Fwomph
Stormguard Castle
Things were moving quickly, fire dancing and pouncing and the castle's walls twisting into modern mockeries... It was all a little overwhelming to the poor, pathetic Guardian...
"I... Let's... I need to..."
Tibalt had never faced down fire untamed before, but he feared and dreaded it all the same. Every twitch of his being wanted to run, to flee and find someone else who knew what to do but this world had no greater competency than a Guardian did it? When he spotted the other two run in to confront or comfort Amber he saw an opportunity to interpret his cowardice as merely 'alternative heroism'.
"T-they've got this handled, l-let's just get everyone out of here!"
And that's when he started to run, hands shakily going to the pouch... Maybe if he could unleash the warhorn's call again he could help, it was the one thing he was good for after all...
~BWARP~
It's clearly a case of backroom political albumizing.
Stormguard Hallways
"Jesus christ." Maryland snarled at Tibalt. She thought she was getting some real progress here. On the other hand, thank god there was a deadly fire to protect her from feelings. "I'll catch up, lemme try something else first."
As a fire monster came at her she bought time against it by erecting a plain wall in front of it, then turned to face the warping castle, the modern mcmansion thing happening there. It looked to her a lot like her own magic, and maybe it was counterable with it! She was the strongest user of it by her own measure, and what was a suburban home compared to a hundred foot spike shoved through a demon? Maryland threw a hand out at the castle and exerted herself on it just like with any other shaping, only in reverse; she was trying to see if she could "counterspell" or otherwise seek out and snuff the Alteration being exerted at present.
Happy Box Hater
Tortoran Inn
If she thought that Simon could be manipulated into forgiving her for eating a mouse right in front of him, Luka was sorely mistaken. He wasn't the sort of person to fall for excuses like simply being hungry. A snacking mood wasn't a need, but just a want. But, despite still having misgivings, he decided to shelve the issue for now. If he didn't verbally apologize for looking down on the behavior than she couldn't do it again without expecting a similar reaction.
As if it was reacting to the positive comments about it, his shadow fully formed itself and gave two thumbs up. "I just want to make it clear that I didn't want it to do that," Simon dryly told the kitsune, internally dying inside at the thought that someone might assume he was using the shade to express himself. "And you have a very shallow view on it, I think. Sure I'm never alone, but that's only if you count being in the company of myself." He scoffed slightly at the thought of it. An extension of his will, even if it had some sort of personality, didn't count as company. He didn't deserve actual company.
"Besides, I think it would probably go away if I was trapped in the dark or something. Need some light to have a shadow, after all... huh?" he mused, before getting interrupted by a familiar dog's intrusion. It sat down on him which was... well, it wasn't bad. Better than getting sat on by a similarly sized bird, at least. But that wasn't the issue.
"...I told him that sleeping outside was a bad idea!" he exclaimed after a few seconds of putting together a narrative for what he thought happened. "You don't just sleep alone in the open when some evil snakes promise to come back to finish a job! Guess the dog got away, but Yuval's probably in trouble." Or dead, but he honestly didn't want to think about that. If someone died than it was his fault because he didn't push harder for him to stay here, right?
And... if Yuval wasn't gone yet than hesitance on Simon's part could kill him. "I'm going to find Yuval!" he called out to the whole room, hopefully waking them up if they hadn't been awoken already. "I hope you guys come with me, but I'm not waiting!" He ran out the room, hoping but not expecting any help at all. He let the dog out on the ground. It was smarter than it looked, after all.
"Lead the way Wicker Dog!" he told it, and he'd follow carefully.
Why is a yam attacking me?
Up on Melancholy hill.
Charred Hallway
...
Okay! So, fire monsters coming the hell out of nowhere was enough to wake anyone from their stupor! His eyes went wide and he quickly stepped back in surprise, holding up the axe he had summoned and swung it as hard as he could, causing a quick arc of water to shoot out behind it towards the creature.
He looked down at the axe in confusion for a moment before he chuckled. "Oh right, it's Forseti's axe, it can create water where ever it-" He quickly backed from the creature. "Okay, rambling not important right now!" And swung the Axe again.
Is it selfish that I'm happy as we pass the setting sun?
Master Saboteur
This post was thumped by the Merciless Hammer of Doom
Stormguard Castle
Maryland felt something hit her that she didn't recognize exactly, but that was super close to the mental attack from yesterday. Fuckers were upping the ante? Never again. She felt sleep overtaking her... and first of all let go of her counterspell and pointed at the floor to send a spike of rock shooting up into her gut. She screamed, but it lit up her vision as it started darkening, so she had a little more time.
Mind: E->D(20)->C(30)
This wouldn't be the only awful injury before the day was out. Tibalt and his crew were still running; she could clock about where they were but that was it. This was gonna suck too. Maryland blinked away, and instantly regretted it as she at shit in front of Tibalt with a couple inches shaved off the bottoms of her feet again. Running high on adrenaline and fury she thrust a hand out, past him, and split the castle in half. She didn't have the concentration to do any fancy transmutation, but she had the brute force. She was aiming to basically snap it in half like you could a suspension bridge, turning each half onto about a 45 degree angle up and away from each other to try and cut the fire off. Then she passed out in her own blood.
Some Guy Or Something
Spare the Child and Spoil the Rod - Julian @ Lucifer's Estate
Alright, you chose the option 'I want to die because I'm a major fuckin' dickhead'. We at Julian's Beatdown Emporium are happy to oblige any dumbass customers that need a good asswhoopin'. May take a week for the delivery to happen but you can bet on the grave of whatever hellspawn you clawed your way out of that it'll come.
"And you and your father disagree?" Julian asked, looking only vaguely invested in the conversation. "Seems like your stance stands at a great risk to the denizens of this world. Are you so certain of this entity's vile nature that you would stake not only your own existence but that of all other creatures on this planet?"
Julian paused a moment. "Hmm... Never mind all that. Perhaps this discussion is a tad heavy for so early in the morn. So here's an infinitely lighter topic: do you know of anyone who would refer to you as 'demon child'? Heard the phrase and I cannot help but feel that it does not come from a place of love."
"Evii is right though" -Saturn "I didn't know you were a bitch Evii." -Lior Val
The Tiny Ember
Stormguard Castle
Useless... worthless... You are nothing but a gnat that is in everyone's way! screamed the voice in Amber's head as she practically lost control of the flames...
...However, despite everything that was happening to her, Amber somehow managed to bring herself back as Aileana hugged her and as a more soothing voice entered her mind thanks to Nadia. Though, as she was being hugged, Aileana would see some of Amber's past
, particularly the moments leading up to her entering the world of Lotus.
Then, as Tibalt sounded the horn, the intruding voices seemed to be drowned out by the Horn of Kings, that rallied the other denizens of the castle and calmed them despite the chaos.
Dante, who was nearby, picked up Maryland and carried her out of the flames that were still dancing around and placed her safely out of harm's way. Watching over her, he looked back to see that the fire elementals were beginning to die down as water was poured on them by Mason and Dimitri's double water attacks, and the reality that was being molded seemed to return slowly back to normal.
Crying a bit, Amber passed out in Aileana's arms as the world around them reverted back to its previous state and as the castle returned back to normal.
"It would seem that things are returning back to normal, ma'am," spoke Weiss as he looked around the room. "What should we do with the Fire Guardian... she seems dangerous."
"What about executing her?" spoke Fredrick as he looked towards Aileana and the unconscious Amber. "She almost burned us all alive on a whim!"
Tensions seemed to be high as the knights and King Artis himself came into the room, all conflicted on what to do with Amber.
Tortoran
The Wicker Pup looked up at Simon, before letting out a bark and wagging it's fluffy tail. The ball of floof promptly left the room and began making its way outside, leading Simon, and Luka by extension, to wherever Yuval may be.
Within a few minutes, the Wicker Pup had led the duo to Yuval.. who was surrounded by at least a dozen people all wanting to get their portraits done.
The Wicker Pup barked at Simon, before scurrying off towards Yuval, who seemed to have his hands busy... until a familiar serpent snatched up the pup into its own hands.
"Aha! Gotcha thisss time, you little runt!" cheered the same naga from before as it lifted the Wicker Pup by its tail, dangling it like some exotic toy. Slithering away, the Pup began to bark and whine.
"Come back here with that pupper!" exclaimed Luka as she chased after the Naga.
Airship to Gorgond Mountains
The dire wolf's keen senses would allow it to sense that something was amidst...
"Wretched child..." spoke a familiar voice as daggers were thrown towards the wolf.
The source of the voice belonged to none other than the masked man from last night, who revealed himself from the shadows and began to draw another blade.
"Can't you be a good girl and just listen to your elders?" he said as he threw a pair of daggers at the child.
On the way to the Angel's Domain
"I.. I'm not certain, I only wish to see things return back to normal, back when the world of Lotus was at peace," spoke Shuria as she looked down at the ground. "Ever since the discovery of the World Lotus, things have been different and chaotic, I say. My uncle and my father have been fighting for years and for as long as I can remember."
Shuria paused as Julian mentioned 'Demon Child'.
"The only one who would refer to me as such would be the angels, the humans, dwarves... practically anyone who has qualms with my father or the demons."
Shuria then looked towards Skylar, before rubbing the latter over the head. "Though, the dragons, when speaking of Demon Children, usually refer to me as such..."
"However, there is one Guardian in particular that always referred to me as Demon Child, or Demonic, but he's long gone now."
Shuria smiled a soft smile before looking at Julian. "Why do you ask?"
"Believe in the me that believes in you!"
Up on Melancholy hill.
No longer crispy hallway
...
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." Mason said as he took a deep, not smokey breath and turned to the term "Execution" was being held. "Execution? No no no, no one's getting executed tonight, tomorrow or whenever. She didn't INTEND to do any of this, I bet."
Is it selfish that I'm happy as we pass the setting sun?
An Ordinary Oddball
The dire wolf whirled around and batted all of the daggers away with its immense size. Because of its thick fur, it wasn't harmed much except for a few pricks.
"Good boy," Shannon said absent-mindedly. "Randy. To the left. Adrian. To the right. Boy, take point."
As she mouthed the orders, whisper quiet, her summons appeared and closed in on the assassin. Randy was apparently a cowboy-looking man, with a weather-beaten face. He had his hand on his six-shooters in their holsters. Adrian looked like his usual mysterious self, drawing several daggers from his bandolier. The dire wolf growled menacingly as it approached.
"Wilhelm, guard the rear. Will O' The Wisps, we need light!" Wilhelm appeared behind the assassin—if he tried to back away, his back was going to bump into him. Blue balls of flames appeared and swirled around Shannon and the scene, giving everything an eerie glow.
Shannon...did not have a scared face anymore. Far from it. She had a very steely look upon her face—and it was unnerving.
"Good sir," she began, using her summoning powers to summon chains around his feet and arms. "My elders, most often than not, abuse me and try to force their opinions on me. If you had to know everything I went through, you'd understand. But you're too high and mighty to even try and understand."
"I only help friends and people being bullied. And you're a bully. That means your words are garbage and I don't have to listen to you."
Subconsciously, Shannon infused the words with her illusion magic, making her sound perfectly reasonable in this situation and also very terrifying.
Meanwhile, Shannon's summons were closing in...and all of them had an odd gleam in their eyes.
I wear the skin of the Elder Things, having come unto my own.
Dimitri, Stormguard Castle
"No!" Dimitri cried out. "You don't understand, she didn't do any of this of her own free will. There is... someone who is probing our minds, trying to make us do evil things."
Edited by HilarityEnsues on Nov 30th 2018 at 9:07:11 AM
AKA Nixer
Stormguard Castle
“Sleep now, little one. I got ye,” Aileana murmured softly, gently shifting the scarred one so as to place her more on the ground—leaving her so that she was leaning more in her lap and thusly freeing her arms. Which was a good call on her part, as it allowed her to speedily snake one of them over to Frederick and clutch him by the jaw. Hard. To the point where it was starting to make unpleasant cracking noises.
“Ye will do no such thing, or ye will have to cut me down as well. And trust me, it won't be an easy task. Especially if I'm pissed off at ye. So go ahead and blindly believe what ye like, axe-happy cretins. But do so kindly from a distance. Lest your internal organs become external,” she said with a note of finality, before releasing Frederick's jaw and zipping her arm back into place.
“Lass, help find us a bed for her if ye would kindly. Little 'un has been through hell more than I. And ye know what I mean by that,” she spoke to Nadia as she scooped up Amber into her arms before looking over towards Dimitri and Mason as if only just realising they were there.
“The two of ye. Either stop standing around and blabbering or help me. Or kill them. Whichever is quicker. Me patience is thin now. So do be dears and shut your wee gobs, pull up your frilly skirts, and bloody help the poor lass. The idiot masses can wait. And Altis is no fool, I bet. Execution would have to go through him, aye? I'm holding ye to that,” she glared at Frederick and Weiss, before turning and moving to walk down the corridor.
“Oh and pick up that lovely pot pie, dearie. Me hands are full—but I don't want such a delectable dish to be wasted on the dogs,” she called to Nadia as an afterthought.
bork
A Storm is Brewing - Nadia al-Amin
And just like that it was over - the flames subsided, the walls returned from modern to archaic, and the pyromancer had been rendered unconscious - probably due to stress and psychic strain, Nadia guessed. It seemed that things had calmed for now... until the king and his knights arrived with the call for Amber's head. Aileana... dealt with the situation as she did and asked Nadia to find a bedroom for Amber to rest.
A light blush came onto Nadia's face as she remembered the one nearby. "...I know a place." Packing up her food and sending it back into the ether, Nadia followed after Aileana to see if Amber was alright.
Dimitri, Stormguard
"No," Dimitri flatly refused Aileana. "I'm not going to kill anyone."
Restoration F - D
He proceeded to heal what he could of Fredrick's face, and then went to help Nadia with Amber.
Edited by HilarityEnsues on Nov 30th 2018 at 10:25:32 AM
Fwomph
Stormguard Castle
It was over. Tibalt didn't know how they resolved the matter as he walked back into the castle halls but he assumed and hoped it was the same method of peace, hugs and magical snacks that solved every problem they'd encountered bar the demon shambler.
Should he learn how to cook? To be honest to him it felt like cooking might be one of the greatest powers in Lotus if it was capable of all the things it'd done so far... His mind buzzed with trying to come up with a good term to call a magical chef of that caliber and even though it had no magical connotations he couldn't quite discard 'Thyme Lord' as an option.
But anyway yeah he's just wandering back towards the epicenter of the problem to check if it's been handled in a nice clean pacifist manner like he hoped.
It's clearly a case of backroom political albumizing.
Happy Box Hater
Tortoran
Now, Simon was feeling pretty sure of himself right now. It seemed obvious that Yuval must have been in trouble if the animal that had acted joined at the hip with him had went off on its own. A small, incredibly shameful, part of him was glad, even, since it meant that he wasn't being paranoid when telling the Israeli to just sleep in the damn inn.
So imagine his surprise to see the man of interest sitting pretty amidst a bunch of people eager for a portrait! "Why... Why did you even leave you stupid... Hey stop!" the teen complained at the dog, cutting off when the naga from before just snatched it from nowhere. "You aren't getting away!" He was sick of this. That dog was at fault here, it was clearly smarter than the average dog yet still couldn't be bothered to maybe protect itself. Why not just create caltrops or something in front of the snake making off with it? Or anything useful?
That wasn't a good enough reason to just let this happen without objecting, though. Simon ran with all his might, desperate to catch up... unfortunately he wasn't really fast enough for that. Still, his stamina was enough that he'd be able to keep on the naga's tail for a bit. But without being able to overtake them, what was the point?
And then he looked at the ground. It wasn't late in the day... it was closer to the morning, when the sun was more off to the side than it was directly above them. That was the type of situation that tended to result in comically elongated shadows. Invigorated by the thought that he only needed to get somewhat closer, Simon began pushing his legs to their limits. As soon as his stretched shadow got close enough, his shade would spring out of the ground and grapple with the naga.
Why is a yam attacking me?
Stormguard Castle
Maryland worked a couple simple gestures in the air to get her wounds knitting back together with a couple deep breaths and some hard focus. She wasn't sure quite what happened back in there; chalk it up to the teleporting. Her mind felt keener, that was for sure. In typical millenial fashion she made the call to just head on back to the tower, see what was up, and just keep it reactive for now.
On the way to the Angel's Domain
Demon Child, really Julian? I mean, they are a demon but the way you said it was just rude. Skyler didn't but in though, Shuria seemed to have a handle on things.
When the girl started to focus on him about dragons he had to ask something, even if Shuria was currently going for her own question. "So, you've met dragons before. How did they act around you?"
Some people say I'm lazy. It's hard to disagree.
Knight Cheesebeam
Airship
Lynn glanced at the red button quizzically. Of course, the do-not-press-this-button button, she mused. No aircraft would be complete without one. Then again, there are several ways catastrophic failure of all systems can be induced by the mere press of a button. Explosive combustion of all fuel on board? Breakage of critical foundation structures? Releasing the snakes? While seeing something like that go down was tempting, caution is always good, and it would be a terrible idea to sabotage her current mode of transport. A bit of coercion doesn't hurt, though.
"And would you mind explaining why that button is so dangerous? I'm feeling awfully curious today," Lynn remarked, rapidly tapping her fingers from index to pinky on her exposed mechanical thigh, to indicate her impatience.
Timers to measure time, thermometers to measure thermomets, mometers to measure mom, and measuring containers to measure measurements.
AKA Nixer
Stormguard Castle
“Ooh. Good idea,” Aileana praised, catching onto the implications of Nadia's statement and slowing somewhat so as to let the cook lead. “Aye, there were a bed in there. Should do nicely. Though it may be a little... cramped. Or intimate, if ye want my opinion. Either all.”
Shifting the unconscious Amber's weight a little in her arms, she followed after Nadia until they had successfully backtracked to the little side room. Supporting Amber entirely with her left arm and hefting her momentarily over her shoulder, she stretched her arm out past Nadia and up to the doorhandle—letting it open wide before she had even gotten within ten feet of it.
“Coming through,” she muttered as she overtook Nadia again, before entering the room and making a beeline for the bed—arm slowly shrivelling back to its regular length as she did so. Gently setting Amber down (into a recovery position of all things), she then placed her rubbery hand against the unconscious girl's forehead and hummed thoughtfully.
“...Mm-hm. Yup. Cannae tell in the slightest. I'm as cold as a corpse so ye all feel feverish to me. Lass, ye mind checking her temperature? Unless Spoilsport wants to have the pleasure. Most contact with a female he'll ever have, I suppose,” she said pointedly, flicking her serpentine gaze over to Dimitri for a moment and shooting him a plastic smile.
bork
Dimitri, Stormguard Castle
Dimitri gave Aileana a sick and tired look.
"Fuck you," he said tersely, losing his patience with her. "This girl is suffering from mental extreme mental trauma and you think this is the appropriate time to make jokes? About me touching her unconscious body, no less? Go to Hell."
Amber's Inferno - Nadia al-Amin
"Go help the evacuation then; let everyone trying to help get people out know where they are!" Nadia gestured Weiss to go off and assist while she turned and watched Aileana enter the fray. "I'm going to help Aileana however I can!"
Summoning a damp towel Nadia used it to cover her mouth before following after Aileana's slither steps, avoiding the fire constructs as best she could. With surprising finesse she kept pace with the snake woman - and as she attempted to call out to Amber, Nadia focused on Aileana's words...
Illusion Rank: D -> C
And sent them into Amber's mind. Not to work in conflict with whatever turmoil was invading her thoughts, but as an oasis in a desert, as the eye in the hurricane, as a light at the end of the tunnel... A place where if Amber could only concentrate on Aileana's words it might provide her mind with a safe haven from the psychic intruder.