2022-09-23: To Ashes
- Log: Xander - 2022-09-23 (To Ashes)
- Cast: Xander Lovell, Ruth Pauling, Lan Lilac, Ida Everstead-Rey, Lily Keil, Hicalu Wilwisp, Marivel Armitage, Ryoko Mizore
- Where: Shemeber Plains
- Date: September 23, 2022
- Summary: Xander, strangely alone and unusually desperate, is discovered in an old church. He refuses to leave without the blood he owes Valmar's curse.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
SOMETIME BEFORE...
Within the Eastern Zoara region, a lone, newbie Drifter reaches out through the Adventurer's Guild for help.
Beau, he calls himself -- short for Beauregard, he said, but please don't, he also said. There's a thick, cross-shaped scar over the bridge of this young man's freckled nose. He's all browns: from his dusty long coat to his eyes to his messy hair that has been barely combed enough to fit into a ponytail at the back of his head.
"It's a family thing," he explains once contact is made. "I'd like it back. And I guess I don't feel right letting a guy like that go running 'round unchecked. I can't believe I just... ran away. Aaah, it's pathetic..."
To make up for it, he's done his homework. He managed to track the mysterious assailant down, and describes him as a one-eyed man with long, dark hair and the unusual ability to cast plant-like sorcery without any apparent crests or symbology. Pressing for further details would only continue to match the snarling half of the Fangs of Valmar. His information leads to an old Granas church, abandoned after many of the world's disasters and misfortunes left it too damaged for its respective settlement to afford salvaging.
SO, NOW...
Xander is alone.
There's no effort to mask the speckled trail of blood that leads to him. Except this time, it's his own.
He leafs through a dusty old tomb. The old church is little more than rubble, few walls left standing and not enough ceiling to protect anyone if a storm came through. Anything valuable that could be taken has already been recovered or looted... save one small corner. The dark trunk of a cursed, red blossomed tree gnarls itself upwards, having pushed debris out of the way to hold them in its claw-like branches, revealing an untouched portion of a forgotten library.
Not finding the book to his liking, Xander drops it into a growing pile and picks up another, skimming its contents.
Always a pale one, he's paler today, his dark circles deeper and his visible eyelid heavier. Thorns and flowers openly grow from his shoulder and chest, ripped through his bloodstained shirt, with his mantle draped only over the opposite shoulder to avoid the same fate. His ragged breathing is interrupted by a cough, hand quick to cover his mouth. Xander flicks away blood before continuing his studies.
"Nothing. Nothing. Nothing!" He growls, fangs bared, hurling the book with rage fueled strength. It collides with the nearest broken pillar, then clatters against the ground, largely unaffected. Then... Xander takes another book. And he reads.
A look to Beau will have him confirm this is the guy, though he won't begin the approach, unarmed as he is.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth's name is no good at the Adventurer's Guild (for several reasons, all of them valid), but for those of ARMS made aware of the situation, she's an empathite radio message away. She's already been stationed somewhere in Eastern Zoara for some suspected Odessa movements. The plains carry a lot of memories she does her best to not consciously dwell upon over much.
She's able to help track down Xander's movements, which she relays - and manages to hold her fire until everyone involved is assembled. Under the surface, the gnawing inevitable digs at her mind.
She remains within the shell that is her former self, having taken silent vigil on the roof of the old church, resting knelt among carved statues of angelic winged women. What may be interpreted as patience is also an expression of a trauma - an unwillingness to set foot directly inside a house of Granas.
A direct agent of Valmar, she recognizes, has not been barred by the grace of God or fear of reprisal. But she waits, motionless, through Xander's frustrated screams that entice her to peek over through a gap and cast a shadow over him.
'He's inside,' she whispers to the empathite.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
'Sorry it's been a while since my last message. I got hurt pretty bad, and also stuck in an abandoned inn miles from nowhere in the snow on the moon, but my friend who is a medic was there and he took care of me! A bunch of other stuff happened and some of our friends came to the rescue and I went someplace to heal up, but I'm better now! I'm heading out to visit you, I know you must be worried sick. I'll see you soon!'
Having left a veritable letter for Hicalu to pick up via Memory Cube, Lan left Shevat on foot two days ago. She no longer has to travel as slowly as she would have, but she also... kind of doesn't own a horse, and her answer to a Gear isn't meant for long distance travel. So she picked up a train ticket to get her as close as possible, and will finish the journey on foot like usual.
The ruins of an old chapel aren't anything unusual out here. Things don't last without people to maintain them. Everything eventually returns to Filgaia.
The blood trail, however, is new.
Lan navigates the ruin of the front steps quietly, leaning around the remainder of the door frame. She could see the crimson tree from outside. She should be leaving. Scratch that, she should be getting the hell out of here, because she's supposed to be meeting Hicalu and not... not...
But that's Xander, or at least it looks like him, underneath the blood and the vines and the rage.
He looks so different, now that he's not dancing.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida's been keeping an eye on the boards since Ursula Conway first made her inquiry. This new job could be easily chalked up to the same phenomenon--the metal-eating whatever-it-is haunting Shemember and the surrounds--if there weren't such a detailed description of Beau's attacker. If that description didn't map perfectly to an infamous figure who needs to be contained.
The more experienced Drifter is quick to reassure the novice that he did the right thing: the man who mugged him was dangerous, and likely would've killed him had he resisted. But they can at least deal with him.
With Xander, Ida thinks, inwardly.
NOW
Ida stays low to the ground as she follows the trail, the hem of her longcoat just barely brushing the grass. She peers into the darkness within the chapel, and shudders, a little; if you asked a much younger her to describe the lair of a Valmar-tainted murderer, that might be... somewhat like this. Definitely bloodier.
'Received,' Ida breathes, into her collar. She turns back, and motions for Beau to keep his head down. Her other hand draws Devil's Due from its holster. 'Moving into position.' Ida rises, and creeps closer, stopping behind a pillar out of Xander's sight. She pauses, gauges distance, and then nods back at Lily.
Ida should have enough distance between her and Xander to keep her clear of what's coming next.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
So, the truth is... Lily also finds Beau a little pathetic. He says it himself, and she doesn't make a big deal of it, but she doesn't tell him 'no, it's fine' either. She's pretty disconnected these days from people who can just... run away from their problems. She doesn't have that option most of the time. But she'll help him.
...As much because his problem is her problem as any reason, more than the relatively small payout on this job. She's used to working for bigger clients by now. Governments, more than individuals. But that's fine.
So here they are, and Lily is in touch with Ruth to ensure their approach doesn't become too much a problem. She sneaks along, footsteps making little noise, as she sees the blood trail.. sees...
He looks different, all right. But Lily remembers what happened when she let him get the jump on her. She remembers it very well.
That's why the chapel in which Xander is reading suddenly BURSTS into flames as Ida gives Lily the nod, the witch dressed in dark armored clothing with plenty of padding, and extending her hands to shape the fire. It is an inferno fairly quickly, leaving little option to remain inside unless Xander can put out the fire--or is a lot more fireproof than she remembers.
Warnings? This is the warning.
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Xander Lovell with Ignition! GS: Lily Keil has gained 3 Combo! GS: Lily Keil has entered Avenger Stance! GS: Lily Keil gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
Hicalu Wilwisp is lost, AGAIN.
Lan sent him a message saying that she was hurt and she's coming to see him and Hicalu had waited for a full day for her before he'd paced a hole in the floor. What if she was still hurt? What if she got caught up in the road???
What if she was... DISTRACTED?!
Only one thing for it: Hicalu had to leave his nice, comfy town, full of all the anemities NPCs need to live, and go meet her on the path.
So, he did that.
And then he immediately got lost.
Hicalu turns his map around again, as if that could solve his problem. "Uh, so... if it's this way, then..."
This is the exact moment a distant church BURSTS INTO FLAME, courtesy Lily Keil.
"Aaaah!!!" The fennec fox beastman yelps, leaping a good three feet up into the air, tail all poofy-puffed, ears pinned to either side of his head. His flowing, Baskar clothes are perfectly suited to this animation, all light blue and white and mesh at his bare belly.
"T-t-that's definitely not where --" Hicalu pauses, for a moment. "But, L-Lan can be, uh..." He grabs a pair of binoculars from his fanny pack -- obviously Hicalu has a fanny pack -- and adjusts them, to look, and see...
"... Lan!!!"
Hicalu puts his binoculars away, and wrings his hands. "I-- I should go take cover, right? I'd just get in her way, right? B-but -- but she was hurt, so, s-s-so -- aaah! Lan!!!" Hicalu yelps, as he proceeds to run towards the explosion and the church.
He wails, as he gets closer: "WHY IS THERE BLOOD?!"
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel Armitage has been following Lan since shortly after she left Shevat but she keeps lurking out of the corner of her eye before vanishing should she look again like a proper horror movie monster because this is the sort of thing that Marivel does that brings her bliss and you ahve to do the things that bring her bliss. Sometimes she's wearing a costume, like once she is dressed as a journalist, the other a newspaper saleslady, and at one point an ARMSmeister which is just how Marivel looks normally. But she keeps poofing before she can be confronted!
Until about 2 seconds after Lan notices the blood trail. Right behind Lan, very close--Marivel speaks.
"Oh my did someone leave me a treat?" Marivel asks Lan. "They shouldn't have."
She looks over to Xander upon spotting him. He's pale. He looks...awful. She frowns. "Ah, it seems something's beaten me to the snack."
"Xander," She says, a bit louder. "Where's Riley?"
<Pose Tracker> Ryoko Mizore has posed.
Ryoko Mizore is still out in the weeds theoretically speaking, but she's along to help. She'd been on lookout further away and... you know. A building's funeral pyre goes off which means the issue wasn't any direction she was watching or hanging out at. This means she's got a bit of a run to get back to the scene of the crater.
She rattles like her kit was built in hollywood as she arrives on site, hooligan tool over her shoulder, robes obfuscating her face and arms and everything's on fire. "You get put on lookout and you miss a party." She mutters to no one in particular, trying to get a grasp on the situation, working towards what she figures is the entrance to try and help evacuate or... fight or whatever!
GS: COUNTER! Xander Lovell counterattacks Lily Keil with Really? You're going to attack a man while he's reading?! GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Lily Keil's Ignition for 59 hit points! GS: Delay applied to Xander Lovell! GS: Charge!! You gain 35 FP! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Xander Lovell's Really? You're going to attack a man while he's reading? for 124 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander, someone says. He looks up toward the voice, and there's barely time for him to make eye contact with Marivel, his expression unguarded and broken with her question, before the world explodes in fire and smoke.
Beau slaps his hand over his mouth before he can scream, to his credit.
The chapel burns easily, flames chewing through the remains, easily igniting dusty, old books, and devouring even the dark sorcery grown tree in especially twisted, blame flame. It is as impossible to see in the chaos as it is impossible to see out of it.
But Lily might remember something about Xander, and that's that not being able to see is not something that stops him. A blur leaps from flame, and violence is met immediately, unapologetically with violence as a dark scythe of gnarled wood and adorned in thorns cleaves for Lily in an aerial assault.
Xander lands the end of his jump in a stumble, coughing and sputtering. He shakes the embers from his form, his thorny growths singed and as he chokes for breath. It's not merely the smoke threatening his lungs anymore: blood splatters against the ground and he sways off balance, holding his head up in his free hand. The other trembles around the shaft of his scythe.
"... If I'm this bad... then Riley must be..." He shakes his head, his voice low as he seems to be talking to himself. "Sorry. Couldn't... find another answer... Just like... the last ninety nine times..."
He forcibly lifts his head up, turning to the others gathered -- here to fight him, or here on happenstance, or even here to check on him. This is a large group. He's alone, without his partner. But the curse is counting down. He's out of time. If he doesn't get a sacrifice soon...
But you promised to save him.
Xander steel his gaze. "Well, then. I guess I'll consider this a personal delivery...!"
He lunges back for Lily and Ida, snarling as his pulse throbs in his ears, reminding him of the hunger for blood. He doesn't want a deep puncture, he wants to slice across their flesh and blood-let them to satiate Valmar's curse, to empower him for what he needs to do. Beau is in the mess, ducked down and trying his best to avoid the wrong end of a blade.
Lan said he looked different when he's dancing, but now, it starts to look a little like dancing, the way he cuts through the air, light on his feet and with purpose. His motions are fluid and unbroken as he whirls toward her, and Hicalu, and unfortunately Marivel, indiscriminate in the need for violence. Make them bleed. Find the weak link. Feed the Fangs.
And blood he senses, even that which has yet to spill. Any beating heart. He spins toward Ruth, spinning his scythe to rest at his side while thrusting a hand upward to summon bursting plant life from the earth: a giant, thorned maw of a carnivorous flower ending to sink its fangs into her.
More dark sorcery tears through the earth, this time in tendrils covered in glistening, acidic dew that mean to latch onto Ryoko as she tries to arrive on scene.
The burst of energy is short lived. Xander coughs again, scythe hitting the ground and withering away to nothing. "D...Damn it... I... refuse to..."
/Didn't you say you would do anything?/
GS: Xander Lovell has activated a Boss Action! GS: You have activated the Boss Action Extend! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Xander Lovell with Resolve! GS: Xander Lovell enters a Counter stance! GS: Delay expired! GS: Xander Lovell accepts Xander Lovell's Resolve for 0 hit points! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Lily Keil with Bloodthirst! GS: Xander Lovell has entered Hero Stance! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Bloodlust! GS: Xander Lovell has entered Stance! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ruth Pauling with Dionaea! GS: Xander Lovell has entered Stance! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ryoko Mizore with Drosera! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 2 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell has entered Stance! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Marivel Armitage with Death Spiral! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Lan Lilac with Death Spiral! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Hicalu Wilwisp with Death Spiral! GS: Xander Lovell has entered Stance! GS: Xander Lovell has completed his action. GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Xander Lovell's Bloodthirst for 118 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Charge bonus activated! GS: Lily Keil enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Lan Lilac solidly guards Xander Lovell's Death Spiral for 60 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Ruth Pauling solidly guards Xander Lovell's Dionaea for 72 hit points! GS: Lan Lilac used Defend! She takes Xander Lovell's Death Spiral attack on Hicalu Wilwisp on herself! GS: Lan Lilac solidly guards Xander Lovell's Death Spiral for 62 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Ryoko Mizore takes a solid hit from Xander Lovell's Drosera for 156 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey solidly guards Xander Lovell's Bloodlust for 67 hit points! GS: FP up! Power Burst and Guard bonus activated! GS: Xander Lovell drains Ida Everstead-Rey! Xander Lovell gains 34 temporary hit points! GS: Marivel Armitage partially evades Xander Lovell's Death Spiral for 105 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Lan has been trying really, really hard to not be too nervous about the thing hanging around her. It doesn't seem to want to be seen properly, but it's not pinging any kind of 'super evil presence that's going to tear her throat out' intuition. ...In all fairness, Lan's track record with that kind of foresight is... let's say 'spotty at best'. So when Marivel Armitage pops up behind her when Lan is already super on edge, her immediate reaction is to shriek and mule-kick at the sudden presence. It's nothing personal, Marivel...!
And for better or for worse, the interior of the church goes FWOOOOOM with fire at about the same time, so there are more important matters at hand really quick. Lan backpedals almost comically fast, not in any hurry to be set on fire. "What! The absolute hell!!" she yelps, practically dancing from foot to foot in the dirt. She hasn't even realized yet that she's definitely going to be late meeting Hicalu when a familiar wail reaches her ears.
Oh. Well, that takes care of the lateness... Lan spins on a heel to rush towards the baker, though whether it's to ward him away from the carnage or to flee from it herself... listen, okay, she's had a weird month already. She can be forgiven this once for being kind of squidgy at heart.
"Stay back, okay, somebody in there is hurt bad but--" She realizes she is not actually giving Hicalu, whose bleeding heart would drown her own, any reason to stay away from Xander. "--But the church is on fire and I think maybe he's possessed? So hang back, okay--"
The thing that leaps from the flaming ruins of the church -- battered, bleeding, but unbowed -- shouldn't be able to move like that with a weapon so large. Scythes aren't light. Lan has used them before, at harvest time, in the fields that help feed their village. Xander doesn't move like it's light - he moves like the weight doesn't matter. He moves like...
Like he's hungry, Lan has just enough time to think before he's upon them.
She can't move without exposing Hicalu, and moves instead to defend them both - kicking away the blade once, twice, before pretty much picking up her brother and dropping him a dozen feet back. She doesn't even have time to say anything like 'be careful' or 'don't get hit' or 'run for it'!
She's already slipping back in, dancing underneath the spinning scythe blade, to try and push Xander back with a flurry of rabbit punches aimed for his eye and throat. "HaAAH!!"
GS: Lan Lilac has attacked Xander Lovell with Akashic Arts! GS: Lan Lilac has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lan Lilac has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Tension thrums through Ruth as the blaze strikes the ruins of the chapel. A house of Granas, even now, is a place of sanctuary to her. A place of rest and reprieve from a world of cruelty and death. Not that it saved Guara Bobelo from the assault of the Congressional Knights so long ago, or... more recently, prevented the Order of Ethos from being destroyed.
There is a disillusionment she has fought hard to reject. Anguish and terror tantalize, and Hicalu's wailing down there is like the whiff of a long-awaited meal to a hungering beast. She creeps into view through a gap in the roof so she has the clean line of sight as a snarling Xander lunges for Lily and Ida, eyes resisting watering from the smoke... as Xander's gaze meets hers in that split second before he summons plant life.
It snakes up a damaged support pillar and destroys it, as one vine wraps around her right foot to yank her down into that waiting maw before she can hoist that heavy sniper rifle off her back. (She was hoping to use a nearby eroded statue structure for support and cover.) The wrestling is brief, scratching up her lower leg and losing said boot. The roof in which she roosts collapses underneath the dislodged support pillar.
The most injurious part of the whole sequence is when she falls from the caving roof. Her kit is heavy - too heavy for her now, going by her shoulder. She lands in a three-point stance with a pained groan, but no ankles or knees are shattered by it. The other important thing - she doesn't land inside the maw.
Malevolence races up her left arm for a surge of strength as the rifle is drawn, giving the shell of her former self a strength she both boasts and lacks, swinging its attached bayonet blade into the carnivorous flower to try and dispatch it before it can take another chance at her.
"Your loved one," Ruth says in a low voice. (The loved one she all but nearly shot dead some time ago.) Her gaze doesn't meet Xander as she mentions it, instead looking to her gloved hands as the (lightly) leaking Malevolence dances about the length of her left arm. "You should be with him."
Her off-hand reaches for a Crest Graph, invoking its presently obscured Crest combination with the usual minimum needed to do so, a torrent of water focused upon the ruined roof above to rain down upon Xander and make a cursory attempt at addressing the spreading flame.
GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Xander Lovell with But It Can't Wash The Blood! GS: Ruth Pauling has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily didn't see Lan from her perch, or she would've waited for her to get clear. really! But she certainly wasn't expecting Hicalu's presence in the moment, or for that matter, Marivel's. But what she was expecting...
A scythe spins out towards her, and Lily snaps up a hand holding a knife to block, the blade raking through her padded armor and ruining the jacket for the next assault, coming away with blood on it.
Not as much as he gets in a moment, though. The blade hacks across Lily, and it hacks through where the armor is already ruined, including a lght gash on her face that bleeds extra just by virtue of being the face. "Gh--"
She remembers, all right.
"I thought I'd killed you," she admits, "Until Ida corrected me."
"But there are ways of holding someone down."
Her eyes dart to Lan and Hicalu. Lan has a civilian to worry about...
But Xander coughs and is down, and Lily sees her opporunity. She can end it now.
"Whatever it is you refuse..."
Lily's eyes blacken, becoming dark as liquid night, before a prismatic pupil appears and an iris clicks into being around it in the same colors. She begins to hover off of the ground, spectral wings unfolding from her back, the circuitry easily viewable through her ruined armor, and at her hands, at her face.
"Make your peace with it."
"-Disengaging limiters-," Lily intones in the Ancient Tongue, and that might be familiar even if her face isn't.
The air around her churns as flames burst into being in a shell all around her, suddenly heating up to the point that the sand beneath her feet starts to shine brightly. What happens next is sudden; the flames roil off of her like a sunspot from the Sun, casting out to try to engulf Xander completely.
"Ida! Contain him!" Lily shouts, as the flames around her all pour out towards Xander, her hands outstretched and an aura of magical power shimmering all around.
The water Ruth summons may prevent the flames from spreading, but Lily seems to be willing to continue with fire for now.
GS: Lily Keil has activated a Force Action! GS: Lily Keil spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Formation! Lily Keil has attacked Xander Lovell with Prominence! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
"L-Lan it just EXPLODED of COURSE someone's h-hurt--" Hicalu cuts himself off, as Lan remembers the last half of her sentence, and his eyes widen. "P...possessed...? Lll--Lan, maybe, m-maybe we oughta leave t-this to, to --"
His horror doesn't manage to finish itself up, made too slow by his stammering, before Xander bursts into the scene.
Hicalu raises his heavily-tattooed arms up to cover his head, yelping, "Aaaaaaahhhh!!" -- as if that could protect him from a scythe dancing towards him. It can't, but as it happens, Lan can, and he finds himself picked up and dropped on the back lines. "L--Lan! Lan!!" He yelps, as he clambers his way back standing again, clearly distressed.
One of those weak links might very well be the man who needed someone to stay in front of a scythe because he was too terrified to try and move.
He is not at ALL comforted when he looks around and sees -- a woman he recognises from horrified Guild Galad stories as a sniping war criminal, and a horrifying witch, and -- is that a Crimson Noble?! "Lan this this this this -- this is VERY BAD!" Hicalu wails, tripping over his words in his terrified nerves. "W-we gotta get outta here r-r-right, RIGHT now! Lan! Lan, you can hear me, right--?!"
He wrings his hands together, and dances from one foot to the next, tail wrapping about his knees. "H--hey! Hey, this is, um, this's, it's um, um, misundhh--, A MISUNDERSTANDING!" His voice raises, as he finally settles on what he's trying to yell to Xander. "Yeah! So, uh, uhhh--"
oh god lan is still fighting him
"Ohhhh what do I do what do I do what do I--" Hicalu goes through this verbal sequence for some time, before he looks at the ACTUAL WAR CRIMINAL WHAT IS GOING ON HERE summoning water to handle THE FACT THAT EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE BECAUSE OH GOD THAT CREEPY WITCH IS EVEN CREEPIER NOW AND SHE'S STILL BURNING THINGS --
"Um, um," Hicalu forms the hand signals required for his Vacuum-elemental spell, and -- completely fumbles them, the first time, because his hands are simply shaking far too much. "Aaah! No no no!" He yelps, tries, again, and this time he manages to complete the somatic components of the spell. "Energy Net!" He releases it, with the verbal component, as a net from the vacuum of space tosses out towards the flames -- and Xander, because the flames are concentrated on Xander, but mostly he's worried about this ruin burning down around them all.
GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has attacked Xander Lovell with Energy Net! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has gained 2 Combo! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Xander turns around, lit up in red-orange by the flame Lily set. With his flesh twisted by warped, floral growths, and his posture hunched and feral, he is the very image of a man possessed. Ida's heart races as she thinks back to what she had to do to save herself--
And the people she couldn't save.
"GET BACK!" Ida shouts to Beau, and she digs in her heels as Xander descends. She raises both arms, and the scythe connects with a heavy THUNK. The woven metal of her coat gives beneath Valmar-warped steel. Blood trickles from the gash carved into both her forearms, crimson and quicksilver. Ida grunts and grits her teeth, bringing main strength to bear. For a moment, it's like that scythe is trying to cut through something far more durable than human flesh. Lan gets the other civilian out of the way, which is weight off Ida's mind.
"On it," Ida says, slipping to the side. The heiress drives a fist right for Xander's nose, foregoing testing strikes in favor of raw, brutal force. "Get back!" she shouts, as Hicalu's audible panic continues. "RUN! He won't spare you!"
Ida follows up with a violent knife-hand to Xander's right elbow. He clearly has incredible pain tolerance, but he is also in incredible pain. Can she get him to drop his scythe?
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Xander Lovell with Fire Dragon Form! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has entered Avenger Stance! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: COUNTER! Xander Lovell counterattacks Lan Lilac with Desperate Struggle! GS: Xander Lovell partially guards Lan Lilac's Akashic Arts for 125 hit points! GS: Cripple applied to Xander Lovell! GS: Charge!! You gain 40 FP! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Ruth Pauling's But It Can't Wash The Blood for 41 hit points! GS: Charge!! You gain 35 FP! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Xander Lovell suffers a terrible blow from Lily Keil's Prominence for 251 hit points! GS: Cripple and Jam applied to Xander Lovell! GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Lily Keil drains Xander Lovell! Lily Keil gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Delay! Attack greatly weakened! GS: CRITICAL! Lan Lilac suffers a terrible blow from Xander Lovell's Desperate Struggle for 91 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lan Lilac gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Hicalu Wilwisp's Energy Net for 0 hit points! GS: Drowsy and Shieldbreak applied to Xander Lovell! GS: Riposte applied to Hicalu Wilwisp! GS: Charge!! You gain 30 FP! GS: FP up! Charge bonus and Sufferer activated! GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Ida Everstead-Rey's Fire Dragon Form for 71 hit points! GS: Charge!! You gain 35 FP! GS: FP up! Charge bonus and Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel is kicked in the gut. "Oof!" She stumbles back comically.
But then serious things.
Marivel Armitage's eyes slant to the edge of the scythe. "It's alright." She tells Xander. "I'm just grateful that you tried to find another way. The Curse of Valmar... Tis difficult to escape."
Marivel isn't expecting to be attacked in defiance of all the evidence that suggests otherwise. She steps forward, offering a hand sincerely and--
-SLICE
--it goes flying, smoke bursting out of the stump briefly but she doesn't withdraw her hand. A strand of smoke reaches for Xander's cheek and strokes it--almost gently.
"Now I don't care who you kill really, the world is wide and there are many people, but you seem to be going after my friends." Marivel says softly.
"My Eleanor."
"In feeding the Fangs, the Fangs thirst more and more, they grow stronger, you grow weaker."
"But I know you don't have a choice right now. But that is still My Eleanor you hurt. But surely I don't wish for you to die when it is cruel fate that puts you to it."
GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Xander Lovell with Smoke Gentle Embrace! GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action. GS: Xander Lovell suffers a terrible blow from Marivel Armitage's Smoke Gentle Embrace for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Marivel Armitage! GS: Charge!! You gain 30 FP! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Ryoko Mizore has posed.
Ryoko Mizore can't exactly just baseball bat away an acidic mist and she wasn't even remotely quick enough in kicking up a sheet of ice between her and the mist. And it burns, drawing a hiss from her and getting the cloak ripped free and thrown to the side. The ice collapses as she walks forward, crunching under her boots.
"Every damn time" she mutters to no one, but herself as she works her fingers and hefts the heavy duty tool to her shoulder. There are a lot of people freaking out and she tries to assess just what kind of mess she's stepped into. She holds her right hand out, tensing up on the right as she readies for a swing and after generating a cluster of frost, bats it with a toss and a swing towards the.. berserk? Possessed, whatever. It's spitting acid and swinging bladed instruments around in a most unsafe way. With the crystal of ice in the air, bursting near her target hopefully and not, you know, elsewhere. She darts forward to join the others, ignoring the spreading nastiness that are chemical burns on her tattooed arms and elsewhere! She uh, does pull some safety goggles as she runs though. Chemical splash zone and all!
"Anyone seriously hurt yet?" Particularly she looks towards the church, even makes her way there since she can maybe help with the fire if they're given time. She tries to assess, figuring if all else fails she can body block for someone. Arm raised against the flames.
She's paying more attention to the others though, trying to... not make an ass of herself this time around. Even if she wants to just break things at the reminder of fresh acid burns and all. Keep it calm, breath in and out. Help the others. That sort of thing.
GS: Ryoko Mizore has attacked Xander Lovell with Frost Strike! GS: Ryoko Mizore has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ryoko Mizore has completed her action. GS: Xander Lovell partially guards Ryoko Mizore's Frost Strike for 94 hit points! GS: Drowsy applied to Xander Lovell! GS: Charge!! You gain 35 FP! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! <Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Lan, a familiar face, someone friendly, someone kind, and it's not allowed to slow Xander down. He can't, he can't! Too much is at risk. But she guards Hicalu in all Xander's violence, and there's a flicker of hesitation in Xander's eyes. It dies when she's upon him, striking and punching, and all he can do is swing out a knife -- hidden and now inexplicably in hand, lashing for her flesh.
Frost rains down from Ryoko's crystal burst, giving her ample time to join the others. Ask if they're all right. An entire group of Drifters, working together, caring for each other as a team. Too many, it's too much...
Ruth bids he should be with his loved one as her cleansing rains begin to soak him. "What do you think I'm trying to do?!" He pants for breath between coughs. "The curse is in his skull! He doesn't even remember me right now...! He's probably not even conscious...!" Why is he even shouting at them like anyone cares?!
Because they do. Because Ruth does. Because Marivel does. Xander trembles with rage at how useless it is -- how helpless he is to answer any of it while smoke wafts against his cheek. "I'm always looking! But I have to be alive to do it!" Eleanor. Marivel's Eleanor. Xander bristles. "...I thought Riley said he wrote her an apology letter!"
Xander snarls at Lily, but his face is caught in shock when her voice speaks that strange tongue. He remembers that night in haunting clarity, blind and fumbling in desperation to treat Riley despite it, who teetered on the edge of death from the terrifying assault they faced. His eyes narrow.
Lily bathes him in fire. Hicalu throws his energy net into the flames, and any screaming is drowned out by the localized inferno.
Ida is there to follow up on the melee strikes. Xander had already lost grip of his scythe, but now he loses grip of his knife, startling out with a cry at the sharp blow that makes him drop the blade.
...
Darkness permeates the area like a miasma. The poison of desolation withers nearby brush and grass in favor of cursed mockeries, vines dark and flowers a deep, bloody red coiling around them. The fire of the chapel still burns behind the battle, painting a thick contrast of burning crimson and blackened silhouette. Smoke rises to join the darkening sky.
Ruth's rains begin to soften the fire, and the red blossoms are redder, nearly glowing, with less competition.
Roiling vegetation bursts out from the flames, burning, withering, but persisting as they feed off of Xander's fallen blood -- and anyone else who bled upon the battlefield. Xander reaches out, trying to seize hold of Lily's burning wrist to yank himself forward.
Pulsating vines crawls from Xander's curse infected shoulder and chest, weaving through his spine and down to his fingers. Unholy wood bursts from bone, forming a blade from his wrist larger than his own arm, curved like a fang. His eye patch falls free as flowers blossom from the injured socket. Tendrils coil entwine with his flesh and thread into his veins, creating a weave of unnatural armor, adorned in thorns reminisce of a predator's teeth.
Xander growls with a low, beastly rumble. The fangs in his maw become more pronounced, more animal, and his pupil becomes little more than a feral slit.
The corruption is oppressive and unyielding, poisoning the very air around them beyond toxins in the body. This is an assault on life and light itself. Hicalu, Ruth, and Marivel face the darkest waves of the corruption, laced with agony, frustration, and a bitter, undying determination with the carnivorous growls lash around like a nest of serpents, dying and resurrecting. They thrash, biting into Ryoko, Ida, and Lan to sink their thorned fangs into their bodies and drain them of their blood. Beau shouts somewhere in the chaos, hissing out as his own blood hits the ground. He's found himself a rock and thrown it. He misses.
Xander is still looking at Lily, fangs bared.
"Never," he breathes. "I am never making peace, and I am never giving up."
DC: You switch forms to Snarling Fang of Valmar! DC: Xander Lovell switches forms to Snarling Fang of Valmar!
GS: Xander Lovell has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Fury Shot! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Xander Lovell with Resolve! GS: Xander Lovell enters a Counter stance! GS: Xander Lovell has entered Stance! GS: Xander Lovell accepts Xander Lovell's Resolve for 0 hit points! GS: Purge! Drowsy, Jam, and Shieldbreak removed! GS: Hyper applied to Xander Lovell! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Feast or Famine! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ryoko Mizore with Feast or Famine! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Lan Lilac with Feast or Famine! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell has entered Stance! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Hicalu Wilwisp with Reaper's Lament! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ruth Pauling with Reaper's Lament! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Marivel Armitage with Reaper's Lament! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell has entered Stance! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Lily Keil with Die! GS: Xander Lovell has entered Stance! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Xander Lovell's attack becomes clear! GS: Lily Keil suffers a terrible blow from Xander Lovell's Devouring Fang for 371 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated! GS: Xander Lovell drains Lily Keil! Xander Lovell gains 0 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
</poem>
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
The blade on his arm raises and thrusts, aiming to impale Lily directly through her center, holding, twisting, to let the blood soak in before brutally tearing it back out in a violent exit wound.
GS: Hicalu Wilwisp partially evades Xander Lovell's Reaper's Lament for 262 hit points! GS: FP up! Evade bonus activated! GS: ???! Lan Lilac takes a glancing hit from Xander Lovell's Feast or Famine for 0 hit points! GS: Xander Lovell drains Lan Lilac! Xander Lovell gains 0 temporary hit points! GS: CRITICAL! ???! Ryoko Mizore takes a solid hit from Xander Lovell's Feast or Famine for 0 hit points! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated! GS: Xander Lovell drains Ryoko Mizore! Xander Lovell gains 0 temporary hit points! GS: Ruth Pauling suffers a terrible blow from Xander Lovell's Reaper's Lament for 305 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Xander Lovell! GS: FP up! Power Burst activated! GS: ???! Ida Everstead-Rey fully evades Xander Lovell's Feast or Famine for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Xander Lovell drains Ida Everstead-Rey! Xander Lovell gains 0 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
Hicalu is distracted from his panic, briefly, to stare at Marivel with a strange expression. Distantly, he echoes: "The... Curse of Valmar..?"
He can't -- doesn't recognise it. A curse in the skull, a curse on memory --
(there's more than one way to curse a memory,)
Ida tells him to run, but his legs aren't working, all a sudden. Aren't working, as the darkness rises in his eyes and in his mind, and it's different but it's still nostalgic, this blackness he's seeing for the very first time. His eyes widen; his body trembles.
He can hear them screaming.
No: he is screaming.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah---!!" Hicalu screams, as too late he follows Ida's advice, too late he runs, remembers to run. He runs and remembers running and there is no escape, here, though he scrambles, though he moves. It's in his lungs. It's in his heart.
He screams, and barely stops for breath.
It's only when he catches a glimpse of something in the darkness that a thought breaches the horror he is feeling, running back and forth with no rhyme, reason or purpose. He takes a breath -- talks, rather than screaming. "No... no, the jealous dark..."
His hands tremble, but still he pauses long enough to make the motions, and reaches out to Lan. "Phoenix Feather!" He protects her, the Fire-elemental protection settling over her with comforting warmth, and his voice at least doesn't tremble quite enough to ruin the incantation.
GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has attacked Lan Lilac with Phoenix Feather! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has gained 1 Combo! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
She can hear him panicking behind her. This is why Lan was happy thinking Hicalu would stay in Guild Galad, 'safe' in the heart of the city. Pickpockets and bullies are things he can run away from, or get help with. Lan has taken fairly well to the new life she's found on her pilgrimage, but the life of a Drifter is dangerous, and often short.
She falls back quickly when Xander slashes at her, letting Ida take point. Despite her bleeding ankles and bleeding arm, Lan very deliberately puts herself between Xander and Hicalu again, a quick glance behind herself barely enough to reassure herself that Hicalu's remembered that he has magic. (Sometimes he forgets and that's okay, except not right now. It would be very much Not Okay right now.) --He's screaming. He looks like he did, when... "Keep calm!" she calls back to him, heart squeezing. Lan doesn't feel very calm. Lan feels like freaking out. Lan feels like grabbing Hicalu by the wrist and running until the church and the flames disappear over the horizon, until her little brother is safe and Lily can do what she does best - scorch the earth, and Xander along with it.
But that's not right, and she knows it.
A stranger steps in to ask if anybody is hurt, and Lan throws a grateful glance her way. ...Is that a baseball bat?? Nice. "My brother's a softie," Lan tells her, apparently okay with just telling on Hicalu. "Keep an eye on him?" As a favor.
She wishes she could do Xander a favor. She wishes she could fix it. She doesn't know the whole story - she doesn't know anything at all - but he's hurting, because his beloved is hurting. Lan knows a lot about hurting for someone else.
Her lips purse faintly when Xander admits that Riley doesn't even remember him. "...It hurts," she murmurs softly. "Doesn't it." It hurts to be forgotten. To be left behind.
She takes a deep breath. No. No, she doesn't want to--
Vines lash out, raking across her exposed skin and Lan bites out a yelp, dodging a hair too slowly. "Ugh--" Stumbling a handful of steps backwards, she lifts both hands into a circle and sights down the line of her arms at Xander's overflowing, corrupted form.
She, too, has to be alive to save her loved ones. "O you of distant light," she intones, blood dripping onto the earth. Silver comes to life between her hands and explodes in a series of concussive spheres, all aimed for the Fang.
A familiar cloak - the warmth of the afternoon desert sun, the laziness of snuggling into her brother's fur when they were children - settles around her shoulders and bolsters her resolve. "Hicalu...! Good job, keep it up!"
GS: Lan Lilac accepts Hicalu Wilwisp's Phoenix Feather for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper, Quick, and Shield applied to Lan Lilac! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Lan Lilac spends 2 Combo on Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling! GS: Lan Lilac has attacked Xander Lovell with Meteorain! GS: Lan Lilac has completed her action. GS: COUNTER! Xander Lovell counterattacks Lan Lilac with Desperate Struggle! GS: Xander Lovell takes a solid hit from Lan Lilac's Meteorain for 174 hit points! GS: Charge!! You gain 40 FP! GS: FP up! Charge bonus and Sufferer activated! GS: Lan Lilac partially guards Xander Lovell's Desperate Struggle for 95 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lan Lilac gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Lan Lilac enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Hicalu continues to be on the battlefield, and Lily just hopes she can end this before it gets him killed. ...Though his use of magic surprises her. It's not the only thing to surprise her today.
"Good," Lily says to Ida, and continues. Marivel is looking out for her friend; Ryoko asks if they're hurt, but Lily is too busy to answer.
Instead...
Lily feels the change in the air. The pulsating vines that crawl forth, the roiling vegetation, and Xander suddenly reaches out to Lily's wrist. His burning hand burns the flesh on her arm in turn, an awful smell rising into the air from the both of them. "Gh--"
Poison... Desolation. Xander bares his fangs, and Lily stares back, black-eyed nd inhuman. Never, he breathes, and Lily reaches with her other hand, starting to bring out her knife. "Then--"
Before she can stab him with it his blade launches forth. It hits home; there's a gurgling noise from the witch's throat for an instant as he twists it, and the blade is already coming out the other side. The blood soaks--and that ripping turn brings with it shards of bone and much, much too much blood. "Gh!"
Lily wavers on her feet, for a moment. It's a very bad wound.
"...Activating..." She coughs up blood, hitting the ground at one knee, "Secondary... React...ors..."
She slumps, and then melts completely into a puddle of shadow.
Nothing happens from that shadow for a long few seconds. Then, a hand coalesces out of the muck. "...ou..."
A hand pulls itself up, becoming a head and torso from the ground, inky like shadows still, until Lily's silhouette is visible rising to a standing position, her hair floating free as if gravity no longr applied to her. But she is only a shadow; there is no distinction or detail in her form.
A toneless voice dictates: "-...Critical systems damage sustained. OMEGA Synthesis override.-"
"Initiating. Directive..."
"Adapt."
Lily surges forward, her form melting slightly as she does, a nasty hole still in her center. Whenever she drags herself over plantlike vegetation she absorbs it from above, leaving nothing in her wake but ruined ground.
"I underestimated you," Lily says then, her voice normal again. She swings a fist, and her other hand's palm opens up into a circle of metal. It opens, and a beam of terrific light explodes forward towards him. She tries to snap off pieces of that unnatural armor, tries to break through fangs, even as her form hisses and bubbles when it touches the anathema that is Xander's body.
DC: Lily Keil switches forms to Omega - Synthesis! GS: Lily Keil spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Xander Lovell with DIRECTIVE - A D A P T -! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: Xander Lovell takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's DIRECTIVE - A D A P T - for 244 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xander Lovell gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Lily Keil drains Xander Lovell! Lily Keil gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Marivel Armitage suffers a terrible blow from Xander Lovell's Reaper's Lament for 290 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Marivel Armitage gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hyper applied to Xander Lovell!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Eyes meet with Hicalu as the water pours from above, for a moment, and to look into those eyes...
A discordant smile creeps on the former elf's face. Surrounded by spilled blood, spreading flame... the spectacle of unfathomable sorcerous power that is Lily, the Valmar-cursed body of Xander... she earns that terrified glance from the Symbologist Beastfolk, and that bleeds into bitter laughter as the inky black-violet haze wrapped around her left arm feeds into that.
"I won't hurt you." Whether she's telling Hicalu this, or herself, it might be a bit of both as she takes in a breath. (The stories Hicalu would have heard would suggest the idea of Ruth not hurting somone to be... a historically unsupported statement.)
Xander's shouting back pulls her back into the primary conflict, of which Ruth has no words of sympathy or reason for what it means, what can be done. She doesn't get the chance to formulate either.
The miasma races - a deadly fog sapping blood and life from the surroudning environs, plant life rotting and finding rebirth in the brightest hue of blood... and Xander.
Xander succumbs further to his curse as Valmar's gardens erupt around them. Ruth is caught in that maelstrom, falling down to her knees as her lungs, her everything, try in vain to reject it. From beneath, she watches Xander's further descension. Spiritually smothered, she stares down at her right hand pressed against the ground, dislodged rifle against the ground with her left hand on it.
Despite having only one good ear to hear with, Xander's words are heard, and Ruth, somehow... finds it in her to force out another bitter laugh. A laugh that dams up a sorrow ready to burst.
"Then.. you make peace that you can't, can't you." She mouths out, as the Malevolence finds its jailbreak through a shed tear, and another spiritually poisonous fog rises. Her gloves and remaining boot reach the end of their effective lifespan as her form distends under the cover of the Darkness.
To the uninitiated (Hicalu), it may not be cover enough to see the single emerging wing, the four horns, the tail, the overall larger shape. Ruth's own Malevolence tries to press against the influence of the Fangs of Valmar, filling the spiritual space with her own guilt, shame, regret, and despair. (It is not, explicitly speaking, an improvement.)
The Hellion's eyes glow a bright purple through all of it, snarling through a fanged maw as she lifts her weapon. She knows the frustration of one sworn to cleanse what courses through her, the pragmatic concerns of a mighty witch, a young thug's difficulty in coming to accept she might be able to put herself towards greater things, or an immortal monster's concerns for the sorts of monsters that have deleterious effects on the world around them...
She deserves their fear, the Malevolence whispers as her tail coils around the rifle for stability. The rifle's infamous report, loud and crisp as the day it was first fired, sees a single, deafening shot towards the thorn-and-wood-armored Xander.
"You never get to 'stop' living with that," her voice barely above a whsiper some moments after that loud bang passes.
GS: Ruth Pauling has activated a Force Action! GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Xander Lovell with Door Knock! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel does care. And it is true that caring is sometimes not very helpful. And if Riley is already losing himself, well, that's going to be small comfort. What worth is caring about something if you can't do anything about it.
"I wonder Hiro..." Marivel murmurs. "What you'll do when faced with a situation like this." She sighs, distantly.
"Oh! An apology. I suppose that makes things better then." It's impossible to tell if that's her actual belief or if she's being sassy. Sometimes even Marivel wonders, her eyes growing tired.
"Well, hm. Perhaps there is something I can try. Though I must admit, it might hurt. And be a bit of a longshot."
Marivel summons her own scythe. "But we are past the point of trying cautious options, are we not?"
The corruption slams into Marivel. She opens her mouth--but it is more than she chew down on. It slams into her full on before she can make whatever maneuver she was trying for to happen and is blasted back.
The badfeels hit harder than the poison. Marivel brings her hand to her forehead. She exhales slowly, black smoke rippling out of her throat and mouth.
"Losing his memory... And then a thrall. Yes--perhaps this...!"
And she takes a long swipe with her scythe, aiming to carve out a significant chunk of Xander out--but the aim is clear, she's hoping to cleave out one of those blossoming flowers within Xander's body.
MArivel isn't the best botanist in the world but she knows the best botanist in the world, therefore.
"Perhaps Mariel might make use of this...!"
GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Xander Lovell with Sample Collection! GS: Marivel Armitage has gained 2 Combo! GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell takes a solid hit from Ruth Pauling's Door Knock for 182 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xander Lovell gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Charge!! You gain 40 FP! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Marivel Armitage's Sample Collection for 76 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Marivel Armitage! GS: Charge!! You gain 40 FP! GS: FP up! Charge bonus and Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Xander has lost one weapon, but that hardly means he's harmless. Ida steps back, sucking in tainted, smoke-laced air--the man's body almost seems lost amidst the tangle of Valmar-foliage, and if she can't tell what will hurt him, she's at a disadvantage.
"The vines!" Ida shouts, back to Lily. "Burn them--!" But the tainted plant life seems to have plans of its own. Ida's eyes widen; she leaps to the side as those twisted vines rush at her, tucking and rolling across the ground. One of them digs into the dirt behind her, and she springs upright, and takes the next few paces at a sprint. But as she glances back at Xander, she sees him winding up for his next strike, and her blood runs cold.
"LILY!" Ida shrieks.
It all happens so fast. She watches the blade rip clean through her friend. She watches the spray of blood, and the way Lily's body loses cohesion. "BASTARD!" Mortal terror turns to rage in a heartbeat, hot and bright despite the undercurrents of guilt and despair and fear. Her fist races for Xander's head with an audible displacement of air. Ruth's transformation barely registers (although Ruth might be able to sense the intoxicating emotion wafting off of her).
A moment later, Lily reforms, and Ida dares breathe again.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Xander Lovell with No.! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Ida Everstead-Rey's No. for 87 hit points! GS: Charge!! You gain 40 FP! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Ryoko Mizore has posed.
Ryoko Mizore is seeing some... very strange stuff lately. Other worlds, other types of corruption, just all sorts of nastiness really. There's a lot of self-doubt in the young elf woman, mostly about who she was and how that dictates who she is now. Most of her thoughts lending into darker territories of what she's done and the blood cost that's been paid. Those memories are pulled away as the thorns bite into her to which, she slams her foot down and tears at it with her gloved hands, wreathed in hoarfrost and bitter cold to the touch. Tearing the biting vines away from her and yanking them up and away from the others, spreading that biting cold in a crude attempt to focus ether into more than a cluttered mess and mass of ice. A hint of her own, albeit dwarfed darkness she hides behind that joviality and veneer of bravado and humor. Sure it drew blood, sure it hurts, but she's getting frustrated at this point. Every damn time! She attempts to shatter the vines in her immediate area with the last wrenching motion.
She then takes a breath and looks up at Xander, hooligan tool shouldered again. Lan's given a nod, "If all else I'll try to keep him between me and.. uh." She doesn't know how to address the wood monster really. Feng shui only goes so far really.
The elf glances aside again at the mention of being forgotten. Not enough time for philosophy chat really. Instead, She doubles up her grip and tries to have something in mind to maybe just, you know, protect both of them. That's the thing she should do. Right?
And while she has more trust for Ruth than most would consider healthy, she does adjust her grip and move enough just in case something goes wrong. She almost darts forward out of habit and holds herself. Instead once again trying to focus her magic into something... less chaotic. Something she'd actually consider more than a parlour trick at best. A faint haze of mist forming around Xander, cold, clinging. Absorbing more from the purifying rain. There's a sharp crack and the air flash freezes in a burst of jagged ice and biting cold.
it's only then that she realizes she she should pull up her bandana. Covering her mouth as she resumes a stance to try and stop the others from getting caught in the line of bloodthirsty shrubbery. The others are dealing with Lily and truthfully, at this point she's starting to become paranoid at robots snatching people up with the frequency she's running into them lately. That's a fear for later. Or an excuse ot take things apart. Whatever comes first.
GS: Ryoko Mizore has attacked Xander Lovell with Cold Snap! GS: Ryoko Mizore has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ryoko Mizore has completed her action. GS: Gamble: High! Xander Lovell solidly guards Ryoko Mizore's Cold Snap for 107 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Ryoko Mizore! GS: Charge!! You gain 40 FP! GS: FP up! Charge bonus and Sufferer activated! GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Xander Lovell receives 100 temporary hit points. GS: Xander Lovell enters CONDITION GREEN!! <Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Hicalu screams and screams and he screams. He's just saying what they're all thinking. Xander included. If the battle were quieter, if the world were not so literally on fire, maybe Xander would stop and ask himself: does he crave Hicalu's blood at all?
It hurts, Lan says. She's right. It hurts. And yet. "...It's fine to be forgotten. As long as he's still there."
But Lan also understands that everyone wants to live. And Xander is going to make them fight as fiercely for it as he has to. Her spheres brutally beat into his newly armored body, Xander weathering it with a growl as he pushes through and slams his palm into the earth. Thorned vines shoot up around Lan for her efforts.
Lily is...
Horrifying. What... is she?! He has no words, speechless. Ida screams in a different manner of horror, fearing that he has instead of Xander's animal fear that he has not. Her fist strikes into his head, solid and more than enough to make him reel. A normal person would be unconscious from that. Xander looks back at her with, for all they keep calling him possessed, a dangerous lucidity.
"Trying to stop me? Or just make me suffer in the way that's right to you?"
Xander understands it now, why it was a blessing he could not see the witch in their first battle, and how it was they nearly died. Why it was Dean rushed to him with such relief for fear he would be dead. Lily's beam of light strikes him, burning, brilliant, awful. Thorns break off. More grow in their place.
Under normal circumstances, Xander might take Marivel's offer more seriously. Long shots are all they've ever had. But these are not normal circumstances. This is a ravenous battle that does not end until someone is dead. Xander leaps at her with all the rage of a cornered cat, her scythe cleaving in and winning one of its cursed prizes with a spray of blood: a perfectly intact red blossom born of the curse.
"You could have asked!" Really? Right now, could she have?
Ruth, as always, understands too much. That hurts, too. Monster beholds monster. He isn't even angry, when he looks at her, and he wants to be, and wants to be angry about that, but there's guilt. There's shame. There's regret and despair. Some he empathizes with. Some he only sympathizes with. Her shot splinters wood. Xander recoils, more blood dripping onto the earth.
Ryoko's cold coalesces. Xander's breath, despite the surrounding inferno, comes out in cool wisps as his only warning. He snaps a murderous gaze onto her before the ice explodes, embedding itself into his armored body, his scythe of an arm blade, and even into his neck where it threatens a more dangerous wound. But not quite.
Heartbeats. So many pulses. Among presences he cannot feed on. Overwhelming. Pain. Blood. All that Xander cares about is his one goal. He needs a sacrifice. He needs one of these beating hearts to stop, for their blood to spill on the earth, and for the curse to abate.
Xander coughs again. Even transformed like this, Valmar is ravaging his insides. But he remains standing.
Thorns shoot up from the earth around him, tangling around Hicalu and Marivel to restrain them. Xander leaps at Ryoko, and though his blade looks like wood, it's a profane thing, biting with a vicious, hungry power as he claws at her, drying to drink of whatever blood she may spill.
Whether he gets it or not, he has plenty of his own to spare, clawing at his heart and splattering it out against the ground. Several, massive thorns rip through the earth like spikes in an erratic pattern. They seem easy enough to avoid...
Until they collapse in together: a massive, fanged maw, trying to clamp down on Ida, Ruth, Lan, and Lily all.
One may begin to wonder: where is Beau in all this chaos?
GS: Xander Lovell has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Lock On! GS: Xander Lovell has activated a Boss Action! GS: You have activated the Boss Action Extend! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Hicalu Wilwisp with Grim Gallows! GS: Xander Lovell enters a Counter stance! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Marivel Armitage with Grim Gallows! GS: Xander Lovell enters a Counter stance! GS: Xander Lovell has entered Stance! GS: Xander Lovell spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ryoko Mizore with Bloodfrenzy! GS: Xander Lovell has entered Stance! GS: Xander Lovell has completed his action. GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Lan Lilac with Jaws of Death! GS: Xander Lovell has entered Stance! GS: Xander Lovell has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Extend! GS: Xander Lovell spends 2 Combo on Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Jaws of Death! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ruth Pauling with Jaws of Death! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Lily Keil with Jaws of Death! GS: Xander Lovell has entered Stance! GS: Ruth Pauling has activated a Force Action! GS: Ruth Pauling solidly guards Xander Lovell's Jaws of Death for 83 hit points! GS: Lily Keil partially guards Xander Lovell's Jaws of Death for 185 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Charge bonus activated! GS: Lily Keil enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Lan Lilac has activated a Force Action! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Xander Lovell's attack becomes clear! GS: Lan Lilac takes a glancing hit from Xander Lovell's Insatiable for 82 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lan Lilac gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Ruin! Hyper, Quick, and Shield removed! GS: FP up! Evade bonus activated! GS: Lan Lilac enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: RUIN! All positive status effects and temporary hit points purged from Lan Lilac!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
...And they tear at Lan with a fiercer hunger, any touch of them like a siphon of all things good, including that heartfelt cloak bestowed by Hicalu.
GS: Hicalu Wilwisp takes a solid hit from Xander Lovell's Grim Gallows for 164 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hicalu Wilwisp gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Entangle applied to Hicalu Wilwisp! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated! GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey solidly guards Xander Lovell's Jaws of Death for 122 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Marivel Armitage suffers a terrible blow from Xander Lovell's Grim Gallows for 179 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Marivel Armitage gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Entangle applied to Marivel Armitage! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated! GS: Marivel Armitage enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel was pretty focused on Xander so Hicalu's panicking was kind of a distant thought--something becoming less and less so as the screaming continues. Marivel likes to spook but this is starting to feel like REALLY old reactions to her. Then again, he's probably a lot more worried about the guy swinging the scythe at HIM.
Hmm.
She looks to Hicalu suddenly.
This probably isn't helping his SAN situation.
Marivel extends a hand and snatches the red blossom in her free hand while staring at Hicalu. The flower then vanishes in a poof of darkness so marivel can store it carefully without risking getting eaten by the flower because that would be 'rough'. "May I help you?" She asks mildly. "Are you friends with Lan?" But that's about how much she has time for before Xander starts complaining!!
"Ah, I'm sorry." Marivel tells Xander. "I'll be sure to prepare a letter for next time we meet. There, now we are even."
COULD she have just asked? Well all she knows is to get this thing to Mariel. That's about the best that she can do regarding this situation right now.
"But in the meantime perhaps you should get some rest." Marivel says. She raises up her hand and snaps her finger.
The shadowy form of a grim reaper crackles into being. It is noncorporeal. And it flits behind Lily--
--then it flickers and appears behind Ida.
Then behind Lan.
Ryoko...
Then it hovers behind Hicalu. This necromantic force hovering behind him.
And then it crackles into being behind Xander. It brings back its scythe and takes a swipe at him from behind!
"Behold...My Power!!" Marivel shouts. "The power of a Crimson Noble!!"
She cackles like a horror movie villain--
--Seemingly oblivious to the fact that there are actually two Reapers that have flickering about and one of them is behind her...
GS: Marivel Armitage has activated a Force Action! GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Xander Lovell with CP 5 Death! GS: Marivel Armitage has attacked Marivel Armitage with CP 5 Death! GS: Marivel Armitage has gained 1 Combo! GS: Marivel Armitage has completed her action. GS: COUNTER! Xander Lovell counterattacks Marivel Armitage with Desperate Struggle! GS: CRITICAL! ROU|LET|TE: Low! Gamble: Moderate! Xander Lovell takes a solid hit from Marivel Armitage's CP 5 Death for 174 hit points! GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Disease and Hex applied to Xander Lovell! GS: Charge!! You gain 30 FP! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Strain! Marivel Armitage takes damage! GS: Marivel Armitage suffers a terrible blow from Xander Lovell's Desperate Struggle for 137 hit points! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated! GS: Marivel Armitage enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: ROU|LET|TE: Severe! Gamble: Low! Marivel Armitage accepts Marivel Armitage's CP 5 Death for 271 hit points! GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Blind and Mute applied to Marivel Armitage! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Strain! Marivel Armitage takes #-1 ARGUMENTS MUST BE NUMBERS damage! GS: Marivel Armitage has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"I'm..." Lily can't say she's 'fine' exactly to Ida, but, "I'll live," she settles on instead. She wonders--Can Mariel do something with that flower Marivel takes? Can she find some solution...?
No, Lily can't bank on that. It's well past caution.
Everyone here wants to live; Lily can't blame that, either. But the enemy usually does. So the witch advances forward, with her beams and her horror. She sees what Ruth understands, but does not have that kind of empathy in her just now. She does not notice that in this form she is not 'hearing' those certain things. She doesn't notice much right now outside the raw sensory details she's getting, the power she's absorbing.
Heartbeats. Heartbeats...
Where is Beau? Lily doesn't have any idea. But she thinks of Hicalu, again, as he screams. She grits her teeth. "I can't... Ida, with these people here--" She cuts off. Ida may know what she means, but she says it either way, "The spell that might end this. I can't use it. He'd cut me down before I finished anyway. I'll have to..."
Do something else. But Xander, ahead, has his own horrors. Lily is beyond wondering 'what' people are anymore. She simply sees his transformation, sees the way he coughs and still commands that terrible magic. Lily darts to the side to avoid some of those fangs to start, and the ground keeps eating up beneath her. But then they move back in, and Lily realizes--
"...Gh!"
hey clamp down well enough on Lily, enrapping her in vines and spikes and crashing against insides she doesn't currently have. She notices Lan there--
"...Okay," Lily says. Then there's a Reaper behind her. Then it's gone. She frowns. "...Hope this works."
She closes her eyes, and focuses as the thorns start to dissipate against her steaming form. And abrubtly--
She has a body again. Flooded with pain as a result, Lily lets out a strangeld cry and hits the ground, the magic she just released almost visible around her in a distortion of the air itself. The Ether pulses, menacingly, almost a tangible thing one could grasp.
And Lily's eyes snap open. There's no longer a huge hole in her chest, but she's bloody all over, and on one knee. She lifts her hands, to channel the effect.
"...With this force, I can--"
It hits. Her eyes widen, and she shapes the effect, pouring Dark Ether into the air all around Xander.
The distortion in the air around her fades in an instant--and then becomes a distortion around Xander, slowwing the air as if it's water to move through, then slowing further as if it's some kind of gelatin, then stopping for an instant altogether--
CRACK!
Space shatters. If Lily's spell works, and Xander does not get out of the way, every space immediately surrounding his co-locates in an instant, a dozen sets of 'air' and 'ground' and 'blood' all mixing together in one central point with him.
The explosion that results shatters the ground into a crater around him regardless.
Lily grips her chest, over the heart; the wound is not as bad as it was, but it's not gone, either.
DC: Lily Keil switches forms to Etheric Witch Lily!
GS: Lily Keil has activated a Force Action! GS: Lily Keil spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Lily Keil has attacked Xander Lovell with Astral Collapse! GS: Lily Keil gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
Oh, Hicalu doesn't belong to Valmar.
That is, not... yet.
Ruth is -- was she always that buff? It's hard for Hicalu to imagine how she's wielding her rifle that way, but it must be because of how strong she evidently is. The wing and tail escapes his notice; he's simply not quite Resonant enough to pick up on those 'little' details. She won't hurt him, she says. He's more afraid than that.
Hicalu can't focus on that for too long, though, because his struggling focus has brought something even more horrible into view --
Lily, and her new piercings. Lily, becoming the shadow.
Shortly in his panic, he is lashed about by vines; they sink into his bare skin, unarmoured, unprepared, and his skin and his fur gain red stains entirely unlike the tattoos up his arms. "AAaaaaahhh--!!!" He is still screaming. It is more pained, now.
He stills, for a moment, as Marivel approaches him, snatching up a flower. Tears in his eyes, he insists: "S-s-s-s-she's my family! I wuh-was WORRIED so I wanted to c-come meet her b-b-b-but now she's stuck fighting a-a-ahnd I--!" Hicalu sobs, quite, quite scared. "The dark's gonna KILL HER!"
He sounds quite sure of that one.
But he finds Lan in the darkness as he's yelping about her -- "Lan!" With new ferocity he struggles, as he realises the thorns in the earth are JAWS, jaws coming down on Lan, to bite, to consume.
Hicalu cannot explain just how terrified his heart is that a darkness like this might consume her. He only knows -- with great certainty, he knows -- it is so.
He twists in the thorns, desperate to escape, tearing himself on their edges. He manages to free his arms, at least... and don't ask how they look, all trembling, all shaken. He can't run, Lan can't run --
Guilt sinks in his gut, as he commits the motions of a Dark symbology spell, though he is nothing but a coward. If he had done this, for the first time -- the first time he commits the motions, here, he executes the spell: "Dark Devourer!"
And the earth, for a moment, isn't just host to all those horrific vines. Through a dark portal sneak the tentacles of some horrible demon, to lash at Xander's legs; even after he breaks free, those suckers and tentacle-tips may well stay attached to his skin, leeching poison, a slow consumption.
(This, too, is not Valmar's magic. Symbology can be this horrible all on its own. Hicalu normally gets the Dark Devourer to eat table scraps which can't be composted, but as it happens, it's a vicious combat friend just the same.)
GS: Hicalu Wilwisp spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has attacked Xander Lovell with Dark Devourer! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has gained 1 Combo! GS: Riposte expired! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has completed his action. GS: Xander Lovell suffers a terrible blow from Lily Keil's Astral Collapse for 392 hit points! GS: Charge!! You gain 65 FP! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Strain! Lily Keil takes 18 damage! GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Hicalu Wilwisp's Dark Devourer for 82 hit points! GS: Disease and Poison applied to Xander Lovell! GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
As long as he remains. As long as 'they' remain. Of course Lan has considered it. And every time, she rejects it. The meaning of a star is 'hope'. To abandon that would be to...
She shreds the vines that bloom and engulf her with flicks of her silver ribbon, using the relic like a living whip made of silver. Lan doesn't emerge from them unscathed, but it's better than just standing there!! She's got to hurry. She's got to help finish this. If it goes on much longer--
If Hicalu is here much longer--
Gods help her, she's considering it. The madness in her veins begs, cajoles, coaxes. NO. Not in front of him.
Who will save Hicalu if she can't? Who will crawl into the darkness after him, if she's already lost to it?
A gaping maw made of thorns and blood and the need for blood gapes wide around her and the others and Lan howls a battle cry, taking a flying leap that very narrowly gets her out of harm's way. Bits of her clothes, her skin, the warmth surrounding her catch on the thorns - the sunny, burning cloak letting the rest of her slip past without much harm.
"...oh, shit," she murmurs as she stands up to get her bearings. That's the garbage disposal demon!! Hicalu must be so stressed right now!!
The continued screamms of terror were her first clue, but. This is a bigger deal. "Hicalu! Breathe! I promise we'll get through this!"
Lan does not like lying. She keeps her promises.
The space around Xander distorts in a manner that's... hard to follow, with her eyes. But it feels wrong. Wrong, like Lily feels wrong, but... also it left a crater. That's very Lily.
If there's anything left of Xander after that... Lan's mouth presses into a thin line, and she spreads her arms like she might begin to dance...
The lights that emerge from her chest flicker and dance instead, more and more of them, filling the night air and swarming Xander's body. Every one that hits soaks into him, soaking up his rage, bringing drowsiness, lethargy, and weakness in its place.
GS: Lan Lilac enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Lan Lilac has attacked Xander Lovell with Magic Lantern Butterfly Moth! GS: Lan Lilac has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lan Lilac enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Lan Lilac has completed her action. GS: Xander Lovell's Break Ward prevents an effect! GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Lan Lilac's Magic Lantern Butterfly Moth for 95 hit points! GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Delay and Drowsy applied to Xander Lovell! GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Xander Lovell enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth tastes that intoxicating emotion. That serpentine tongue of hers does not stop flicking in the presence of what her fell urges desire. It, alone, might be specifically what is letting her keep moving in choking Darkness-empowered air that strangles life and light alike. Her eyes glow brighter, and widen with a predatory opportunism.
Wounds stain cloth and ground alike with an odd purple-hued blood (it dries back to the 'correct' red color, but for whatever reason seems to be a thing) as massive thorns erupt around her. A few graze, but none seem targeted towards her... until they come together like a clenching jaw of flesh-rending fangs, and Ruth's single wing folds inward to protect her from one side of it. Her left side, exposed, sees them dig past cloth into them.
Her rifle orients horizontally, supported with her tail, as if to prevent a greater force from crunching her with the way the thorns press in. It's strange to see - the vice-grip on her rifle appears absolute. The rest of her, shaky and uncertain as she's brought to a kneel.
The thorns dig in a bit more, as if the stone-like character of her flesh were too soft to stop the earthen abominations. Plants do shatter stone, given time, and more blood flows free from the wounds.
"There's... something, someone told me." Ruth's not sure she can be heard, the way Xander's coughing and raging. "The way heroes of a time become monsters..."
"To others." To themselves. Xander's suffering. He's frustrated. He's in a perpetual state of despair in a way the two of them might see eye-to-eye on (metaphorically). "Valmar... the greatest monster of Filgaia, champion of Darkness and all that is... wrong." The hyper-polarized teachings of 'good' and 'evil' of the Granas faith, this doesn't need going over. "Hellions... heartless, cursed, grotesque creatures of Lunar. Ever they shall be." She echoes those words, though in her head it sounds like someone else's voice she can't ever forget.
Thorns continue to press into her. She doesn't know if the more sedate tone is blood loss asserting its realities over her present Malevolence-fueled throes, or a creeping terror that has presently asserted itself over the one-eighty of her indulging in being a terror, and yet...
That fell power pulses through her again, tears starting to escape her. How can someone so suffused with Darkness, as a direct pawn, still yet be capable of... she can't complete it, but the vitrol that builds in all that needs an out.
There is a shrill screech as the gargoyle-esque Ruth fails to quite push back against the clamping jaws, as complicated emotions wash over her. Grayish, stone-like flesh takes on a different sheen, something more... green-ish.
Something that strongly resembles patinated bronze, the way it shines. It accentuates the more frightening aspects of her already grotesque shape in a 'cast' that lends itself in sculpture to greater permanence than stone, encasing even her weapon.
It halts the encroaching of the jaw-like arrangement of thorns outright, but does not overturn them. It is now a stalemate.
"All I have ever had to offer the world issss pain!" She's still hissing. "Anguissssh! Dessspaaaair!" She throws her head up. "Atoning the ssssssame way I've sssssinned!!"
Her posture starts to rise, voice quieting. "Someone... saw good in a heartless monster like... that." Another screech, as she asserts herself against the thorns, thrashing out with her wing on the right to dislodge and fling the thorns digging in there. This continues from the left.
"...People like us," once again a flip-flop to sedate, as she sets the butt of the rifle on the ground, "if we can't change our nature... we have to find what good we can do with it."
Ruth's gaze levels upon Xander, steadier than it's ever been for much of anyone - but there's still that scary, purple glow. "What good is there in someone who can only kill to stop Valmar..."
"Someone... already saw good in someone like that. You saw good in them back... that's why you're here, isn't it."
GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Ruth Pauling with Heart of Patinated Bronze! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action. GS: Ruth Pauling heals Ruth Pauling! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ryoko Mizore has posed.
Ryoko Mizore has people screaming nearby, that's not anything new. Probably shouldn't look too deeply into that. For once it's probably not her fault or a result of her life though, since... you know, sometimes turf wars. She glances back at Lan, trying to make sure he's not too badly hurt, there's not much she can do to heal him or even try to calm him. That's something to file away for later and actually gets a brief frown behind that mask.
There's also an explosion which she CAN do something about and as is her usual preferred method of protecting herself or others, she places herself between Lan and Hicalu, focusing her own ether into a rounded layer of ice between herself and the others and that explosion. Which means her options for the follow up attack from Xander doesn't really get much in the way of planning.
She kicks the ice barrier away, what remains of it and winds up with the spiked head of the hooligan tool. A deadset look in her eyes and... she kicks up a second barrier from the first, leeching the cold from the initial block of ice and then winding up, swinging through it before the blade can fully cut through. This is going to hurt no matter how she looks at it, but she intends to try and return the favor outright! Besides, that's how the redemption thing works right? Protect the panicking scared and helpless-ish sort (even if they're not really) at your own expense. Right? Right before the twin points of impact she actually manages a determined, toothy grin.
She truthfully didn't even notice the reaper behind her or even behind Xander. A case of selective tunnel vision getting her in the zone.
There's a lightshow and she's really starting to remember just how over her head she really is in this kind of crowd. There's genuine thoughts of going back home. She's outclassed, she's mostly playing by ear and woefully undertrained in just about anything that matters at this scale. That gets buried under other thoughts that are a mixture of depricating humor, sheer belligerence and a few memories of recent fights and stories. That just means get better, right? One way or the other, she doesn't really have the wherewithal to comment on any of this. It's all in the back of her head where time's stretching to a standstill. Maybe the repeated actions so close to eachother are finally catching up. Breaking through what she's built up around herself. Too late now. Too late for regrets! Just embrace it and swing for the fences!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
'Trying to stop me? Or just make me suffer in the way that's right to you?'
"WHO ELSE HAS TO DIE BECAUSE OF YOU?!" Ida's eyes are wide. Her forearms no longer bleed; patches of darkened, silvery flesh have sealed the injuries. It still hurts to move them, but she raises her guard and seeks an opening for another strike.
Lily is alive, but wounded, and Ida's completely lost track of Beau. She's already fearing the worst, because the worst keeps happening.
For a split-second, Ida feels something cold and familiar behind her. Red Power. Marivel's power. But by the time she glances back, the reaper is behind Xander instead, and Lily's talking, and Ida has to choke down her rage. "I know," she hisses, to the witch. She knows what Lily's speaking of, and knows it would kill everyone here.
Not that Xander isn't already trying. The earth churns beneath Ida's feet, and she jerks her feet out of the sinking, churning corruption--but then it parts wide, and jaws snap shut around Ida's ankles. She bites back a scream as hot, slick blood drips down into the earth. Ida rips her feet free, again, and her face twists.
Ruth is trying to talk to him. The Hellion has more sympathy than her. Ida's heart tightens in her chest.
"Go," Ida says, as she reaches for Devil's Due and pulls it free. She aims the ARM at Xander's center of mass, and pulls the trigger. A gout of brilliant, gas-flame-blue fire rushes from the barrel, spiralling inwards as it rushes at the Fang.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey spends 3 Combo on Poison and Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Xander Lovell with Breath Of The Fire Dragon! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Ryoko Mizore suffers a terrible blow from Xander Lovell's Bloodfrenzy for 202 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Xander Lovell! GS: Xander Lovell drains Ryoko Mizore! Xander Lovell gains 22 temporary hit points! GS: Ryoko Mizore spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Ryoko Mizore has attacked Xander Lovell with Devastate! GS: Ryoko Mizore has completed her action. GS: Xander Lovell takes a solid hit from Ryoko Mizore's Devastate for 160 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Ryoko Mizore! GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP! GS: FP up! Charge bonus and Sufferer activated! GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell suffers a terrible blow from Ida Everstead-Rey's Breath Of The Fire Dragon for 314 hit points! GS: Poison applied to Xander Lovell! GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Ida screams at him, and Xander wishes he felt anything at all. Anger. Regret. It's just... noise. A louder way of asking a straightforward question he already asks himself. The answer is always the same.
Ryoko does, indeed, return the favor of Xander's attempt to drain her life force. A clash of blade and ice, Xander flailing in savagery and Ryoko with a different, more settled kind of conviction, brutally smashed back and away from her and back into...
Dark Devourer rising. Xander immediately recognizes these growths are not his own. He spins, slashing and swatting at the tentacles. Despite parrying the bulk of it, the poison seeps into his flesh. Adrenaline and dark magic allow Xander to ignore it... Dizziness a constant companion tonight. But he feels a chill. He has not bumped into anything, for the reaper that finds his way behind him is incorporeal. Somehow, somehow, his gaze shoots immediately to Marivel, knowing instinctively this is definitely her fault. He calls upon the scythe of Valmar with a flick of his arm and hurls it at her before realizing, with some alarm, she has one too...? Both blades come down and Xander bites out a curse in his pain.
A great power gathers. Not Marivel's. Not Valmar's. Xander's blood turns cold as he notices the air around him slowing. He snarls, trying to push past it, trying to move. Not like this, not now, he can't he can't he can't he can't. But the world collapses. And it explodes.
There is a crater where there was a church, once.
Infesting vines of the Fangs of Valmar were uprooted, scattered, left withering. Blood and smoldering rubble litters the area. And at its center... a giant, red blossom. Petals unfurl from it, resting gently within the newly created pit like a sunburst. Xander collapses to his knees.
Swarming lights, like so many butterflies, arrive upon him. Xander looks up, mouth pulled in a grimace, but his reaction oddly... calm. Rage pulled away. He's... tired. He's already so tired. But he will not. Allow this. To end.
Not unless it's on his terms.
He's trying to stand up again, while Ruth is peaking. While Ruth becomes like bronze: a wall, an obstacle, a monument to her own suffering. He hates how everything she says strikes deeper than any of her bullets do, and that is saying something. She's a sniper in what she says as much as what she shoots.
"...If only... there were anything good I could do with this." If only there was anything left of the Xander that used to be. He thinks about it, too often, what Riley said he wished they could do if they ever could find a cure they would survive. "I... don't need atonement..." It's not why he'd go back to his old ways. He'd go back to them just for their own sake.
Ida is not in the mood for talking. Devil's Due fires in a spiraling, overwhelming shot of flame.
But the time the fire is done, Xander is singed, scarred, bleeding... His thorns and flowers burned away to charred, dusty husks for their former selves. He has to hold his own head up, fingers raked through his hair, chunks of wooden armor falling to the ground and crumbling to ash.
He's so, so weak. A gust of wind, and it might all be over. It's... impossible for him to win. Against this many. Against Ida's rage and determination to stop him. Against Lily's overwhelming power. Against Hicalu and Lan's desire to protect one another in a way that hurts too much to look at. Against Ryoko, who assists them, who has found it in herself to turn against what she once was while Xander is stuck living it. Against Ruth, who seems not to be a statue of impassable bronze, but a mirror. Marivel may not want him gone, but she will not abide by the loss of a single friend.
Maybe. Maybe if it were one. But all together? Surely Xander cannot win.
Beauregard has found himself positioned behind Xander. Careful. Slow. Steady. He has the knife Xander dropped earlier in the fight. He's being so brave about this. His breathing is perfect. Not a sound, not an utterance. The blade lifts, poised to strike Xander in the neck where Ryoko revealed the armor may be weaker --
Xander looks up at Ida. "I'll kill as many as it takes. But tonight?"
A gunshot, not so loud as the Door Knock, deafens the world with its suddenness. Beau's eyes glaze over. His complexion pales. Fast as Xander can flick a knife from seemingly nowhere, he has a revolver style ARM in his hand, body only half turned, barrel pressed point blank to Beau's chest.
"Just one."
They fight, tooth and nail, they struggle like beasts, and sometimes all it takes is one clear, perfect shot. Beau's body hits the ground. Xander drops the ARM after him to join its owner. They can bury him with it, if it's so important. The curse recedes, thorns withering and falling from Xander's bloodied body. Every blossom's petal falls and hits the earth, blackening and gone. Evidence of wounds remain, leaving Xander half doubled over as he still fights to keep himself standing.
But he is still standing.
Xander breathes out, long and slow, and he begins to laugh, slow and exhausted and so relieved. It louder than he means, the awful taste of someone else's blood still in his mouth. But he can breathe again.
Pushing back the effects of the curse give Xander a critical second wind. One hand clutches the worst of his wounds, but he licks some blood off of the thumb of the other. The only farewell he gives is a long, hardened look at every present before with a deep breath and sweep of his arm, as if physically pulling them up, a burst of brambles rises from the earth between him and everyone else as a perilous wall. They are only meant to block his escape, but he does not care who they bite.
Without Valmar's power to sustain them, they are soon to wilt. Everything becomes dust except for the red blossoms that bloom from Beau's fallen body.
GS: The Force Action Extend is already active! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Procession of Thorns! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Lily Keil with Procession of Thorns! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ryoko Mizore with Procession of Thorns! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ruth Pauling with Procession of Thorns! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Marivel Armitage with Procession of Thorns! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Lan Lilac with Procession of Thorns! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Hicalu Wilwisp with Procession of Thorns! GS: Delay expired! GS: Lily Keil solidly guards Xander Lovell's Procession of Thorns for 87 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Delay and Interrupt applied to Lily Keil! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and SOS Overdrive activated! GS: Lily Keil enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: CRITICAL! Hicalu Wilwisp partially evades Xander Lovell's Procession of Thorns for 184 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hicalu Wilwisp gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Delay and Interrupt applied to Hicalu Wilwisp! GS: Lan Lilac partially guards Xander Lovell's Procession of Thorns for 104 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lan Lilac gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Delay and Interrupt applied to Lan Lilac! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated! GS: Ruth Pauling solidly guards Xander Lovell's Procession of Thorns for 99 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ruth Pauling gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Delay and Interrupt applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: FP up! Charge bonus and Sufferer activated! GS: Ruth Pauling enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Xander Lovell's Procession of Thorns for 244 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Delay and Interrupt applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"Oh it better not, we just had this whole Lan in Peril situation already." Marivel says to Hicalu. If Lan gets sliced open again what then? "But I see your point I better not risk it. I shall unleash the powers of..."
Xander sinks a scythe into Marivel's throat. It punches throuhg wit hthe end of the blade poking out the other side.
Marivel sighs. "You know, I just had an idea. Why don't you just become headsmen? If that's not enough blood for you, you could join a military. I imagine if you went to work with the Veruni they'd love to make the most out of your murder needs. Wouldn't that feel much better than just assaulting random travelers. That's not very efficient. For one, you're bound to keep running into us, and for another, for all you know, they might really be packing something you're not prepared for."
Getting a scythe through her throat disrupts her attempts to buff a lady.
A second one disrupts her lower half and she falls over to the ground like a true Devilman, rolling over onto her back. There's no blood or gore, just ash where her lower half once was.
Marivel rests a hand in her.
Marivel lays there, resting the hand of hers that wasn't cleaved free to support her head.
Where was Beau?
There's Beau.
Marivel sighs because that's not great. However...as she starts to notice flowers wilting...
"Ida." Marivel says. "Ruth. Don't got legs so..."
"I'd appreciate it if you could take our poor friend here to Mariel." She can't be sure right now if the darkness of the void will support that flower until she can get HER sample to Mariel.
GS: Ryoko Mizore accepts Xander Lovell's Procession of Thorns for 216 hit points! GS: Delay and Interrupt applied to Ryoko Mizore!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
'What good we can do with it.' Lily wonders, in that moment. Is her nature the same way as Ruth's? Sure, she doesn't radiate Malevolence, but looking upon the devastation she has wrought in the name of trying to stop one man--just one powerful man--she has to think...
"...You don't," Lily agrees with Xander, while he's on his knees. He doesn't need atonement. It doesn't matter, really. "We're just... two forces, meeting. We can't coexist. That's all."
Ruth is like a wall... Lily immediately thinks of it--she could hide behind that wall, and finish another spell. It might be enough to finish things. Ida knows what she couldn't do, but maybe this new spell, paired with something older and reliable, could be enough. But...
"No--"
Beau is there. Beau, who she thought was so pathetic. Beau gets heroic. And of course...
"Damn it!"
"Damn it, you--"
She coughs, and hacks, and blood stains the ground where her reconstructed lungs have had it spill into them. "You--"
She coughs, again, and hits her hands on the ground. "You damned... stupid... brave, idiot..."
Why does she care? He's just some man she met. Someone who thought he was pathetic, for not standing up himself. Who saw all this, and...
Xander laughs, relieved. He can breathe. And Lily looks up at Xander in turn, her eyes narrowing towards him. "..."
Would she do any differently, in his place? If it were Leon?
She turns away from him, just her head, as he leaves. That wall of brambles rushes up, and Lily is knocked backwards by it, scratched and scraped wildly before she hits the ground hard a moment later. "Gh--"
Red blossoms...
She thinks of ice. She thinks of Preservation, of the nature of memory, and it burns inside her because she knows that's the same power driving Xander right now. Nevertheless, she channels it. More than the lack of heat, more than frozen...
"Everyone..."
Lily can't lift her hands, but a blue aura starts to shimmer off of her, starts to gather up all the rest and mend wounds, arrest bleeding, stop death itself.
All except Beau. Poor, brave Beau.
"...Damn...you..." Lily's eyes roll shut. For a while.
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Lily Keil with Glacier Heart! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Marivel Armitage with Glacier Heart! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Glacier Heart! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Ryoko Mizore with Glacier Heart! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Ruth Pauling with Glacier Heart! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Lan Lilac with Glacier Heart! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Hicalu Wilwisp with Glacier Heart! GS: Interrupt expired! GS: Lily Keil gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: Lily Keil heals Hicalu Wilwisp! He gains 270 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Delay, Entangle, and Interrupt removed! GS: Lily Keil heals Ida Everstead-Rey! She gains 270 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Delay and Interrupt removed! GS: Lily Keil heals Lan Lilac! She gains 270 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Delay and Interrupt removed! GS: Lily Keil heals Ruth Pauling! She gains 270 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Delay and Interrupt removed! GS: Marivel Armitage accepts Xander Lovell's Procession of Thorns for 219 hit points! GS: Delay and Interrupt applied to Marivel Armitage! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Marivel Armitage has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight! GS: Lily Keil heals Marivel Armitage! She gains 270 temporary hit points! GS: Restore! Delay and Entangle removed! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Marivel Armitage has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
Hicalu realises -- too, too late -- that another man has snuck up, behind Xander. A braver man than him, surely. A man who --
who
As many as it takes, Xander says.
And the world shatters.
It shatters with a gunshot. Oh, perhaps it's a normal sound -- to Ryoko, coming to his defence, or to Marivel, who seems so unswayed by the horrors, or to Lily, who might just be destruction made flesh. It is not a normal sound, to Hicalu, who has so rarely heard the report of an ARM as finger meets trigger. His ears pin to his skull. His eyes grow very wide.
"NO!!!"
Released from his own thorns, Hicalu stands, in horror, as he watches the blood pool. Beau isn't looking at anything, though he's still looking, eyes which forgot how to close. "H...he's dead... y-you killed him!" Hicalu stumbles over the realisation, looking to Xander, horrified. "You, you killed him..!"
you killed them --
Hicalu stares at
the bodies --
at the body, eyes very, very wide, mouth hanging entirely open. He is still, for a moment. He is silent.
And then Hicalu screams, and bolts for the exit, to get away from the dead body. That it's the way Xander just fled doesn't seem to register, in his mind, as he impacts with the vines, and bangs his fist on the thorns. "Let me out! LET ME OUT! AAAAHHHH--!!!!"
The only thing that can cool down his overheating mind, in this moment, may well be ice -- and when Lily's Ether washes over him, Hicalu at least stops panicking quite so vividly, sinking down into a little fox heap, burying his face in his hands. His skin doesn't hurt so much now, at least. No more new blood to leak out and stain him.
"H...he really just killed someone... just like that..."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
They don't have to kill him. All they have to do is beat him down, and hope to God and Granas that the sealing prayers Ida learned on the fly will do the trick. No one else has to die. No one else--
There's Beau. Ida's heart skips a beat; she stands perfectly still, the ARM still aimed at Xander's chest. If she looks at Beau, Xander will see him, and kill him. If he kills Xander, the Fang might take him as his next host.
Xander removes that choice for her. It happens so fast.
Xander takes another life so that he and his beloved can see another day. Red haze drifts across Ida's eyes.
"You CRAVEN PIECE OF SHIT!" Ida screams, and she pulls the trigger.
It all happens so fast.
One moment, Ida has a clear shot, and in the next moment, everything is a hideous tangle of vines and wood and twisted flowers. Barbed thorns dig into Ida's flesh. The vines lash her arms to her sides, and pin her in place. "GET BACK HERE!" Agony joins the rage in her voice. Something ripples beneath her skin, barely visible beneath her clothing. With one last, tremendous effort, Ida strains against her bonds, gritting her teeth in the face of corruptive, venomous agony. One by one, the vines snap, and crumble. Ida pitches forward onto the bloody ground.
The cold creeps in. Were it not comforting, she would think it a sign of blood loss. But Ida's not in the state of mind to thank Lily, at least not at the moment. Rage turns into grief and pain and frustration. Ida curls up, and starts to sob.
Ruth might want to handle the flower on her behalf.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Lan doesn't want to kill Xander. Even if Riley can't remember him now... it's too sad. Even if there's no way to stop this, even if the 'right' thing to do is to kill them...
She doesn't want to.
There are other ways. A sleeping spell powerful enough or something to put them into torpor... but they'd sleep until a cure was found, or maybe just until whoever maintained the spell got careless and died. Would they be even hungrier when they woke up? Would they grieve the years lost?
Is it just bundling the problem away for the next generation... or for immortal witches like Magilou?
Lan shakes it off, half bent over from weariness. Hurry. Hurry and find a solution, or--There is a gunshot, and Lan snaps back to here and now, thrown back to the ground by a wall of more vines.
Oh. ...Oh. She winces when Hicalu's voice rises into a wail that becomes a shriek, and the familiar scuffle of struggle.
She picks herself back up, steps no longer so light, and finds her brother in a little heap on the ground. ...He saw.
"Come here," she tells him, going to her knees next to him and pulling him up to lean against her, letting him hide his face if he wants. "It's okay. It's gonna be okay..."
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth rides that Malevolence pendulum back to hissing and lunging as Xander makes their escape.
The wall holds, for as long as it needs to, even with the entire bulk of a Hellionized Ruth hurling herself against it. It accomplishes little, other than the disconcerting imagery of the way thorns draw and scrape at her. She has the sense, if only just, not to pursue to further aggravated injury.
She can taste it in the air. The disbelief, the disappointment, the frustration. Her tongue flicks, but she keeps her back to them as she looks to the withering wall of Valmar's fang-shaped thorns.
Her tail loops around a (marginally) less prickly part of the vines, thinking of how Elise has all but walled herself away within her own garden of thorns - and the way the life she had before contributed to a world she deemed worthy of walling away from her in impentrenable brambles.
She stops herself before thoughts trend towards blaming herself for Valmar.
The patinated bronze sheen of her form flakes off and away, dissipating into little more than motes of Malevolence she makes an attempt to pull back into herself before it permeates the ground here, a sobering gaze towards the fallen Beau. Her right arm, which remains seeming constricted within a rosary with a surprising elastic limit for its thread, rests a hand over her heart as she lets the rancor drain from her mind into her chest. She values the sense of guilt as its own reward, a grounding sensation as Lily shimmers a blue aura across her. Wounds knit.
Marivel makes a request. Ruth nods the once, and busies herself with prayer (which is not what Marivel asked for, prayer is not a substitute for manual labor) until such time she's able to 'change back.' (Note the quotation marks, it's really the other way around.)
"He did," she answers Hicalu, who screams his fear and shock about the sudden death topping off the string of horrors he wasn't prepared for. Ida completely unleashes rage and despair at the latest string of this.
It's in Ruth's nature to be drawn to these things. At her worst, she exacerbates it. At her best, she validates it, casting her shadow across Hicalu and Lan as the latter ses to the former.
But she can never fully alleviate it.
The flowers will be dealt with soon enough.
<Pose Tracker> Ryoko Mizore has posed.
Ryoko Mizore really didn't expect anything great out of meeting an attack the way she did. It had been an attempt to make the best of a bad situation. There's an almost bitter laugh as the scythe bites into her arm, slicing deep even as her hooked tool slams into Xander. She staggers back. Looking briefly at her right arm as red stains the usual blue and white waves. She's... probably a bit hurt as she laughs and says, "Nope, don't like that color." and steps back, dropping the hooligan tool to the ground, arm to her split shoulder.
Still, he's not looking any better after all of that and honestly, she doesn't know the guy and she's nominally all about second chances, but what else can you do? The other ether user in the area begins to draw more of that bitter cold around herself, a quiet voice in the back of her head warning her this is probably a bad idea as red crystals form up her arms. Then quick as you will, there's a burst of thorns and she's further hurt. Actually pretty badly, worse than anything else so far. She works her fists a few time times, then carefully and deliberately steps back. Very slowly reaches down and picks up the handle of her hooligan tool and plants it on the ground where she leans on it. Ice formed on her gloves and boots. It's all a show. She's not moving from here probably. Except he's gone.
There's a crunch as she works her fingers against the handle, letting it drop again as she sits back heavily with a thud and clatter of tools. Hicalu's freaking out over a dead body. She's pretty sure she did the first time too. Not... to that degree mind. Still, that voice in her head's telling her bandage time is now and she's fishing through her kit, pulling out oil rags and stips of cloth to press against the worst of it. Probably not the healthiest approach really. Which means it's a good thing there's a cold heal from an unfamiliar face. She's still not feeling the best, but that's a step in the right direction. "I'd like to learn that trick. Don't know how to make ice help." She's trying to sound like she's joking and not in pain. There's some consideration to her position, then she just decides she doesn't care for now and instead looks back to the two she'd been trying to ostensibly help! "You two made it out-" she was going to ask okay, but there's a freak out happening. Right. "not too badly hurt, right?" Not her best improv. Oh well.
A look to Ruth and she waves her left hand, the unhurt one since you know, lefty meant her right was forward. "Metal's a good color on you." That's closer to normal. The joking that is. When she's comfortable talking. Or in a stupid moment. Either or. There's fishing around with the left hand to grab the tool handle and she's pushing herself back to her feet again. Maybe. Should she push herself this hard? Someone else is worse off. She can walk back to her gear and sleep it off or something.