Scene Listing

||

Scene Schedule

||

Scene Schedule RSS

Owner	Pose
Marigold	NEAR A DJUTE ENCAMPMENT      A ways south of the ruined city Bulgar.      Roy's army heads south beside the river that encircled Bulgar, at the inadvertent tip-off of the Bernish soldier Rutger spared.      For a long span of days it's just quiet travel, throughout which your presence is welcome but not acutely needed. If you accompany the army through that time, you get to see Rutger's tension gradually fade as Bulgar recedes over the horzion and into memory, and Sue tense slightly more even as she comes into her element on the broad-spanning winter-yellowed grasslands.      The call goes out for the army's Multiversal allies when they find a wide wide path of tracks (trampled-grass-through-to-dirt) fresh enough to have not been washed by rain. "Three or four hundred in this band," Sue guesses from casual experience; "not more than a thousand horses." "You just count them in your head?" Fir, who's a city-slicker even if she's half-Sacaen, says in awe. "Kutolah trails looked like that when we were three hundred." "... Oh. That makes more sense."      "Even if we take them by surprise, and with everyone's help, I don't think we should try to rout that many," Roy muses from his habitual place walking alongside the foremost caravan-horses. "No," Sue nods. "We should just try to strike them quickly and take back a captive who can tell us where the Kutolah might be hiding, right? I think you said something like that, anyway. The higher-ranking the better...?" "Yes." "Of course, they'll pursue us on horseback if they can, so we'll only send those fast enough to evade them or light enough for our fliers to scoop up and rescue..." "Right." "... You're very reassuring, Sue." "Thank you. You too."      There are a couple of hours of slow travel alongside the caravan where one can savor the natural landscape of Sacae. Fae can feel practically at home in a huge expanse of waving yellow-gold, even if the patches of taller grass threaten to submerge her completely when she dismounts the wagons to hustle alongside; Igrene has to once or twice fish her out and scold her out of grazing on the stalks.      The world is neatly sectioned into halves, here, with only mountains in the western distance to wobble the neatness of the horizon's cut. Father Sky touches Mother Earth fondly with the wind, and they sigh together fondly in the rustling of the grasses. Wary Sue can't help but relax a little.      Soon the sun sets, the sky goes black, and the smoke of the Djute encampment is gray against it, blotting the stars. The flatness of the plains makes for few hiding spots; no trees or hills to creep up behind, only the curve of the horizon or flattening oneself against the grass.      Sue has a better idea: she leads her pony by the reins into the knee-deep cold river with a five-foot bank, and presses herself against the bank wall as she walks to get closer without exposure to surface-level eyes.
Marigold	"This camp's one of many," she explains. "The Djute and Kutolah have many villages each. Villages turn to wandering when times are lean. They may have children, nursing mothers, and the elderly with them. Be careful."      ... That's something she's uncomfortable with. "... Before Bern, it was never like this."      Fir and Rutger follow right behind Sue, in both the 'fast' and 'light' categories; Fae has wheedled her way in by virtue of 'immune to arrows' and 'high tussle-to-weight ratio', but only with Igrene's white-knuckled grip on her little hand.      Roy's attendance is obligatory, and the group's four fliers orbit somewhere overhead, high enough that they can only be seen as a subtle twinkling where they cross in front of the stars.      Soon, peeking over the river-bank to the level of the prairie's surface reveals forty or fifty white-tan tent-houses maybe a hundred feet away from where you hide, made from hides stretched over a rounded frame. Outside the tents' perimeter, a loose herd of horses mills about almost as if wild, transitioning from grazing to rest for the night; outdoor cooking-fires still crackle at the intersections of half-worn dirt paths between them. You can hear the distant sounds of laughter and of songs.      "Look for the largest yurt," Sue advises, with her own intermittent peeks over the top. But she can't yet find one that stands out. She creeps a little more downriver to get a different angle on the encampment; then a little more...      Then her breath catches in her throat, and she signals 'stop'.      Thirty feet ahead of all of you, an unarmed old woman- wearing clothes not too different from Sue's, save for culturally different geometric designs at the hems- comes down to squat at a place where the river-bed is worn-down into a slope, washing clothes in it. Sue has her bow in hand, but she doesn't dare draw back an arrow, or breathe. Rutger is uncertain whether to reach for her blade; Roy stills her wrist, just in case.      Surely the old woman will look to her right at any moment. This is close to as far as stealth can be pushed.
Riku Asakura	Riku is sneaking with the rest of the group towards the encampment.  Riku himself probably stands out like a sore thumb, dressed in his usual outfit of a jean jacket, an orange shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes.  Still, he's quiet, and he listens to Sue, who seems to know what she's doing.  Of course, this all comes to an end when the elderly woman is there and likely to spot them out in the open as they were.   Riku decides to go loud immediately.  He ducks into the tall grass and starts the transformation sequence for Geed.  "You go!" he shouts, scanning a capsule and sliding it into a capsule holder.  "I go!" he does so again.  "Here we go.  Time to get ready!" he says and scans each capsule with the Fusion Riser.   "Geeeeeeeeed!" he says, and starts burning with brilliant blue light as he jumps out of the tall grass in a different direction than the rest of the group. Ultraman Ultraman Belial Ultraman Geed Primitive! Once out of the grass and growing to be large, he immediately takes to trying to scare the horses by being a giant of light.  He marches towards the encampment, still taking a different route than his allies would, and tries to scare the horses into bolting away so that there will be more chaos and fewer riders able to follow them when they retreat.
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Madeleine was unavailable during the band's stop at Bulgar, but rejoined the group shortly after at the next warpgate. She's spent a few days getting to know the land, learning the ins and outs of its terrain and wildlife. She's fond of the tall grasses as well, at times slinking through them only to pop up next to someone else and give them a decent startle, intentionally or otherwise. Her favorite time to be active is the night, well after sunset. The landscape, silvered by the light of the moon, makes her nostalgic, to the extent that she even confesses as much to Roy or whoever she ends up on night watch with. "It's... like the stories I've heard, of how my homeland used to be. Before I was 'I', before my people were shaped like people."     Following Sue down to the riverbank, Madeleine moves without a sound despite the mud and water. She's peeking up over the bank at the Djute camp when Sue signals a halt, and she freezes like a statue. As Geed starts shouting from the tall grass, Madeleine hurdles up the muddy slope into the grass herself, counting on the darkness to confound the old woman's ability to guess the band's numbers. She makes for the camp at a fast run, weaving away from Geed's trajectory.     There could be sentries around the camp's whole perimeter, but Madeleine only needs a second's lapse of attention. She waits, hiding low in the grass, for a few heads to turn toward the giant of light, and slips like a cat on the prowl by them and into the camp. Once inside she stays out of the fires' lights, relying on her night vision to guide her to the most important-seeming residential huts.
Nobunaga	> "We should just try to strike them quickly..." > "The higher-ranking, the better." > "They'll pursue us on horseback if they can..."     "Leave that to me," Nobunaga states during the planning phase, "I have an abundance of experience in contending with mounted warriors." She gestures on the dirt path, then sweeps her hand over the tall grasses threatening to abscond with Fae, "We'll leave the wagons between two hills, with guards, so they won't be spotted. During the retreat-- we will initially follow this path, then break into the grasses at a determined point."     Raising her hands, the warlord thumps her fist into her open hand, "That's where I'll lay my trap. While I'm setting it up, I'll leave Mori in your care."     "Makes sense to me," the towering warrior Nagayoshi Mori states plainly, "I ain't good at subtlety, but if you want somethin' messed up real good, I can do that." --     During the trip, once the supply wagons and guard detachment are tucked away, Nobunaga eventually breaks away from the combat contingent. She jams a stick into the path just on the side and points it out to Roy and the others, making it clear that's the signpost, then sets out into the tall grass on her own. --     Mori wasn't kidding about how unsubtle he is, but even he can't hold a candle to an Ultraman. The samurai can't help but whistle when Riku becomes Large, then swivels his attention back to the Djute encampment proper, "Well. No reason to hesitate now. If they can't fight and have any sense, they'll run."     Rising to his feet from where he's crouched in the grass, Mori plants his feet and hauls back with his spear. Letting out a shout of effort, he hurls it with the force of a harpoon launcher; burying the metal head firmly into the soil scant inches from the laundry-washing old woman. He misses on purpose; and now approaches his discarded weapon with a purposeful, predatory stride and a red-orange glow in his eyes, every single shark-sharp tooth visible. The flickering firelight across his face in this monstrous silhouette, his freakish size and strength, and his clear ferocity must be how he earned the title Oni Musashi.
Flamel Parsons	"A capture mission! Been ages since I captured." Flamel says, brightly. "But I'll be helping! Bare minimum I'll make sure whoever we snag doesn't get to any tricks, and I'll try to sniff out any useful information they have with some early psychic scouting. The ones who don't know usually have a better idea than we do who *would*, and all. And it'll be easier for me to scout than the rest of you, you know, for," Flamel snaps his fingers, and disappears into invisibility. "Obvious reasons! Or non-obvious...?"     When night falls, Flamel is there. He wants to be stealthy, but not get wet, which is why he's prone on his front, armycrawling alongside Sue. "Want me to try psychically getting the noncombatants to all simultaneously bunker down? Gets people spooked, but I've done it before! But I'm sure we can keep our trigger-fingers non-reflexive." He checks a psychic feed of telepathy with the fliers, giving the group a top-down full-battlefield view. Wow, so weird! I'm sure Roy never perceives this, or visualizes the world in such a way internally. But it's a great way for him to help guide the group. Flamel needs little guidance, of course, though he won't turn anything down as he goes.     They'll need to go fast. He spots the woman invisibly, muttering anxiously as he rushes into her motor functions and facial recognition. His sense-dulling psychic abilities are still a bit expended after straining so hard with Sigrun... So he won't be able to stop her. BUt he might be able to route into the pathways and delay her a while, and scan what she knows of the Djute encampment layout, giving that data to the others.     "Headed for the big one." He whispers tensely, flickering a moment as he refreshes his invisibility and zipping off in levitation. With larger, scarier forces drawing more attention, he's going to make a silent, invisible break towards the largest yurt he can see in memories, top-down views, and his own two eyes, trying to harvest memories of the locals that could give a name, a face, and a location to their target, scouting as fast as he can...     He's also pulsing his clairvoyance. Any people below a certain psychic threshold of willing-to-fight (and psychically-unguarded) are telepathically clearly marked in yellow visual indications. Should be easy to avoid hurting them! Surely this sort of thing has never resulted in larger, rather than smaller, numbers of civilian casualties.
Angela	Roland and Binah have returned to lend a hand again though this time it might not be immediately obvious that Binah has come along because she is carrying a dragon plush that is so big that it dwarfs Binah's body. The dragon in question is colored hot pink but Binah has spared no effort in getting the wings to be in a form similar to that of Fae's dragon form, albeit squishier. She has sewn in feathers to get around the plush dragon's long neck since Binah felt it of the upmost importance that the dragon be as feather-fluffy in vibe as Fae generally is, rather than going for a fully reptilian-style dragon. The tail has a big poofy fluff ball at the end. "If you trip I'm telling everybody I saw an Arbiter fall flat on her face." Roland tells Binah. "Hoh hoh! Do what you'd like, nobody would believe you so I certainly wouldn't be embarrassed." Roland grimaces since that's a very good point. "Well she's probably going to be around here, let's see...where is she?" He can't spot her though because she's pretty much being wholly obscured by grass and also, frankly, the giant plush dragon that Binah is huffing along. "I am a bit concerned this will ruin her impression of me, and I won't be able to terrify her properly." Binah asides to Roland. "Oh no. That'd be terrible. But don't worry, just smile at her and I think she'll figure it out. Why'd you make it so big?" Binah snickers in response, briefly, before adding, "Well it can't be too small or she won't be able to squeeze it properly. Are you certain you're a father, Roland?" "...Well I'd probably have more experience if it wasn't for the Library but I'm sure she'll like it--AH! There she is!" He guides Binah with a hand, sending the Arbiter approaching her with an ominous gait--or at least it would be if she wasn't dwarfed by a giant stuffed animal. They'll probably ease up a bit as they near the (potential trouble) but neither are too worried about an unarmed old lady just yet so they aren't being too sneaky, just hanging back with reasonable caution.
Odette Raskins	"That many? Yeah, I don't think going up against that many's a good idea, either. That's just a fight with no winners in the end except for Zephiel." Odette nods slowly in agreement with Roy as she follows alongside the group, content to stay a little further back. She's learned well enough not to stray too close to the front of any potential combat situation without good reason to, even though her bandages have finally been removed. "IF we're going to need to take someone captive, though... I've got just the thing." The EMT perks up a little as she brings out a little applicator thing, glancing up briefly while staring off into space. "Ten...? No, fifteen should do it. Enough to knock someone out for a couple of minutes, but not enough to cause brain damage or anything that might make their intel too suspect. A rescue would be great, too! Or even just grabbing whoever we get so we're not worrying about getting run over on the way out." With the general plan more or less sorted out already, Odette can take a bit of time to relax on the hike across Sacae. She joins Fae in roaming through the stalks, partially to keep an eye on her, and partially because she's doing a bit of searching herself for medicinal herbs and the like to pad out her healing supplies in anticipation of a skirmish. The lack of hiding spots does leave Odette feeling just a little wary of where she's going, though, and seeing the smoke from the Djute encampment puts her right back on edge even while trusting in Sue's navigation abilities to get the crew closer to that camp safely. "Having to move around like this... Huh. I thought that was only a thing the people back home did once the mines emptied out." Odette sounds surprised at Sue's explanation, and the sympathetic look on her face intensifies after she makes that connection. "Th-then we really need to be careful not to get into a fight here." It's still easier said than done, but even the perceived difficulty of that doesn't stop her from joining the group's approach. She keeps her mouth shut and breathes solely through her nose to minimize the risk of startled squeaking. That proves to help a lot when Sue signals for a stop and draws Odette's attention towards the sitting woman. "Is that the leader? I really hope so. Should be easier if she is..." Odette murmurs quietly to Sue, keeping her head down while watching Flamel's glowing yellow indicators around the yurt. She checks her sedative injector one more time to make sure she has a proper dosage in there, second-guesses herself briefly because she doesn't want to overdose an old lady, then puts a smidge back into one of her bottles before starting to head in after Mori's spear launch. Unlike the giant, the EMT is banking on her own considerably smaller size and the many distractions all coming up at once to slip closer. She's circling around to the yurt itself, trying to find a way around all of Flamel's danger indicators to get close enough to the entrance that she might be able to get the jump on whoever comes out or in with her tranquilizers. With any luck, she might even get an important captive that way and definitely not stabbed!
Lilian Rook	With things as they've been, Lilian hasn't had time to spend on nothing but travel. Her monthly report was yesterday. The day before that was the Dragon's Garden. And before that was Hikaru and Lala's . . .     Everything before that has become sort of a blur now, in the wake of that night with Sakura, but it surely had to do with chasing leads on the Thumb and their man, and scrounging through the LSCC's files for Manus Vindictae. The night before coming out here, Lilian had visited a grave she had never intended to, and found she had far fewer words than she always thought she would. Now the campaign trail of Elibe feels as though it'd been frozen in time for two days that felt like six years; packed up and placed on a shelf, awaiting her return to pick up and resume.     It's an insane way to feel about a continent currently embroiled in war for the survival of mankind, but despite herself, Lilian takes one breath of crisp Sacaean air and feels herself overcome with such an upwelling of surreal fondness that she touches her cheeks to double-check for tears, just to be sure.     . . . . . . . .     'Even if we take them by surprise, and with everyone's help, I don't think we should try to rout that many,'     "Regardless of even whether we should, or can, I really just don't want to." says Lilian, only after smirking at Fir for so credulously imagining that Sacaeans have folktale super-senses; it's like she'd fall for believing that they can tell your nationality apart from your eyes or something! "It'd be a hard and pointless battle that expends blood and equipment to defeat an enemy we'll never see again if we just keep walking. I don't fight in wars for fun, so I appreciate your prudence, Lord Roy."     Though there is absolutely no point in trying to blend in at this stage, seeing as the only city the Lycian League had intended to visit in Sacae was thoroughly razed to the ground, there must be some value in attempting to adhere to the spirit (and the weather to some extent) of each country, even in exceptionally broad strokes.     Discarding the heavy cloak she'd worn in Ilia, Lilian has retrieved her single article of hanfu-style clothing and sourced a deel-adjacent top from her usual providers as best as she can match her memory, neither making the sash she got from her own world's Japan really stand out unless you pay close attention; and that's pointless anyways, since she didn't try to copy Sacaean geometric trim, and stuck to the repeating vine patterns she already had; gold on green on near-black grey. Wearing her sword on her belt over the obi, her armour for gloves, and close-fitted soft pants under the split robe rather than bare leg, only the tall leather boots she's wearing are the same as the entire trail thusfar.     '... You're very reassuring, Sue.'     'Thank you. You too.'     "Never in a million years . . ." Lilian murmurs in humbled tones, fingers to her lips. As much as a childhood friend and a mentor, 'emotional support animal' is a archetypal person that slots into everyone's social web inside Lilian's mind, and she is both humbled and proud of Sue for somehow being the one filling it for Roy. She wants to give him a thumbs up. She does, actually, when Sue isn't looking.
Petra Soroka	The fact that Petra simply couldn't afford to spend several days traveling with the army through Sacae is exactly why she feels a little guiltily relieved that there's a few hours where she has no choice. Practically, she's always been very emotionally involved with the war and sticking her fingers into the world to understand it better in every way she has available to her, but philosophically, the shift in her mindset away from being a disposable cursed blade is a slow one. The idea of stepping away from work on a summons to walk out of a warpgate and destroy whatever target she's pointed to and then return right home would make her deeply uneasy.     So she's kind of glad for the inefficiency that inconvenient warpgate placement causes. Not for the landscape, but a little bit for the landscape. The process of spiritually realigning herself with the army feels especially necessary after Bulgar, where the complete destruction of a city she'd hardly ever thought about just registered as tinnitus to her.     So the couple hours of travel with the caravan is spent, in between brief interactions with important information, mostly just fucking around. Given that this is approximately the worst environment in the world to play I Spy, Petra decides this is the perfect opportunity to explain the concept to Fir just to go "I spy... something yellow" over and over again. When Fae hops off the wagons to romp around in the wheat, Petra chases after her, with either bigness or smallness. Besides that, she spends her time walking, leaning in and out of conversations as she sees fit, and trying to mentally channel the ground through her feet and up her legs until it suffuses into the mass somewhere in her torso. "We should just try to strike them quickly and take back a captive who can tell us where the Kutolah might be hiding, right?"     Her little meditative exercise makes her normal, as it often does. "Yeah, there's not really any point at all to drawing this out is there? Once we attack, whatever we do, it'll pretty much guarantee that us being right here in the middle of Sacae won't be a secret anymore. I mean, we're really distinctive. So we just need to be quick and efficient about stuff."     After a few seconds, Petra decides she must add, "I could run circles around some fucking horses, though."     Another couple minutes of silence passes, before the thought escapes Petra's lips, fate-temptingly, "Man, I hope there's not so many dragons that we'd come across one here." "Well it can't be too small or she won't be able to squeeze it properly."     "Oh my god, Binah. How long did that take you?" Petra is still a little distressed in a way she can't articulate about Binah's extremely insistent habit of making and handing out dolls to people, often made of them. It's like watching an alien attempt to learn how to socialize with people for the first time, except this alien is inherently incredibly suspicious and greasy about it. If Binah likes doing crafts, though, then that's a good sign...?     Thinking about Fae and plushies reminds Petra of the plushie that she already gave Fae, though, which she got in the first place when Cinder gave it to her. "... It's cute, but, like, remember that this is an army, and stuff."
Petra Soroka	There's a fifth flier to join Shanna and the others, at least temporarily. The Beauty of Ash takes to the sky, rather than Petra clambering around in the riverbank along with everyone else, knee-high in the grass and circling around while the final plans are made before rocketing upwards. Being translucent as it is, it's not visible as anything besides a lone twinkling satellite-star in the night sky, moving if you pay close attention but disguised among the undimmed Elibean starscape. "Want me to try psychically getting the noncombatants to all simultaneously bunker down?"     <Yeah. It's better if we have everyone who's fighting outside, and everyone who's not fighting inside, isn't it? I'll do that too.>     The Beauty of Ash's trajectory changes, from idly trotting through the air on all fours like a pegasus instead of a rider, to diving, bipedal and single foot-first like a spear. It picks up speed in its dive to crash towards the camp, but rather than slamming into it, the screaming fall comes to an abrupt zero-point stop ten meters up in the air, and all the momentum carries through as if it hit an ethereal concrete wall. The mech shatters into uncountable daggers of glass on 'impact', spread haphazardly in a hemisphere downwards to pepper the camp, mostly burying in the ground near the horses or around the fires, or scraping against tent fabric, giving the impression of a sudden storm of arrow volleys.
Lilian Rook	Walking on the road again is pleasant. The fact that it's 'a waste of time' bothers her for less than ten minutes before it fades into unreadable background noise, as it always does here. Lilian had originally balked at the idea of appearing only minutes before massive directed violence was required, then vanishing as soon as it was over, on psychological grounds, while really just trying to find an excuse to spend more time here; by now, she ruminates, she's come to believe very strongly in her spontaneously constructed point. If she couldn't laugh at Fae vanishing into the grass and chat with Rutger about the virtues of 'old-fashioned' fabric revival between conflicts, 'the war' would have become the only thing she cares about in Elibe, and in that direction lies the point at which 'millions of lives' becomes a rankling, occupational buzzword, and Zephiel looks better with time.     . . . . . . . .     'Look for the largest yurt'     Unfortunately, the idea of Lilian 'sneaking' on the wide-open plains is somewhat absurd. Her ability to infiltrate Castle Edessa as she did hinged entirely upon the concept of 'line of sight' being a meaningful thing to describe. Following Sue by the river for its bank being the only solid cover, the most Lilian can think to say on the lifestyle of the Djute and Kutolah is "A lot of things were different before Bern. I'd like to suggest that Sacae might be the same as Ilia in disguise, in that way, but I don't know how I could." before the old woman arrives. Does she seriously just go right to what she hopes is the right Yurt from here? Even if she does, everyone else is going to get seen, right?     'Geeeeeeeeed!'     Well, okay.     Lilian vanishes from behind the riverbank wall and uses the yurt shadows from the opposite direction of Ultraman instead. For whatever reason, the nature of who had nearly found them, even after Sue's grim description, forces her to take her time to brace herself before committing to breaking and entering. The momentary mis-classification (correctly) of the tents as 'homes' has to be systematically broken down and banished with the objective of 'prisoners' before her precognition will work again, at which point she can try to think as little as possible and automatically path to where the visions show her to go.
Angela	''But remember this is an army, and stuff.'' Binah hesitates, looking at Petra from around the plush entity. She bites at her lip, raising an eyebrow in thought before she says, "They aren't like any army I've ever heard of." which is probably her way of complimenting them. "Are you sure they are not just a larger than average band of heroes?" Roland's expression is so tired. "It can still be an army even if it isn't maximally grim and brutal, Binah. I'm sure so long as it isn't for a huge lie and conducted by people with no respect for human life, it's only mostly that." Binah's expression is skeptical, but Roland has moved from being depressed about doing war again to feeling like the very least he can do is try to make this less infinitely awful for people genuinely, as far as he can tell, trying to ''protect'' life. In general, and they did save those kids. They managed to do it and that feels fundamentally different to him than any army he's been a part of that simply sought victory no matter how many feathers fell never to drift along the breeze again. But it's still an army, damn it, he thinks. "Saying it isn't is just an excuse for those who didn't try."
Marigold	"Hopefully they won't be able to lay a good pursuit at all," Roy nods when Nobunaga lays out her plan, "but it's better for us to have an ambush in place just-in-case than not. Thank you. Just be prepared to give long-range support from there if it ends up being needed, alright?" Fae's predictably, wonderfully awestruck by the stuffed dragon before things get tense in the riverbed. "What's that?!" "Not a taxidermy I hope," Igrene says. "Another soft friend...!" "Hold on, there. You're giving it to her, aren't you? Don't let her get so excited about it if she can't keep it..." "Fae loves it! Thank-you Ro-land! Thank-you Bi-nah!" "... Haah. Yeah. You're both really sweet." "Sophia and Petra won't feel bad...?" "I don't think a toy is replacing them, Fae."      She wants to give him a thumbs up. She does, actually, when Sue isn't looking.      Roy, after his exchange with Sue, stares blankly at Lilian's thumbs-up. Then his face turns pink and he puts up both of his palms, wiggling them: 'no, you've got the wrong idea!!'. Poor boy.      - - - -      Flamel's psychic tagging, layering "clairvoyant scans of the camp" with "actual bird's-eye view" and "the old river woman's memories", highlights a bit over half of the camp's inhabitants as psychological noncombatants.      Some of the silhouettes marked in psychic overlay yellow have an elderly hunch. Some are very small. A couple are missing an arm, or a leg, or have a pregnant woman's shape.      The elderly woman with the dirty clothes she'd bent down to wash jumps back and nearly shrieks when Musashi hurls a spear at her, then clutches her head and grimaces when Flamel tries to arrest her alarm-raising instinct. Sue rushes in to put her bow-arm around the woman's shoulders and gently grab her wrist. "Please, 'grandmother'," Sue hushes. "Who...?!" the gray-haired lady sputters. "Go, Odette! She's just an elder." "L, let go of me... I can stand on my own..." "Just lean against the riverbank, 'grandmother'..."      The old woman's eyes fall to the patterns on the trim of Sue's clothes, and her clairvoyant yellow outline vanishes. It happens as Geed grows to his full size and the Beauty of Ash shatters into an arrow-scatter. The dull roar of both those things, the first yelps of alarm from men and women around fires, drown out the words she says to Sue as her faculties return to her.      But you can see the flash of venom in the old lady's eyes and the twist across her face as she raises her voice, and the way Sue flinches back from the recrimination, just before that old woman shoves her down into the river with a cold splash.      As the dull roar fades, her latter words come into focus: "--HERE! WE FOUND THEM! THEY'RE HERE!!"      Roy helps Sue up from her daze, and together they brush past the old woman- she isn't a real threat, after all- and hurry up the riverbank, before too many of the startled men can draw long knives and arrows. But Sue still looks slightly haunted, casting a look back.
Marigold	Flamel's clairvoyance, Petra's view-from-above, and Lilian's prophecy can all locate the larger, almost kingly yurt at the center of the encampment. It's half again as big and painted with sweeping organic patterns of dappling spheres. But unless you're invisible or untouchable, there's still hastily-mustered interference along the way.      Few of the fighting-age nomads have bows on them and Geed's spooked their horses enough to delay getting to those, but those closest to their yurts can scramble inside to retrieve a bow and arrow and immediately open fire on anyone airborne or a big enough target- Geed and Musashi get the first barrage, with Petra only spared by her plummet and Flamel by his stealth.      Nearly all of them, though, have something between a very long knife and a short saber by the hip, and because your numbers don't impress them and- self-evidently dangerous giant aside- they have little idea of your quality, they're very eager to make an adrenaline-jolted first stand as if you were only party-crashing hooligans. Those closest to Petra's shrapnel-barrage are more cowed, but the rest form a press two-deep in the tighter 'alleys' between tent-houses. "Maral, who are they?!" "My stew... just my luck." "It can't be Etruria!" "The Kutolah! The Kutolah are back...!" "Tsets', get old Amar to safety..." "Up, you cowards! Up!!"      Fir, trying to swiftly zip in alongside Odette to bodyguard her, easily disarms a couple of the drink-unsteady nomads when they corner her against a yurt's side, but she hesitates to finish them. While a third menaces her, the first two pick their weapons back up; then she decides to go for a hilt-knockout blow on the third, but now she's pressed for space and nervously sweating, backing up against the canvas. "Ah, Odette-- keep running!!"      Rutger of course has no such compunction, even if she might be 'invading a village'. The combatants she draws her sword across as she tries to wade after Flamel don't outright fall in half; that's her mercy.      Those who make it to the largest yurt- it's hard to get to due to its central location alone, but there's little concentrated effort to guard it- find a consternated fifty-year-old man with tied-back hair in slightly ornamented robes at a low table inside, still rising from his seat and drawing his sword. His wife is still seated to his left, eyes wide with fear. Two children retreat to a side-room, walled off with a stretched hide.      The gold tchotchkes on his table and shelf, candlesticks and ornaments that might-maybe have been looted from Bulgar, can put your consciences at ease a little. But his eyes are still afraid. "What have you come for?! What do you want! You aren't Kutolah, are you? Has Bern forsaken us?!" he demands.      Rutger should be right behind you, but as she swoops in with sword drawn, the yurt to her side explodes in ribbons and a sword clashes with hers in a spray of sparks. A lithe man with long dark hair stances up in front of her, holding a similar blade low. "Will this be witnessed by heaven?" he asks her warily. "What?" "... Do we settle it the old way, or the new way?" ". . ." "Hmph. So Kutolah swordsmen are dogs."      The words are washed away by another barely-visible flickering clang of blows. You can bet on Rutger, but her face is drawn tight in some kind of distress.
Riku Asakura	Arrows rain against Geed, and the initial volley hits the giant of light.  Sparks rain down from where he's struck, and he's taken aback by the arrows and forced to stagger backwards.  However, the next volley doesn't strike their mark as the hands of the giant project a barrier, aiming to protect himself from the arrows.   Geed quickly brings his hands together and drops the barrier so that he can attack back.  The hand spread apart along with his arms to create a barrage of blasts from the motion, as energy moves to try and cover as much territory as he can.  He's aiming at combatants, making sure to avoid anyone running away.   Geed keeps these blasts flying, aiming for the bowmen at first, making sure to stop those bolts from damaging him anymore.  He doesn't have time in his head to think about this being a war, about how someone acts in a war, or how if he doesn't defend himself, he could end up dead.  He can only provide a distraction with his body and fight against those who are fighting back.   The undercurrent of war doesn't really sink in for Riku yet.
Nobunaga	Sue rushes past him to quiet the elderly woman and take advantage of Flamel's confusion. In another world, Nagayoshi might feel bad about that; it's no doubt his extremely threatening introduction made that infinitely harder to pull off. However; in this world, he only started moving after a Giant Man just suddenly appeared, and thus, has no shame from 'going loud'. He sees his role much like Ultraman Geed's: To be a huge, loud distraction. > "HERE! WE FOUND THEM! THEY'RE HERE!"     "Ohhh~?" Nagayoshi wraps his gauntlet-clad fingers around the haft of his spear and wrenches it from the dirt, "Were we expected?" His free hand reaches up, sliding into place an ornate metal ogre masked helmet. That hellish glow of his eyes is still visible, "That's interesting."     He'll let the old woman scurry along; Oni Musashi only has an interest in warriors like himself and has no interest in her life. Storming directly into the camp looking every bit as much like a demon given flesh, he finds himself first pelted with arrows. His stance shifts mid-step, arrows jamming into his lacquered armor as he plants his leading foot. Spear balanced in both hands, he brings it forward in a sharp whirling motion that shatters the shafts of the next volley. > "Up, you cowards! Up!!"     "That's right!" Nagayoshi roars as he recovers from the maneuver. Thrusting one-handed with his weapon, he jabs it right through an oil lamp. With a single sweep, he dashes it into the dirt before him, creating an arc of flames that he promptly steps through. Oil clings to his spear's blade, also aflame, "Show me the warrior capable of facing me!"     Stopping, he lifts his burning spear and singles out one of the archers, eyes blazing through the sockets of his mask, arrows lodged in the layered plates of his armor, "How about you!?" The spear shifts, "Or you? I will take you all on if you like! Djute or Kutolah, it makes no difference to me-- muster up your courage or consign your spirits to Jigoku!"
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Madeleine does encounter some resistence en route to the central yurt, but her spear's superior reach keeps the knife-wielding fighters at bay and her placement smack in the middle of the half-surprised camp is enough to keep archer fire mostly off her for fear of collateral damage. A keen-eyed young man gives her some trouble, arrows threatening to pierce her chainmail, but he finds himself wrapped up in a bolas soon enough.     "What have you come for?! What do you want! You aren't Kutolah, are you? Has Bern forsaken us?!"     "We're here for you," Madeleine declares, pointing her spear at the Djute leader. "Just borrowing, if you're good." Then she pounces over the table, scattering ornaments and candlesticks and rolling at the edge to land upright near him, opposite him from his wife. Instead of engaging immediately in close combat, however, Madeleine nods once in the direction of the woman, then tips her head back the way the children fled. Then, addressing the patriarch: "You look strong. Is she? Are they? Will the tribe, will your family hold for long if you give your life here? Think of them before you finish drawing that blade."     Only then does she engage, pressing aggressively to keep the man confused and off-balance. She fights with her spear like a staff, swiping with its edge and clubbing with the butt instead of trying to impale him. Each blow or shallow cut brings with it a numbing cold, chapping the edges of wounds and sapping strength with every hit. Once the fatigue sets in, this hardened veteran will remember that he is also a tired old man.
Angela	''Not a taxidermy I hope.'' "Oh I don't do that anymore." Binah tells Igrene. ''You're giving it to her, aren't you? don't let her get so excited about it if she can't keep it.'' ''Sophia and Petra won't feel bad...?'' "It was Petra's idea, in fact!" Binah smiles threateningly but only just because she is incapable of smiling any other way, and also gives Fae a threatening headpat, but even someone like her is bound to be endeared, some, by someone like Fae even if there's this inherent distance to all these smiles and displays of affection. What is more noble to an Arbiter than a war on behalf of humanity, after all? Or rather, what is more noble to Binah? But they aren't rushing out to badger an old lady. Roland is very reluctant to badger or manhandle a grandma, even strong grandmas and Binah, of course, is a dead woman maybe recovering from a life of being a cop so the idea of putting forward a hefty effort to help people is a touch divorced from her accustomed reality even if she's dipped her toes in that sauce. Still, now that messes are happening, they make their way forward, both avoiding fights as they can--though Roland is relying on punches rather than his sword--he's not incapable when it comes to fisticuffs. Roland ends up not exactly making it to the largest yurt since he's been sticking close to Rutger, startled back when there's a sudden clash of blades--though it seems a bit more exagerated than is natural. This guy seems like something beyond 'villager' so he summons Durandal (his) to his hand and he looks at Rutger's face for a moment. He knows she's a great swordswoman but is there a really reason to keep this at a duel? Nah, Roland's an assassin. He doesn't think in terms of duels. He slides forward, swinging his sword in a thrusting strike towards the dark haired man's hand--so barely at his hand it's nearly aimed right at the pommel. "Figure heaven's got better sights." He quips, looking over to Rutger. "You alright? I don't know the traditions but I'm not an honorable duelis anyway." There's an unstated question there in addition to the one he spoke aloud. Binah, however, just continues pushing forward, smiling evilly as she lets other people handle the fighting until she finally shees a family man. ''What do you want! ... Has Bern forsaken us?!'' "Bern has always thought you scum." Binah says. She thinks about threatening the wife and children, of course, because that's a very efficient way to getting people to listen, but she ultimately settles that this guy--however much he loves his family--might also be the type to clam up when one's family is threatened. Interrogation, in Binah's opinion, is an artform. There's so many ways to just get people to say what you want to hear--and there is, of course, some value in that--people think interrogations are just about getting to the truth inefficiently but the truth is, of course, is that sometimes you just want them to say what you want them to say even if it doesn't help anybody at all. But she's trying to be a helpful person with personal growth these days so she probably...shouldn't threaten the man's children or his wife? "After all... I don't see Bern here, do you? The one time Bern ''should'' be here, yes?" Binah's words ooze poisoned honey. "We've better things to do than slaughter your people, which is good for all of us, so perhaps..." She cups her chin, grinning. "If you could point us in the direction of the... Kutolah? We can bother one another and leave you be and you can instead spend your time wondering what to do now that Bern has abandoned you. And I doubt any of us would wish to keep you from such an important task."
Odette Raskins	"Go, Odette! She's just an elder." Odette certainly doesn't need to be told twice there, although she does linger just a bit to make sure that the older lady isn't going to have a heart attack right then and there. The disappearing yellow outline has her on the cusp of diverting course to check her vitals, but alarmed noises that follow are enough to discourage Odette from both lingering and worrying. And so, the EMT scurries from tent to tent, trying not to get caught by anyone too easily. A wrong turn here and a panicked jump aside there, however, and she's backed into a bad spot by some of the nomads when Fir comes to the rescue. "Th-thanks, Miss Fir! Q-quick, before they sober up!" She calls out before sprinting away again, yelping and ducking under a swing before tumbling across the ground into an improvised roll to keep some of her momentum going in that escape. "Ah, Odette-- keep running!!" Hearing Fir again from somewhere that isn't directly nearby, though, gets Odette's attention and helps her realize that her bodyguard has, in fact, gotten surrounded in her efforts to protect the EMT. There's a hitch in her breath, and she starts fretting on what to do in that situation between the three armed nomads boxing Fir in and the high likelihood that even more could show up at any moment if she lingers there. Opting to linger there, Odette stumbles a little while turning around rapidly, bracing a hand on the ground and snapping the other hand to her pocket. From there, she expertly whips out a glass vial of talcum powder, launching it in a curving arc at the furthest of the three nomads' face just so that the loosely-fitted cork pops off for a blast of mostly safe, but irritating powder to the face. During the toss, she also starts sprinting for the other two nomads for the nomad closest to herself. Hoping to take advantage of both Fir being the obvious threat and a potential distraction from the vial's impact against the furthest one, she throws all of her weight into a shoulder check at the closest one. She doesn't stick around to see if that's enough to topple him over, though, before thrusting the injector of tranquilizers into his gut and squeezing the trigger a few times to pump the substance right in. "Go gogo gogogogo!" She rattles rapidly while scrambling to disentangle herself from the nomad as quickly as she ran directly into him. She'll even throw a punch if he hastily trying to get them both out of that immediate danger. With the situation already getting loud, she discards the brief inkling to avoid drawing attention to the big yurt, and instead heads straight for the biggest yurt, hesitating only to try and get Fir moving along that way as well. On the way there, though, Odette instead encounters... Someone she's unfamiliar with fighting Rutger! The distressed look on Rutger's face tells her plenty without telling her anything, and Odette's once again hastily working out how to throw herself into that rather than leaving an ally. "H-hey! Look, a flying dog!" She shouts out the first thing that comes to mind and, without missing a beat, chucks something straight from pocket-towards-face! Rather than a vial or bottle of something, however, Odette's haste in throwing something to try and help results in her just hurling her PDA at the swordsman instead.
Flamel Parsons	"Has Bern forsaken us?!"     Flamel... winces. Something about this situation tugs at the gut. The many injured? The way his usual approach seems somehow... more cruel? But he gets his head back in the game, flashing out of invisibility. "They forsake everyone eventually! But, I promise we're actually morally much better, we won't hurt anyone who doesn't have a weapon in their hands and we won't--" He's trying to call out.     Then the martial explosion smashes through the wall, and he tumbles to one side to avoid the clashes. "Gah! I can't--" He plants two fingers on the left temple and, as Rutger dashes, his right two fingers brush her temple, extracting a thin stream of shining yellow neuron-chain -- raw decision-speed, one of Rutger's best aspects, formed into a conduit. Whirling it around like a chain weapon, he snaps the intangible tether to try to wrap it around the elder's brain and pulse an immediate, high-intensity compulsion to leave with the group, something that should go faster than almost any other impulse in the brain.     But that's not the more important part. He's feeling something from her, carried along the chain. "Rutger? Huh?" He casts his mind back along the neurons. "Rutger! This shouldn't be a problem for you, you've got to clear your head!" Clenching his left hand, fingers still on his temple, he jolts his head to one side and sends a pulse to Rutger instead -- this one's more like 'turning on the hi-beams', something to cut through foggy mist and focus on what's in front of her. <We can't get the elder out of here if you don't keep that guy away! *That's* someone who wants more of what happened in *Bulgar*!!> He hollers, telepathically.     Bulgar. The thought jolts him into freezing for a moment. The many injured... His heart drops in his chest.
Petra Soroka	"It can still be an army even if it isn't maximally grim and brutal, Binah."     Earlier, Petra rolls her eyes at Binah along with Roland. "Yeah, and if you look upwards, the sky's blue and not filled with smoke, and if you look around, there's grass and not asphalt. I know you were in the torture dungeon and all, but it's been a decade since the Smoke War and you're in a different world." "Sophia and Petra won't feel bad...?"     Whatever Binah's devious machinations are, they work on Petra. Giving Fae a stuffy for her to wiggle and squeeze is such an elementally good-aligned act that it temporarily forgives her the sin of a lifetime of crushing people under the state's boot. "Well, I'll be happy if you tell me the adventures that you and her get up to while I'm away, so I'd have no reason to feel bad at all."     And then, back to being an army. Sheared of most of its mass by the impact in the air, the remains of the Beauty of Ash are like a skeletonized rabbit: gangly, angular limbs, uncannily thin and sharp with gaps in between, the cute sparkly exterior stripped to hovering disconnected fragments of pearl laced with florescent orange. It sinks down to the ground at the epicenter of the glass volley, lowering to all fours and hinging its knees backwards to shield the exposed 'ribcage' that still holds Petra inside. Each second that goes by, hardlight shrapnel buried in the ground pries itself out and zips back towards the Beauty of Ash, gravitating back to a loosely decohered approximation of its shape.     Coming down vertically, she was able to shortcut her way straight to the center of the camp with little distance between her and the leader's yurt. Still, what distance there is has plenty of warriors, and moreso, the 'excitement' coming off of the first clash to repel the army almost certainly means that the Beauty of Ash will be an especially enticing target, rather than a frightening one. So her mission is to reconstitute the mech, keep whatever contingent of Djute fighters who make it their business to claim one of the two big targets occupied, wade her way to the yurt, and avoid having the Beauty of Ash kill anyone.     There's no way for any of them to intuit this before attacking, but stepping towards the Beauty of Ash traps the fighters in a psychic minefield. The original blast of shrapnel that largely missed any living targets is still linked into the mech's telekinetic network, and scattered as it is, there's no telling from which direction a fist-sized glass blade might rip out of the ground and rocket towards them. Cuts pepper their arms and hands or slice through belts to tangle their knives before they can draw them, all while the Beauty of Ash whips its head or kicks to force them to keep their distance. When a bubble of clear space eventually opens up ahead of it, the Beauty of Ash accelerates as if it's been startled, legs digging thin furrows in the ground as it simply bulldozes its way to the yurt.     Despite her head start, she's late to get to the large yurt, and with her arrival, a second side of it is torn through like paper. The Beauty of Ash has most of its mass regathered, but still cloudily dissociated like a disconnected jigsaw puzzle, having gradually shifted from 'skeletonized' to 'poofed up like it was put in a dryer cycle'. The single gold eye peers in, while outside its back leg twitches instictively to bat a warrior aside.
Petra Soroka	"You look strong. Is she? Are they?"     The frown is audible in the inaudible fiberglass crawl of the Beauty of Ash's voice. <This is just a kidnapping. The moment you're still, willingly or not, I'm picking you up and we're leaving.> Explicitly saying that she doesn't want to bring the children into this at all would be kind of tactless when they've all just burst into his house, but it's a squirming undercurrent to her telepathy.     Instead what comes out is an ill-considered slurry of thoughts along the lines of bargaining.     <Like, come on. Bulgar's gone, Bern's occupied at the borders, and the Kutolah are in hiding. Aren't you just fucking around and living for a short time until everything comes crashing down again? One way or another, the war's going to sweep back through here and ruin your whole shit soon enough, and if you're just chill for a moment then that won't be today.>
Lilian Rook	Oh Roy. So young and naive. So filled with faith in the archetypal relationship of boy meets girl and then all of their emotional needs are fulfilled. His priceless obliviousness to the complicated web of people you keep around for unarticulable mental wellness reasons and have to refer to as 'a friend' in lieu of any other socially acceptable word that adults have is truly just ever so charming. He'll never guess what Lilian is smiling about right now.     . . . . . . . .     'Has Bern forsaken us?!'     "Are you surprised?"     In the moment, what Lilian meant to say first was 'You and everyone else on Earth'.     The way she took to get there in the first place wasn't easy, except for how it was. Lilian is an alien to everything about the conflict between Djute and Kutolah except by how it affects Rutger. She shouldn't feel much of anything about this raid, and if she did, it should be 'vengeful' on her behalf; wherever the feeling of hesitance comes from as she passes the injured, young, and elderly, Lilian doesn't know. The handful of men who muster to the camp's defense must be somewhat more despicable than the reluctant Ostian traitors she'd had no trouble fighting during the coup, but stopping to recall Bulgar doesn't have the effect she'd hoped for when beleaguered by visions of them standing at the doors to houses instead of yurts. There are few opportunities to fire arrows at her, and yet she has several close calls by checking far too often what is directly behind her when they're loosed. And of course Lilian would never lose in 'a swordfight' to mounted archers, no matter how veteran or disciplined, but that very same gap between them and the Rutger in her mind-- even Fir-- bothers her a lot.     By the time she storms the yurt, the gold is cold comfort anyways. Lilian's feelings about this are too muddy and turbulent to go either way; neither vindictive or ashamed. To an adequate swordsman, there's no missing the hesitance expressed in the grip of her fingers on the hilt at her waist; up until it's as if the word 'Bern' had suddenly breathed life into her, like fanning coals back into flame.     "To me, the look on your face right now says 'this shouldn't be happening', like it wasn't inevitable that it would one day. I don't understand you."     Lilian glances to the man's wife, and feels no worse in particular than the moment she'd seen the old woman. Her attention drifts to the hiding children, where she feels a stab of pity, but still no more a sense of transgression. The rote, almost mechanical 'normalcy' of it all makes her feel dizzy. She wishes, just slightly, that she'd tromped in wearing full armour and a fur-lined cloak.     "Nobody forgave you for anything."     The unfortunate fact is the leader lost his momentum when he stood up, drew his sword, and then chose dialogue instead. Given that much time at a stand-off, Lilian can focus on him-- his thoughts, his body language, his conscious and subconscious intent-- all she likes. And being ready for the exact moment he overcomes the instinct to freeze and chooses either fight or flight, Lilian has the luxury of doing something which she despises a little bit, and yet also sets her strangely at ease.     She appears behind the woman, hauling her up from the table by both hands tied.
Lilian Rook	"They aren't French nobles. She comes too." Lilian says, but calling and thinking out loud for her present and psychic allies in equal measure. "I'm taking 'dying to protect my family' off the table. Take him now"     The armed man could probably put up a fight. Lilian doubts his unarmed wife could. And if there's only one thing she can intuit by connecting it to her own feelings here, it's that any stupid, risky, self-destructive thing he could do here on her behalf should just be expected, and that she can't imagine him fighting even half as hard to leave her with the enemy. So she, along with the woman whose name she doesn't know, vanishes.
Marigold	"Th- pfftbthth-- tha-aanks, Odette!" Fir calls out, smearing some of the smoke-grenade-talcum-powder out of her own eyes as she disentangles herself messily from her three-on-one.      Rutger's a better fighter than the Djute camp's swordmaster- if she hadn't started out a cut above the norm, she would be by now with all the campaign's battle-hardening- but she's being lured by the long-haired stranger into a kind of fight that isn't exactly her norm. In the moments where their blades are entangled and she ought to draw a dagger or take him to the mat, she hesitates to break the convention of the duel.      Even when Roland buys Rutger a moment to breathe by jarring the blade out of the Djute swordsman's grasp, she hesitates, giving him a second to pick it back up. "I'm fine," she tells him, even though she isn't. "Go."      Between the two of them, they create a flickering blender-zone some fifteen feet across. Onlookers learn pretty quick not to intervene. "But you're not even Kutolah, are you? What, Bulgar?" ". . ." "We could've saved all this bloodshed. Dueled for stakes. Do you even know how?" "Be quiet." "That's a pity. You're starting to fight properly, too."      Odette throws her PDA. The swordsman spots it out of the corner of his eye; pivot-lunges towards her to slice it in half; and has his lunge narrowly deflected from bisecting Odette by Fir interposing herself. Ting. "Just get to the chief! Run!" she yelps.      "Tch. Just don't interfere with us. The lady wants this proper, doesn't she?" He looks back at Rutger, who...      <*That's* someone who wants more of what happened in *Bulgar*!!>      "Show me the warrior capable of facing me!"      ... locks blades with the stranger again, and then kicks him back towards Nagayoshi, who's presently cowing a semi-circle of nomads into knives-bared retreat. "There," she pants as her opponent rolls across the ground. 'Honor' isn't something she should let herself believe is within her grasp. "Kill him." "Ghhh-- what's wrong with you?!" He staggers to his feet, but now he's penned in ahead and behind. "Ask Bern."
Marigold	The chief(?) still has his saber half-drawn from its scabbard, his face in a conflicted snarl. His home's been breached and camp half-scattered on pretenses he doesn't remotely understand; an assassination would halfway make sense, but a kidnapping isn't something a man in his position is supposed to face.      "... 'this shouldn't be happening', like it wasn't inevitable that it would one day."      <One way or another, the war's going to sweep back through here...>      "You look strong. Is she? Are they?"      "After all... I don't see Bern here, do you?"      "That which is inevitable has no reason to call itself so," he says, tensely uneasy like a mongoose staring down a snake. "Your bravery is called desperation. You are outnumbered; I can see your ribs."      He's right that it's getting ugly outside. Fir takes a nasty blow while trying to fight four-on-one and Thea has to swoop low on her pegasus to pluck her out of the fray.      Ultraman is scattering and battering-about the archers, but moment by moment more of them are picking up their arms or chasing down their horses, and the flexible parts of his armor are accruing more and more arrow-shafts. Petra maims and scatters the warriors closest to the chief's tent with the Beauty's shrapnel, but that's a temporary cavitation in the mass; there's far more blood to be spilled to make it a rout.      He's wrong, though, about the tactical situation inside his own yurt.      Flamel lashes his brain with the surrender-impulse, and his resolve to draw his sword falters; Lilian waits for the moment that he'll commit to violence, but under that psychic invasion it doesn't come, even when Madeleine lunges to subdue him with her spear.      It comes instead from his wife, who's done her best to be bleakly silent and subdued. Just as Madeleine lunges, she stands, draws a forearm-long blade from her waist-sash, grabs Maddie by the waist, and tries to drive it into her flank.      She only gets one try, though, before Lilian subdues her and parts them with a shared yelp of agony. "Lorma!! Let her go!" "JARGAL!!" Then it's easy for Madeleine to crumple the man to the floor with a blunt strike. Melady finds the moment to drop through the whizzing arrows to land in front of the chief's yurt, patting her wyvern's flank for the chief- "Come on, get on!!" she shouts urgently- and then it's a hasty retreat into the night, leaving spilled blood and still-burning cooking-fires and frightened children behind.      Juno swoops down for Rutger; Sue and Roy ride back up the river; Shanna swoops down for Igrene and Fae, takes an arrow to her pegasus's wing, lands messily, and Fae has to transform to scoop her up pegasus-and-all and jog-waddle off into the night. Thank goodness for that ambush Nobunaga set ahead.      The rest of you, sans whoever rides with Melady and the chief, will have to find your own ways to outpace mounted pursuers if you don't want to buy your escape with a distasteful amount of blood.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel feels... still, intensely conflicted about what he's imploring Rutger to do in circumstances like this. She shouldn't have to...     Turning hard, he focuses on the man, Jargal. One big telekinetic hand grabs him in a way that would be rendered with a funny little horn honk sound if this were a cartoon, but instead comes with an intensive, focused whoosh because it isn't. His telekinesis makes it easy to bring the man to the Wyvern, urgently shouting, "Take him, I'll get out on my own!"     When he's deposited... Rutger's opponent, he can't focus on, he's not much for solving that kind of problem in that kind of way. The warriors in the camp, he certainly shouldn't engage, any one of them could hide Rutger-level strength. But he can turn invisible, and he can move damn quick with his levitation. So he does both, bolting to take a path between the yurt and the way they came and trying to make sure to evade any wide-area effects from Djute spellcasters (if any). If Odette gets out on the Wyvern, the rest should be able to beat their own hasty escape... Flamel can't much bring anyone else along in his invisibility.     He knew, in his mind, that this war was beginning to inflict attrition on the able-bodied people of this world in vast numbers. But now, drifting through the camp mid-battle, forced to recognize the number of elderly, young, and disabled, relative to the number of warriors... It's getting into his heart. Seeing the annihilation of Bulgar and the desolation of the Djute...     He doesn't study much history, know much politics, or really look beyond espionage in any materialistic sense. But a man like this knows enough public television and National Geographic to recognize that what he's being exposed to here, this encampment, is one facet of a globally-decimated generation. This war will kill so many physically-capable young men and women that it would be clearly visible in attentive analysis of fossil record or genetic study. It is statistically-significant damage to the species humankind.     And here's Rutger, demanded to wade through her home at the lowest point of the continent's history...
Madeleine Cadrasteia	Madeleine briefly considers hopping up behind Melady on Triffin's back before considering who else might need the flight out more than herself. Settling her eyes briefly on Odette outside the yurt, she suggests over her radio that the medic take to the skies with Melady and the chief, letting Flamel carry the Djute leader over to Triffin for Melady to secure aboard.     Then she's breaking fast for the edge of the camp, beelining for Nobunaga's ambush point. Crude painted-wood and plastic decoys of her litter the trail behind her through the encampment, peppered with arrows. She can outrun a horse over short distances - just needs to get well out of torchlight, into the tall grass... Several of the camp guards raise their blades against her and she simply leaps high, vaulting over them and into the night.     Once she's clear of Nobunaga's ambush point she glances back to see how close her pursuers are - uncomfortably close, it turns out. With a deep breath, she exhales a stream of vapor that coalesces into a low wall. It's nothing war-horses couldn't jump, but it'll be enough to leave them unprepared for whatever Nobunaga has up her sleeve. Then she turns, and flees into the darkness with the others.
Angela	''I'm fine. Go.'' Roland hesitates. "You're a better fighter than him." He says. It doesn't really matter if it's true or not. "Don't let him in your head. You can figure it out later." He doesn't know what 'it' is either, but if there's anything he's learned it's how to compartamentalize--but it's really that hesitation to take advantage of the opening he gave her that convinces him to move on. Or at least, stop interfering with the duel. Before he gets far, Rutger has defeated her opponent and is saying-- "Huh?" Roland is bewildered, or at least is affecting it. He knows damn well the origin of this contradiction. "First you're in a duel and now you want us to kill the guy?" He isn't exactly unwilling but... That crippling desire to see something different compels him... "You sure that's what you want? Pretty sure Roy would say you should hold onto that which is still important to you." MEANWHILE ''That which is inevitable has no reason to call itself so. Your bravery is called desperation. You are outnumbered'' "If we were desperate, would we be so gentle?" Binah purrs. It IS getting ugly outside, but Binah can--if nothing else--distort reality with words. "We'd bleed, for sure, but they're all quite willing to." But soon it's moot, and it's time to leave. Binah slips away in the chaos.