2018-08-26: Gods of Risk

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=============================<* Pearloats Pasture *>==============================

Pearloats Pasture is the agricultural heartland of the Rolance Empire. It stretches through the center of the empire, from Lastonbell in the east to Pendrago in the west. The eastern half is a rolling, hilly meadow. Shepherds tend their flocks here, and must keep a careful eye because of the danger of roaming monsters that have only grown worse in recent days. The western stretches of Pearloats are where the countless grain fields and farms of the Empire are. In the last year, nearly constant rainfall has dampened the fields and the capital of Pendrago, and made the roads muddy and dangerous. This state has drawn out more bandits and monsters than before.

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQK2PufIbzI
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

Kaguya

DC: Ida Everstead-Rey switches forms to Martial Artist Ida!
DC: Ashes switches forms to Unfortunate Soul Ashes!
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

The forces of Rolance made a hard march over Pearloats Pasture, towards Tryfan Vale. The valley is a defensible position in the mountains to the north, not so far from some of the narrow and treacherous overland passes that could lead back into Hyland proper. The expectation among Rolance's forces is a dangerous siege.

When they crest the hill that leads down into the valley is something quite different.

The majority of the Hyland army is a bedraggled, besotten mess. While a few wooden palisades have been constructed, even those sharpened wooden tree trunks seem a paltry thing. The camp is half-made, with not enough tents for every soldier, and many of them look injured, ill, or worse. The banners flapping in the wind are threadbare. The exception is the Oasis Free Company: the mercenaries funded by Lady Kaguya, whose ARMs and accoutrements are both in fine condition, and who look fed.

The sorry state of most of those forces, however, draws a few gasps from the soldiers wearing red. Word that the Cardinal was declared a traitor and slain has not yet reached them -- and while a general rode at the head of this army, its command is someone else entirely. General Ivan Bostovich strides forward, pulling up his helmet's faceplate. He turns to look sideways -- at the fearsome Sister Domitia.

"Sister," he says. "These men can scarcely fight. Shall we demand their surrender? I'm not certain that the Foreign Auxiliary will consent to this."

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

"No, General," says Sister Domitia.

Althena's abjuress, the confidant of Cardinal Forton known for her ability to utterly demolish those foes rife with the corruption of Malevolence, joined the forces of Rolance by surprise just a day before their arrival in Tryfan Vale. She's been with the troops before, but always manages to stand out - a pillar of cold calm in her white robe and deep hood, mounted on a pristine white palfrey as she rides alongside General Bostovich and surveys the battlefield laid out before her.

She has not told these troops the truth about what happened in the shrinechurch of Pendrago. She probably will not tell them the truth - not until she has delivered a victory. To that end, the army has been laced with a few of her own loyalists - troops much like any other, but with seemingly greater power and drive than most.

But will it matter, against such haggard, exhausted opposition? The army of Rolance is fresh and driven; that of Hyland is full of the sick and injured, barely able to defend itself.

Sister Domitia slides down off of her horse, delicate heels hitting the heelside. She takes a slow step forward and holds out her hand towards the distant camp - a camp full of soldiers in desperate need.

"These are the same soldiers responsible for the massacre of the innocents of Lastonbell. The same men who are responsible for the demon that destroyed that city. Do not forget that. Your forces are more than enough; if the mercenaries will not heed the will of the Goddess, then let them sit and wait."

Domitia waves her hand.

" Kill them all. Althena will know Her own. "

<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

After Hyland's loss at the Battle of the Three Hills and the foiled assassination attempt on Cardinal Forton, Talia vanished. She abandoned both the Oasis Free Company and Hyland. It wasn't, perhaps, such a surprise. A number of Hyland's mercenaries had left. But as a knife that had worked with Chancellor Bartlow directly, and who had helped hire the ones who brought down Lastonbell's walls months ago, it stood out.

But her loyalty had never been to Hyland. Her loyalty wasn't even, really, for sale. It was owned by one person, who wanted Rolance to be desperate enough to consider what he had to offer.

'Kill them all. Althena will know Her own.'

Talia looks up, clad in a grey cloak that protects her from the rain -- rain that has stopped falling, now. A few scant rays of sunlight peek through the clouds that have just started to part. Her hand is gripped around a dark brown gem, which has blood red crystals jutting out of it here and there. Her expression is tired. It is drained. She has bags under her eyes.

She hears the voice of General Bostovich call out: "FORWARD! Spare none of them!"

Talia looks up, her red eyes looking dark and empty at once. "...Guess this is how it goes, then, no?" she asks herself, quietly. "Lubov... let's see what this thing of yours can do."

Hyland's soldiers begin backing up; some look terrified, while some look grim, as they rush to man palisades against an overwhelming force -- and a promise of a slaughter. Talia steps in, with the Rolance lines, and finds herself meeting a few eyes of soldiers she recognizes. She feels the bile in the back of her throat, and pushes it back down. It's what she is, she reminds herself.

She throws the brown gem to the ground. One of those blood red spikes of crystal stabs into the earth. There is a shimmer; a quiver of light, across the ground, and then the crystal shatters. Fragments of it fly every which way, as a mass of roiling smoke rolls out.

Then, a creature stands there: a boar the size of a warhorse, but with dark brown rock and red crystal jutting from its hide. Elemental energy swirls into it -- and not an ounce of Malevolence, as it huffs out a breath of pure rock dust. Talia steps up beside it, and she remains silent.

Mirage flashes out in front of her, and she starts walking with the rest of the Rolance lines.

She makes her face look dispassionate. Cold. It takes a strong effort.

DC: Talia switches forms to Azure Assassin and Earthrager Optat Aprum!
DC: Seraph Amaranth switches forms to Phantom Thief -La Fille du Temps-!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.

    Seraph Amaranth had been doing some math with Lydia. The proof, as it were, was in the pudding:

    Amaranth + Lydia = Almost 1 Fighter ~= 1 Talia??

    And then Talia had to go and add an Earthragin' Boar onto her side, which definitely throws all the math off, because Almost 1 Fighter definitely does not equal 1 Talia + 1 Earthragin' Boar.

    It's something of a damper on the plans. Still, she'd promised she'd come help Talia away from the life, which is something of a problem when you can't fight worth a darn, but in Katherine's mindview, as long as she brings enough pluck, things will work out somehow. And boy does she have a lot of pluck--

    --as she flattens her lips and murmurs, "It isn't Malevolent... so what is it?" whispers Katherine as she hides behind a tree and peeks out at the Earthrager. "Well, no way around it but--"

    Katherine Weaver throws her arms up into the air and--

    TOOOOOOT

    --the last sound you'd expect in a grim battlefield erupts over the place, one of those placid paper party poppers as Amaranth showers her immediate area, approximately perpendicular from the soldiers, with bright lights!

    "I'm over here, Talia! Yoohoo!" exclaims Katherine.

DC: Kaguya switches forms to Lady Kaguya!
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

For the most part? Kaguya has stayed here, with her soldiers, to watch things over, to lend leadership... And to see whether Hyland's army would collapse in on itself with such poor morale. She's made some supply runs, more able to move than an entire company on account of what she is, but largely? Here.

...She's outside the command tent when the forces of Rolance crest the hill, and she glances that way. Her attire is commanding; strange green armor underneath finer clothes, her gloves strange metal and her boots the same. Her blonde hair, pointed ears, and strange eyes all combine, sharp. She looks wealthy; she looks noble. And she doesn't look amused. She turns towards them, and--

'Kill them all. Althena will know Her own.'

"What the fuck--" Kaguya starts, interrupting her conversation with one of her soldiers, and scowls towards the soldiers ahead. She hears the call; spare none of them. "...So this is what the humans have decided," she murmurs, getting a confused look--as she sees the appearance of... a creature.

"OASIS!" Kaguya calls, sharply, commanding. "FULL ALERT!"

She pokes her head into the tent, "Atida. We've got a problem. ...You take command. I'm going in."

The small Veruni, greatknives holstered at her hips, steps with purpose out of her own camp, out in front of the soldiers in disarray, back to the coming armies. "SOLDIERS OF HYLAND!" Kaguya calls, the volume of her voice not hiding her apparent youth--but in her gaze there is nothing but resolve. "I am Lady Kaguya. ...These men," Kaguya throws out her hand to the coming army, "Seek to throw away all honor and slaughter the wounded! Murder the defeated! End you, and all you are, and go on to do the same to your homes!"

"Will we allow it?" Kaguya calls. "You are not defenseless! You are proud warriors! There is nowhere to run. ...So do you aim to stand and wait to die?"

"Or will you follow me, and KILL THOSE BASTARDS FIRST?"

Kaguya turns to face the army, and speaks over her shoulder, "...Those of you who want to live, FOLLOW ME."

Kaguya pulls her weapons, and starts walking. She'll walk alone, if she must, towards the coming army, one girl against a multitude.

...But the soldiers of Rolance don't know what she is.

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

 
Elly has come to question many of the details and social customs of her homeland, but there is one that all this perambulation up and down the face of Lunar is teaching her: the value of a vacation that is, ultimately, more or less at home. Some part of Elly would like to stay in one place for approximately three thousand years. Some of this, of course, is that her butt is sore from riding in saddles.

Of course, right now she WISHES she was in a horse, but be that as it may. Huddled in a cloak, Elly wishes she had a better plan. She had to do something and it is unfortunate indeed that she has only one person with her who she might consider an 'Ally' - and even that under false pretenses.

But she could not live with herself if she did not at least try. She is startled for a moment when Domitia speaks those words, and sucks in a deep breath through her teeth, enough to make her chest swell up like an agitated cucco.

"NO!" Elly van Houten, Perfectly Ordinary Mercenary Witch, shouts.

"You blasphemer!" she calls out, pointing out with one hand.

"You command vengeance instead of mercy, and you claim the Goddess as your guide!" Elly reaches up to throw back her hood with a flourish because it kind of seems like the right thing to do, shaking out red hair stained with strawberry streaks due to an unfortunate encounter with digestive slime. Her pointing hand twists.

come on come on come on come on come on come on, Elly thinks as she tries to trace the line of Ether in the sky itself. The clouds are there, but they aren't cooperating. It doesn't have to be much, she tells herself, just - yes - there -

Lightning lances downwards, smashing into -- not the Sister, but the ground several yards away from her! The thunder is horrible, but, Elly exults to herself for a moment: I managed to miss her, on purpose!

"Repent!" Elly cries out. "Stop this! Take their surrender!"

GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Neriah Parringer with Please... I'm serious.!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has entered a Reflect stance!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
DC: You switch forms to Neriah Unbound!
DC: Neriah Parringer switches forms to Neriah Unbound!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Neriah Parringer with Please... I'm serious.!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has entered a Reflect stance!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
GS: Neriah Parringer critically Guards a hit from Elhaym van Houten's Please... I'm serious. for 24 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    Ethius believes the situation in Rolance is almost as stable as it's going to get in the short term. He has been denied crucial access to information necessary to consider the situation truly contained, but there's that stopgap there while he deals with the other half of the equation - Hyland's backers. To this end, he's already moved in ahead of the advancing Rolance armies, skulking about the local environs with keen observation. Hyland is weak, bedraggled, and on the ropes. This day could spell the end of their ambitions.
     Ethius does not like the idea of playing as strong a hand in the final outcome as he appears to have, but understands the scope of what it is that bothers him so has rendered this a near-inevitability. So long as certain elements are there... his eyes narrow at the standard of the Oasis Free Company. He does catch flashes of well-maintained ARMs. This could be his chance to put a stop to it once and for all. It has to start with the stockpiles, once he can identify where they are. (The level of disorganization among the remaining Hyland forces makes this a challenge.)
     Over yonder, Rolance prepares to attack. This provides a generous window of opportunity to move in during the confusion and desperation. Everything is falling into place, at last. Once he can make one final precise incision within the camps of Hyland, he can allow the rest to play out as they will and return to the CaraKin. He expects they have been good about heeding his advice and moving solely to locate a means back.
     He has not heard the news.
     Words that will echo through history are spoken. A woman's voice, commanding, even from this improbable distance to hear them...
     'Kill them all. Althena will know Her own.'
     A terrible chill runs through him. The idea of a massacre itself does not give Ethius pause. How many of them has he participated in? Even as early as when he first met Jay and Riesenlied, he moved to murder bandits who surrendered. This is a man of hands so deeply bloodstained as to be up to his elbows, maybe even shoulders, in it. No, deep in his very soul, sensations and feelings that he continues to not have words for other than that they feel wrong and incompatible with human comprehension...
     ...
     No, he mouths. It's not what's being said...
     It is who is saying them. The sensation is unmistakable. It can be no one else.
     Rolance aggresses. Ethius moves in the opposite direction with the comfort and certainty of someone who might believe themselves nearly intangible, detached from the very world and what is happening around him. The idea should root him in fear, but it does not, because it can not. Something compels him that he must, as he deftly weaves outside of the perceptions and lines of sight of the Rolance forces. The strange hooded man emerges from the dust clouds of the war horses...
     Flinging a Powder Grenade towards where the Sister stands, obscuring her from sight. An attempt to rob her of sight and sound alike, as she is already being accosted by conscientious objectors to her very means and methods. He will be efficient. He will be expedient. He will be thorough.
     It starts at lunging at her from behind with his quarterstaff, to try and run her through as though it could be as sharp as a spear - just as he's tried before. There are no words of protest or convincing - just pure, unadultered, straight-up assassination attempt as though it were his sure, and only bet, because he must.
     It will do the job.

GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Neriah Parringer with This Never Actually Works!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
GS: Neriah Parringer guards a hit from Ethius Hesiod's This Never Actually Works for 0 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.

 
Once the litanies run out, there is needle and thread.
 
Rebecca Streisand guides a thread through a wound, as the soldier's wrist spasms. Giving him a critical look and hissing, "Stay still."
 
She wasn't a real medic. She couldn't do anything for those that lay tortured and dying. She never even grew up on prayer, so she can't offer that.
 
 This is all she can offer. Something minor. Something real. It's not much - but it's what she's got.
 
Looping it around, she finishes tying her sutures on the long gash. It's the worst wound she's ever worked on, worse than anything Dean has ever inflicted upon himself. She should feel pride for it.
 
Instead there's sudden chaos in the camp as news of Rolance's forces-
 
She watches the woman she just stitched get up, flex her arm, then start to hastily put a Hauberk back on. "Are you kidding me!? You can't go back out there - you'll open that right back up!" "... I can still hold a spear Miss."
 
Rebecca gapes as she watches her leave for the front lines. Rebecca lifts up her little sewing kit and her pack and start to march in the opposite direction of the coming forces. "It's not my problem. It's not my problem..."
 
Rebecca sees the dying soldiers. "Noootttt my problem." She repeats, trying not to look as she walks away. Then she notices Kaguya rallying the troops, and Rebecca smothers a hand over her face, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?"
 
What is Dean's Friend doing here?
 
-=-=-
 
"Gosh - dangit Rebecca Stark!" She mutters to herself as she holds up her ARM, as if this were a dumb thing that threatened the future where her last name would become Stark.
 
And it is a dumb thing - driven home by the charging boar made of rock that size and... and... "Talia?" Rebecca mouths, before drawing and pointing her Revolver in her direction rather than at the monster, "Don't you dare come this way! I'm not gonna let you run roughshod over these people!"
 
When you point a gun at someone. They have the right to shoot back.
 
And this is war.
 
All the same. Her first two shots aren't for Talia. Instead she abruptly aims it at the boar that's charging.
 
A one two at the legs of rock. Maybe she's hoping to hobble it mid-charge.
 

GS: Rebecca Streisand has attacked Talia with Pizzicato Pistol - Round Beat!
GS: Rebecca Streisand has completed her action.
GS: Rebecca Streisand has attacked Talia with Pizzicato Pistol - Round Beat!
GS: Rebecca Streisand has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.

Matilda has taken time to shore up Oasis -- and Hyland's -- position as best she can, with the latitude and agility afforded a lone skilled operator. She's subcontracted the gathering of medical reagents; she's even hired a few more people to escort the Free Company -- not full-time mercenaries, simply bodies to cover the retreat.

To her, the value proposition is simple: the reason she started Oasis, the *only* reason that really matters to her, is to prevent Filgaian Drifters and defeated unattached Lunarian mercenaries from turning to pillage. She'd damn well better take care of them.

This battlefield is... threat-rich, to say the least; when Kaguya tells her to take command, she closes her eyes for a moment, takes a deep breath, and... listens to her as she addresses the soldiers of Hyland -- and in the meanwhile, starts addressing their own.

Her address is not nearly as forceful -- not one to rally the troops, but one to execute a plan. "All right!" she calls. "Oasis! Close-quarters battle teams -- pikes, swords, revolvers -- form up with the Hyland soldiers nearest Lady Kaguya! Muskets and longarms, support Hyland's flank!" She goes over the plan in her head one last time. "Subcontracts -- I need you to be where we can't be! Use the signal grenades I've provided if I need to know something!"

Matilda takes a deep breath as people begin to scatter, and --

TOOOOOT

-- spots Katherine Weaver. Almost instantly, her calculus of how to engage *personally* changes; she moves toward Katherine with all due haste, and hears her calling out to Talia... who is...

... on the other side. Thanks to Katherine, Matilda has some idea of why all this is -- why Talia left, why things are the way they are. And yet -- to actually see Katherine *here*, interceding directly...

Readying her shield, Matilda looks to Talia, with a bit of a grimace. Matilda moves up toward that charging boar, drawing her hold-out pistol and firing at it, much as Rebecca does, trying to slow the charge.

She doesn't say anything to Talia just yet; she's... actually most inclined to let Katherine handle the talking here, really. She knows Talia, and even likes her -- but Katherine's handle on the situation well outstrips hers.

GS: Matilda Whitehead has attacked Talia with Simple Pistol!
GS: Matilda Whitehead has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

Lydia Seren, it could be said, doesn't really know Talia all that well what with her putting up something of a winkyface facade while Lydia tends to turn inward regarding herself and isn't exactly the most empathic of individuals. But it could also be said that she knows one important thing: She may be willing to kill a lot of people but that doesn't mean that's what's good for her.

Lydia has frankly been swapping sides a fair bit in this war. She even fed weapons to both sides to capitalize on gunsmoke arms being the HOT NEW THING. She's had a scheme in mind for all this, so perhaps she isn't so different from the other schemers behind the war, but she is fairly certain that her own scheme is more modest and more reasonable than whatever Lubov is up to and the fact that they're aiming to an eliminate soldiers that have already surrendered, well.

She grimaces. Kaguya intends to either get her entire team killed--Kaguya might be fine, but numbers can only do so much--or fight to the end here. That's about what Lydia expected would happen and that's just fine with Lydia, because Lydia intends to make the most of that and push these people back and convince 'em peace is the best option and save Talia before she fades into shadow once more.

Lydia has brought her own lieutenants with her. Tadpole and Amber wait by her side as she crouches by Katherine, she looks up towards her new friend (largely friends THANKS to Talia trying to murder someone but that's ok) and she says, "Couldn't imagine the war helped," Lydia murmurs. "But someone's clearly trying to make the bodies pile up for its own sake."

Katherine calls attention to their position and Lydia says, "Time for our plan. Tadpole, Amber, disable only."

She then waves in a cheery manner towards Talia and walks towards her with a big cheesy grin on her face.

"Heey Talia, weren't you with Hyland last time? Are you gonna off Kaguya too? Might be difficult, she's on like SO MANY DRUGS, Talia."

And with that she summons a large rock into her hand and flings it at the boar.

"Oh no! I hit your ultimate weapon with a rock! I bet it's not going to like that!" She'll throw another one if it didn't work until it finally decides what it wants to eat.

GS: Lydia Seren has attacked Talia with Asteroid Ball!
GS: Lydia Seren has completed her action.
GS: Talia guards a hit from Rebecca Streisand's Pizzicato Pistol - Round Beat for 70 hit points!
GS: Disrupt! Statuses applied to Talia!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Jacqueline didn't want to be here. She shouldn't be here. She was a merchant, not a soldier. A civilian. But...she had to be here. She had been on the way back to Pendrago to take a ship back to Meribus when someone approached her.

A former citizen of Lastonbell. They had been there and seen everything. And yet, with the information they had...they couldn't abide a massacre. They, however, were powerless to do anything about it...but they knew she had a tendency to intervene.

...Well, after their heartfelt request, it was difficult to say 'no'. She hasn't told anyone else about this. If anyone suffered from this madness, it would be her alone. She dressed herself in a plain, brown hooded coat over her armor.

And so, she showed up with an unlabeled wagon and some unlabeled crates of supplies. It wasn't enough for everyone, but it was enough to treat some of the most injured soldiers and get them loaded up and ready to be transported to a safer location. ...And then she hears Sister Domitia's demand. A call for wholesale slaughter.

Jacqueline exhales. She knew this would take a while, but she hoped that they would have enough time. ...There was never enough time. She quickly turns back to the others helping with the evacuation process.

"Please, hurry...I don't think we have much more time." She urges, preparing herself to get ready to ward off a long-range assault.

She didn't want to fight, but she could very well try to stop people from dying.

GS: Talia guards a hit from Matilda Whitehead's Simple Pistol for 58 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Ida first caught sight of the retreating Hyland army when she was headed out of Emrys Mire. It wasn't long after that she sighted Rolance's army, freshly-reinforced and on the warpath. It doesn't take much imagination to figure out what they're up to. Ida turned around spurred Grey Lady onwards, fighting down the bile as it tried to surge up her throat. It wasn't long ago that her Mannikins were shooting at those same soldiers, killing them at her behest. She might not be able to change things, but she--

    She has to try.

    NOW

    Ida, like Rebecca, has been playing medic. In her case, she's been distributing fresh bandages and pain-killing gels to those in need, never lingering in one place for too long. It's easy to spot the grey cloak in the sea of Hyland uniforms. It's easier still for the woman wearing it to spot the terrible figure at the head of Rolance's troops, that priest who has sent chills down Ida's spine every time she's seen her.

    Sister Domitia reveals her true colors. Ida's lips twist. Fine, she thinks, and the thought is edged with mania. If she has to punch a heathen priest, she will punch a--

    Lightning surges from the sky. Kaguya shouts defiance. Ida's focus lands on something else, in the front lines, a flash of earthen energy and a creature that very definitely does not belong. She recognizes the woman next to it. Ida rises, twists on a heel, and charges the Hyland lines in what looks for all the worlds like a suicidal gesture. As the Oasis Free company's elite engage Talia and her beast, Ida weaves her way through the nearby Rolance lines, suddenly reappearing to Talia's left. She thrusts a hand forward, aiming for the small of Talia's back with an open palm strike!

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Talia with Open Palm!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.

She waits. Appearances are important for something like this. She waits. Letting the girl in red step forth alone for a long few moments, waiting in the Hyland line. She fought against these men, once. Now she does as is her profession, quietly ministering. It isn't much - she isn't a healer or a sage nor even a priestess of their Goddess, but it turns out the gentle words are similar from faith to faith, when men near the point of weeping.

But she keeps her eye on the figures marching off to battle...and as the panic spreads, she stands, and gives a confident grin to the men she had been with, and then bounds into the sky on a small cyclone, bulleting into the air, wind curling behind her passage like the rifling of a gun.

She sweps down from the sky and touches down behind Elly. She doesn't attack. She merely stands, present, a quiet warning.

This woman helped turn the battle for Rolance in a previous battle. Now, quietly, her small quarter-cape fluttering in a low breeze, she pulls at her ARM. Making it ready.

Staring across the field with silent intent.

She doesn't even blink at Ethius' rushing attempted assassination. Seems prudent. ...not sure it'll work though.

GS: Talia guards a hit from Lydia Seren's Asteroid Ball for 91 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Elvis has posed.

After a return trip to the temporary base from exploring the local area, Elvis finds that, despite their misgivings for their jury-rigged radio array, it has picked up a message. No one else was around, though the couch was still warm. That Kalve fellow might have been here recently. He actually got up.

"What's this then?" he says, tuning in. Huh. Veruni encoded. Interesting. Not Ambrosius. So others were stranded here as well. "Hrn, better investigate," Sentinel Elvis grunts, writing down the coordinates before heading out of the Haunt.

That place did feel haunted, Guh.

---

A titan of a man crests the dilapidated army of Hyland, drawing comments and eyes. "Settle down. I'm here for a reason!" He scans the nearby members, and points on particularly decent looking one-- cause wow, everyone seems in heavy disarray. What happened. "You there! I am looking for a Miss Kaguya. My presence was requested. Send word to her, a Sentinel has answered her call."

These men are in no shape to fight. He judges they were either cut off from the whole and lost supply, or those remained after a terrible loss. Perhaps both.

Though while waiting, an opposing army arrives, as though a hunter descending on their quarry. Their leaders announce to kill everyone present. "Really... again with being in a bad spot at a bad time..." The Professor just... goes ahead and starts wrapping his hands. This one isn't gonna end without a fight.

Ahead of the waylayed men marches a woman, one who gets the attention of Elvis. She wears something very familiar under her finery. "Thats her," he comments, running to catch up for a moment.

"Hey!" he shouts on an approach to Kaguya. "Got your beacon from the temporary base. I take it these folk are going to cause trouble?" he asks, not expecting any answer short of 'hell yes they are going to kill us if we don't hit them'.

"I'll help however I can. Their leaders don't seem like pushovers. Fight well," he says with a nod to the lady. With that, he looks to the woman descending from her mount. Domitia seems imperious, and despite her General's call of hesitation on going through with an act of genocide, gives the order to push forward. "You are going to make more enemies than people on this field this day," the Sentinel comments. "Killing those unable to defend themselves is considered murder in some places. Won't put you in a good spotlight."

DC: Elvis switches forms to THE PROFESSOR!
GS: Talia critically Guards a hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Open Palm for 21 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Tesni Inoue has posed.

Tesni Inoue should not be here herself for a large number of reasons, she digs up old things for one, she maybe hunts and learns about other people's cultures and the like. Getting involved in something like this was pretty crazy, right? She has other reasons she can not tell her friend,s she'd be ricking her neck going home for meddling like this, yet? Given ARMs have trickled into this world it could be argued she's trying to mitigate some of the contamination.

 Hearing the call for mass murder? She now is cemented in making the right call she has medical experience on some level and has the Deadman's ARM. It's time to fully uses this, several dark times of her own people come back to her the Third World war most notably against the Swiss Empire. She shudders internally at that. She'll move to cover Jacqueline with her efforts.

 "This is insane."

 She readies the Deadman's ARM has rounds chambered and she's going to darn well fight.

 Another old phrase a very old one that had become thing burned into the soul of the Terran people. Kill them all God will know his own. That is what's happening here... Even Ethius being here is noticed and for once she's very glad to have him around.

<Pose Tracker> Ashes has posed.

'Misfits, piss off out of our way!' It's a solid order. Ashes can work with it. She's a professional.

She's not a professional, she's a magic student. Her dad was a professional. That's an army up the hill there, lead by a Sister of Althena, and backed by a beast of the earth. She's a little girl with a little knife.

Little girls with little knives aren't much use against big soldiers with big shields, but should a soft target present itself...

Ah. Aha.

Hahaha.

No. Domitia is not a soft target. This is plain, she's engaged by half a dozen already.

The shot is beautiful, though; she won't get another like it. She raises her little knife, and says a little word to it, and waits for Ethius to pass, and then lets it fly~

It flies, like an arrow, a thready shadow tracing its path, straight for Domitia's back.

No matter how sublime the sorceress, a knife between the shoulderblades should cramp her style.

GS: Ashes has attacked Neriah Parringer with Det-ata Imi-sa!
GS: Ashes has completed her action.
GS: Neriah Parringer guards a hit from Ashes's Det-ata Imi-sa for 27 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

Talia's red eyes catch sight of Kaguya, striding into a battlefield. Unlike the other Rolance soldiers, she has an inkling of what she is; of how powerful she is. Her mouth hardens into a line as she strides forward, and her hand grips Mirage's hilt tightly. Her knuckles whiten while she does so. She feels a flash of hesitation.

In a way, it might be ironic that Rebecca Streisand telling her to not come this way snaps her out of it. Her head turns, and she glares at her. "It isn't anything personal. This is what I am paid to do! This is who I am!"

The gunshot slams into the Earthrager. Optat Aprum's immense body takes the shot, the round slamming into the flesh, and sinks in. Then, Matilda's shot rings out -- and sinks in, too. Talia spots her; her teeth grit for a moment. "Matilda! You should have had the good sense to flee!"

A ball of rock slams down into the boar, a moment later. Talia whirls around, her head spinning, as she draws in a gasp. "Lydia..." She narrows her eyes; a glance at the Earthrager confirms that the monster is walking through the damage.

That thick, stone-encrusted skin does wonders.

"...I told you, you should forget you ever met me," she says. "I fought for who I... who I'm told to. I--"

She sees Ida coming at the last moment, and she spins in time to catch the palm of her hand on her forearm. She slams upward, with her forearm, and keeps the blow from connecting. Then, she slashes her blade up quickly across Ida's midsection -- and tries to kick her away. "I see you didn't LEARN YOUR LESSON!"

She screams the words at Ida.

And then a party popper bursts over the battlefield, bright lights and cheery noise exploding out over an otherwise grim scene. Talia's expression shifts, slowly, into one of muted and then outright confusion. Her eyes blink, a couple of times, with a lack of comprehension -- and then she hears a voice call out. She knows that voice; she rather likes that voice, even if she hates to admit even that right now.

But, then, her eyes narrow. Her expression hardens, when she musters the will to do so.

"Miss Weaver..."

Talia's eyes close, for a split second. "...I told you, too. You should have forgotten me. I don't have room for regrets... or for mercy!" she yells. She throws a hand out into the air. A pair of long ice spikes appear -- and then one shoots out for Lydia and a second for Katherine. Her eyes narrow, but there is a wildness and desperation there that wasn't before. In this battle, the spears of ice are bladed. "Freeze Lancer!"

The Earthrager comes to a stop. It was slowed by the shots from before. Its hooves beat into the ground; once, then twice, and then it snorts. Raw elemental power explodes off it, and the ground quakes. Underneath Matilda and Rebecca, huge blades of stone rip from the earth and try to stab at them. Then, it lows its head, and it bellows out a massive cry that shakes the earth.

And then its footfalls do the same. It charges towards the Oasis Free Company's and Hyland's lines, towards those rushing soldiers. Hot steam bursts from its nostrils, as it lowers tusks -- and long, jagged spikes of blood red crystal that seem to tear from under the flesh.

The center of its charge is Kaguya.

GS: Talia has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Mirage Slasher!
GS: Talia has attacked Lydia Seren with Freeze Lancer!
GS: Talia has attacked Seraph Amaranth with Freeze Lancer!
GS: Talia has attacked Rebecca Streisand with Grave!
GS: Talia has attacked Matilda Whitehead with Grave!
GS: Talia has attacked Kaguya with Earth Rush!
GS: Talia has completed her action.
GS: Seraph Amaranth takes a glancing hit from Talia's Freeze Lancer for 187 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

A familiar figure can be seen moving among the troops. Jay. Behind Sister Domitia's hood, a black heart quails a little. She'll have to get down there personally to ensure none of her minions kill Jay.

Sister Domitia doesn't break stride. Moving forward from among the troops, she moves in an open spot near the front of the lines, ready to lead and ensure her orders are followed.

But someone calls out and issues her defiance. Elly van Houten.

Lightning bores itself into the ground. Thunderous blasts hurl up clods of mud and rock. Some of it showers across Domitia. The Sister slows and looks up towards the redhead. "...Blasphemy?" she asks, her tone curious but with a chilly edge. "And what do you know of the will of the Goddess? You do not even call this star your home. And yet...."

She can see figures familiar and unfamiliar moving across the field. Elvis - a foe she's met before. Tabitha, one she has not, but can recognize as someone of station. Tesni, another she recognizes mainly as a face. "...So you have chosen the side of Hyland, then," Domitia murmurs. Her expression is hard to read with that hood shadow concealing her eyes.

A powder grenade goes off. Dust billows up and momentarily obscures Sister Domitia from view. And straight through it all comes Ethius Hesiod. His quarterstaff makes contact with something with a "thunk."

The smoke billows. It thins out enough for the others to see what's taken place.

Ethius's quarterstaff has slammed into a field of some kind that has pulsed to life around Sister Domitia - a round sphere flickering with insanely complex and logic-defying eldritch patterns of spectral energy. It is a recognizable spell. What is most apparent, though, is that Sister Domitia didn't even turn to look at him.

"Keep trying," Domitia says. "Someday you might get it."

A second later, a knife comes spiralling into her field. It whistles past Ethius and embeds itself in the shield, slicing through just enough to glance off of Domitia's shoulder. The priestess frowns.

"Ethius, did you bring friends," she asks.

"A shame for them. More bodies for the pyre."

Closing her eyes for a moment, Sister Domitia touches her thumbs and her index and middle fingers together around solar plexus level and focuses her energy. A couple of beats pass.

                       And the world begins to tremble.
          [ BGM SHIFT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-Jhf4Mj6wM ]

The power building in the air is horrific. It weighs on the spirit like something trying to pour fear into all around it. And yet it's also palpable. Arcs of ghostly white electricity race across Sister Domitia as that power builds and builds. Chunks of turf tear themselves out of the ground and begin to float up around her. Getting close to her will take a Herculean effort. That ghostly electricity jags and peaks, building and building. Lunar itself seems to shudder and quake in growing horror as the land itself recoils at the sheer obscenity of the power being drawn upon.

That spectral lightning arcs down Domitia's arm as she levels her hand forward. She lets the energy well towards her palm. "See the light of Althena and begone," she utters, her voice echoing.

What shoots forth is no spell of abjuration. Domitia's spell bursts from her hand in a vast wave of ghostly lightning. Thunderbolts screech across the field with blistering power, seeking to punch through Elly, through Tabitha, through Elvis and Tesni and Ashes. Another even arcs around to strike at Ethius.

Only one person in Domitia's field is spared, and her name is Jay Barber.


MISSION OBJECTIVES

    [ ] Hold off [Sister Domitia] for five rounds.
    [ ] Buy time for the [Army of Hyland] to escape.
    [ ] Survive.


GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Deus Suos Agnoscet!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Deus Suos Agnoscet!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Tabitha deVriese with Deus Suos Agnoscet!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Elvis with Deus Suos Agnoscet!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Ashes with Deus Suos Agnoscet!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Tesni Inoue with Deus Suos Agnoscet!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Jacqueline Barber with ...But Jay Was Spared...!
DC: 1 turn has elapsed in the battle against Neriah Parringer! 4 turns remain!
GS: Rebecca Streisand takes a glancing hit from Talia's Grave for 80 hit points!
GS: Kaguya takes a solid hit from Talia's Earth Rush for 164 hit points!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a glancing hit from Talia's Mirage Slasher for 66 hit points!
GS: Matilda Whitehead takes a solid hit from Talia's Grave for 173 hit points!
DC: MISS! Ethius Hesiod completely evades Deus Suos Agnoscet from Neriah Parringer!
GS: Elhaym van Houten critically Guards a hit from Neriah Parringer's Deus Suos Agnoscet for 28 hit points!
GS: Tesni Inoue guards a hit from Neriah Parringer's Deus Suos Agnoscet for 90 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Ashes takes a solid hit from Neriah Parringer's Deus Suos Agnoscet for 210 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Ashes!
GS: Jacqueline Barber takes a solid hit from Neriah Parringer's ...But Jay Was Spared... for 0 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Elvis guards a hit from Neriah Parringer's Deus Suos Agnoscet for 107 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Elvis!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.

    There's more people set on Talia than Katherine Weaver would expect! Some of them Katherine even knows, like that sweetie Matilda who she made the dress for! Then again, they did discuss at not great length about what she wanted to do to help Talia's situation out, though... given both Matilda and that Kaguya girl's hollering, it sounds like they're there for the Hyland army. Huh.

    There's a weak tremble that breaks into laughter as Katherine has to let go of her bright lights and illusions-- which work great!

    The ice spikes coming her way are LESS GREAT, because Katherine kind of just huddles downwards in a defensive posture some call the Charisma Break. It's not terribly great, because one jabs her directly on the shoulder and springs it back towards a nearby tree and has her fumbling onto her side. "Ow, ow, ow...!"

    "Well, we got her attention!" Katherine exclaims. "Amber, Tadpole, let me--"

    She waves her hands again and does a little twirl, and then--
                                                                               
                                     they
                                      get
                                   fabulous!

    --as the Seraph conjures glimmering armour with all kinds of bells and whistles around their form; it's kind of incredibly distracting but at least it'll afford them with some kind of protection.

    "Sorry, Talia. I can't just forget," she exclaims as she comes down from that spell. "Between us..." she lowers her head, manic excitement dying down for a bit.

    "I'll save one of our souls."

GS: Seraph Amaranth has attacked Lydia Seren with Angelic Pretty!
GS: Seraph Amaranth has entered a Reflect stance!
GS: Seraph Amaranth has completed her action.
GS: Tabitha deVriese takes a solid hit from Neriah Parringer's Deus Suos Agnoscet for 149 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

Elvis--Sentinel Elvis shows up, and the first Kaguya spots of him is when he shouts to her. Her beacon--

There are more Veruni here. She looks in some surprise for an instant, and then actually grins. "Lots of trouble. They're gonna kill everybody unless we can get the wounded moving!"

He says he'll help--not take over, help. So Kaguya nods sharply back. "You got it, Professor. We'll talk later!"

It's a confidence booster, and every bit of morale counts. ...Kaguya meanwhile glances into one of her knives to see what's happening behind her, then ahead. ...She's being followed. The soldiers of Hyland include those who are willing to make this stand now. So...

"Soldiers!" Kaguya calls back to her lines, "We're going to hold these jackasses off so that the wounded can get out! You," she points out a set, "defend the way out! You," she calls to another, "Their flank is opening! And you," to those behind, "...Stick with me. It's gonna get bloody."

This is when she feels the horror coming, the aura of power nearby. It does not seem much like light to her. She looks towards them--

"...Good luck guys," she murmurs. Then louder--

"Don't be afraid! We die anyway if we don't punch through, there's nothing to worry about!" A beat, "So let's MOVE!"

Kaguya starts faster, suddenly, a small target suddenly made even smaller. And now, only now does she look at Talia, identify her. ...She can tell humans apart better than they think. And here--

"And to think," Kaguya says, "I encouraged Lydie to go for you." She glares once--but ah, there's the creature charging. Kaguya levels her gaze at the Earthrager, and it comes. "Spread!" she shouts to the soldiers behind her, and the monster hits her dead on, picking her up bodily and carrying her back with a long, jagged, impact...

But Kaguya, as tiny as she is, is between the tusks rather than impaled, bloodied by the tusks, bones rattled by impact--

"IT TAKES MORE THAN THAT!" she screams, more for the soldiers' benefit than anything, and rolls forward, digging out her knives and aiming to use her superior strength to burst through the skin and find blood beneath in passing, leaping off after and turning towards it again.

"Come on! I can taste it!"

GS: Kaguya has attacked Talia with Flowing Advance!
GS: Kaguya has completed her action.
GS: Lydia Seren guards a hit from Talia's Freeze Lancer for 103 hit points!
GS: Seraph Amaranth heals Lydia Seren! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
GS: Talia guards a hit from Kaguya's Flowing Advance for 105 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.

 
"Don't tell me this isn't personal!" Rebecca shouts back. "If massacring wounded and dying soldiers isn't personal then I don't know what to do with you!"
 
The Earthrager stops - and Rebecca keeps her ARM pointed at it. Which is when she feels the ground moving under her. Vaulting at the last second, she's somersaulting out of the way just as a massive spike of Earth grazes past her calf, raising up a wound she'll have to patch up herself later.
 
Landing on the ground she finds herself facing the Professor and - "What is this guy doing here!?" Suddenly taken aback, "Don't tell me you followed us all the way here for that mirror!"
 
She has bigger concerns though. For example the Earthrager, and so she breaks into a run rather than wait for an answer. Firing off a quick shot at the Earthrager's head from an angle. Which at the angle she firesricochets off to send the bullet spinning towards Talia. Assuming it hits her she'd discover something that might be astonishing.
 
It hits with blunt force.
 
Rebecca is using rubber bullets even now. Then again a girl not from Filgaia might not recognize that.
 
"Oh yeah? Your pockets have room for dirty money but not regrets or mercy? You know what - I don't know why I'm bothering!"
 
She does know why she's bothering. The answer is Dean Stark of course.
 
Kaguya is charging in at the Earthrager though and Rebecca sweatdrops at the bloodcrazed Veruni, before her eyes drift over to Talia, "'sides whatever they're paying you? Can't be enough if you're considering going through her."
 

GS: Rebecca Streisand has attacked Talia with Pizzicato Pistol - Quick Repeater!
GS: Rebecca Streisand has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Ida twists with Talia's counter, allowing the other woman to roll her arm upwards and out of the way. Her shoulder groans in protest as the swordswoman almost wrenches the limb in a painful direction, but that's not the main threat--the main threat is Mirage, slashing at her midsection with lightning speed. Ida's last fight with Talia illustrated just how good the assassin was with a blade. It burned lessons into Ida's muscle memory with blood and pain. The former Hellion twists on a heel, spinning out of the way mere moments before Talia opens her stomach up. Instead, Mirage's edge glances off her side, drawing a line of blood but missing that fatal strike.

    "Oh," Ida says. Talia might have screamed at her, but she seems to be much more well-composed--certainly not the arrogant presence Talia fought last time. There isn't even a trace of Malevolence about her. The too-thin, scholarly woman standing before her is precisely that. "I learned. I learned more than you might think."

    Ida steps back and around, circling Talia--this might be incidentally advantageous for the others, but at the moment, Ida hasn't done much more than size them up and identify 'Lydia', 'Matilda', 'Kaguya, who is probably reliable as long as Matilda stays up, and also possibly the strongest one here', and 'A civilian'. She strikes with knife-hands instead of punches, chopping at Talia's neck, back, sword-arm. "Who sent you to murder these soldiers?"

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    "Ngh!" Even contact with that defensive field by proxy is nerve-wrackingly jarring and painful, as the stoic stalwart's stride is broken. He falls back three steps into a kneel, a hand to his forehead as he grapples with the power that pulses just from the defensive sphere. The sensation is tough to put into words. (This conveniently is a great opening to allow that knife to fly overhead.)
     Did he bring friends? That word has a loaded meaning. He certainly would recognize them, if he cared to look around him. It was because of 'friends' that he survived against her in the attempt to cross the Altered Galaxy to reach the Rigdobrite statue. Would he turn his back to them now?
     "You will not involve anyone else." Ethius gets out those words in that near-deadpan, which is a difficult feat. Would he turn away their help? What compels him to make this between them? What can he hope to do? This question is worth revisiting again moments later when bad things fill the space. The power is beyond any of them, full stop. Ethius cringes from under the bandanna that obscures the lower half of his face, but he does not face away as the white electricity dances and arcs out. His feet feel rooted to the ground, like he was to stand there and offer himself to--
     No. He lunges forward again, just narrowly missing complete disintegration. He swats aside big chunks of turf - even one that was otherwise on a crash course for his skull. He has no time for further concussions.
     That wasn't even an aimed bolt he avoided, as 'Domitia' turns their palm upon him. He has to take the wide way around to avoid the arcing electricity, and even then he only ever seems to be a quarter-step ahead of the explosive lightning. It may be less a testament to any skill or intuition, and more that he could well just be being toyed with. She could strike him down at any time, and he knows it.
     Why does he yet still fight against something like this?
     "I will not allow you to appropriate their faith," he manages to still speak as he dares maneuver back into striking range. His fighting technique is not at all something easy to overturn - his movements are deft, swinging low, high, spinning it once in his hands in a defensive maneuver as though it could ever catch a return blow before going for another lunging strike at about the midsection.
     Keep trying, she 'encouraged.' He keeps trying.
     Why? What compels him? The emotional and spiritual trauma of being this close to the epicenter should sap the will out of anyone who dares come this close, but there he is... trying.
     And yet...

GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Neriah Parringer with Trying Is Not The Same As Accomplishing!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Talia with Relentless Combination!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Neriah Parringer guards a hit from Ethius Hesiod's Trying Is Not The Same As Accomplishing for 0 hit
points!
GS: Jam! Statuses applied to Neriah Parringer!
<Pose Tracker> Mihaya has posed.

 Initially, Mihaya wasn't really planning to do much in the way of serious fighting here. There were opportunities to grab interesting pieces of equipment in the chaos of the fighting, and as she was technically supposed to be working for Rolance... well, Hyland had started this fight? Why worry about how badly they were going to get banged up? Especially when she had her own mission to address?
 
 Except...
 
 Except this wasn't right!
 
 Mihaya had remained paralyzed from the initial shock of the fighting. People had turned on the Sister who was commanding Hyland's army, and suddenly everything was INCREDIBLY CONFUSING. The elven symbologist was not supposed to allow herself to stand out too much. Get the samples she was looking for. But there is something terrible about that woman, and Mihaya narrows her eyes for a moment as she wraps her hands around her staff. "No, this... this isn't the sort of thing I can support. You know that. It's the sort of thing that we came here to fight against. Even here... evil is still evil."
 
 The dark lightning twisting around the strange sister is unusual enough, and as soon as its unleashed on the people who had been helping Rolance's armies, only to then oppose the potential massacre Mihaya acts. She raises her staff for a moment, the tattoos across her arms glowing brilliantly as she channels energy through her being and into the crystal set atop her staff. A moment later the staff comes down, and a pillar of flame spirals across the ground to slam into Domita.
 
 It's not a strong attack. It may well go unnoticed among all of the other attacks being thrown towards the wicked sister. But Mihaya clenches her teeth, and hisses something in an unknown language for a moment. Then:
 
 "Begone you fiend!"

GS: Mihaya has attacked Neriah Parringer with Fire Ignition!
GS: Mihaya has completed her action.
GS: Neriah Parringer critically Guards a hit from Mihaya's Fire Ignition for 19 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    A gut-wrenchingly familiar power washes across the battlefield. Ida chokes down the bile again, glances at Matilda, and--remarkably--gives a helpful explanation. "Valmar. One of Valmar's dogs is here!"

GS: Talia guards a hit from Rebecca Streisand's Pizzicato Pistol - Quick Repeater for 84 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Tesni Inoue has posed.

There is a sense of fear here, she knows the history of her own Religion is has been at places like this. She does not hear the Sister's comment over the sounds of battle, she's not carrying a Bow, no she's carrying an ARM of some sort and it's a fairly large one from the look of it. She hears what Domitia says to him something builds up inside.

 "You think that? The words you have spoken have been said before long ago. The Goddess weeps for the savagery done in her name."

 Tess has a look in her eyes hard as steel it's like this. She feels the wrath of the sister there is pain but she's still standing after and her ARM is ready.

 "Has your hatred left you blind to what you are doing?! "

 She pulls the trigger on her ARM and shots ring out from it as she tries to keep moving. She thinks of all the dark and bloody things done in the name of the God or Gods various of her people still worship to some level today? She keeps moving and fires again and keeps moving. She knows if they fall this woman will tear into the wounded like a fox in a hen house.

GS: Talia critically Guards a hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Relentless Combination for 26 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

 
The world seems to shatter as battle begins. Several people attempt to assassinate Domitia and despite her new-found allergy to outright murder, Elly van Houten can't rouse herself to cry out a denial. She has a path to walk, to set her own heart right: if they feel the need to kill this woman, then that may, ultimately, be their burden to bear.

Unfortunately, FOR ONCE, murder doesn't solve the problem. This is what she's talking about, peeps.

Tabitha moves and Elly's eyes flick to follow her for a moment. Then an instant later Domitia abjures them and Elly has to look straight back at her. She raises her hands up, clasping her palms together and pressing them forwards. Inside of her mind, shapes are formed, simple visuals: she had told Lily Kiel that the system was just paired binaries, mingled polarities, but that was like saying a computer has 'electrical switches inside of it'.

The lightning comes for her, a practical sheet. Elly 'feels' it in the Ether construction that is floating invisibly before her - and she spreads it! The electron flow parts in front of her like a wave, although it would take truly atrocious high-speed vision to see anything other than the lightning doing what she had tried to do to Domitia on purpose: Smash into the ground around her, buffeting her with the shocks, but not discharge INTO her!

As soil flies behind her, Elly cries out. "What I've heard about your Goddess isn't anything like this. Mercy! Charity! Fairness! These are the things I've heard preached! You have these people beaten and you just want to redden the brooks with their blood? Do you think that your spells justify your action!?"

That may be a logical leap, but Elly can't do more than cry out, "Leap at her!" This is probably a command or a suggestion, at least, to Tabitha, because Elly tilts her head forwards and strives.

It is not powerful enough to disturbs the cloud in the moon's sky. But the wind does strange things, going still over significant parts of the battlefield before starting to twirl gunsmoke in odd directions. The cyclonic pattern forms - gains strength - and then an invisible wave of pressure pours down from the sky, twisting and gaining form with the dust it passes. Aiming to press down with barometric intensity atop the Sister and her uprised stone!

Guess what leaping into the vortex does for you (spoiler: +2 to attempts to dive-kick). "Haahhh--!!"

GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Neriah Parringer with Etrenank Elegy!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
GS: Neriah Parringer critically Guards a hit from Elhaym van Houten's Etrenank Elegy for 22 hit points!
GS: Tesni Inoue has attacked Neriah Parringer with Rapid Fire!
GS: Tesni Inoue has completed her action.
GS: Neriah Parringer guards a hit from Tesni Inoue's Rapid Fire for 61 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

The world trembles as a great power begins to build. Jacqueline can feel it, even from here. It's like the world itself was shaking in fear. ...Even she can feel it within her, a sort of primal fear that she needs to force down. It's a power Jacqueline recognizes - the power of Valmar. That must mean Sister Domitia is...

...one of Neriah's people. But this level of power...she'd only felt it from Neriah herself. What did this mean...?

Well, she knew one thing it meant. Jacqueline turns back to the people who had been helping her load up the wagon.

"Please, keep hurrying! I'll be back shortly, I just need to...!" Jacqueline urges...then turns and moves in the direction of a familiar face.

"Miss Tesni, what are you doing here...!? This is too dangerous!" Jacqueline murmurs hypocritically, rummaging through her bags. She had been hoping not to involve more members of the Kinship than already had personal stake. ...But Tesni was already here. It was too late to back out. "...Well, here, take this!"

Jacqueline hurls the bottle toward Tesni - a bottle containing a potion designed to enhance the drinker's natural defenses.

GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Tesni Inoue with Shielding Salve!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Elvis has posed.

Elvis sighs, though one of exhaled readiness. "Well, better put on a show. Certainly," he nods to her, as the man has to brace for an incoming wave of energy that is immeasurable. A force both ancient and now-manifest, as though it was waiting for this moment all along. Or whatever moment that deemed it necessary to be used, it hasn't waned since prepared.

Everything trembles before the might of this magic, as if the entire heavenly body was ashamed or excited of its appearance. The waves of energy that tear out lash at the soul, and electrocutes the inside out. Elvis has little time to ready himself for the impact, and the teeth gritted are just bit a fragment of what he could express as far as displeasure goes.

But this hateful feeling is also one familiar. Quite familiar.

"One of you, eh?" And a familiar fellow plays a revealing gambit-- this one of their kind also employs a shield of some sort. They can be broken.

Elvis rushes the lead woman. "You shant take lives that still have much to accomplish. you set your your entire planet back advancement by doing so!" Those fists are bursting with energy, and with a jump, one comes careening downward, and will helm-split that shield, or a nice rift in the ground. Perhaps both if he puts enough in to it!

ALSO HE HEARD THAT REBECCA!

But currently fighting is afoot. He will have to seek her out after, see how the drifting kids are doing. They can be bothersome, but are rather interesting.

GS: Elvis has attacked Neriah Parringer with Dire Haymaker!
GS: Elvis has entered a Reflect stance!
GS: Elvis takes 6 damage from Poison!
GS: Elvis has completed his action.
GS: Neriah Parringer guards a hit from Elvis's Dire Haymaker for 88 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.

Matilda is expecting a charge, not magic -- in hindsight, the nature of the boar should've given her at least an inkling of what it could do, but... Well. The earth spikes up from underneath her, and pierces through her breastplate; the breastplate provides enough protection to at least *slow* it, but it's definitely not surviving the battle. Pity.

After hitting the earth with a dull thud, Matilda starts to pull herself slowly back up off the ground; she spits first -- good, she thinks; no blood -- then takes a deep breath in and tries to right her stance.

"Talia -- what are you *after* here? I know someone's holding your leash -- why *this* chain of contracts?!" she half-asks, half-begs, with a glance to Katherine again. Just what does Talia's backer *want*...? Ida gets her attention a moment later, and Matilda... blinks. "... What?! Why?! Fighting for -- *whom*?!"

There are too many plates to keep spinning at this point, so Matilda focuses down on the one that she cares most about -- which is, of course, Talia. She moves toward her former associate with some haste, and tries something simple: shouldering into close quarters right after Rebecca's shot, then grabbing her and spiking her into the ground. For good measure, she adds a stomp to the mix.

... This is probably more her speed, and safer, than engaging the boar.

GS: Matilda Whitehead has attacked Talia with Planting!
GS: Matilda Whitehead has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

WARNING WARNING WARNING LYDIA SARCASM WARNING WARNING WARNING

"Oh boy," Lydia says as the world trembles and Lunar shudders. "That sure feels like power we should appreciate and worship. A good decent power," She looks back over to Talia, "That we should certainly be working alongside." She tilts her head moments before the beast charges...but more on that in a minute! Right now, let's focus on this little drama fr a bit.

"Now Talia," Lydia says. "We've got a place for you in the kinship, nice benefits, excellent workin' buddies and more to the point you get to decide who y'kill or not kill. Good pay, less war fighting, more service to the community. I think you'd like it there. 'Sides, you said you'd consider it, and I don't think you considered it rightly enough."

Lydia was more expecting pain from the MONSTER than Lydia so she's caught off guard when an ice lances slams into her side. She grits her teeth and sinks to one knee.

"No room for mercy... You've been tryin' to protect us all this time... You want me to spit on that, Talia??"
5rShe stands herself back up, exhaling faintly as Amaranth casts her spell. She grimaces a bit as her uniform is transformed into the girliest silver skirt ever with a ribbony blouse with frills pops onto her frame, and long white gloves ripple around her hands. Yeah, it's pretty painful for her. There's even an actual bell around her neck (grimace).

"Besides..." Lydia says, pointing towards her. "I'm not just here for you..." She draws out a small flare gun into her hands and fires it into the air.

"Kinship!! Now!"

But first let's go back to Amber and Tadpole. Tadpole gets a blue themed snazzy cute outfit and a kero mascot hoodie and Amber now looks right at home on Filgaia with like feathers in her hair and frilly sleeves and the like. More to the point, their new outfits make them look a lot more snazzy than they would be on their own. THIS IS PART OF THE PLAN EVERYBODY. They look to Katherine and Amber says, "Hey, we'll do our best but...take care of yourself, Miss Weaver. World is short of kind souls."

And with that Amber dives into the fray to protect the Hyland soldiers and fires out her shrink ray at the beast to try and weaken it, her falcon diving at the creature's eyes to also try and slow it down. It might not stop it, but every moment slowing it down means another moment that Hyland soldiers get to flee.

But not all of them. Mercenaries embedded within the Hyland army suddenly dart forward to assist with Amber, raising up shields or launching attacks with their own gunsmoke arms generously provided by the Caravan Kinship by which we mean Lydia Seren.

"Kinship Alliance!!!" Amber shouts. "Save the Hylanders! Our future is in our own hands now!"

Tadpole murmurs, "I have some issues with this hoodie..." Before she blows a whistle of her own, moving towards the ROLANCE side of the war. She points a spear down towards the Rolance army and suddenly, A decent chunk of the embedded mercenaries within the Rolance army suddenly turn on their army and take down the soldiers standing next to them, largely with non-lethal force as they knock them out in that moment of confusion.

"Kinship Alliance!!!" Tadpole shouts. "Do you wish to tell your children of how you massacred helpless men?! Stop this now, and end this war with your honor intact! Your future is in your own hands now!" Tadpole shouts.

And Lydia

Lydia then smiles a wide grin at Talia, bloody (though still silvery) as it may be from her wounds. "Never underestimate the power of my guild network. Never underestimate the humanity of men and women just wanting to make a decent buck. And never...EVER...underestimate our willingness to not be fucked over by rich folks with secret schemes on their hands!"

She then launches her own technique, sending a solar burst flashing for Talia's face!

GS: Lydia Seren has attacked Talia with Hired Help!
GS: Lydia Seren has completed her action.
GS: Talia takes a solid hit from Matilda Whitehead's Planting for 143 hit points!
GS: Talia guards a hit from Lydia Seren's Hired Help for 92 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ashes has posed.

It's everything she imagined!

Everything Ashes imagined about attempting to murder a priestess was horrible. The pain is...

..little new. Before the thunder has rolled clear of the valley, Ashes' blasted should-be-a-corpse stirs, and she rises to a knee, wiping the mud from her cheek with a shaking hand. "W-well?" She stands, stumbles, stands, and begins a slow walk toward Domitia.

"Althena's light? Rather pale." She touches her cheek again, where Domitia's blow struck and the blood hasn't quite returned, and comes away with some thing, not quite seen, painful to look at. She discards it, airily, in the Sister's direction.

"Take it back. We have enough."

GS: Ashes has attacked Neriah Parringer with Scorn!
GS: Ashes takes 5 damage from Poison!
GS: Ashes has completed her action.
GS: Neriah Parringer guards a hit from Ashes's Scorn for 43 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.

Tabitha does not quite have the phenomenal sorcerous power that Elly does; where Elly breaks the worst of Domitia's spiteful power, Tabitha can't quite escape. She jerks, straight white teeth grit as the lightning races through her. But then she forces it out of her - bursts of magic discharging that electric death like bolting power. She sucks in a breath, pained. "Something's wrong with the ether," she mutters, but grunts to Elly's command. "You're on support then!" she calls, and leaps skyward. Again, the air seems to part for her, giving her speed and power as she arcs skyward, and then, at a moment that she seems to decide, she all but falls out of the sky, bulleting down toward Domitia through Elly's vortex. "Sorry, darling!" she chimes, with that mocking cheer as she aims to drive a heeled boot into Domitia at breakneck speed from the sky. "I'm afraid I see neither light nor gods anywhere about! Allow me to give you a hand in meeting your maker!"

<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.

Tabitha does not quite have the phenomenal sorcerous power that Elly does; where Elly breaks the worst of Domitia's spiteful power, Tabitha can't quite escape. She jerks, straight white teeth grit as the lightning races through her. But then she forces it out of her - bursts of magic discharging that electric death like bolting power. She sucks in a breath, pained. "Something's wrong with the ether," she mutters, but grunts to Elly's command. "You're on support then!" she calls, and leaps skyward.

Again, the air seems to part for her, giving her speed and power as she arcs skyward, and then, at a moment that she seems to decide, she all but falls out of the sky, bulleting down toward Domitia through Elly's vortex. "Sorry, darling!" she chimes, with that mocking cheer as she aims to drive a heeled boot into Domitia at breakneck speed from the sky. "I'm afraid I see neither light nor gods anywhere about! Allow me to give you a hand in meeting your maker!"

GS: Tesni Inoue takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Shielding Salve for 0 hit points!
GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Tesni Inoue!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has attacked Neriah Parringer with Angel Whip!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Neriah Parringer critically Guards a hit from Tabitha deVriese's Angel Whip for 41 hit points!
GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Tabitha deVriese!
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

Descending from within the ranks of the soldiers comes a column of flame that Sister Domitia wasn't expecting. Mihaya's spell of fire slams into the field pulsing around Domitia, burning away an outer layer of it with an energetic shriek. When the flames pass, the priestess in white is frowning deeply.

"Fiend?" she asks with a tilt of her head. "I'm hardly a fiend. There is a war to win and I'm winning it."

Tesni cuts off the conversation with a round of bullets. Stepping forward, Domitia flicks her hand. The bulk of the bullets deflect away from her; a few punch through the surge of magic she threw up, pelting into her shoulders. They don't bury themselves in her, but hit with slowed-down blunt force, jarring her back and throwing her off her stride. "Do you know anything about the Goddess?" she asks tartly. "I'm getting a lot of lectures from people who walk the path of the Blue Star. A world she left behind."

The argument buys Elvis a moment. His fists slam into the defensive shield around Domitia. While most of it deflects, the blow smashes into the earth at Domitia's feet and throws her backwards with a startled hiss of breath. The force of it billows her cloak and forces her to shield herself with one arm. "Do you not have your own people's affairs to be concerned with?" she hisses.

Ashes contributes the deadliest weapon of all: Sass. Whatever it is she casts, it stings past Sister Domitia sharply enough to rush across her cheek as though she's just been slapped. Without changing expression, she snaps her head to the side. A red mark begins to well across her milky skin.

"I'll give you points for backsass but the fact that most of your blood fell out undercuts you a little," she critiques.

Elly works her magic. Thunderous wind rips across the field. Domitia's robes and hood stir madly. She squares herself to the coming assault, planting her heels apart. "Do my spells justify it?

"No... victory justifies it."

Victory which is suddenly stymied when it turns out that Lydia paid off a not-insubstantial part of the army.

Domitia frowns. Among the men still loyal to Rolance, several are fighting back more stiffly than the others - men who seem unnaturally strong and driven, standing when lesser men go down unconscious. A couple of them even have visible monstrous features, mostly horns or spines that just appeared out of nowhere. Domitia surveys that for a second --

And then Tabitha drops out of the sky with the world's sassiest diving kick. Her heel slams into Domitia's cheek hard enough that something snaps. The priestess hurtles backwards, flipping in the air as she's flung a pretty good distance.

In midair, she rights herself - flips legs over head, then touches down, skidding a few metres. Her eyes narrow to dangerous slits. "...You won't get that chance again," she remarks as she raises her hand.

Which is when Ethius pivots and once more attempts to lunge at Domitia.

He lunges. But with a simple flicker, she's suddenly gone. She vanishes from view, flickering out of sight and letting the opaque man pass through the place she once stoof.

"I am getting very, very sick of you," Sister Domitia's voice echoes as she reappears behind Ethius, unfolding from seemingly thin air. Dreadful light streams from her right hand as she reaches out for him.

If she manages to catch him, the sight will be a horrible one. The dreadful magic will attempt to *pour into Ethius.* It will attack him not on a physical level, but a dreadfully spiritual one, as if Domitia were attempting to simply suck out his soul. The field around her pulses and flares as she gathers power.

"...Althena has a nature of love," Domitia intones, her voice echoing as she levels her hand again. "But also of justice. Those who stand against her receive only punishment." Again that dark power flares.

And a vast wave of energetic darkness comes roiling out from Domitia. It surges across the battlefield, threatening to sweep up Tesni, Elly, Jacqueline and Mihaya.

For Ashes, Elvis and Tabitha, nearer to it, they get the backwash of that blast. The air is thick with tenebrous energy. It whirls around the two, and to wade through it is to feel one's body grow heavier. The darkness practically gnaws on their courage.

GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Neriah Parringer with Eldritch Sphere!
GS: Neriah Parringer has entered a Reflect stance!
GS: Neriah Parringer has completed her action.
GS: You cannot act while you still have attacks in queue.
GS: Neriah Parringer has spent 1 Combo on Disease!
GS: You cannot act while you still have attacks in queue.
GS: You cannot act while you still have attacks in queue.
GS: Neriah Parringer takes a solid hit from Neriah Parringer's Eldritch Sphere for 0 hit points!
GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Neriah Parringer!
GS: Neriah Parringer enters a Counter stance!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Exhalation!
GS: Neriah Parringer has spent 1 Combo on Disease!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Ashes with Miasma!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Tabitha deVriese with Miasma!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Elvis with Miasma!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Catastrophic Wave!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Catastrophic Wave!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Mihaya with Catastrophic Wave!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Tesni Inoue with Catastrophic Wave!
GS: Ashes takes a solid hit from Neriah Parringer's Miasma for 0 hit points!
GS: Ashes has been weakened by Disease! They take 0 damage, and burn off all temporary hit points!
GS: Disease and Disrupt! Statuses applied to Ashes!
GS: CRITICAL! Mihaya takes a glancing hit from Neriah Parringer's Catastrophic Wave for 175 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Mihaya!
GS: CRITICAL! Jacqueline Barber critically Guards a hit from Neriah Parringer's Catastrophic Wave for 100 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Jacqueline Barber!
GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a glancing hit from Neriah Parringer's Catastrophic Wave for 165 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Tabitha deVriese takes a glancing hit from Neriah Parringer's Miasma for 0 hit points!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has been weakened by Disease! They take 0 damage, and burn off all temporary hit points!
GS: Cripple, Disease, Disrupt, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Tabitha deVriese!
GS: Ethius Hesiod critically Guards a hit from Neriah Parringer's Exhalation for 32 hit points!
GS: Neriah Parringer drains Ethius Hesiod! Neriah Parringer gains 16 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

Talia stares as her blade of ice slams into Katherine, and it does not bring her down. She didn't forget what she learned; that Katherine Weaver is not, in fact, a normal human. That she commands magic that may be more than what Talia has ever been trained to handle. Her words, though, reach her -- and it shows in the way that her lips curl back, into something close to a snarl. "Don't... don't talk like that! You're not--"

No, she thinks. She doesn't know. She can't let herself care. "Just... just stay away! You don't know what things I've done!" Talia throws a hand out -- and a sharp, bitingly cold wind rushes towards Katherine. It billows and surrounds her.

But it can't drown out the bright, cheery lights, as hard as Talia tries.

The ground shakes under all of their feet, though, when Kaguya and the Earthrager collide. It sends a rolling thunder through the ground. Talia's head snaps towards Kaguya -- her eyes narrow at her. "And are you somehow better than me!? You've fought for Hyland because it paid well, the same as I did! If things were different, you would do the same!" she spits at her. "Now--Goddess, she's strong!"

Kaguya's knives bite down deep into the back of the Earthrager. The flesh is torn open, which reveals something rather disturbing inside: between strands of muscle and other inner workings she would expect, there are pieces of rock and crystal. Blood flows free from the beast, but it screams as a piece of rock juts out of the exit wound.

It turns, bellowing, and stares down Kaguya. Then, it rushes forward, and bucks its head up at the last moment, and then hurl her into the air. The creature pivots, then, and rushes wildly back towards Talia.

A bullet bounces off it, ricocheting. Talia yelps in surprise, as Rebecca's shot slams into her shoulder. It sends her into a spin, nearly losing her footing. She gasps softly, and she looks towards Rebecca. "What do you think?! Whether I like it, what I want--none of those matter at--"

Matilda has very good questions. She also has a very good shoulder check. She slams into Talia and throws her to the ground. She hits the ground, then she turns. Her eyes lift -- and she looks up at Matilda. There is a tremor to her lips; her effort to appear cold and unattached is collapsing in the face of this. "...It isn't--Matilda. You should... you should get out of this life. Before you end up attached to someone and stuck in it."

'Like me,' she all but says. Her hand throws out -- and a block of ice forms, as she draws on the Blessing. It wraps about Matilda's feet unless she moves quickly. Talia does; she comes up, whirling around to catch Ida's first knifehand on a vambrace, dodge about her second, and then she throws Mirage.

The blade slams into the ground. The last blow strikes through strands of dark mist, as Talia reappears, grabbing a hold of the hilt.

Which is when the Earthrager belows and tries to ram both of the tusks into Ida's midsection, and then throw her off with a twist of its head. Then, it turns back towards Rebecca.

It bellows again, lowers its head, and charges. It screams in the middle of the charge, flesh splitting, as a jagged red crystal tears from the side of its face and explodes out to create a spike to ram into Rebecca.

Talia gawks at it, for a moment, and she looks unnerved. She looks back at Lydia, her eyes widening for a moment; then they narrow again. "Protect you? That's--"

What she just tried to do, however misguided and wrong it was, to Matilda. Talia's jaw clamps shut, and she looks frustrated; her eyes widen, as she hears the cries of 'Kinship Alliance!' and the panicked shouts of Rolance soldiers, as their column begins to collapse into infighting. Only the dread presence of Sister Domitia, in the face of that, keeps its soldiers advancing.

"How did you--" Light blasts Talia in the face. Her head snaps back to the side, blood splashing on the ground from a split lip. She shakes her head, then she swings Mirage around. The mottled blue and black short sword flies; the weapon spins and strikes at Lydia.

And Talia reappears a moment later, and slams her parrying dagger down for her friend's side. Her teeth grit. "You want to know who I work for!?" she screams. "Lubov Yemelin! Another damn noble! And some contracts--some contracts, you can't end!"

GS: Talia has spent 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Talia has attacked Seraph Amaranth with Dire Mist!
GS: Talia has attacked Kaguya with Porcine Headbutt!
GS: Talia has attacked Matilda Whitehead with Death's Grasp!
GS: Talia has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Savage Gore!
GS: Talia has attacked Rebecca Streisand with Savage Gore!
GS: Talia has attacked Lydia Seren with Parrying Dagger!
GS: Talia has completed her action.
GS: Seraph Amaranth takes a solid hit from Talia's Dire Mist for 98 hit points!
GS: Toxin! Statuses applied to Seraph Amaranth!
GS: Rebecca Streisand takes a glancing hit from Talia's Savage Gore for 147 hit points!
GS: Kaguya takes a solid hit from Talia's Porcine Headbutt for 82 hit points!
GS: Matilda Whitehead takes a solid hit from Talia's Death's Grasp for 129 hit points!
GS: Shieldbreak! Statuses applied to Matilda Whitehead!
GS: Elvis guards a hit from Neriah Parringer's Miasma for 0 hit points!
GS: Elvis has been weakened by Disease! They take 0 damage, and burn off all temporary hit points!
GS: Disease and Disrupt! Statuses applied to Elvis!
GS: Sneak! The true nature of Talia's attack becomes clear!
GS: Lydia Seren guards a hit from Talia's Mirage Edge for 167 hit points!
GS: Tesni Inoue takes a glancing hit from Neriah Parringer's Catastrophic Wave for 143 hit points!
DC: MISS! Ida Everstead-Rey completely evades Savage Gore from Talia!
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

"It's nice of you to care," Kaguya calls to Matilda, "But is there a reason to bother?"

'Valmar' has no meaning to Kaguya, but she can see Rebecca's presence all right. Dirty money. ...Yes, of course. Of course it is. But regardless--

The soldiers of Hyland get to work; those who can, work on evacuating the wounded, preparing them. Those near Kaguya aim to punch a hole straight through the enemy lines. But Kaguya? Kaguya, as Talia answers her?

"You don't get it!" Kaguya calls out to Talia. "Would do this, would do that. Who cares? We have the world as it is, not the one as we want it to be!"

Atop the Earthrager, Kaguya grins at Talia over its scream, and hits the ground, turning to the creature--but as she's on the ground, it rushes her. The small Veruni doesn't so much as move; she just makes herself a small target, crosses her arms between the tusks, and takes the rush head-on. It launches her upward, and she compresses into a ball for part of the trip, somersaulting upwards... and when she hits the apex of the throw, she stares down, blood at her lips, from her nose from the impact.

"Not quite," she murmurs, and sets out a hand. There is a pulse of magic, something like Ether, as the wild force of life from another world erupts around her--a fragrant, floral wind as a beacon to the battlefield, that crashes towards the boar and behind it to Talia, razor leaves in its wake as green sparks of energy rush back to Kaguya with each living thing the wind passes.

She hits the ground shortly after, and impacts hard enough to leave a small crater--but when the dust settles, she's standing up again.

"...Like I said," Kaguya says to Talia, beginning to step towards her with voice raises, "You don't get it. What I do isn't the key. I was born better than you. I grew up better than you. And I'll die better than you. And there is nothing you can do about it."

"...Especially if you can't even life your own life. What do I care about another sob story?"

GS: Kaguya has activated a Force Action!
GS: Kaguya has spent 2 Combo on Gatling!
GS: Kaguya has attacked Talia with Blossom Wind!
GS: Kaguya has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.

    Some part of Seraph Amaranth is going to idly congratulate herself later over some fine Notan plum wine over the choice of kero hoodie and also consider mass merchandising later, because who doesn't like a frog-themed... Clair de Lune... ooh, now there's good thinkin'.

    Lydia's masterplan unfolds, though, as the planted mercenaries start to cause disruption and question the Rolance soldiers on what part they want to take in the massacre. "Nice Job, Lydia!!" she exclaims in a way that you just know would be rendered as 'naiss jobbu' even in the subs. Desu.

    That same cold mist starts to render over her again, and she can't help but inhale -- no matter what the composition of her body is -- and she bristles for a moment as she remarks:

    "I know what it feels like to be damned, Talia..."

    She struggles through the frost-mist that's caking over her hair and clothing, grimacing as she coughs for a moment. "You do it too, don't you? That feeling of not even being able to look at yourself in the mirror in the morning because--"

    She laughs rather faintly. "... you'll just see the stares of those that got put down... try as you might, you can't ever feel like your hands can ever be washed clean again..."

    But a performer keeps her head up and strong until the end of the show. So Amaranth -- Katherine -- does just that.

    "It doesn't mean your remorse is pointless. It doesn't mean that hesitation, that little glimpse you gave me just now... makes you less than human."

    i mean it's getting underscored a little at kaguya's gloating but she's having a moment here ok

    Katherine takes a breath. She giggles a little at Amber and Tadpole, and then pumps her hand up.

    "Kinship Alliance!!" she cheers for them, because they're doing great, important work.

GS: Seraph Amaranth has attacked Lydia Seren with Atelier Pierrot!
GS: Seraph Amaranth takes 10 damage from Toxin!
GS: Seraph Amaranth has completed her action.
GS: Talia guards a hit from Kaguya's Blossom Wind for 140 hit points!
GS: Kaguya drains Talia! Kaguya gains 70 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Mihaya has posed.

 This sort of darkness is rather horrifying when push comes to shove. Mihaya lets out a shriek as it slams into her, knocking her away and sending her down to one knee on the ground. That sort of pain... it just ripped at you, tearing away at your being and leaving nothing behind but a cold, clammy darkness.
 
 Why did the people here have such foul, terrible powers? Such... evil?
 
 "You are someone who uses dark power to destroy those who cannot stand against it - you try and shred the very lives and souls of people who oppose you," the elf states quietly as she pushes herself back to one knee. Oh that hurts a lot... but she's not going to give up at this point.
 
 "And anything that you truly follow cannot be something of love," Mihaya continues, finally managing to gather herself once more after that attack. She can't afford to let this... monster go forth and rampage among the troops of the other side. Who knows where, or when, she'll actually stop? So many people could die. And so Mihaya throws her energy into casting once more, several of her tattoos lighting up with a chain of blue light as she raises her staff over her head. Closing her eyes, she channels the raging cold through her staff...
 
 ...and instead of any sort of attack manifesting from her, it instead begins to form around Domita. The air temperature drops precipitously, tiny ice crystals growing from the ground all around the priestess as Mihaya sucks the heat out of the air. A spinning, sparkling nebula of tiny snowflakes appear as the air itself freezes, moving faster and faster as the symbologist pulls in a greater amount of air from all across the area. More, more, just a bit more...
 
 Mihaya opens her eyes, and allows her staff to drop to the ground.
 
 And a colossal boulder of ice forms in he air above the dark priestess, and comes crashing down towards the ground.

GS: Mihaya has attacked Neriah Parringer with Freeze!
GS: Mihaya takes 8 damage from Poison!
GS: Mihaya has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Tesni Inoue has posed.

Tesni Inoue says "I can't leave you or even Ethius alone for this? I'd be remiss to not do something to help you we're all on the same crew and ... I can't stand for mass murder like this. I seen accounts of such things too many times in my studies."

 She'll take the bottle and down it with a thankful look as she gets back on the move.

 "I learned what I could about her. She left a path for people to better themselves and love thy neighbour but sadly as a species we have a habit of killing eachother over the how to do it!"

 "There is no justice in slaughter."

 She moves like hell itself is after her. The darkness comes it nearly consumes the Terran, she moves for eveyrthing she's worth and while badly injured she has endured it her body has grown heavy.

GS: CRITICAL! Neriah Parringer takes a solid hit from Mihaya's Freeze for 253 hit points!
GS: Hyper and Shield! Statuses applied to Mihaya!
<Pose Tracker> Ashes has posed.

To feel one's body grow heavier.

To feel one's courage swallowed, raw and unchewed.

If she could be weighed down further.

If there was anything left but rusting bones.

Ashes' dead march continues, while Domitia's attention is elsewhere.

Near enough to be heard, now. Aeschere draws her knife, and smiles. "Her penance spares none," she hisses, and leaps.

GS: Ashes has activated a Force Action!
GS: Ashes has attacked Neriah Parringer with Spiteful Retort!
GS: Ashes takes 6 damage from Poison!
GS: Ashes has completed her action.
GS: Neriah Parringer takes a solid hit from Ashes's Spiteful Retort for 149 hit points!
GS: Disrupt! Statuses applied to Neriah Parringer!
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.

 
It's not an easy thing to be facing down a charging boar - one that's screaming at her. Rebecca breaks into a run, but she's not fast enough to outrun it once it's gained momentum.
 
Instead she doubles back, and starts charging at it. It's a stupid move. Stupid.
 
One made even more stupid as the red crystal tears out of its face.
 
Juking to the side like a bull-fighter, the glancing blow tears through her top with a ripping sound and a splatter of red. The girl is knocked to the ground and rolls, holding an arm across her open wound to the side.
 
Spinning her Revolver, she puts it away, groping for her Medium instead. With it in hand she -
 
Kinship Alliance!!!
 
Rebecca gets taken aback as she looks her way and mouths the word 'Lydia.'
 
"Don't- Don't tell me those things don't matter!"
 
With a quick invocation of the Medium - a green energy whips around her as she taps into the area. A wind blowing through her hair.
 
And then suddenly a pressurized blast of wind erupts - slamming into the boar with a sound like a bomb going off.
 
"How you feel about doing something like this matters!"
 
Before she snaps off a quick comment towards a certain someone, "Kaguya - writing off her problems as a sob story REALLY ISN'T HELPING!"
 

GS: Rebecca Streisand has spent 1 Combo on Gatling!
GS: Rebecca Streisand has attacked Talia with Elemental Blast!!
GS: Rebecca Streisand has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

 
"If you were the real face of this goddess," Elly begins, "then she wouldn't be a goddess at all! But," Elly begins to say, at which point Domitia releases a hellacious darkness wave that completely engulfs Elly in a horrid black spiralling scribble of intense dark energy. That shuts her up.

For now.

She's moving too fast, Elly thinks. How did she get so strong? It's like she's using an Ether amp - several of them in train, and without exploding. Is she on some domestic version of the Drive, she wonders, even as she strains to not fly away. When the darkness fades, she has sunk to her knees, having dug one hand into the increasingly blasted soil of the area.

Elly stays crouched down. Not a whole lot happens although there is some weird groaning from underneath the ground. She squeezes at the soil of Lunar and narrows her eyes and strains, pushes --

The dirt underneath the feet of the Sister rumbles a little. "So... the only thing that justifies your actions... is Victory? You would say that it's 'Strength' that makes 'Justice'? That seems... really... dangerous..."

Elly calls out what is probably a magical phrase unless you are Tabitha deVriese, in which case the incantation is actually a really simple and straightforward phrase: "-Watch the ground!-"

The dust rustles around where Domitia is standing.

"Because it means that 'Justice' doesn't mean anything at all. If there are ten small children, and one older child... is the older child 'just,' just because she's bigger than the others?" Elly breathes out, as if exploring the idea.

The dust rustles a little more and something gleams. A little more yet and the gleaming becomes clear, in so far as a lot of the mud has separated out into 'layers of dust' and 'jagged-looking bladelike shapes composed of ice,' which is a good trick but doesn't do much about it, until a lot of those blades snap upwards like machinery, looming around the twisted Sister like so many sentinels!

"... or... Is it possible that you aren't... 'making any mistakes'? That this is all... deliberate?"

The blades wobble a little. On the one hand this is a pretty precarious shape to make and on the other hand it's like a ton of ice that's been thrown up like a cage. (Conveniently there is space for people to make running attacks through, if they dast.)

GS: Elhaym van Houten enters a Counter stance!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Neriah Parringer with Sacred Elemental Boundary!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    Once more, the Eighth makes sport of Ethius' attempts. The most he can accomplish is flailing, by appearances. Skilled flailing, sure. Flailing is amost all anyone can do, and among those who still yet live while trying to defy her, he might even be the best... but it is flailing. It reeks of desperation and weakness. She's on his back.
     She is through his back, as Ethius' eyes widen, as it all goes in there. All of it. All of the sensory overload. A detaching soul would not bring succor to shocked senses. This could put a stop to his meddling then and there - it ought to. She has her grasp on his soul. He has one, which might be the biggest surprise. Someone who acts unaccountable to no one, only seems to inflict destruction and death as he dares and decides. She could be doing the two worlds a great favor.
     It's there for her to squeeze out, to crush it. Maybe wear it as a little hat, like she teased back in Nota. Ethius falls to his knees as her hand gets its free reign of whatever it wants to do with the soul within. There is an interesting wrinkle, a texture, that she will probably soon snuff out as she converts it into strength for her. A wrinkle that speaks of... perpetuity? That's the best word for it. Something perpetual. Like it's always going to go a certain way. A direction, and only that direction. That direction will be into her pow--
     Ethius' upper body pivots as his left arm swings out to try and swat her arm away with a pained, effortful but entirely voiceless grunt. What? He still had any presence of mind at all while his soul was in the process of extraction? Even so, the defiant act of trying to swat their hand aside invites grievous metaphysical harm. Nothing should ever reach that far in there. It will hurt just as badly - or even worse - on the way out.
     Ethius gives ground as he falls out of her grasp, one way or another. That defiant act is the only thing about him that shows much strength. He is reduced to crawling on the ground while others, whose souls are less displaced, continue their preaching and their sassing and their power-flinging. Something reminds him he can't up and die like this, and that reminder is vague and distant. He knows one exists. He has to stand against this, and he does not know why.
     His very soul evidently does. What could he have gone through, what could he have done, to give him such a clarity of being to survive anything that in other circumstances is certain cessation of one's existence beyond death?
     He starts to rise, looking back over his shoulder to her. That unyielding stare of his re-focuses and centers upon her.

GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Neriah Parringer with A Nearly Ceaseless Spirit That - With Great Frustration - Cannot
Speak To Its Neighboring Mind!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Neriah Parringer critically Guards a hit from Ethius Hesiod's A Nearly Ceaseless Spirit That - With Great
Frustration - Cannot Speak To Its Neighboring Mind for 0 hit points!
GS: Jam! Statuses applied to Neriah Parringer!
GS: Neriah Parringer critically Guards a hit from Elhaym van Houten's Sacred Elemental Boundary for 40 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Tesni Inoue has posed.

Tesni Inoue says "I can't leave you or even Ethius alone for this? I'd be remiss to not do something to help you we're all on the same crew and ... I can't stand for mass murder like this. I have seen accounts of such things too many times in my studies."

 She'll take the bottle and down it with a thankful look as she gets back on the move.

 "I learned what I could about her. She left a path for people to better themselves and love thy neighbour but sadly as a species we have a habit of killing each other over the how to do it!"

 "There is no justice in a slaughter."

 She moves like hell itself is after her. The darkness comes it nearly consumes the Terran, she moves for everything she's worth and while badly injured she has endured it her body has grown heavy.

 "Not done yet, I am not dying on this rock nor am I letting you claim anyone else."

 Bold words but Tess has endured things so far as she raises her arm and the tattoos on it glow a moment later The sister would feel a force of unseen force trying to wrap about her throat. It's uncertain how long Tess can keep this up but it may give everyone else a badly needed breather so to speak.

GS: Tesni Inoue has attacked Neriah Parringer with TK Choke!
GS: Tesni Inoue has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Elvis has posed.

He felt the hit glance off that shield. It is a strong one, again. Rife with undulating power. The ground isn't so lucky, as there is now a very large split in the earth there. "Tch, what good can I be to my people when stuck on this place?! Everything I worked so hard on is back home! To start anew is folly! Besides... I do believe I am concerned with my peoples affairs."

Little is said as to why this is, though Elvis things momentarily of Kaguya. Is she fighting a rock boar? That actually looks fun. Ah, he already picked a target. Next time, perhaps.

Elvis would totally wrestle a rock boar.

An attack reaches out from a realm unknown to attack, and the aftermath billows in Elvis' face, a sickening fog that feels like it is cloying something out of him as the vapor licks at the body. It doesn't even need to be breathed in to feel it, though that makes it worse. The Sentinel SLAMS his hands together and makes a wind burst from the impact enough to make a small pocket, then leap out.

"Besides, combat experience is something you can never have too much of!" The Veruni lands, and the land under cracks from the impact. He surges forth, and with each punch seen thrown at the shield this time, there are about two to three that they eye cannot process-- only the feeling of their impact shows they were ever there.

"You might want to back up!" Elvis shouts toward Ethius. Being that close to the opponent that long can be bad for your soul. Also Elvis' advice was very not helpful.

GS: Elvis has attacked Neriah Parringer with Rapid Punch!
GS: Elvis takes 6 damage from Poison!
GS: Elvis has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.

Matilda's feet freeze to the ground; the cold is bitter, and she's forced to make a snap decision about how to proceed. ... The first step, of course, is to try to get that ice back *off* of her feet, tossing something from her pack onto it. It starts to melt, but she's still not feeling... especially great.

"... I think, right now," Matilda says, a little closer to Talia, a little softer, "... that Kaguya's right. This is pathetic -- almost contemptible. Please, Talia --" Matilda puts away her shield in the hopes of feeling more stable while her legs thaw out; as is, she doesn't think she can mount an effective defense.

She staggers forward a little, amid cries of 'Kinship Alliance!!' and draws her blade. At first, it seems like she's heading for Talia, but there's a curious bobble in her step, and a keen appraisal of where the *boar* is, too. Most likely, she's trying to keep an eye on both while she's got unsteady footing.

Matilda's whole body shakes a little as she takes another awkward step, and lashes out with her blade. It looks like she's trying to buy separation as much as anything else, trying to get herself space to act and to think.

GS: Matilda Whitehead has attacked Talia with Wobbling Strike!
GS: Matilda Whitehead has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    'Kinship Alliance!'

    Both the Hyland and Rolance columns start to break apart along lines that had, up until now, been invisible. Ida's opinion of Lydia Seren rises by several notches. She doesn't know how long it took Lydia to set that up, but there is something admirable in it. A grin flashes across her face, but only momentarily. Talia twists apart into shadows, and only the thunderous hoofbeats and enraged bellows of the thing accompanying her keep Ida from falling for the feint. Rather than follow Talia in anticipation of another strike, she twists on both heels, chi flowing into both hands as she charges at the charging beast. She grips both of the Earthrager's tusks, the chi strengthening her and keeping those crystalline edges from tearing her flesh to ribbons. She lets her momentum carry her, aided by the ferocious, twist of the Earthrager's neck. It gores empty air. Ida flips over the thing's broad back like a bull-dancer, and lands in a crouch behind it. Her head spins. Everything hurts.

    Ida rises, twists to face Talia, sees the fear rise in her eyes. Thankfully, Rebecca (Rebecca?!) tells Kaguya off, allowing Ida to focus on taking stock of her opponent. 'Lubov Yemelin.' She's starting to get a picture, now, and that picture is so familiar to her it feels like salt in wounds that have yet to fully heal. "Talia," Ida says. "I won't tell you what to do." God, Ida thinks. Should she even be here? Shouldn't she be trying to find and destroy whatever horror is unleashing Valmar's power on the battlefield?

    "But I will say--" Ida surges towards Talia, trying to pull her off Lydia to give her some breathing room. "You wouldn't even be talking if you were the monster you said you were. You would just be killing." Chi wreathes her right fist, and she drives it forwards, towards Talia's kidney. The backwash surges through Ida's flagging muscles, reinforcing them. "Remember what I said about conflict?"

GS: CRITICAL! Neriah Parringer guards a hit from Elvis's Rapid Punch for 207 hit points!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Talia with Furious Rebuke!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
GS: Neriah Parringer critically Guards a hit from Tesni Inoue's TK Choke for 0 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Talia guards a hit from Rebecca Streisand's Elemental Blast! for 147 hit points!
GS: Jam! Statuses applied to Talia!
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

There's only so much Lydia can do against the likes of Sister Domitia through bribery, blackmail, and friendship with the right people. The soldiers are still advancing, Lydia thinks, but while unexpected it was unavoidable with Sister Domitia's presence here. She sees Ethius doing battle with her and has to hope that he can manage to stop her, one way or another.

Lydia is still not a great fighter. Talia's Mirage ironically (considering the name) dispels the illusion around Lydia, shattering the cute outfit Katherine provided and digging the blade into Lydia's side. Silver fluid drips out of her body and around the weapon. Talia will likely want to shake that off considering the nonsense she knows Lydia can do with her evil boiling blood.

But Lydia doesn't detonate those nanites, at least not yet, giving Talia plenty of time to deal with this problem.
"Everybody..." She grimaces, stumbling back, clutching her wound. "Everybody has things they regret in life, everybody's done things that are bad. I know what it's like to suffer under the yoke of an eternal war. This war's a baby compared to what's going on in the Badlands..." She shakes her head. "But I know what it's like. Thanks to getting to the ground floor, I was able to make friends with all sorts of merc companies. I gave them supplies, gave them medicine, made sure they survived the war, gave them the gear they needed to make ends meet. After that, we just needed to make them see a happier future for themselves. That's Miss Weaver's specialty....and Jay and Mom's too. Just had to listen and learn."

She straightens up and looks into Talia's eyes. "Mercenaries take risks all the time. They just had to believe in this one. Not even the hardest deal I had to make." She listens to Katherine with a sad glance to to the side, but she shakes her head. As hard as it is, she has to be braver than that right now.

"Damn nobles count on us living safe lives. That's how they own us, but in a war where everybody's hiring mercs, we're the ones with value. I just got in on the ground floor like anybody else could."

Her lips split into a wider smile. "So long as you concern yourself with safety, you'll never break free from him. Come on Talia! Do you 'want' to be just another sob story written by a jerk?" Did she play off Kaguya's words intentionally there? Probably.

She hears the call going up for the 'Kinship Alliance' that she didn't even expect. Hearing Katherine shout those words encourages Lydia to draw her medium into the air and say, "What would the man you're sticking around for want for you, Talia?! SOLAIS EMSU!"

Naturally, the Guardian appears in the sky, and starts lancing down laser blasts towards Talia.

MEANWHILE

Tadpole dives into the Hyland ranks and starts clobbering soldiers as she hobbles towards Sister Domitia. That's the one person, she has realized, holding this all together. It's going to take her a bit to push through those lines but once she does...

Amber stumbles away from the Earthrager as he pulls aside a soldier nearly gored by that tusk and says, "Get out of here already!" She looks back and looks up and over to Katherine's position, taking a moment to exhale. "Well, if we die here, at least our corpses will look good."

GS: Lydia Seren takes a solid hit from Seraph Amaranth's Atelier Pierrot for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Lydia Seren!
GS: Lydia Seren has attacked Talia with Material - Solais Emsu!
GS: Lydia Seren has completed her action.
GS: Talia guards a hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Furious Rebuke for 67 hit points!
GS: Mighty! Statuses applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
GS: Sneak! The true nature of Matilda Whitehead's attack becomes clear!
GS: CRITICAL! Talia guards a hit from Matilda Whitehead's Iron in the Garden for 187 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Jam, and Poison! Statuses applied to Talia!
GS: Hyper, Quick, and Shield! Statuses applied to Matilda Whitehead!
GS: Talia guards a hit from Lydia Seren's Material - Solais Emsu for 162 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Tesni says that she's read too much of this before. Jacqueline hesitates...and then nods. She understands. She, too, felt that desire sometimes.

But...Sister Domitia's power is overwelming.A vast wave of all-consuming darkness erupts out from her, sweeping across the field. Jacqueline braces herself, bringing every bit of sorcerous protection she has to bear...but even that isn't enough to save her.

She's caught up in the roiling darkness. Jacqueline shrieks as she's buffeted, and finally, hurled backwards violently. She crashes to the ground.

She's still intact, thankfully, but that kind of power...if she hadn't been prepared for it, she's not sure if she would've survived.

As she lays in the ground, she hears the faint echo of a call. 'Kinship'? Was someone calling out to her? ...Wait.

'Kinship Alliance'? Jacqueline blinks.

"...What?"

Oh, Lydia. Jacqueline just shakes her head, but there's no disapproval in it.

She hauls herself to her feet, then. She's still a little unsteady...but in this time, the person responsible has alighted. Jacqueline turns her attention to her.

"Sister Domitia...!" Jacqueline finally calls out urgently. She doesn't focus on her connection to Althena. "Please, hasn't there been enough violence...? Enough bloodshed? Please! You can put a stop to this."

"I'm not sure what Neriah told you...I'm not sure why you chose this path. But..." She takes a step toward her. "It doesn't have to be like this. These people are already wounded and dying...hasn't there been enough of that?"

GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Neriah Parringer with Desperate Plea!
GS: Jacqueline Barber takes 5 damage from Poison!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
GS: Neriah Parringer critically Guards a hit from Jacqueline Barber's Desperate Plea for 0 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.

Yeah, no. Matilda's going for the boar. The initial slash was just to keep Talia away from her long enough to go into a nice, big leap back toward the boar.

The bad news: Doing this on wobbly legs forces her to totally sacrifice any defense that isn't going to be 'rolling off the boar after she stabs the shit out of it.'

The good news: She full-on Sephiroths the boar with her super-cool silver shortsword (though the boar's own constitution may have something to say about how good a plan that was, or how effective it was).

Matilda calls to Talia, "If someone tries to hold you hostage for your skills, *kill them*," once she lands. "No relationship of that nature survives *that*."

<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.

Tabitha touches down, light and easy, hands out to the side as if to balance her against...what, the air? She relaxes her posture afterward, pulling her weapon again. She hears Ida's cries, distant though they are; in the way that every so often, one hears what one is intended to hear even when it is somewhat implausible. "Valmar?" she mutters. "Where have i--"

And then a horrible wave of something hideous washes over her, a formless darkness, not malevolent nor malicious but simply....foul.

When it passes, she's on her knees, hands at her throat as if trying to pry free some invisible hand around her throat. She feels....heavy, in a way she she does not know.

But when she looks up at Domitia, the fight isn't out of her. She hears Elly's call as she forces her legs under her again, and then she surges, sucking in breath. "So that's the power of Valmar, is it," she mutters. "I need to speak with the Bishop if we ever get back." about the number of times she was assured that valmar was DEFINITELY NOT ACTUALLY REAL. HOW CAN SHE DO HER JOB IF SHE DOESN'T KNOW HOW MANY SATANS THERE ARE, STONE.

Though Domitia's poisoned muck still clings to her, she casts about - searching for the too-fast Sister. She's FAST, too. Is she going to have to release the Shackle?

...not yet. She doesn't know that it'd accept the command. And the Major hasn't been...forthcoming, about his opinion. Instead, half a second after Elly's ice contraption lashes down around Domitia, Tabitha slams back into the ground. It lacks some of her former grace as the girl slams into the ground behind her. There's no subtlety. She whips her weapon up. She doesn't even have a quip.

The Etone has one task, when standing before one who serves - even might serve - the demon lord Valmar. For all the layers of irony, extrapolation, duplicity and lies between Tabitha and that oath, from time to time, it still resonates within her.

GS: Tabitha deVriese has attacked Neriah Parringer with Keep Safe the Flock!
GS: Tabitha deVriese takes 7 damage from Poison!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has completed her action.
GS: Neriah Parringer guards a hit from Tabitha deVriese's Keep Safe the Flock for 111 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.

Tabitha touches down, light and easy, hands out to the side as if to balance her against...what, the air? She relaxes her posture afterward, pulling her weapon again. She hears Ida's cries, distant though they are; in the way that every so often, one hears what one is intended to hear even when it is somewhat implausible. "Valmar?" she mutters. "Where have i--"

And then a horrible wave of something hideous washes over her, a formless darkness, not malevolent nor malicious but simply....foul.

When it passes, she's on her knees, hands at her throat as if trying to pry free some invisible hand around her throat. She feels....heavy, in a way she she does not know.

But when she looks up at Domitia, the fight isn't out of her. She hears Elly's call as she forces her legs under her again, and then she surges, sucking in breath. "So that's the power of Valmar, is it," she mutters. "I need to speak with the Bishop if we ever get back." about the number of times she was assured that valmar was DEFINITELY NOT ACTUALLY REAL. HOW CAN SHE DO HER JOB IF SHE DOESN'T KNOW HOW MANY SATANS THERE ARE, STONE.

Though Domitia's poisoned muck still clings to her, she casts about - searching for the too-fast Sister. She's FAST, too. Is she going to have to release the Shackle?

...not yet. She doesn't know that it'd accept the command. And the Major hasn't been...forthcoming, about his opinion. Instead, half a second after Elly's ice contraption lashes down around Domitia, Tabitha slams back into the ground. It lacks some of her former grace as the girl slams into the ground behind her. There's no subtlety. She whips her weapon up. She doesn't even have a quip.

The Etone has one task, when standing before one who serves - even might serve - the demon lord Valmar. For all the layers of irony, extrapolation, duplicity and lies between Tabitha and that oath, from time to time, it still resonates within her.

She fires. One shot, back of the head.

Execution.

<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

"Do you think I don't KNOW THAT!?" Talia screams back at Kaguya, until her face is red with anger. She doesn't cry out as the Earthrager is shredded into by razor sharp leaves, and a drain of life that hurtles away from it. Blood oozes and drips from the wounds carved into the thing, and its pace slows for a moment. Both its bones and Talia's are rattled, when Kaguya slams into the earth with such force that a crater is left behind.

But only Talia turns, to stare at her. Her eyes widen, slowly, as Kaguya speaks. For a moment, the words blend in her mind: the voice of the woman who led the Oasis Free Company, so confident and composed, and yet not-so-subtly apart from all of them.

    'I was born better than you.'
        'I grew up better than you.'

Talia's eyebrow trembles. The memories rush through her; the words of Lubov at every failure, at every success, at every turn. No matter what she did, as long as she was young enough to wrap her fingers around her knife.

    'I'll die better than you.'
        'And there is nothing you can do about it.'

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Talia screams back at Kaguya. She thrusts Mirage out towards her, pointing it at the girl as she lands. The Veruni finds ice crystallizing in the air about her, and it all comes crashing inward towards her, to smash into and assail her with a storm of ice blocks that assail repeatedly. The very air around them chills with the immense ice spell.

And Talia stands there, snarling, face red and veins in her neck taut. "Matilda, she's... she's wrong! She's--"

Rebecca's blast of wind slams into the boar. The creature is blown backward, skidding through the dirt and sending waves of rock, dust, and debris flying. It snarls, as a gash torn in its side reveals glittering crystal and rock for all to see. Another chunk of crystal explodes out of the side of the creature.

Matilda's blade slashes into Talia's sword, as she brings it up in a fast parry. Then, Matilda slams into the side of it. The blade stabs in to the very hilt, a gout of blood splashing on Miss White head; the creature stumbles, and snarls at her. It tries to slam into Matilda with its shoulder, then duck its head low, and ram its hardened skull at Rebecca again.

As it passes Matilda, it screams again -- and she realizes, perhaps, as another spike of crystal juts out of flesh. The boar isn't just made of crystal. It is being torn apart, from within, by the magically-created stone ripping through its body.

There is another flash of light, too -- and a blade of rock explodes from the ground and tries to slash at Katherine. Talia makes a strangled noise, in the back of her throat, when she sees it. There is time for Ida to see it, as she lands and twists in front of her, her evasion of the Earthrager's tusks artful.

"This... this was all I could do!" she yells at Ida. "It--"

And the air is driven out of her, as Ida slams a fist into her kidney. She stumbles backward. She can really only half-appreciate Lydia's explanation -- and given the masterful work she did, half appreciating it is a lot. It shows, through the cloud of pain in her eyes; Talia looks proud of her.

She thinks it must be misplaced.

"He..." She knows the answer to Lydia's last question. "...he wouldn't care. He would just assume I would be here--" The beams of light, from a Guardian, come smashing down into her. They slam her to the earth. She is left, crumpled over, in a crater -- kneeling, but not fallen. Blood trickles down her face, from a split scalp.

And she listens, for once. Her eyes half-shut, as Katherine identifies the very way she felt. Her mouth clamps shut and her eyes feel heavy; hot, even. Her hand shakes around Mirage's hilt.

    
'It doesn't mean your remorse is pointless.'
        
'How you feel about doing something like this matters!'

"It's... it's too far gone!" She calls out. Her hand keeps shaking. She hangs her head, aware and distant to the fact that this breakdown is happening on the middle of a battlefield -- as a dark power she didn't know existed plays out behind her.

    
'You wouldn't even be talking if you were the monster you said you were. You would just be killing.'
        
'No relationship of that nature survives *that*'

Finally, Mirage slips from her grasp. The weapon clatters to the ground, and the memory of blood and rain feels so distant. Her mouth opens. Her voice is quiet -- only in that she isn't screaming. "Lubov is... Lubov is my father. I can't just forget that, no? Where is this redemption, if I abandon my family?"

Except, of course, this is a battlefield -- and that quiet reflection is not permitted. The Earthrager SCREAMS as a jagged blade of crystal rips from its chest, slams into the ground, and cracks off. It flies into the air -- just before the beast's head smashes into Talia, and sends her flying. It turns, then, and rams between Amber and the gored soldier, and then tries to trample right over Lydia -- before barreling down upon Ida with an unholy fury.

Talia slams, bodily, into the ground and rolls a few times.

GS: Talia has attacked Kaguya with Glacier Crash!
GS: Talia has attacked Rebecca Streisand with Earth Rush!
GS: Talia has attacked Matilda Whitehead with Earth Rush!
GS: Talia has attacked Seraph Amaranth with Grave!
GS: Talia has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Savage Gore!
GS: Talia has attacked Lydia Seren with Savage Gore!
GS: Talia has attacked Talia with Savage Gore!
GS: Talia takes a solid hit from Talia's Savage Gore for 210 hit points!
GS: Talia takes 8 damage from Poison!
GS: Talia has completed her action.
GS: Rebecca Streisand takes a solid hit from Talia's Earth Rush for 163 hit points!
GS: Kaguya takes a glancing hit from Talia's Glacier Crash for 102 hit points!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Talia's Savage Gore for 173 hit points!
DC: MISS! Seraph Amaranth completely evades Grave from Talia!
DC: 2 turns have elapsed in the battle against Neriah Parringer! 3 turns remain!
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

Truthfully, Domitia is shocked Ethius has a soul.

Somehow, he manages to get away from her. His arm deflects hers; she lets him go with a startled frown. Before she can fully round on him, he's giving ground and scooting away. Domitia levels her hand after him.

She never gets the chance to follow up. Sister Domitia is preoccupied enough with matters of Ethius that Mihaya gets a golden opportunity to draw a bead on her. Tilting her head to one side, the Priestess of Althena watches her for a moment with a blank expression.

"Maybe they shouldn't oppose me, then," she suggests mildly, before looking up as she realizes a shadow is forming over her.

"This looks problematic," she says, before the huge ice rock drops out of the sky and lands on her with a heavy thud. Shards of ice flake out around the point of impact. For a moment, everything is still. Mihaya seems to have done it!

Until the ice block splits up the middle.

The two halves of the immense glacier split apart like an opening clamshell beneath an immense force. "You will regret that," Domitia says shortly as she comes hovering out from between the chunks of ice, trailing water and thoroughly soaked - but the water seems to be rapidly turning to steam. More importantly, her shield's gone, and it's taking some time to rebuild it.

When Domitia touches down again, Ashes takes that opportunity. Domitia dekes to one side with a graceful step, but it's not enough, and the knife slips through her robes and slashes fabric, leaving a long slice along the hip beneath. The Sister doesn't seem to have any real armour on.

"You're right. It doesn't," Domitia says, then levels her hand into Ashes' face at close range. A surge of darkness bursts from her palm, going off like a bomb of saturated malice. The force of it is directed at Ashes, aiming to blow her away.

Tesni reaches out to try and throttle her. Domitia simply swings a hand up - and the force Tesni brings to bear finds itself utterly unable to latch on to anything but a horrible, sickening feeling. It takes that threat off her plate while Elvis bears down on her with such violent intention. "You are more than welcome to leave Lunar," Domitia tells him, before he slams his fists into her shield again and again. The magic crumples and resurges with every blow, the huge scholar simply pounding down the outer layers of it. Domitia's jaw sets ever so slightly. "You have a singular intensity," she murmurs. "But as I recall, your people care even less for humans than I do. Why do you fight?"

All to aware of people beginning to mutter the name of Valmar, Domitia rounds on Tabitha with eyes narrowed. The Etone steps forward to perform the task Etones are cast with - and that weapon whips towards her, opening up with a shot that seeks to take her by surprise. It hits Domitia in the back. She lurches forward; blood runs down the back of her cloak.

Slowly, Domitia reaches around. With deft fingers, she reaches into her own wound and comes out with the bullet. Her head turns.

"That hurt," she growls, dropping the bullet to the ground and spitting. "I'll remember you, I think. For a little while."

Elly speaks. What she says is theoretically just. The dirt rumbles - and those icy blades erupt, whirling around and through Domitia like a blender. Thrown off her footing, the Sister staggers, clicking her teeth together as a few of those blades shear across her close enough to cut - but she's able to bound upwards in a long jump, flipping legs over head, then touching down not far away. "This is not some older brother complex," she fires back. "There are many in the world who know what it's like to be treated with malice. The downtrodden who deserve, just once in their lives, to have the strength to change the world!"

Someone downtrodden throws herself forward and appeals to Sister Domitia's tender mercies. Jay.

Domitia stops dead in her tracks. Unmoving, she listens as the merchant appeals to her. When the name of Neriah is raised, the priestess bows her head. "...She told me nothing, Jay," Sister Domitia says quietly. "But this has to be done. Because, you see...."

Sister Domitia raises her right hand. The energy around her rolls and surges. It streams upward. Lunar shudders as that power threatens to overwhelm the local ambient magic; spirits of the land seem to recoil in horror. And then it roars into the air, a single column of cold white light that rips into the sky high above the Vale.

It blossoms outwards. The dire magic bursts into countless fireballs. Like a vast meteor shower, the fireballs pound into the earth, slamming through rock and soil, through tree and branch. All around Neriah are in the firing line. All but one person.

Within the halo of destruction, Domitia and Jay are framed together.

<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

"She didn't need to tell me anything," Domitia says, her voice lower and softer. Slender fingers rising, she pushes her hood back from her face.

She doesn't have to give her name. Jay can recognize her instantly. Neriah shakes her curls out and bows her head. "I didn't want you to get involved in this, Jay. You're too good a person. But something has to change here. That's why this has to happen this way. I promise I'll explain. For now...."

Neriah holds up a slender hand. "...I need you to hold on a minute," she says, as shimmering yellow-white light begins to form around Jay.

Even as destruction rains down upon the other foes gathered against her, Neriah brings something else to bear on Jay. She can see a bubble forming. Within it, little black and red and white butterflies drift, just fading into view. The spectral images of stars. Green grass.

Just as she did to Mikaia and Janey, Neriah attempts to catch Jay in a Bliss Bubble and take her safely out of the fight.

GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Neriah Parringer with Inhalation!
GS: Neriah Parringer gains Restore, shortening negative statuses by 3 turns each!
GS: Mighty! Statuses applied to Neriah Parringer!
GS: Neriah Parringer heals Neriah Parringer! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
GS: Please provide a more specific attack name. [in the]
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Destruction Rains From the Heavens!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Tabitha deVriese with Destruction Rains From the Heavens!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Elvis with Destruction Rains From the Heavens!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Tesni Inoue with Destruction Rains From the Heavens!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Mihaya with Destruction Rains From the Heavens!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Ashes with Destruction Rains From the Heavens!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Destruction Rains From the Heavens!
GS: Lydia Seren guards a hit from Talia's Savage Gore for 99 hit points!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Jacqueline Barber with In the Garden of Bliss!
GS: Neriah Parringer has completed her action.
DC: 3 turns have elapsed in the battle against Neriah Parringer! 2 turns remain!
DC: MISS! Ashes completely evades Destruction Rains From the Heavens from Neriah Parringer!
GS: CRITICAL! Mihaya guards a hit from Neriah Parringer's Destruction Rains From the Heavens for 148 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Mihaya!
GS: Elvis guards a hit from Neriah Parringer's Destruction Rains From the Heavens for 132 hit points!
GS: Elvis enters CONDITION GREEN!!
DC: MISS! Ethius Hesiod completely evades Destruction Rains From the Heavens from Neriah Parringer!
GS: COUNTER! Elhaym van Houten strikes at Neriah Parringer with a counter attack!
GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a solid hit from Neriah Parringer's Destruction Rains From the Heavens for 226 hit points!
GS: Elhaym van Houten enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Neriah Parringer critically Guards a hit from Elhaym van Houten's Counter Attack for 41 hit points!
GS: Tabitha deVriese takes a glancing hit from Neriah Parringer's Destruction Rains From the Heavens for 117 hit points!
DC: MISS! Matilda Whitehead completely evades Earth Rush from Talia!
GS: Tesni Inoue critically Guards a hit from Neriah Parringer's Destruction Rains From the Heavens for 47 hit points!
GS: Tesni Inoue enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from Neriah Parringer's In the Garden of Bliss for 103 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

"And stopping mid-fight to talk about her feelings is going to stop the army crashing against us?" Kaguya answers Rebecca sharply, just a glance her way. "She made her choice. That's how this business works."

As Matilda wobbles on her feet, Kaguya seems to show no concern at all for her partner and tactician. She just keeps walking towards Talia. ...And admittedly, Elvis, she is having fun with the rock boar. However--

The reason she didn't show concern becomes obvious. Matilda leaps back towards the boar, and Kaguya offers a sickle-sharp grin to Talia in return, noticing the awful silver blood on her... Hearing some of what Lydia says. She doesn't interrupt.

But her eyes get sharper at Matilda's words; apparently she is listening. ...She's listening, and--

Kaguya grins that awful grin at Talia as she screams at her, as she stares at her. She's got something here, she realizes, she notices, and she hangs onto it. Talia screams at her and Kaguya? Kaguya looks as smug as anything in a look that the soldiers behind her can't see. It's still there, until the crashing of ice becomes a storm that blocks all sight of the small blonde woman. The very air has turned to ice against her, and Kaguya whirls in place through the attack; the sheer size of it gives her little choice but to carve with silvered blades as best she can, to strike out with elbows and knees to parry as much as she's able. ...But the sheer cold of it brings aches to her muscles, the jagged edges cut, the blocks cause bruises beneath her armor. ...But the magic fades eventually. It fades, and--

"...Lyds is a good person," Kaguya says, as she rises from where she'd fallen to the ground amidst the immense crash of ice. "She's got a lot going for her."

Kaguya is walking, again, towards Talia. A step at a time, towards where Talia has fallen, smashed by her own creature. Kaguya has well-forming bruises on her face already, a wicked look in her green eyes. "KEEP AT IT!" she calls to her--her--soldiers. "SEE HOW FAR WE'VE COME, EXHAUSTED? GO!"

...But she has something quieter for Talia, as she approaches, something only for her. Perhaps Matilda can hear it, or some others... but not the soldiers.

"Honestly?" Kaguya says to Talia. "I don't care about your redemption, or your family. The thing is?"

Lydia and Amaranth, focused on Talia, may hear it too, as Kaguya kneels beside her. "If he cared about you, he wouldn't have sent you up against me."

Kaguya rises, then, looks back towards the boar, and lunges, moving faster than a girl this sick has a right to. She sheathes her knives for the moment, blood and all, and reaches out--

She grips the boar outright, bending at the knee, leaping up, and hurling the gigantic boar straight for the ground at its back, following only long enough to land elbow-first in a brutal strike. "Let's MOVE!"

GS: Kaguya has attacked Talia with Orbit Throw!
GS: Kaguya has completed her action.
GS: Talia guards a hit from Kaguya's Orbit Throw for 109 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.

 
"Nothing about this is business!" Rebecca retorts to Kaguya. As if she feels that nothing about this should be. It's just madness to her. "And it shouldn't be to you either!"
 
The giant boar is unnerving, and Rebecca - hobbled by the other attack tries to limp out of the way, only to be batted casually aside by the boar. Her whole body screams - and it feels like she's blacking out. At least for an instant.
 
Her impact with the ground disabuses of her of that notion as she hits the ground and rolls.
 
Fortunate enough at least to have missed one of the tusks - unfortunately it feels like some ribs are broken. More than a few even. In a haze - she sees how the Earthrager screams and hits Talia. Stunned - and in a haze of her own pain she murmurs, "Guess the thing doesn't know how to go easy on a girl."
 
It's like the horror hasn't completely gotten through that pain, until it does - and then it's just awful.
 
She wants to go to her - right now though, it's all she can do to raise herself back up to her feet. Every single breath making her chest feel like she's on fire. "Why am I even here?" She whispers. Like she's forgotten. Her eyes fixating on her body, not knowing if she's awake or alive - or anything. "Tal-ia..." All the same, she talks to her. So that if she is awake - maybe she'll stay awake.
 
"I left my family behind in Capo Bronco. My dad - sent me off with a smile."
 
Her hand reaches for the medium.
 
"If yours wouldn't when you tell him how you feel. Then..."
 
Her eyes slide by Jay in this daze. "Then he's doing wrong by you..."
 
Power starts to rise up around her as she gathers it up. Allows it to well inside herself as if they were the words of something she's writing in her diary. "...and doesn't figure into your redemption at all! Material:"
 
Something flashes from that invocation. A sigil appearing in the sky. "Prismatic Dream!"
 
And then light rains down. Bright coruscating streams of magical radiance. One by one by one. A shower that scrous the Earthraging boar one after another after another.
 

GS: Rebecca Streisand has activated a Force Action!
GS: Rebecca Streisand has spent 2 Combo on Smite!
GS: Rebecca Streisand has attacked Talia with Material - Prismatic Dream!
GS: Rebecca Streisand has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    'This... this was all I could do!'

    "I know," Ida says. "I'm not questioning that." She could. She should, hisses an angry little voice inside her. The only way Talia is going to gain control of her situation is if she takes it, and...

    And that feeling is real, Ida reminds herself. Who wouldn't get angry when abused, when forced into a position of powerlessness? Ida backs away as Matilda straight-up shanks the boar, and delivers an opinion that is simultaneously admirable in its conviction and completely horrifying to Ida. She twists away as Lydia rains down light from the heavens, shielding her eyes. She takes an extra second or so to steel herself, to try and choke out that horrifying wrongness elsewhere on the field. "What hold does he--" Ida begins.

    'Lubov is my father.'

    "What father does that to their child?!" Ida's outrage erupts from nowhere. It's palpable. She sees the Earthrager rush towards Talia, too late. "Damnation! Lydia, Rebecca, focus-fire on that thing!" Then the boar charges her. Ida twists to the side, trying to tuck and roll out of the way of those jagged tusks, but one of them catches her in the side, damned near reopening a scar Siegfried gave her more than half a year ago. Ida turns to the tumble into an awkward flop, scrambles to her feet, breathes to redirect her chi and staunch the bleeding. More chi envelops her fist as she focuses, trying to summon up killing strength of her own. She spent months relying on chi saturated with Malevolence, but now, it's all her.

    Kaguya suplexes a god damn elemental monstrosity. Something in the back of Ida's brain seems to take it as a challenge.

    Ida falls on the creature as it hits the ground, driving her right fist forwards like the business-end of a piledriver. A corona of golden-white energy blazes around it, and should it hit, the chi detonates explosively, with enough force to shatter bone--or stone, as the case may be. Ida isn't sure how much of this thing is still flesh.

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has spent 1 Combo on Gatling!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Talia with Steel-Breaking Fist!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has canceled their attack on Talia.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has activated a Force Action!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has spent 2 Combo on Gatling!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Talia with Steel-Breaking Fist!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Elvis has posed.

Each hit that connects only temporarly disrupts the shield. So much energy backing it, Elvis wonders if it even could all be exhausted. Heck be it far from him to test its limits. Yet another point of research. If the people who wield the power under such a being beholden keep causing him and others issues, knowing their limits is important.

And the retort rains down, screaming in its own right.

Taking a deep breath, yells out. "Brace for impact!" he says. The searing ethereal fire burns and seeks to placate its enemies in a form most common in war-- death.

When the smoke clears though, Elvis remains, though burnt and scorched. "You just wouldn't get it. Not everyone sees massacre as a means to solve a crisis. I for one, seek to go around that. All my life's work is meant to prevent just that. To see it enacted elsewhere bothers me."

One of his fists is aglow with datonating energy, ready to explode. "It is perhaps an event I should not be involved in. It may be none of my business. But the moment your kind attacked me at Pendrago Castle..."

The spare arm not pulsing with energy flexes, and it can be distinctly heard.

"You made a powerful enemy."

He breaks into a full run, that energy arcing out on the ground as he travels, rending it asunder and sending earth flying. "Unfortunately for you, I am the type that HOLDS A GRUDGE!"

What comes next is an impact. And one of two things generally happen when he charges up like this. Generally either the opponent gets hit, or an entire hillside goes missing.

Lets find out which happens!

GS: Elvis has spent 3 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Elvis has attacked Neriah Parringer with Locus Upper!
GS: Elvis has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Neriah Parringer critically Guards a hit from Elvis's Locus Upper for 86 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.

    Katherine's expression hangs in the air as Talia reflects on the fact that--

    Lubov is her father.

    She lets out a scathing little breath, feeling shrivelled as she feels the earth move around her. The spell of Grave, as she's sensed and seen before by her fellow earth Seraphs...

    There's a wince as she throws a gleaming shower of sparkles -- and disappears from sight for a moment, a faint inkling of her true nature as a Seraph of Darkness manifesting underneath all of that glamour.

    A reality that facade can't hide.

    Amaranth lands on the other side of where the earth-spikes have erupted, as she hears Mirage clatter from the ground.

    "Talia. I will tell you something I have never told any other human before..." she whispers. She wicks her hands over her eyes once more. Gone are the eyes of Katherine Weaver, a closed grimoire of a magician's secrets...

    And when Seraph Amaranth's eyes open--

    there are lines

    "I am a sinner and a prisoner."

    lines that can scarce be perceived

    "My sins are innumerable, my sentence indefinite... and it was only with the support of the most beloved in my life that I have been working deep and hard in penance."

    a line that embodies life itself

    "Everything sis Ragnell does for me... every time she sits down with me and makes me feel like I'm not too far gone, that I can still... build something out of the rubble."

    a line that embodies death itself

    "Everything Lanval's done to pull me out of the gutter at my lowest... to have such patience even as taint mired everything around him. To think I couldn't help him in turn..."

    the lines that cross every living thing

    Seraph Amaranth looks towards that boar, as Kaguya wrestles the beast and Matilda dives to deliver it with a gushing stab from her silver blade. Rebecca's snapping off an explosion of elemental energy... and Talia manifests a Guardian whose presence she doesn't quite comprehend.

    "... This creature is getting in the way of our conversation. For you, Talia... I will sin again."

    She disappears, like an inky blackness in the night--

    --and descends next to Matilda atop the beast as Rebecca's coruscating lights of magical radiance. She looks to the compounder and strategist for a moment, with filmy eyes that don't look like they can see.

    "Miss Matilda. Let me help you with that."

                           and when she next reaches
                           it is towards those lines
                        and she pulls with an open hand
                           a palm only known as the

DC: Seraph Amaranth switches forms to The Spectre of Hexennacht!
GS: Seraph Amaranth has spent 3 Combo on Headshot!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

 
The ice falls onto Domitia but not fast enough, not hard enough. I should have tried fire, Elly thinks bleakly, even as she cries out, "By killing a routed army? All you'll do is make another generation of bitterness!" before the storms come. The bombardment.

Elly had not even gotten back on her feet yet and soon enough she is consumed by the barrage that falls with inferno-heat and crushing force from the sky. When the rolling thunder of flame and storm pass by, there is a small hillock - the defensive Ether that Elly had drawn upon had to get strong enough to become an actual palpable effect, drawing up soil. It was good enough that she is alive.

She is, however, not prone to argue the matter. She sprawls out as the tension breaks. Her legs feel like gelatin. She can't get up now. She can't even call out an argument in the face of this malice. For a moment Elly doubts her choices.

But then something draws her eyes. Tabitha. She's out there.

Elly closes her eyes, and places her hopes in Tabitha deVriese. Even if they are no longer truly allies, Elly knows... they're not enemies, either.

Also, Elly's 'hopes' take the form of a sudden shroud of localized wind that lays over Tabitha, sweeping in a cleansing cyclone round her before lingering in a series of free standing micro-vorteces. The wind is at her back now - whatever way she faces - at least for the next fifteen or twenty seconds.

Hopefully by then Elly will be able to get the lead out.

GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Tabitha deVriese with Elements in Harmony!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.

Her -- her *father*?! Matilda's caught off guard -- but not *so* off guard that she doesn't defend herself. Going into a controlled roll away from the boar as it continues to rove around the battlefield, Matilda keeps herself safe -- if only by inches. Her gaze catches that crystal -- and the Soul-Alchemy Laboratory's monstrosities are fresh enough in her mind to put the pieces together.

Yikes at everything happening here. Just. All of it.

It takes Matilda a moment to even piece together how she feels about this. It's... honestly such an alien line of thinking. She rounds on the boar again, as she sees Talia fall. "... It doesn't change what I suggest," Matilda says, as she moves between Talia and the boar again -- perhaps as much for Talia's benefit as for genuine positioning. "... Kaguya and Rebecca -- they're *both* right. No father worthy of the title would treat his child as a knife. Such a person..."

Matilda puts away her sword, and draws Freischütz, calmly loading it with the one thing she trusts to always work, no matter her emotional state, no matter anything else about its synchronization with her: bullets.

Striding up to the monstrosity as Kaguya spikes it into the ground, Matilda levels the weapon at it. "... I won't accept a world in which such a person lives and thrives." She fires into the boar over and over. ... It's not the first time Matilda's killed a sick pig -- just the most stubborn.

As she fires, Katherine -- no, Amaranth -- descends next to her. Her eyes widen a little, then blink in surprise. "M -- Miss Weaver...?" she asks, quietly. She doesn't quite understand what's happening with the woman she knows as a tailor... but it simultaneously makes her feel less worried to see her on the battlefield *and* less at ease overall.

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    Ethius stares down that hand. The colors hurt to look at, but he stares at them. His very end can come out of that hand before he blinks, but he is not fighting her alone. Whether this affects him or not, emotionally, is a tough read. A cool breeze runs through him as the shattered ice block disperses itself. He watches as a scrappy young elf throws herself at the 'nun' who, like him, seems to be armored less by proper equipment and more like some sort of innate drive. Tesni reaches a hand out from over yonder to some Symbological spell that he does not know the purpose of because nothing comes of it. Tabitha, that one with the strange aerial movement, comes in to strike from behind them. Elvis politely suggests to him he backs up, among other words Ethius doesn't seem to catch but intristically a part of him does not like (Ethius doesn't back up and it is stretching suspension of disbelief that he is not slugged). Others, yet, try to reach out and speak to her - like Elly does in-between driving icy blades into them, or how Jay comes up to address her--
     "Miss Jay--" Ethius tries to speak, but it is too late. He brings his forearm up against his face as the Sister raises her right hand. The white light should rob him of sight forevermore, and from there...
     Destruction rains from the heavens. That is exactly what it is. Destruction. Ethius runs across the field. The confrontation should draw eyes, shouldn't it? What will the people of Lunar say about what they witnessed this day? These are fireballs that could alter the local geography of the place forever more, leaving great scorching craters where each of them impact.
     Ethius loses sight of them... Jay... 'Domitia.' The battlefiled threatens to evaporate under the might of Valmar. He has no sense of where he is in relation to the storm he is caught in. No idea of he's running in, or out. He has one idea entirely, but, one moment on that idea.
     Shockwaves ring with every impact, but Ethius doesn't lose his balance. He just runs. Moves. As though, intristically, he understands what level of lighting around him designates he's about to be crushed by something, and adjusts accordingly. To anyone else, the whole of it is simply overwhelming.
     Hyland is being driven by an alien force seeking conquest, in part or in whole.
     Rolance has a vacuum of power standing to be snatched up by a false priestess.
     A countless number of Filgaians, all around, cannot or will not stop throwing themselves in the thick of it to shape things as they see fit.
     Also he's in the middle of a cataclysmic fall of sorcerous power, there's that, too. That's probably the most imminent thing.
     Wordlessly, he runs... he runs... he runs, and keeps running, tirelessly. Like the soul he has, something about him works in prepetuity. Relentless. Hounding. It doesn't matter whether he lacks a clear origin point or greater picture for what he believes in.
     He simply believes in it, and what Jay might find as Ethius coincidentally(?) runs towards the center of it all, just outside of the Bliss Bubble...
     "Neriah Parringer!" The name calls out above the deafening roars of the violated heavens destroying the hills around him. Could his voice be heard from within?
     "You will not escape me." Which is... nice, and all a sentiment to have. He gesticulates with his right hand as he dives dramatically away from another explosion, and the feat of concentration in tandem with movement is impressive as he chants the rest of a spell of some vague nature.
     It is vague, in so much that whatever spell it is he casts, it cannot break the bubble.
     The bubble is not his to break.
     That right belongs to someone else.

GS: Ethius Hesiod enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Neriah Parringer with His Only Weapon - The Truth!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
GS: Neriah Parringer takes a glancing hit from Ethius Hesiod's His Only Weapon - The Truth for 0 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Tesni Inoue has posed.

Ethius having a soul could be very shocking to just about anyone. Given how robotic he seems to be on occasion, yet Tes doesn't want to see him in the ground as afraid of him as she might be most of the time. Tess is not able to so what she planned to do something else is in the way. Terrible power is brought against her and Tess prays, my god she pays silently to a God that is unknown on Lunar. She does keep acting only a fool in her mind would act on faith alone, God meets people halfway. She keeps going and then the terrible power. Maybe it was the potion that Jay gave her? Or maybe it was something else she'll never know the why but Tess is able to endure it all and is still standing when it clears for a moment.

 She thumbed a button on the ARM, the hidden Terran tech in the butt comes to life prepping a round for the moment and she looks at them.

 "I have a responsibility to lessen the harm that is done to this world."

 Tess pulls a medium out, she wonders if she's committing a sin from her worldview calling on the Guardians but she has little choice and she respects them. They care, they struggle they aid and advise the people of their world.

 "RAGE HAMMER!"

 Tess calls outreaching through the Medium and to the distant world that Lunar Orbits. A huge being like an armoured horned lion appears before her. The guardian roars before it lets loose a torrent powerful lightning bolts.

 "I'm fighting for a world that isn't mine but it's worth saving it's worth helping and it's worth to keep you from doing this terrible act... TO YOUR SELF!"

<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

Tadpole's eyes widen as she sees Domitia pull her hood back, summons that bubble. She lays low for the moment. This is a bit beyond her skill level, it's pretty clear there. She can't just clobber this person upside the head and hope that ends the war, but Lydia is way too busy to intercede here. Tadpole makes a decision.

Tadpole leaps out of hiding and swipes her spear for that bliss bubble, trying to puncture it open and help Jay escape. "You're right. Things can't continue as they are. Lunar is infected along several axis and if we just sit back and let it happen, Lunar will be doomed." Tadpole says. "But how many of these 'infections' are because of you?" Tadpole is too busy trying to open that bliss bubble up to point. "The right hand of a lady starving her people, how many of the towns that vanished off from our maps are you responsible for? How many 'accidents' have you made?"

Tadpole narrows her eyes. "This war is distracting the world from these dying towns that need our help. There are entire communities cut off from everything that need us." This might be less intimidating due to the kero hood she's wearing. More stalling, more distraction? Mercenaries move all the same to end this battle with what's coming to be pure chaos. Horses fall out from underneath officers as their steeds are shrunken out from under them, loyal warriors and clobbered until they stop marching, the wounded are guided out while a battle beyond their reckoning continues.

Amber is knocked away from the soldier she was trying to help, barely avoiding being gored herself. She grimaces and rolls back to avoid getting trampled. Her eyes widen as she sees where it's headed. "Boss! Watch out!"

Lydia stalls for a moment as she learns the truth. Lubov isn't just a jerk noble, he's Talia's father. "You're... My dad's a jerk too, Talia--" She extends a hand toward her. "I had to abandon my parents because they didn't see my value. It has made me so much happier. You can have that too. And we can bitch about them forever too, just to feel bett--ERRK!"

She has lost track of that earthrager what with focusing so much on Talia. She is bowled over and is sent flying through the air, but that's when she catches sight of Neriah's position.

She draws her other medium out.

"Rigdobrite... I'm counting on you." She doesn't hear of Weaver's connection to Lanval but she does close her eyes as she pushes her power into this summoning.

Rigdobrite takes place of Solais Emsu in the sky, wagging its tail to and fro as a slew of meteors come tumbling down towards the killer boar and--

--and Neriah's position. Approximately. Lydia isn't great at aim but Rigdobrite probably isn't too fond of all that evil energy collecting there either.

GS: Matilda Whitehead has attacked Talia with Seven Bullets!
GS: Matilda Whitehead has completed her action.
GS: Tesni Inoue has attacked Neriah Parringer with Material - Rage Hammer!
GS: Tesni Inoue has completed her action.
GS: Talia guards a hit from Rebecca Streisand's Material - Prismatic Dream for 114 hit points!
GS: Talia guards a hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Steel-Breaking Fist for 115 hit points!
GS: Break! Statuses applied to Talia!
GS: Talia has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
GS: Talia critically Guards a hit from Matilda Whitehead's Seven Bullets for 36 hit points!
GS: Talia has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
GS: Neriah Parringer guards a hit from Tesni Inoue's Material - Rage Hammer for 75 hit points!
GS: Lydia Seren has activated a Force Action!
GS: DISEASE! Elhaym van Houten tries to heal Tabitha deVriese, but it doesn't work!
GS: Reload! Tabitha deVriese gains 15 extra FP from Elhaym van Houten!
<Pose Tracker> Mihaya has posed.

 "You are a curse," Mihaya snarls back at Domitia. She doesn't feel like being charitable to this woman, especially when she was showing that she was driven by terrifyingly dark powers. She doesn't understand what the others are saying, what implications are being made. That sort of thing is beyond her.
 
 But she can tell that Domitia doesn't have any concern for the lives of others. That she'll kill and destroy for the sake of achieving her dark goals.
 
 She doesn't get it. But sometimes you just have to go with your gut, and hope that you get it right.
 
 Unfortunately, fighting for what you think is right means that sometimes you have to take more lumps than you would like.
 
 Fire rains from the sky, and Mihaya does what she can to dodge the attack. Unfortunately, even being on your guard and trying to avoid the worst of it is relative when you are in the middle of this sort of destruction.
 
 Fire burns at her, searing at her skin and burning away some of her clothing. The symbologist staggers from the pain, barely able to keep on her feet for the moment. "Well... I'm glad that you've added some more heat to the equation..." she hisses, bracing herself with both hands on her staff.
 
 "BECAUSE THAT MEANS THAT I DON'T NEED TO WORK MUCH TURN IT UP MORE!"
 
 The crystal atop Mihaya's staff flares red for a moment, and the fire burning on the ground around her vanishes in a number of small puffs of smoke, the heat stolen by the symbologist's manipulation as she focuses her magic.
 
 "Inscribe the flames of the underworld unto this one lost to darkness!"
 
 Dozens of tiny motes of fire appear in the air around Domitia, and they blaze for a moment like a tiny, burning field of stars. Mihaya raises her hand, fingers held open in a claw for a moment that she frames the accursed sister within. And as she closes them, the countless points of heat collapse inwards, aiming to slam into Domitia and increase collectively in temperature by an impressive factor. Enough that within moments the air around her will combust in a rather impressive explosion.
 
 "FLARE!"

GS: Mihaya has spent 3 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Mihaya has attacked Neriah Parringer with Flare!
GS: Mihaya takes 8 damage from Poison!
GS: Mihaya has completed her action.
GS: Lydia Seren has attacked Talia with Meteor Crash!
GS: Lydia Seren has attacked Neriah Parringer with Meteor Crash!
GS: Lydia Seren has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Neriah Parringer critically Guards a hit from Mihaya's Flare for 63 hit points!
GS: Hyper and Shield! Statuses applied to Mihaya!
GS: Neriah Parringer guards a hit from Lydia Seren's Meteor Crash for 103 hit points!
GS: Talia takes a solid hit from Lydia Seren's Meteor Crash for 209 hit points!
GS: Talia has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
GS: Seraph Amaranth has spent 3 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Seraph Amaranth enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Seraph Amaranth has attacked Talia with Shadow Dragon Palm!
GS: Seraph Amaranth has completed her action.
GS: Talia takes a solid hit from Seraph Amaranth's Shadow Dragon Palm for 256 hit points!
GS: Talia has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
Mihaya
While not unusually tall, it is clear that Mihaya's elven blood has favored her with a few more inches that average,
putting her at a solid 73 inches. With fair skin, eyes blue enough that they border on being violet, and platinum blonde
hair with just a hint of red (it's NOT light pink, thank you very much), she tends to have the attractive yet somewhat
distant quality of many elves - her features a touch too severe to seem entirely human. Her hair is pulled back into a
short tail high behind her head, although given its lack of length it tends to create more of a spikey effect than any
sort of elegant or flowing appearance.
 
 Mihaya's dress is somewhat unusual, as it consists of several silk layers, predominantly of purple for the main layer
which wraps around her top and falls to her knees, closing in the front in a sort of robe like pattern that is bound
with a wide red sash. The sash itself is tied in the back with a large bow, and has floral pattern printed across it.
Detached sleeves of the same purple silk add to the outfit, and the edges of the dress are trimmed in red cloth. Thigh
high black leather boots help to protect the elf's feat, and in one hand she carries a slender staff, with the top
adorned with a pale blue crystal wrapped in a twisting set of metal wires to hold it in place.
<Pose Tracker> Ashes has posed.

Ashes steps toward the offered hand. or falls towards it; towards it and past it, and Domitia's ire scourges the air behind her. And what's wrong with failing to confirm? What threat is Ashes, anyways? A little dead girl, she just hasn't stopped moving yet. Quite.

So, let her just stop moving for a moment, and see what's going on.

Domitia's hood is pulled back to reveal... someone? Who wants to talk peace and butterflies? Who Ethius isn't prepared to interrupt.

Well, she doesn't know anything about that. She has no knives left to throw, just shade. A great gush of it, to splash against Neriah's blissful bubble.

GS: Ashes has spent 1 Combo on Disease!
GS: Ashes has attacked Neriah Parringer with Pain Flow!
GS: Ashes takes 8 damage from Poison!
GS: Ashes has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

An array of great powers are brought down upon Sister Domitia, but she weathers the assault expertly. It's...a little terrifying. She delivers her words, and finally, Jay watches as her attention turns to her.

"...Why?" Jacqueline asks, quite at first. "Why does this have to be done?" She takes a step forward...

But then pales as Domitia raises her right hand. Jacqueline can once more feel power building, can feel the world shuddering as a column of white right erupts into the air...

And then splits apart, battering the earth and all those caught upon it.

Jacqueline braces herself...

...But nothing comes for her.

She opens her eyes to see that Sister Domitia is right in front of her. And then...the woman removes her head.

Jacqueline's eyes open wide in surprise and fear and she backpedals.

"N...Neriah...?" Jacqueline breathes out. She's uncertain at first...but looking at her, there can be no doubt. No doubt that Sister Domitia and Neriah Parringer were one and the same.

"...How does this change things, Neriah? I...I don't see how wholesale slaughter of the sick and dying changes anything." Jacqueline replies, shaking her head. Neriah asks her to wait a minute. "This...this can't wait. How many people need to die before things 'change'?"

Jacqueline begins to take a step forward...but she comes into contact with the shimmering light that begins to form around her.

"N-Neriah!? What're you...?" Jacqueline says, and stumbles backward. She...suddenly feels fatigued. Feels like she ought to just...rest. Wouldn't it be nicer to let go?

...Wouldn't it be nicer to forget all of this?

But...those people. She couldn't...

"N-Neriah...! I don't...want this!" She calls out. One hand curls into a fist...and she slams it into the side of the bubble. At the same time Tadpole comes in, trying to help puncture it. "I-I don't...I don't want to look away from what's in front of me!"

She reaches into her bags, and closes her hands around a stone tablet. She shuts her eyes tight and entreats a prayer.

Once more, Grudiev comes to her call. Once more, the Guardian approves behind her, draws in debris, and vents it out in the form of a shining barrier. It covers her allies that are helping her contend with Neriah...and as many of the sick and wounded of Hyland that it can reach.

She doesn't want anyone else to die here today.

No one else needs to die.

GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Tesni Inoue with Material - Earthen Embrace!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Material - Earthen Embrace!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Material - Earthen Embrace!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Mihaya with Material - Earthen Embrace!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Ashes with Material - Earthen Embrace!
GS: Jacqueline Barber takes 7 damage from Poison!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
GS: Neriah Parringer critically Guards a hit from Ashes's Pain Flow for 27 hit points!
GS: Ashes drains Neriah Parringer! Ashes gains 0 temporary hit points!
GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Ethius Hesiod!
GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Ethius Hesiod! He gains 200 temporary hit points!
GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Mihaya!
GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Mihaya! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Ashes!
GS: DISEASE! Jacqueline Barber tries to heal Ashes, but it doesn't work!
GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Elhaym van Houten!
GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Elhaym van Houten! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Tesni Inoue!
GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Tesni Inoue! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

For the briefest of moments, Talia meets Lydia's eyes. There is an understanding there that wasn't a moment ago. And then, she is sent flying.

Talia comes to, half-dazed. She has blood running down the left side of her face, and her side is split open. She groans, softly, and she looks up, as she finds herself with Kaguya leaning over her. She looks up, with one eye still working right; the other is shut. She spits blood on the ground, and then she listens. She doesn't find herself disagreeing about Lydia.

But then she hears the words for just her.

Her jaw tenses. Drained as she might be, that anger is not gone yet. Talia bares her teeth. "Don't think... don't think I'll forget this," she says, quietly.

Talia's eyes turn, slowly, towards Rebecca. Her eyes blink a couple of times. "Why are you..." Why is she telling her that? Except, she realizes, she knows. She looks down then. A hand covers her mouth. Ida expresses her horror, too; she can't even meet her eyes, after all the things she said and did to her, before. She can't meet Matilda's, either. Her fingers tremble, as she hears the horror in her voice. To all of their judgments of Lubov, she just says: "I know."

Her eyes do lift, though, when she sees Amaranth land in front of her. The Seraph of Darkness; the person she found Katherine to be, even if she didn't undersdtand. She blinks her eyes, surprised that she finds tears in them. Her throat is dry, and her lips work, at first. "You're..."

She wants to try to deny it, but given the circumstances -- what she did, and what she has done -- the denial is weak and false. It dies on her lips. She looks down. "They... they stuck by you. But--but why are you by me? Why--" And then, slowly, Talia's eyes widen. "Wait, you don't--"

But Amaranth descends.

Kaguya slams into the boar. Her lunge leads her right into its massive flank. She grips it, and lifts it -- it makes a disturbingly normal porcine squeal -- before it is smashed back onto the ground. It strikes and rolls, blood running from a back scored up badly. It stumbles upward, then, and lifts its head. Its eyes flash and blaze with an unholy anger.

Brilliant beams of light lance into it. They shred through it. Flesh burns and parts around the beams that Rebecca summons, with her Medium -- and the Earthrager shudders. Ida's fist slams into the head of the Earthrager and ki flashes.

It shatters more stone than bone. The boar screams -- and it sounds panicked, now, as a spike of red crystal explodes from its guts. Innards spill to the ground, as the jagged blade impales into the earth. The lines from Amaranth whip out -- one slashes apart and undoes a crystal. Its tip slides to the ground and shatters.

The pistol shots from Matilda rip into it, bullet after bullet sending chips of stone flying into the air. Rigdobrite appears next -- hovering in the air -- and meteors assail it. Flesh is torn away, until little is left but bloodied crystal. Pieces of it still jut outward; the boar's head turns, panicked and terrified, before a meteorite smashes it and grants it a mercy.

And then the lines cross.

The crystal shatters apart in a burst of chips of red stone and brown rock. Amaranth's spell breaks it -- sparing the boar, even as she leaves little but pulverized chips in its wake.

Talia, at this point, has fallen to her knees. She stares at the remains of the Earthrager. When she feels her hand shake, it's for other reasons. "Father... how did you make that thing?" she asks softly. Then, louder, she looks around -- at the people, each in turn, who saved her. She stares, meeting their eyes finally.

But she doesn't find words.

<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.

Domitia's sorcerous evil stains across Tabitha. Being TOUCHED this way kindles something spiteful in her that she can't quite grasp. These people are BELOW her yet they keep keeping up with her! This person is...

Sister Domitia plucks a bullet out of her spine like the only remarkable part was how annoying it was, and Tabitha finds herself yielding a step. It's hard to remember her lessons; the instructor was dismissive, disinterested. 'This is all Lamb hysteria, of course. Know it only as a means to control them. They fear most what they cannot see.'

Her fingers tighten on her weapon. Well, she can see it now and it's certainly got her shaking, she thinks sourly. What else do they not know?

Domitia doesn't let Tabitha remain in close; that hideous wave of power erupts away in every direction, blasting Tabitha up and away like little more than a clod of shaken-loose dirt. She circles mid-air, coming down nimbly on two feet, bracing herself with a gloved hand, ARM held out in the fourth direction. She senses Elly's power upon her, taking a long, slow breath of it. She can feel the corrosion still on her burning away even some of what Elly's given her. "Demons. There's not supposed to be demons," she spits.

Then she surges, leaping skyward - peppering the area around Domitia with what aren't actually bullets but rather small, almost needle-like Ether tags, charged with elemental wind and bursting into little slicing razor-wind flurries on impact.

GS: Tabitha deVriese enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has attacked Neriah Parringer with Ether Magnum Flutter!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has completed her action.
GS: Neriah Parringer guards a hit from Tabitha deVriese's Ether Magnum Flutter for 57 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

"Jay, I promise there's a good reason," Neriah says softly as she lets the Bliss Bubble begin to do its work.

But others have things to say about that.

By all rights, Elvis's powerful blast should have been enough to level a small hill.

His fist strikes something. The explosion of force is gigantic. Light and fire erupt across the landscape, ground and stone torn from the firmament of Lunar and sailing in the air to vapourize beneath the sheer violence of the impact. But as the light fades, it becomes clear that Elvis's fist has slammed into the shield that flickers around Domitia - Neriah, really. The eldritch patterns strain and ripple, and she growls as she holds her hand out to try and keep him at bay. The land around her has blown out into a vast crater of black glass as the power of Valmar pushes back against the power of the scholar-warrior's energy. Streaks of fire have left scorches along her robes, tearing much of them. "Then your grudge will be the end of you," she hisses, fighting to force him back.

Mihaya turns the heat up - and that flickering shield widens and swells as the intensity of the Elven sorceress's flames burns across it. Eldritch patterns across the face of the bubble wash away as everything around Domitia explodes. Glassed turf shatters and bursts. The fire leeches through the shield, and Neriah shields herself with one arm even as her robe begins to catch fire around the edges. "You're a powerful one," Neriah hisses as she pours more energy into her shield, diverting the flames around her in vast waves. "But you're right. I am a curse. Or rather... I was a curse. But that's past now. Now, I will be the one to do the cursing."

The bombardment of meteors is unexpected. Neriah hisses as one of them slams into her defensive shield. Shards slip through and pelt her violently. "Lydia, damn it all," she growls.

Tesni opens up and calls forth a Guardian. Lightning bolts rain down around Neriah, slamming into her shield and collapsing it enough that she takes a couple of hits edgewise. Scorching marks slice through her robe, but she remains on her feet, firing back at Tesni with a sweep of her hand.

Bursting from it, an immense wave of shadow erupts forth, swelling into a shape like a vast three-jawed face. One of the faces of Valmar, roaring in to try and consume her. "And I have a responsibility to a higher power," she intones.

Ashes makes her move and throws shade. Neriah wheels away from the attack, but it burns across her defensive field nevertheless, knocking her back and forcing her to spin and reorient herself. "How are you not dead yet," she snorts as she snaps her hand out, slashing through the air. An arc of darkness roars towards Ashes, powerful enough to try and hurl her off her feet!

When Tabitha opens up, it's to sting with tags that ultimately serve to hit their mark. A couple of them hit Neriah in the side, digging in hard enough to sting and encumber. Grimacing, she wheels, then holds her hand up for a moment, letting her shield begin to restore itself. "You are all persistent, I will give you that. But--"

Then Tadpole jumps for the Bubble, and Ethius tries to do something. Neriah's eyes widen. "DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE!" she screams as she snaps her hand out. From her fingertips, dreadfully lightless light lances in a single, screaming, finger-thin RAY. It slashes out across Ethius.

Where it hits, it hits with sufficient force to bore through a mountain. The energy packed into that single compressed beam is utterly ludicrous in its intensity. Whatever it strikes kicks up a massive explosion of light and flame. It blooms upwards into a mushroom cloud over the Vale below.

Yet through it all... Grudiev shines through, and Jay refuses to go quietly into the Bliss Bubble.

"Jay, please don't make me do something," Neriah practically begs her. But Grudiev says his peace, and he won't take any of Neriah's shit. She grinds her teeth and bows her head.

"...You're too good, Jay," she whispers. "You were one of the only ones who was kind to me. I don't care about any of these others. But you have such a pure heart that I don't ever want to see it go dark!

"...But the world needs to change," she utters. "That's why I'm here. That's why I need to win this war."

She levels her hand, one more time - and from it, the darkness builds, then pours forth.

It's a wave of something utterly bloodcurdling. It's as though Neriah has unleashed a tidal wave of hell itself - unshining black energy which flows into shapes like grasping hands and yawning mouths and screaming faces, as though the spirits of the damned were trying to escape from whatever darkness they were trapped in. It flows out to try and swallow Mihaya, Elvis, Tadpole, Elly and Tabitha - trying to swamp them with crushing, burning, blood-curdling force.

What Jay gets is something else. Neriah curls her fingers, and an unseen force attempts to grip Jay and drag her forward. "Jay, come back with me!" she pleads. "You don't have to be in the middle of this anymore! You can be safe and happy and I'll take good care of you...."

GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Neriah Parringer with Eldritch Sphere!
GS: Neriah Parringer has entered a Reflect stance!
GS: Neriah Parringer takes a solid hit from Neriah Parringer's Eldritch Sphere for 0 hit points!
GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Neriah Parringer!
GS: Neriah Parringer has activated a Force Action!
GS: You have activated the Force Action Extend!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Elvis with Cascade of the Damned!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Mihaya with Cascade of the Damned!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Lydia Seren with Cascade of the Damned!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Cascade of the Damned!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Tabitha deVriese with Cascade of the Damned!
GS: Neriah Parringer has spent 3 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Unshining Ray!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Ashes with Deus Suos Agnoscet!
GS: That attack doesn't exist. [all cons]
GS: Neriah Parringer has spent 1 Combo on Disease!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Curdle!
GS: Neriah Parringer has attacked Tesni Inoue with All-Consuming Evil!
DC: 4 turns have elapsed in the battle against Neriah Parringer! 1 turns remain!
GS: Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from Neriah Parringer's Curdle for 0 hit points!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has been weakened by Disease! They take 0 damage, and burn off all temporary hit points!
GS: Disease! Statuses applied to Jacqueline Barber!
GS: Lydia Seren critically Guards a hit from Neriah Parringer's Cascade of the Damned for 41 hit points!
GS: Elvis takes a solid hit from Neriah Parringer's Cascade of the Damned for 203 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Ashes guards a hit from Neriah Parringer's Deus Suos Agnoscet for 116 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Ashes!
GS: CRITICAL! Tabitha deVriese takes a glancing hit from Neriah Parringer's Cascade of the Damned for 117 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Tabitha deVriese!
GS: Mihaya guards a hit from Neriah Parringer's Cascade of the Damned for 127 hit points!
GS: Mihaya enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.

    Amaranth's expression is very still as she glances back to Matilda when she calls her name out. No, not quite a name...

    Katherine Weaver is an ideal. Something she strives to be, a thing she wears every single day even if she might fail, like today of all days, to live up to that ideal...

    ... but that's part of what the whole idea of a facade is for.

    She casts a gaze to Talia too as she falls. And then those filmy eyes are wicked away, as she moves her hand over her face--

    --to lower her eyelids down with her two fingers. Once more when they return, Katherine Weaver is there, with expressive blue eyes with an innocence and concern.

    She sets down next to Talia, looking towards the others for a moment. Her dress is just about sotted with ice shards and dampened with earth, and she's bleeding from one side.

    But she perseveres, with a happy look on her face.

    "I'll always be by your side. I promise-- no, I vow this of you as I said before..."

    She lowers her head.

    "Between the two of us... I'll save one of our souls."

    She feels Neriah's power well in the distance, but that's not all. Now that Talia's down, the Hyland soldiers are probably nnnnot going to be terribly happy with the woman that's come to kill them.

    "Lydia -- Kinship -- we should take Talia out of here with us," she suggests, placing her shoulder around Talia if she'll relent and let her hoist her up. Lydia, Tadpole and Amber might have a better getaway plan though.

GS: CRITICAL! Ethius Hesiod takes a glancing hit from Neriah Parringer's Unshining Ray for 132 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Ethius Hesiod!
GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a solid hit from Neriah Parringer's Cascade of the Damned for 212 hit points!
GS: Elhaym van Houten enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: CRITICAL! Tesni Inoue guards a hit from Neriah Parringer's All-Consuming Evil for 124 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Tesni Inoue!
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

What words are there, really? Kaguya left a couple for Talia, in her anger, in her drained state. Just before she left, simply:

"Sure."

But here--she does not help with kindness. She does not help with encouraging words. She just makes her strike. The boar hits the ground ahead of Kaguya before she leaps back, landing on the ground some distance away, looking it over--watching the scream, the attacks...

The end of only part of this. Kaguya turns when it finishes towards Talia, who stares. Towards Talia... who doesn't rise. Who doesn't strike against them. A languid shrug becomes Kaguya's answer.

But more shrewedly, she looks to the other side of the battle, towards the desperate, terrible chaos of that being's dark power. Grudiev comes in, and Kaguya narrows her eyes for an instant--but the wave of black energy... Kaguya knows her soldiers are quailing as a result; what normal people wouldn't? So--

"SOLDIERS!" Kaguya calls. "Press the opening! Are you going to stare at evil showing itself, or are you going to get back to your homes!?"

She looks to the unit she had handling the wounded, and then pulls something from her collar, pressing a button and murmuring into it. Matilda, wearing the mate of the communicator, can hear it quickly.

"Atida," Kaguya's voice pipes up. "The Company can cover the wounded. I'm getting the others out of here. See you on the other side."

She looks down at Talia. Then, back to the group, "FOLLOW ME!"

Bloody, battered, Kaguya starts to press what she thinks is a weak point, while the terrifying Sister is occupied... and she'll knock any Rolancians out of her way that she has to. But will the Sister stay caught up long enough?

<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.

 
It's not real. It's not real.
 
The dying boar sounds real. It sounds like they're putting an animal down in the way it screams and suffers.
 
And it all comes back to 'How did you make that thing?' Rebecca isn't the most imaginative person perhaps when it comes to the most horrific possibilities. That still sounds plenty horrific though.
 
A little stunned she... finally says something, "If you know. Then do something about it."
 
It's a relief that others on her side are calling for Talia to be taken care of rather than 'taken and executed.'
 
Kaguya though calls for the Soldiers to press the opening. Rebecca takes one look at Sister Domitia.
 
If anyone looks back at that place a moment later there's a dotted line where Rebecca Streisand once stood.
 
"... Good thing I'm no soldier." She's already hobbling off the battlefield, while holding pressure to the side that's bleeding - up against her wounded ribs.
 
And all the while thinking 'coward' 'hypocrite' - maybe her own problems aren't as horrible as Talia's.
 
You still don't see her doing anything about them though.
 

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

The Bubble splits open and Jacqueline falls out of it. She gasps for breath. Her energy still hasn't come back to her. She still feels fatigued. But even so she forces herself to her feet, sending Tadpole a thankful nod.

"...Then...tell me, Neriah. Tell me, here and now!" Jacqueline demands. She's a little unstable, but she manages to hold fast. By this time, others have moved in. Jacqueline can see that they've, thankfully, managed to survive.

...For the most part.

"...I'm sorry. I really am." Jacqueline replies, shaking her head. "I appreciate it, I really do. I care about you, Neriah, and that's why this pains me so much! But if you continue down this path...this is how it's going to have to be. I can't condone this. I don't want to hurt you...but you're making a terrible mistake!"

And then, Neriah reaches out for her. Jacqueline gasps in surprise as she feels an invisible force grasp her and start dragging her toward it.

Jacqueline struggles against it. She grits her teeth and digs in her heels, trying to slow it down as much as she can.

"I don't...I don't want this, Neriah! I can take care of myself...and there are others who I have to take care of! I can't leave them behind, and I can't turn away from this, Neriah." She replies, digging through her bags. "I don't agree..."

Jacqueline hurls a bottle at Neriah's feet, where it bursts into a plume of cold lavendar flame, with fumes that try to make one drift off to sleep. It's the only thing she can think of to try to break her concentration. "...with that brand of happiness...!"

GS: Jacqueline Barber has spent 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Neriah Parringer with Apothecary's Fire!
GS: Jacqueline Barber takes 7 damage from Poison!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
GS: Neriah Parringer takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Apothecary's Fire for 160 hit points!
GS: Toxin! Statuses applied to Neriah Parringer!
<Pose Tracker> Mihaya has posed.

 The blast of dark energy, after everything else that has been thrown at Mihaya so far, would probably have been enough to knock her out of the fight.
 
 But that was before Jay decides that she is going to summon help of her own in order to protect those who are opposing the dark priestess in this battle. Mihaya blinks as a shield forms in front of her, protecting her from the incoming wave of dark spirits that rage towards her. They slam into the barrier, some of them managing to break through and raking the elf with their ice cold, horrible fingers. Its more than a little unpleasant, truth be told... but it isn't crippling like it was before.
 
 "It doesn't matter what happened to you before," Mihaya states after a moment as she braces herself on the ground. "Just because you were hurt doesn't give you the right to bring pain to others. Suffering and pain does not make things RIGHT, it just creates more terrible things in the future. I've seen far too much, and there is no end if you don't try and find a way to put a stop to it!"
 
 Her big hit had not done as much damage as she had hoped - when this woman was defending, she could deflect even the strongest attacks that were being thrown at her. Hitting her at the moment when she was moving to strike though... that might be worth trying. And so the elf braces herself one last time - it had been quite a while since she had pushed herself this hard, and it showed. Sweat running down her face, her skin reddened from the flames and other horrible things that had struck her, blood dripping from her elbows and running down her back... and yet she needed to muster the strength to continue fighting. Planting her staff on the ground, Mihaya begins to chant as her tattoos glow once more - two lines running up her arms glowing with a white-purple light.
 
 "I who stand in the full light of the heavens command thee - come forth spear of the sky!"
 
 Lightning erupts from the crystal atop the elven symbologist's staff, crawling along the ground for several feet in all directions. And above Domitia's head, several circles of magic appear in the air, each smaller than the one above it as sparks of static electricity gather along the channeled lines of magic. And as Mihaya speaks... a tremendous bolt of lightning erupts from the sky, crashing down towards the dark priestess.
 
 "BURST!"

GS: Mihaya has activated a Force Action!
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.

Matilda looks to Katherine Weaver -- to Amaranth -- and takes a deep breath. "... I still have work to do -- I have to help get Hyland out of here without being massacred... lest something awful happen again," Matilda says, quietly. "I'll trust you, Miss. Please -- keep her safe."

She's said her piece, and done her part; she needs... to focus on handling the troops. Kaguya reminds her of that over their private comms, and Matilda nods at it. "Understood."

Reaching into her pack, Matilda draws out one of her grenades, and tosses it. It emits a slightly rank-smelling green smoke -- a signal to fight defensively and try to disengage where possible.

As for Matilda *herself*... she moves after Rebecca, calling, "Ah -- Miss Streisand! Hold a moment!" While she's bleached her hair since her last encounter with Rebecca, her voice is unmistakable. "I have something for that wound...!"

<Pose Tracker> Ashes has posed.

"A fair question, and one which in recent days has been much on my mind," Ashes answers, to some mud and the stump of a tree she's landed against.

Now that she stops to look, the battle isn't going badly, is it? Aside from the mess Neriah is making. Perhaps it's time for that.

From a robe pocket, she fishes a flare, strikes it against a stone beside her, and pitches it towards the Sister.

"OASIS!"

GS: Ashes has attacked Neriah Parringer with Signal Flare!
GS: Ashes takes 6 damage from Poison!
GS: Ashes has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

Lydia drops down shortly after, managing to land on her feet. She smiles over to Kaguya, but just for a moment. Eyes on the prize, Lydia, even if that prize is friendship and not something that can be put in a pocket. She hobbles over to Talia and Katherine--hopefully Kaguya will not immediately rush Talia to relish a kind of victory here. Certainly, by now, a path to depart is open. Hopefully they'll take it rather than push for their own route.

"Hey now," Lydia says. "Are you leaving me the other soul there? Let's work this out mathematically so no souls get left behind. I think that's fair."

She gives Amaranth a fistbump because she's street like that and then reaches forward and clasps Talia's shoulder with a hand, grinning like an idiot at her for just a moment.

"Clearly he didn't have a proper engineer on his team. Was pretty rough, but we're good at dismantling shit." She looks back to Amaranth for a moment and nods to her. "Yeah. Yeah let's vamoosh. The more upset Neriah gets the more she flips the eff out so uh...let's leave...before she...does that."

She doesn't have a flare gun active anymore, so she just shoots a bright beam of light into the sky. The members of the Kinship Alliance on both sides start withdrawing from both sides, leaving both armies a little bit emptier. In the chaos, it might be hard to notice that, or it might be very clear.

And Lydia will try to guide Talia away--Amber, frankly, meets up with them in short order as well. "Whew, after a fight like this I could really pig out on some pork skewers."

"Amber no," Lydia says.

MEANWHILE

Tadpole sees the meteors as a sign but she can't leave without Jaqueline Barber. She takes another swipe at the bubble with her spear but it's a bit hard to puncture this thing so readily. A wave of something utterly bloodcurdling ripples around Tadpole and she exhales sharply as she sinks to her feet.

NOT SO LONG AGO

Tadpole is hobbling back to Lastonbell after a skirmish gone wrong. It isn't anything particularly dramatic. Suddenly one of the men her team was taking down has gained unnatural strength and nearly killed her and her friends. She was considering getting out of the game. She didn't get into this to die, nor did she get into this to hurt people. She got into this because she wanted to help people with their problems. She was halfway through a sigh when a strange woman with a metal arm butted in.

"Looks like you need a change." The green haired lady said.

"War's a good way to make a dime," Tadpole says. "But not very fun. Everyone knows that."

The green haired woman crouched down and looked into her eyes. "How 'bout we make it fun then?"

NOW

Tadpole hisses through her teeth as the dark power courses into her but she suddenly forces herself up and dispels it from around her body with a swirl of her spear.

Tadpole grins at Jay. "Sorry for stealing the name." She raises a long fingered hand. "Was my idea actually."

She looks back to Neriah and says, "...Make the war fun, huh...?"

And with that she walks towards Neriah and lashes out with her frog-like tongue...!?

--aiming to give Neriah a very direct wet willy into her ear!? This is a totally viable attack from a frog-type beastman guys.

GS: Mihaya enters a Counter stance!
GS: Mihaya has attacked Neriah Parringer with Burst!
GS: Mihaya has completed her action.
GS: Neriah Parringer critically Guards a hit from Mihaya's Burst for 36 hit points!
GS: Neriah Parringer takes a solid hit from Ashes's Signal Flare for 0 hit points!
GS: Lydia Seren has attacked Neriah Parringer with Kero Tongue!
GS: Lydia Seren has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Neriah Parringer critically Guards a hit from Lydia Seren's Kero Tongue for 0 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Jam, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Neriah Parringer!
GS: Lydia Seren enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Elvis has posed.

His fist hits. He can feel the power of the shield react to the hit. The surrounding terrain is summarily obliterated, as is wont to happen when Elvis goes full-bore. Speaking of, a look caught that sick boar slam. Maaaan he would have totally did that, too! Good choice, Kaguya.

Yet, the connect felt nothing give, though the woman inside seems flustered and possibly quite strained. She seems familiar now. "Heh, I have lived far over a century and dealing with such has yet to bring me down. You have great power from this Valmar, yet with each hit blocked, each spell cast, well... that power has to go somewhere."

There is no such thign with an individual with infinite power. Everything is finite, even a burning sun has a lifespan. And the candle that burns twice as bright lasts only half as long.

A step back to get out of the way of bigger attacks from those launching in, including fire, more fire, meteors with fire, lightning, shadow, and a bit of careful aim. Still that shield exists, though he does notice that it is letting in more and more bits of attacks. It is waning.

Neriah goes on the offensive, and Elvis can do naught but try to meet force with force. It works, but not nearly fast enough as bleeding can be seen across his vest and other small spots all over, as the force may have crushed some capilaries and muscle tissue on all sides. "Grr...!" He stumbles forward, holding his hands out. "Try to crush me, eh... Fine! Let me show you what it FEELS LIKE!"

Elvis isn't looking so hot, though shows no signs of slowing down. For all the fire and lightning passed around, Water suddenly materializes all around Neriash's shield, and attempts to collapse upon it, applying immense pressure to the shield, and possibly engulf and suffocate her if it gets through!

GS: Elvis has activated a Force Action!
GS: Elvis has attacked Neriah Parringer with Hydro Pressure!
GS: Elvis has completed his action.
GS: Neriah Parringer guards a hit from Elvis's Hydro Pressure for 108 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    Ethius may stand defiant, but there is no truly suppressing the basic instinct of fight or flight when Neriah so much as flashes her palm at him. He moves again as the laser of unlight sweeps through the battlefield where he stands. No, where he dares to continue to exist. He never dares to try and do anything trifling like try to 'block' her power. He cannot. It is far too vast. He can only run and pray for a slower death by being washed over the wake of its power.
     The laser lines come to an end, and a mushroom-shaped explosion rings out through the field. Ethius does not escape the shockwave or its bone-crushing g-forces as he is sent hurtling across the battlefield outside of the Bliss Bubble. He may have effin' dared, but now, maybe he could be considered as good as effin' dead as he lies prone on his back in the thick of a massacre.
     On Lunar - especially Glenwood - battlefields are a breeding ground for Malevolence. Every time war rings out, there's more of it. Purple plumes everywhere. Above and all around, on Rolance's and Hyland's sides alike, both parties feel conflicting emotions about who they are, what they're doing, what's expected of them.
     Lizardmen, tigers, werewolves, and even hollow armors spring up all around - each tailored to contradictions about their careers, their comfort with violence, their fury, or their loyalties.
     Ethius worked tirelessly to weaken Hyland's ability to wage war. He may have been one of the big reasons for the loss of the Battle of Three Hills by having been able to get in deep and disrupt them before the battle technically even began.
     Yet he moved to remove one of the aces up the sleeves of the Imperial Foreign Auxilliaries - a Hellionized Ida's own Mannikins - weakening Rolance's own ability to finish the war and stop Hyland. It was about stopping Hyland, right? That's a contradiction.
     He's still human, as he rises.
     He's bleeding, bruised, and burnt from being that close to the center of the blast. He still has the power in his arm to run a Rolance soldier through with his quarterstaff, through a weakness in the chink in their armor. He does not so much as blink at the thought. He was effectively working as an agent of Rolance on paper, and he just turned his weapon on them - the first time against Runette Forton herself, the former Cardinal, not all that long ago. That's a contradiction.
     He's still human.
     He sees several among them he would consider maybe something close to friends, and yet, there is a discomfort - even a fury - within him watching the handiwork of their interferences. New mercenary companies changing the way these things work in Glenwood - and Lunar beyond. Yet, he seems intent to continue moving in for their sake, on some level. That's a contradiction.
     He's still human.

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    "I will not allow you to subvert the people of Lunar to your will." He doesn't want them to mess with these people, these nations, their beliefs. But here he is, as an active agent of change in the background... and here in the foreground, as he journeys back towards to where Neriah pleads to be able to stay with Jay in a happy place while the world around her burns, thinking nothing of pitching aside or disposing of anything in his way. That's a contradiction.
     He's still human.
     Whatever reason guides this man - whatever insane, illogical core drives this man to the lengths he does - it is coherent enough that the Malevolence swirling about him simply cannot, will not latch on, as he draws back ever closer to her. Ceaseless. He maintains a rhythm and pace that throws aside the mortal aches and pains that should stop him. What the hell drives him?
     Maybe his reason, all along, in that awful black heart of his, is that he must hate Neriah Perringer that much and exist only to make her life miserable for something she could not have helped about her, and that is all that tethers him so that even Valmar's power seems to be kept at bay so long as to continue to be this sad, miserable, awful man who exists only to do just that to her.
     That has to be it, right?
     As he draws within earshot, he swings his right hand up on high as sorcerous patterns draw all around him. Power that pales compared to Neriah, but it is power.
     "I call to a star that enables the patterns of life itself, its existence itself an unstable, unsustainable chaos..."
 
It feels like the battlefield dims, even slows to a crawl as he does this. The light of the Symbological runes is ever more noticeable. "Relieve your ceaseless pressure at my call, and bathe them in the unrestrained maelstrom of your prominence...!"
     He swings his hand down towards the eearth in a crouch, as though slamming it with his open palm as his fingers spread out as far as they can possibly be as he shouts the final part of the whole thing - the spell's name.
     "S O L A R - - - S T O R M ! !"
     Above, a tongue of flame lashes out from the sky with a bright flash, a terrible wave of intense heat that splashes down upon Neriah. Cosmic rays wash out, also probably doing mean and awful things to any ARMs nearby if it doesn't destroy them entirely. It is a great power - his finest available, the most vulgar possible expression of his Symbological mastery.
     A promise that he will go exactly as far as he must, as destructive as he will, all for the sake of just being really mean to Neriah and also not die... but also as though whatever dumb petty reason he has, he considers it big enough to be willing to survive, resist, and fight against Valmar.
     The annoying, hateful gnat that does no good for anyone that he is.

GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Neriah Parringer with Petty Temper Tantrum Of A Sad Man!
GS: Ethius Hesiod takes 9 damage from Poison!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
GS: Neriah Parringer takes a solid hit from Ethius Hesiod's Petty Temper Tantrum Of A Sad Man for 49 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

 
The darkness comes for Elly. The darkness washes over her. She dips her head forwards because the hands on her shoulders feel like familiar hands. She hears recriminations and bitterness. They sound a little like Loren's voice.

"I didn't mean to,' she husks.

The darkness abates. Elly feels, rather than hears, the silent blessing of Grudiev. It's alright, Grudiev seems to have said. He has nothing else to say - he's a busy turtle - but a spiral of fear and anguish is stopped dead. Elly pushes herself to her hands and knees, and then sets back to sit on her heels. She rises slowly, arms held before her.

I should blast her, Elly thinks. I should blast her now. I could cook her brain off like a breakfast patty and at the very absolute pessimistic least that would have to slow her down.

Elly looks down at her hands again. She shakes her head once, reaches for her waist, and pulls out some kind of collapsible nonsense with a rounded crescent tip. As she latches the rod into place, she talks, perhaps to herself or the Goddess. "How can the world change if all of you are doing the same thing?" Elly says.

She shrouds herself in flame then, much as she shrouded Tabitha with wind. She lowers her head then and runs forwards, pressing inwards. The Ether is like soap around the bolus that is Elly van Houten, and she pushes herself forwards through the barrier even as Ethius begins to speak.

Elly runs inwards. She swings the rod up and aims to slam it onto the back of the head of the Sister - the woman who could not be executed by the Etone. The blow would be irritating, of course, but what is perhaps the real goal is the subtle enchantment in the weapon: The lulling enchantment, the dreamlike enchantment, the gateway into the realms of Morpheus.

GS: Elhaym van Houten has activated a Force Action!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has activated a Force Action!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Neriah Parringer with Lunar Rod!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
GS: Neriah Parringer critically Guards a hit from Elhaym van Houten's Lunar Rod for 20 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Ida feels the boar's flesh give beneath her knuckles. Stone shatters. Her one regret is that she doesn't have a gun, to make this quicker--but Matilda is on it, and undoubtedly she's had to put down ailing animals in her day. Ida ducks back, lets her open fire, but that's still not enough. It's not enough until the woman someone called Miss Weaver steps in. If Ida's chi sense weren't so practiced, she would miss what the woman does entirely. It's not like what she just did--it's not a raw explosion of power. Instead, she snuffs out what's left of the beast like someone blowing out a candle before bedtime.

    Ida's mouth falls open. She gapes at Miss Weaver for a moment or two before she realizes that staring is impolite and she should put her jaw back where it goes. Ida shakes her head.

    "Lydia!" Ida says, rushing towards the Beastwoman and glancing over her to see if she's hurt. She already heard she sustained horrific burns fighting Rosaline in order to save her. If she was willing to sacrifice that much for a dear friend, the least Ida can do is repay the favor. The grey-cloaked woman takes up position next to Talia, ready to lend a shoulder if she needs it. She glances back, one final, visceral shudder passing through her as she sees 'Sister Domitia'. Neriah. Helpless rage wells up within her as she wonders how long she was here, skulking about.

    Later, Ida promises herself.

<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

Talia opens her mouth, and for a moment, she openly gawks at Katherine. It is one thing to know that illusion magic exists; it is quite the other to see it, and to see a face and eyes shift subtly to resume the way she knew her best. Talia's mouth closes, though, as the bedraggled seamstress is right there in front of her. She blinks a couple of times at Katherine, before she lowers her head. The happy look on her face...

She feels a little flustered, to tell the truth.

"Katherine... I won't forget that you came for me, no? And I'll stay by your side." SHe looks up, then, and smiles the ghost of one of her usual smiles. Her head tilts to the side, and she wipes at her eyes with her hand. "But, I... don't think we should give up on yours, either."

She lets out a hesitant, shaky breath. She nods to Matilda's words.

Her eyes do dart to the side -- to see Rebecca Streisand left. She looks away, then. 'If you know. Then do something about it.' Her expression turns more thoughtful, at that. And then, it turns more concerned -- as she watches Kaguya lead her men away from her. She doubts that mercy will stay for long.

Her hand reaches down -- and her fingers find Mirage. She lifts it, then slides it into the sheath at her hip. She rises; her eyes glance at Lydia, and there is a moment's hesitation. She doesn't deserve this. She knows that. Her eyes lower, and then--

--and then she considers Lydia's words to Amaranth, and then Katherine's smile again. She looks sideways at Ida -- and seeing her offer, she slides an arm about her shoulders. She hobbles, when she walks.

"Let's go, no?"

<Pose Tracker> Tesni Inoue has posed.

She hears Ethius will his focus his determination.

 "This world has had enough damage done to it..."

 She pocket the medium again as she now readies the ARM the round has finished being produced in its internal factory.

 "Change has to come when the people want it, when it comes by force it will only lead to new misery."

 Then comes a force which she can only describe as a gateway to hell. In this lonely system? She's learned Evil does exist it has many faces and the things that her people once feared and now pass off as myth and legend are all too real here.

 The Dead Man's ARM loads the round and Tess scrambles to keep from being downed by the damned.

 "Don't give up on her Jay, but I can't let this continue."

 The weapon is levelled Tess looks down the scope on the rifle, the world become clear for a moment. She then pulls the trigger firing a powerful explosive round.

 "Lunar is not my world but it should not be drowned in blood like this!"

 Tess knows she doesn't have much left in the tank and it's now or never.

GS: Tesni Inoue enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Tesni Inoue has attacked Neriah Parringer with Dead Man's Hand!
GS: Tesni Inoue has completed her action.
GS: Neriah Parringer critically Guards a hit from Tesni Inoue's Dead Man's Hand for 37 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.

Tabitha feels her groove rising up, boiling away the worst of that horrid touch. "Please, darling!" she chimes down, feeling more in control as she arcs in after Neriah. "Some of us are on the clock, you know!"

And then that searing, boiling darkness tries to flense her skin entirely off.

Her own magic counters the worst of it. She lashes out, unbelievably powerful kicks shattering some fo that annihilating wave, and when it clears, Tabitha still stands...if, once again embroiled in that hideous power. But she refuses to break. Dug in. Why? What could be so important?

Her off hand briefly rubs against the shining, unstained chrome of her Shackle. Who is she performing for? Those dogs that just ran? The dogs that stuck around? Elly? And yet...

As Ethius' glories part the sky, Tabitha soars skyward. Maybe it really is just that simple, she decides, hands thrusting out. Even if she's not really sure it'll ever matter again...she does have a job to do.

The air in front of her suddenly darkens. Her fingers digging into empty space the way one might grip a crab's shell to rip it away and expose the beast within.

The air around her suddenly kicks up in a chaotic, whirling maelstrom, whipping, soaring and scything. The Etone woman disappears inside a cyclonic rift, SOMETHING dark gathering up within. "I'm afraid I cannot allow you to simply destroy whatever you please," Tabitha's voice chimes. "That woman isn't making you do anything. Your choices are yours. Allow me to impress this truth upon you."

The rift splits open as something comes out of it - something darker than the universe and faster than time, blitzing across the gap between it and Neriah, blasting into her center of mass with a speed that baffles the attempts of the eye to follow it.

A seismic wave tears away from the point of impact, rock liquifying and blasting upward like a comet had hit.

A black shroud clears away from the green-glad Etone, Tabitha resolving to the eye.

GS: Tabitha deVriese has activated a Force Action!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has activated a Force Action!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has spent 4 Combo on Smite and Gatling!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has attacked Neriah Parringer with Inversion Reversal!
GS: Tabitha deVriese takes 7 damage from Poison!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has completed her action.
GS: Neriah Parringer critically Guards a hit from Tabitha deVriese's Inversion Reversal for 45 hit points!
DC: 5 turns have elapsed in the battle against Neriah Parringer! No turns remain! Time has expired! The battle is over!
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.

"Althena hasn't done anything for this world, Jay," Neriah insists. "Cardinal Forton... she was a Hellion all along and Althena didn't even care. She's the one who told me to murder all those people from Lastonbell! Althena's edicts spread Malevolence, not control it! She's worthless, Jay! She's an idiot goddess sitting on a paper throne!

"So I'm going to replace her," she says. "I'm going to rule Rolance in Runette's stead. And then I'm going to reassemble Valmar with the help of all these people. And then I'll have the power to change the world. Me, the one who everyone rejected." She laughs a high, unhinged laugh, her pupils dilating a little. "It's poetic justice, Jay! It's--"

Jay says she doesn't want it. Neriah's expression breaks momentarily - and then the alchemist throws that bottle.

Neriah's so caught up in her villainous monologue that she can't even conceive of Jay doing something like attacking her. The bottle bursts into flame and toxic fumes. With a shriek, Neriah staggers backwards, her overrobe wreathed in flame. "JAY...!" she cries out from within the flame cloud, her voice a mixture of shock and anger - and what sounds for all the world like broken-hearted sadness.

The window buys the others a chance to attack. Ashes fires a signal flare overhead as if to signal that it's good - and Mihaya responds as if on cue. The heavens burst with the lightning of the Elf's power. The bolt descends - and from the flame of Jay's assault, Domitia manages to recover just enough to throw her defensive shield back up.

The lightning slams into it. Energy surges across it, shouldering much of the damage - but only just. Just. Neriah can fight armies, but Mihaya's formidable enough to challenge even her.

As opposed to Tadpole, who jumps up and... stuffs her tongue in Neriah's ear. Neriah didn't even bother to shield it. Now she regrets it, recoiling and sweeping an arm out to try and flick Tadpole away. "Who even does that," she snarls. "Brats...!"

Elvis is no brat, and he meets her own force with the crushing force of water. Neriah breathes in and struggles to bring her mood back under control even as the spell slams into her defenses. It begins to punch through, compressing her shield dangerously.

Elly takes her opening. She steps through and swings that rod. Neriah manages to sweep an arm up, her forearm thumping against the redhead's - and the rod taps her on the head nevertheless, firmly enough that she jerks for a moment and nearly falls backward.

Her train of thought completely blanks. Then something pops into it. It is a Valmar-headed sheep jumping over a fence.

With a stiff shake of her head, Neriah slaps herself violently across one cheek to jolt herself awake. "Ugh! At least I don't ban booze," she manages to protest, her mind a bit sluggish with waking sleep, before she flickers into several mirror images that recede from Elly and recombine into one Neriah a few metres outside melee range.

Tesni fires away, but Neriah's able to get a bead on her. "Maybe it will," she hisses as she throws a fold of her cloak out. The bullet slams into her arm but doesn't break skin; it somehow just knocks her back, leaving a mark. "But this is the price I paid to break the Chains, and I won't throw it away for the sake of hero sass!" She actually spits out the last words.

Probably because Tabitha's talking. "You're right," she growls. "They are my choices. But...."

She trails off. She's not sure how to finish the sentence. And besides which, Tabitha has called forth something utterly baffling. The blast rips towards Neriah and strikes home with a cacophonous blast. Turf shatters and tears beneath the sheer force levelled upon the priestess, and she's swallowed up within the shroud of trans-universal darkness.

Until a radiant shaft of unlight splits it and shines upwards in an immense column.

The darkness splits. Hovering within it is something a few have seen before - Neriah completely wreathed in darkness, as little more than an effigy of shadow with wide white eyes. But that manifestation is brief: She inhales, and the power seeps back into her, swallowed up into her. Once more she resolves as her usual human self - but now, hovering over the battlefield, battered, smoking, eyes haunted with a mix of emotions.

And realizing that her plan has failed. The Army of Hyland is scampering away under her nose. Her own forces are divided - even those loyal to her are fighting with the regular Rolance troops and those Lydia bribed away. Some of those on her side have transformed; a couple of hideous, mantis-like creatures stalk the field, and a few more soldiers appear more like lizardmen or giant ogres than humans.

Neriah clicks her teeth together and breathes out an angry breath through her teeth. "Damn it," she snarls as anger surges across her face as she gazes upon the manifest failure of her plan - she gambled, and all these Drifters gambled back, and threw a wrench into her plans. These mercenaries. These Veruni. These warriors.

...Jay.

She throws her head back and gnits her hands into her hair. "DAMN IT, DAMN IT, FUCK!" she screams in frustration before suddenly folding in on herself in a surge of shadow, vanishing into a pinpoint of light.

The feeling of dreadful power is slow to dissipate, but the locus of it is gone. Only devastation has been left behind.


    MISSION: COMPLETE

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Jacqueline looks toward Tadpole quietly.

"...I should charge you royalties for that, but I think the save more than makes up for it." She replies, with a weak smile. "...I like it, though."

That was then, however.

Now...she finds herself being dragged toward Neriah, who says something that shocks Jacqueline to her core.

"L-Lastonbell...those p-people...that was...you?" Jacqueline whispers, her eyes wide in shock, fear...but not disbelief. "H-how...how could you...? How could you murder so many innocent people...!?"

Neriah lays her plan out - she was going to take over Rolance and reassemble Valmar. Jacqueline shakes her head.

"N-no...no, no, no...you can't! That's not justice!" She shouts...and then, her potion takes effect. Neriah's voice as she shouts at her, full of anger and shock...

...It's like a knife directly to Jacqueline's heart. But...but she knows now.

She knows what Neriah is. She knows what she's done.

She doesn't look away.

With the power drawing toward Neriah extinguished Jacqueline collapses backward into a sitting position. ...She doesn't stand up, even when Neriah disappears into darkness with a stream of curses.

...She's just a little overwhelmed right now. Someone might need to help her up.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Amaranth has posed.

    Katherine's struggling on her own, but it's a good thing that just about everyone is coming up to help carry Talia along and out of the battlefield; Matilda still has to do some management, and she understands that, and she can even tell Kaguya is trying to give them something of a spare moment to breathe. She appreciates it a lot.

    "... aww, listen to you -- a smile suits you better," Katherine can't quite put herself up to her usual jovial voice, but as an iron discipline of Happy, she doesn't do too bad a job either.

    "You had way more of an amazing plan than I'd ever hoped, Lydia," she winks as she looks back to where Tadpole is battling... she'll hope that the charms that she blessed into existence in the form of the kero hoodie will protect her!

    She might not quite pique that Ida sensed the chi that she manipulated when she pulled upon the threadstrings of the Earthrager Boar. But honed senses are what they are, she can sense something strong from this woman either, the way she gazes...

    Then she helps. "Yes, let's go," she agrees with Talia.

<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

Lydia waves a hand over to Ida and says, "Nice to see ya, Ida!" She looks good for someone who was melted into a skeleton not too long ago. It seems that Ida has already taken it upon herself to help guide Talia out and honestly, Lydia while happy is also pretty exhausted.

"Sounds like a plan," She agrees with Talia. Giving her shoulder a friendly pat as well though she isn't going to humiliate Talia by babying her. "It's a beginnin' of a new age here on Lunar." Lydia says. "With any luck, a happier one."

Tadpole says, "Someone desperate. There's a place for you too, if you calm down, it sounds like." She raises up a clammy hand to also push that into Neriah's face but she is pushed away before she can do anything weirder.

She looks into this lost soul's eyes. She doesn't have anyone else's past connections with Neriah, but she can still only feel pity for the woman--in part--responsible for so much of the pain that has come about because of this war.

She looks towards Jaqueline and adds, "We should get outa here. Let's meet up later and talk."

And with that she makes her own escape.

Lydia grins at Amaranth and gives her a brief one armed hug. "Hehhehh...I thought you might like it. Your flashy outfits really helped too! Really drew the eyes." She snickers and adds, "Kathy's right! Best smiles for everyone!"

And as the screen pulls back to some troops turning into monsters and others dying on the field and others escaping certain death or the chaos and confusion, the words HAPPY END appear.

Hmm.

Well we'll just take it okay.

<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

Kaguya doesn't even look back at Talia behind, at the others. ...Not at her friend Lydia, not at the others who are preparing to leave. How long will this mercy remain?

Maybe it's best not to ask.

Kaguya glances at the other side of the battle, considering their route of escape; she sees Elvis's work, makes a note to contact him again, and grins--she just fought with her old professor. And now...

Matilda can handle the ones back there; she's got the signal made for the Oasis, after all. But Kaguya? Kaguya calls up one of the soldiers holding the faded banners of Hyland, grins at her. "C'mon, guy. Here's your cue. Walk with me."

So the bannerwoman lifts her standard, for all those who might need something to look at. The casualties, as it turns out, are fairly light on the Hyland side.

They have some harrowing mountain passes to make it through yet, and need to regroup, but the soldiers who were sentenced to die by the Sister have escaped. ...With Kaguya chatting with a couple of them on the way out, at the head of what becomes a set of columns.

...Luckily Lady Kaguya doesn't have to be the one to remember the way to Ladylake.

HAPPY END reappears, with the smaller letters, for someone? appended after.

<Pose Tracker> Tesni Inoue has posed.

The round doing nothing to Neriah is a thing of utter abject horror even against the likes of the Metal Demons the round did some damage vs a quarter knight. Yet Neriah laughs it off like a light punch. Thankfully the combined effort of everyone else is enough to stop her she's also on fumes as she looks at Neriah flees the battle. Tess herself looks like she's going to collapse.

 "I think...Jay?"

 The truth has come out about a number of horrible acts by one she cares for and Jay is down from the whole stress of it. She'll move to help Jay if she neededs it she's ready to collapse soon from the looks of her as it is.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Talia drapes an arm over Ida's shoulders. Her wounded side protests at the added weight, and fresh blood drips from her injuries. God, she thinks, her face twisting in a wince. It was so much easier when these wounds would simply heal themselves. Malevolence thickens across the field, and Ida does not have to look to see what it's doing. She doesn't return Lydia's smile. Smiling would take emotional energy she cannot spare right now, and while the Valmar miasma evaporates in one last flash, she doesn't settle down.

    "Here," Ida says, rummaging in her pocket and coming up with an Apple Gel in a parchment wrapper. She passes it to Talia before taking one for herself. "That woman," she explains. "The one disguised as a priest. I know her. She's from the Blue Star, too. She serves an archdevil." Adrenaline is slowly burning out. Ida is still holding Talia, but she might in fact need some help herself.

<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

Lydia steps in to help Ida upon seeing that she's having trouble.

"This is so dorky." Lydia says.

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    The mysterious man's arm starts to tremble as Neriah disappears into herself in ways the human eye do not enjoy attempting to comprehend. It gives him no idea of where she is, or what she's doing now - just that she's gone, after all the power that has been levelled on her among the gathered. He continues to be surrounded by war and chaos. This was supposed to be an easy massacre for the Rolance forces, and yet, there were so many confusing additional factors. Well, one.
     Ethius looks back towards where the Hyland camp is - or was. They're gone. His chance to move to deal with what he wanted to there is spoiled. Neriah nearly claimed the seat of Rolance all for herself through an opening he himself had a big hand in making.
     ...
     He had himself quite a hand in seeing her to where she was now, didn't he? Shouldn't he feel regret, anger, or sadness about the consequences of his actions? How it affects those who survive them, drives them to do things?
     I will be more thorough, is his only thought. He has to use his quarterstaff as a walking stick to stay upright, having burned through a significant portion of MP calories while he walks across the scorched fields towards where familiar people gather, hug themselves, reassure themselves about what they just experienced, what it all means...
     "Go." Ethius remarks. There is no gentleness in his voice, but no force, either. He just says the words, as he does. Well, just the word. There are more words that he will 'just say' in the next few moments. His body language remains reserved to the point of looking and seeming emotionally unapproachable as he generally does.
     "It is time to leave." He says so simply, so plainly, as though heedless of the strong emotions in the air about it all. He will have another opportunity in which to observe and act upon the lingering Hyland elements he wants addressed - to speak with Catenna about certain developments covertly, and he assumes will return to a quiet, low-key CaraKin vehicle that has kept their heads low in their search for a way back.
     He is in for a rude awakening.

<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

Talia hesitates, but she does smile back at Katherine. "Ah, well..." She coughs, once. Her eyes shift towards Lydia. She nods, once. "I did like the outfits. Very stylish! Ah, but... you knew that."

After all, despite everything she did and said, she kept the grey cloak that she ordered from Katherine with her. And, she thinks, Ivan is out there -- somewhere -- with his. That thought makes her look more sober, for a moment. How would she explain this to him? What would she do?

Those doubts, she decides, could wait for later. She could try to find him. The last job that he was on was in... Azado, wasn't it?

Her nose wrinkles, though. She takes the Apple Gel -- and looks back at Ida. She makes a face, looking genuinely surprised. "I am... at a loss for words. Thank you for coming to help with her. Had she won, I... scarcely want to think of what would happen."

Then, as she walks along, she chomps down into the Apple Gel.

<Pose Tracker> Mihaya has posed.

 She's gone.
 
 And it seems like things are beginning to break down here. There are still a great many soldiers around, and not all of them are going to be friendly. Mihaya pulls out a bandage to wrap around her head, pausing only to soak it in a bit of cool water to help with the heat of the burns she's taken. A moment later she pulls out a bottle full of green liquid, and quaffs the whole thing like it was going out of style.
 
 Healing potions were always wonderful going down - itâs a pity she didn't have many, and would probably have even fewer once she'd managed to recover form the beating she had taken tonight. But thankfully it doesn't seem many people are looking for her at the moment... and the symbologist takes the chance to slip away from the battle, keeping an eye out for any dropped equipment she can scoop up on the way out.

<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.

The Gravity ether Tabitha had gathered together, accelerating her above and beyond even the wind slingshot she gave herself, bleeds away slowly, her skin turning from something terrifying and abyssal back to its usual Precisely Calibrated For Widest Appeal By Entire Teams Of Character Designers hue. She breathes, slow and heavy, her fingers shaking. She looks to where Neriah vanishes. She couldn't stop her.

Fighting monsters is her job, the face she shows the world. She was prepared for that. She's been doing that for the entire year and a half she's been stuck on this world. Even if she never thought she'd see Solaris again, she could and probably would keep doing it. But THAT was not just a monster. That was something that curled around her and screamed. She looks down at her gloved hand, fingers shaking.

She shoves her Ether weapon back into its holster. "...we're done with that," she declares quietly, and then leaps away, soaring across the field until she touches down near where Elly didn't quite bonk Neriah. She kneels, moving to help her junior stay upright with a slung arm. "Come along, Elly," she says. "We should get out of here, I think. Are you alright?"

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

 
Elly breathes heavily in the aftermath of the madness, chaos and Tadpole. She is wearied, perhaps, certainly battered. She is also alone here, and while her determination has not flagged, neither was it validated. Psychologically it's a vulnerable state, especially after all of that darkness.

But...

The enemy is gone. The dreadful power is fading, even if it isn't gone.

Tabitha suggests they leave. Elly's eyes focus on Tabitha abruptly. "............ Yes," she agrees. "Absolutely."

Some mud falls off of her from somewhere. "I... I think I am. Am I bleeding anywhere....?"

<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.

Tabitha cannot quite sense the Horribleness as clearly. Her cuff gleams quietly in the light.

Still, she supports Elly to the best of her ability. "You look fine," the priestess says with a grin. "As always~" she teases, and starts off. "Though I think we could all use some relaxation! Two days of this much excitement is too many!"