosa | When Khosa grins back at Echidna, it's too wide, and her teeth are more pointed than they usually are - it gives her something like, but not identical to, a shark's dentition. "I usually don't, but it's hard to throw my fist," she calls back. Which is not entirely true; she long ago figured out how to telekinetically project her punches. But it makes the point well enough, and it's really the only reason she carries weapons; even if she's less likely to break one with her strength when it's made of well-formulated steel instead of bone and stone, as she told Lilian way back when, her hands are just fine most of the time these days. Seeing an opening, Khosa stays out longer than is probably advisable to take advantage of it; to savage into the wound where the flame has gone out and the scales no longer block her. A hindclaw hammers into her, and she turns the impact (painful) into additional force; she hooks her claws in and allows it to push her along, tearing with the dragon's own strength. Unfortunately all of that means she does not dive immediately into the dirt; she tumbles first, and when she starts to burrow she's momentarily an open target. Not to soldiers, which she is prepared against, and has set flat parts of her carapace against like a shield, but from above: the lightning mages have a relatively easy shot, and one of them gets through. While Khosa's shell may be resistant to flame blown at her, or the wind of the sandstorm, it has no particular protection against electricity. The bolt strikes home with a popping *crack* as it splits part of the carapace, an unpleasant-smelling steam and smoke billowing from inside as part of Khosa's back and flank chars, and she lets out a bellow of pain that isn't entirely human-sounding. She scrabbles into the ground with one working arm, pushing herself down with her legs painfully. Once she's underground she allows herself to breathe again (metaphorically speaking; she's actually holding her breath because her head is covered with sand and dirt). Concentrating, Khosa focuses on rebuilding her side. Flesh twists; it's probably a mercy that nobody can see exactly what she's doing underground. It's a complicated process, made harder by the fact that she wants no sand inside her skin; she has to twist and shift about several times to get into the only position she can do it. She misses some of the combat as she forces a regeneration faster than she'd like. Some moments after *that*, the ground bulges again and Khosa pulls herself out. She's missing the shiny silver carapace down her left side, her arm bare of any scale and the hand still too big, still clawed, but otherwise human if unpleasantly distorted; the flesh this reveals all down her left side is not the warm brown that her skin normally is but reddish and raw, half-healed at best and with an unpleasant mottling - burn scars, only slightly more flexible than they should be, with cracks where red burn is still visible. She's stiff all down that side of her upper body, and her arm stays pulled in against her stomach. She's heard Flamel, too, and she growls, "Magic in a mold..." She can't dispel it, but she can strike again, barreling into the dragon she's already injured and using her more functional arm. If she's in close, the mages can't strike at her the same way again, she hopes. Not traumatizing Fae is a lower priority than making sure Fae survives. Sorry, Fae. The world's a brutal place. |
| Lilian Rook | §It feels pain. Enough to distract it. Enough momentum works to the head, probably given the length it's extended from the body. Likely the tail-tip as well, but I doubt that's useful. Legs have too much weight on them. Stick to the head, then. Elevated above the ground, sturdy, but . . .§ Lilian locks up when her sword pierces through the inside of the mouth, and the dragon barely notices. Her widened eyes experience the agonizing sting of the building fire, and Lilian flinches away. §I'm certain that should have struck the brain. Are there no vital organs at all? If there's a vital point, it's not in the usual place, at least. That's . . . I knew I should have insisted on Durandal. Is Roy--?§ Lilian glances down to see Roy getting the message without her saying so, and her body relaxes enough that her arms successfully wrench her sword free again. She flickers away from fire, colliding with the ground with a fraction of weight and a surplus of speed. "Faye?!" she shuts, her whipping around to look over her shoulder, then stops for an instant as she processes that Faye is somehow fine. The tremendous damage she deals in return to the false dragon is a welcome surprised, filed away as a question for later, and Lilian turns back to her work before her hair has time to settle. "They're not really dragons! They're fakes! Don't worry, just protect your home! You can do it!" 'Ghh- please just surrender! I don't want to...!' New priority. Whilst the soldier regathers his weapon and Roy hesitates, Lilian appears right next to him, skating on loose sand, and tosses Night Mist over to backwards hold, gripping the bare blade partway through. Swinging it like a hammer as she closes, she strikes the back of the soldier's elbow with the quillion, certain to be broken with a direct hit. One hand releases her sword as it shock-stops, and reaches out to grasp his face, using her momentum to drive him into the ground, then getting up off him with with a passing knee strike to the bottom of his chin. Then she wheels on Roy. "Faye has the resolve to be here, so you can't afford to have less than her. If you don't want to kill them, fine! But you have to hurt them! That's what it means to be on a battlefield!" |
| Marigold | Bern's real veterans are pretty tough. They'd be tougher if they'd been braced for this kind of resistance, and hadn't been worn down by a week of desert-marching, conspicously a little fatigued and missing armor pieces they ought to have. Geats has a few seconds to shoot spellbooks with impunity (aside from retaliatory lightning-bolts), but before he's landed, a slightly better-armored swordsman commander has barked an order to his fellows, and a half-dozen shields come up to protect the mages from that angle. They try to deal with Neon conventionally, which might work if not for her axe's unpredictable ice; within a few crowd-thinning strikes they know to keep space, evade rather than blocking, and try to bait her in to be surrounded. Flamel, with struggle, can wrench their shields away, but it's not long until they learn to go with the flow of his tugging, shed their shields if necessary, and then try to get in a blindside riposte. They still crumple to targeted superhuman assault when alone, as Lilian satisfyingly finds out. Roy freezes guiltily, swallows, pales, and nods. "Right. I'm sorry. I wanted to be good to Fae, but my life... isn't my own to risk. I should know that." When he tangles with a mage next, he at least manages to hack at their hand before they can finish gesturing a spell. Madeleine, trying to toy with multiple mages at once, finds they have some chew to them too. Some are wearing light breastplates under their airy robes, and even 'being pounced on up-close' doesn't make them entirely lose thier cool; they move as a trained unit, firesplashing the ground to make space for their fellows' lightning-strikes, and using the retina-staining brightness of the lightning to disguise an ally's followup gestures. Still, they're dropping... and dropping faster, once several of their swordsman allies are wounded by Trudy's redirected arrows. Fir the Western swordswoman practically 'blinks' close, twirl-disarming some of the wounded. "Hah! Drop it!!" Arrows kill, but they don't kill fast- surely this is still safe-for-Fae. The tear gas helps a little; Mia shattering their weapons and shields helps a lot. Soon they're teetering on the edge of surrender, but they're unlikely to lay down arms as long as the dragons live. Oh. Fae thinks that's sad, the young dragon thinks at Mia somberly, while leaning back into her comforting claws. Shouldn't they get better? Can they get better? Did they do anything wrong...? This is maybe a bit too much empathy to be giving her. The right-pincer-harassing dragon is badgered by shockwaves and by a huge regenerating woman as it struggles to get up, then spiked through the spine by the Black Knight- or where the spine should be, if it weren't just a channel for flame. Still that has some vital effect; it thrashes seemingly involuntarily. The Fae-attacker dragon is faring better for now; Echolalia's fungal rot sets in deep and spreads to melt it back into black slop, but that'll take a minute to kill. In the meantime it body-checks her backwards and revs up for another desperate breath, its chest glowing with inner heat. |
| Marigold | Just then, Sophia emerges onto the battlements, clutching an ornate, red-and-gold, intensely magical book. But there's something dreadfully desperate in her demeanor. "Sophia??" Igrene, not far from her, is visibly taken aback. "Athos never taught you to..." Sophia doesn't reply. She gravely paints an enormous symbol one elegantly-urgent stroke at a time, concentrates crimson energy at their nexus point, and-- drops the book and collapses to her knees, clutching her own hands with a pained squeal. Her palms are glowing, like the cut Durandal left on Dysnomia. The spell fizzles without result. It's a few moments of desperate struggle longer for Echidna to wade in, lop off the right pincer dragon's lower jaw with golden-wound-leaving Armads when it tries to bite her, and then hack its neck once-twice to finish the job while everyone else keeps it down. "Haah. Sorry, big red. I like little yellow better," she pants, but can't manage to sound wry at all. That just leaves the other. Once more it's got a clear view of Roy's army; with its dying energy it starts to sweep a terrible jet of flames across them, with Echo's seeming only option to protect them being to shield them with her body. The howling inferno lasts for one second- two- three--- "Don't worry, just protect your home! You can do it!" "au--!!" That rouses Fae from her brief melancholy. She gallops over to try and tussle again, grabbing the surviving red dragon's neck to pull it upwards so the fire can jet harmlessly into the sky. She's straining her hardest, but her arms are so small... A red blur blitzes past the fungal wound on the fire dragon's side, collecting some of the deadly biotoxin on a blade. Then it flickers to atop the beast's head. Rutger plants Durandal through its skull and lets Echolalia's toxins do the rest inside its head; its flames gutter out and it collapses, already turning into ooze when the swordswoman daintily lands nearby. "Sorry. Couldn't find where Merlinus put it," she murmurs to Lilian. Fae stares for a moment at the decomposing body. |
| Marigold | Then, with Mia spread out and the dragon-simulacra defeated, the absolute girl bounds over to the Bernish soldiers in disarray. She might not even fully understand they're her enemies. "aa--uaah!!" she 'says' in her baby whalesong, little arms out in earnest hope. Several grown men scream. One of them throws an axe at her; it bounces off harmlessly. "I surrender!" "Please! Call it off!!" "Oh Saint, it's going to eat us--" Fortunately, Flamel puts a stop to that. Jamming psychic empathy into the brain of a soldier so demoralized isn't too hard. A mind-jiggled mage drops their tome, steps forward, and even while blanched with fear manages to say: "I'm. Um. R-really, really sorry. I shouldn't-- I wasn't really thinking about what kind of people lived here. Or how they'd feel. This isn't glorious battle between kingdoms. It's just messed up," he manages to cough up, while side-eyeing Madeleine, having made her pretty fair points. Fae blinks, struggling to process. Then she leans down- to further screaming- and emits a relieved "--uuu...". That leaves two dozen surrendered soldiers, two degrading piles of black tar dragon-simulacrum-slop, a lightly wounded Fae, and Igrene hunched over palms-seared Sophia on the battlements. It's just a few moments before Fae notices that commotion, and bounds back towards the walls to show her concern... |
| Trudy Grimm | The Black Knight wrenches his sword back and forth on the pinned dragon of the right pincer formation, seemingly searching for its spine. He only ceases when Echidna beheads the beast, pulling the great blade from its back and hopping down to the sand. He turns to the second dragon, hauling his weapon up to rest across his shoulders-- but the others have it well in hand, between the two dragons and Lilian and Fae-- and Rutger finishes it off. His helmet jolts to the side with a snap so violently it sends off sparks when Sophia screams. Crouching, the Black Knight launches himself at the temple. He lands just over halfway across the village, cracking the street-stones on impact, and launches himself again so violently that he slams into the fort wall like he came out of a catapult. The lack of immediate danger as he slides down to the parapet is, at least, welcome. His now-dusty helmet turns slowly from the injured Sophia to the village leader Igrene, then to the discarded artifact. With heavy steps, the undead knight moves closer. He crouches, his free hand collecting the tome. Rising once again to his full height, the Black Knight examines the book, turning it over in his grip. After a moment, he just-- drops it next to Sophia, nearly exactly where it was resting. "EGH..." "I don't know what you expected a sorceress to use," Trudy's voice pops in. She's ascending the wall properly, by the stairs, "Complaining won't change it into something other than a book." "HNNG..." "No," the witch comes to a stop beside the knight, "I don't think it much cares that it's 'for nerds' either." She crouches near Sophia, dipping her head to check the other sorceress' face while also checking for any curses the book might have left when it rejected her, "Can you walk? Let's get you to Odette and Lucius and do something about that injury." |
| Dysnomia | Oh. Fae thinks that's sad...did they do anything wrong...? The lack of immediate understanding that all those things Dysnomia mentioned mades them monstrous, in need of putting down, hit Dysnomia in a way that nothing else that day had, like she'd just found a hole in her chest and realized it'd been screaming at her for as long as she could remember. I-- Suddenly, she was struck with the possibility that she was feeding one of their biggest assets in this fight reasons to not give it her all. They hurt a lot of people. They don't care about the people they hurt. And they won't stop no matter what we say. She settled on. That's a lot wrong, isn't it? The crisis was ongoing, and Dysnomia was grateful. It let her slip that desolate, dull pain inside and close it tight, tight. While Dysnomia crushed the weapons--and will--of the soldiers, the others settled things with the dragons. Even Fae wandered out from under Dysnomia's (literal) wings and joined the fight. When the dragons began decaying into nothing in front of Fae as she watched, Dysnomia, slid out to meet her, unsure how she'd distract Fae from the bodies, but certain, CERTAIN she must. It's a cry from the battlements that answers Dysnomia's prayers on 'how.' She escorted the girl to Sofia, putting her body between the little dragon and the gruesome sight behind her. |