2018-07-28: The Keeper at the Gates

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LANDMARK

A red light surges through your senses, filling them all. Sight turns crimson; taste and touch and smell fill with strange, distinct sense of heat. And a roar pierces the air, clawing its way into your very spirit, digging its rattling ferocity in to tear down your defenses until...

... you arrive.

DISCOVERY

The final challenge completed, the chamber returns to normal, save for one addition: a single, radiant door, glowing with calming, rejuvenating white light. Stepping through is an experience like no other, revitalizing and energizing you in equal measure as the light engulfs you...

---

This room you come upon as the light fades is not like the others. There is something strange here, something off, that twinges at the senses the second that you step within, something that cannot quite be placed. As if you had stepped into another world entirely. Beyond feeling, even the architecture is different; smooth, eloquently gilded, this chamber is large and circular, with pillars composed of an unknown blue crystal that seems to flow like water supporting this vast structure. A series of seven immaculate gates line this place, numbered from I to VII in order, each of them sealed utterly, all of them inactive...

... save for the door marked 'I', shining with a soft radiance.

A light that begins to shine ever-brighter as if heralding the imminent arrival of something beyond it, as those words once more echo through the senses:

                      WOULDST THOU BREAK THE SEAL?                         


<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

Even from above, Catenna could feel the way the earth-magic wells. Things seemed to converge here.

The Moon Shaman closes her eyes and folds her hands together, shutting out the sounds and sights of the people around her for a moment to simply feel the strange sense of things here. It's different... but at the same time similar. Not the same as the empty night beneath a full moon in a clearing in the wilds of Elru. And yet....

"Cyre, can you feel it...?" she murmurs when she opens her eyes, looking up to her lover with a faint, mystified smile. "Like the heartbeat of the planet...."

Slowly, Catenna takes a step forward, her eyes a little wide as she surveys this vaguely ethereal place - the architecture crystalline and so unnaturally smooth and fluid that nothing entirely seems real. As though the earth itself had simply willed it into being. Those gates are taken in, and she walks slowly down the line of them....

Until she stops near gate number one, and stares into that growing radiance with a certain touch of wonder.

"Amazing," she breathes, curling her fingers at her throat. She takes a couple of steps away, though, as those words ring through her spirit - and the light begins to grow.

"Cyre, something seems to be happening," says Catenna as she moves back to where the wind shaman in question is standing.

"...But I think we should see what's behind the seal anyway...."

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    Riesenlied has descended with the others she travelled -- Noeline, Matilda, and Kaguya -- onto a strange room. Seven immaculate gates, marked from I to VII... only with one active.

    There's a sharp, haggard breath as she expresses, "I-- is everyone--"

    She seizes up at that point, however, clenching her head as the voice suddenly becomes extremely clear to her.

                         WOULDST THOU BREAK THE SEAL?

    "I-- aaah-- Noeline, Kaguya, Matilda-- please--..."

    The beckoning is ever stronger, drawing Riesenlied ever closer. The expression on her eyes is blank as she suddenly steps forward, cloak fluttering lightly as she moves towards the 'I' gate in a trance...

    The unit hurries through an infinite labyrinth of corridors. She paces down a wooden hall, designed with a Ellurian Baskar aesthetic. It adjoins fine-hewn castle masonry -- Arctica Castle, judging from the coat of arms hanging by the pillars. She looks, left, right, and again and again, but she cannot find what she seeks. Her breath bated and short, her limbs weary as she places a hand towards a nearby mask, skin the colour of living metal and slicked with a thin sheet of ice, marked with the Photosphere crest.

    The label on the mask's forehead is marked:

                                  RIESENLIED

    No, that's crossed out by--

                                    Nazgul?
                                  Riesenlied?
                                    Naz...
                                    Riese??
                               Nazgul al-Rashid
                                  Riesemama!

    Crossed and crossed and crossed again.

    The unit struggles as she steps back from it, peering towards the endless expanse of masks hanging upon the walls stemming beyond her. An endless myriad of guises, none of them availed to her. As she holds onto her lock of hair, she places a hand... to her cavity. A gaping hole where a face should reside.

                            This Unit wishes for...
                       This Unit wishes for... a name...

    Back in reality, things are... difficult for Riesenlied. The spiritual sensation imposed upon her by the Beast has filtered through all of her physical senses. She can see... auras, around her -- sensations of life, warmth, emotion, but... nothing else makes sense. Voices echo swimmingly around her as if muffled through cotton; the sensation of air, of energy, of light and heat touch upon her as if filtered.

    Through all of this, she struggles, trying to whisper:

GS: Riesenlied has spent 1 Combo on Inspire!
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Noeline with ...Where Are You...?!
GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

The last thing she knew, Jacqueline had stepped through the doorway with the friends that had appeared after facing the final trial Uzda Il-jam had presented to them. The light was not what she expected - it was warm, pleasant, and rejuvenating. She had been exhausted before she stepped through...but now she like her fatigue and nervousness had melted away completely.

...And when the light fades, she finds herself in a room with a series of doors. They appear to be inactive, save for one...and it seems like something is about to come through it. The voice asks a question, but Jacqueline's first concern is the others.

"Are you alright?" Jacqueline asks, glancing around toward Catenna, Cyre, Arleph, and...

...wait, where was Ethius? It was just like him to disappear right when things were becoming strange. Jacqueline frowns, but shakes her head and steps toward the gate alongsiide Catenna.

"Just a moment." She says, then looks up. Where did that voice come from? The voice they felt more than heard?

"What is this 'seal'? What is it holding back?" She asks. ...Though she does not know if her question will be answered.

<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

The separation imposed upon the adventurers, by the maze of light, means that Talia is not sure where the allies she entered here with are. As the light fades, she looks around, red eyes wide as she tries to get a good look about the room. She snaps the opened book in her hand shut; the Kislevi field journal is tucked back into a holster on her belt. She looks up, then, peering up at the cylindrical room.

Her eyes widen as she sees the strange architecture: pillars of crystal, stunning gates, and the door that shines with that soft, still familiar radiance. She steps forward, finding her jaw setting.

She remembers the bloodshed and despair when the Saint of Sinners came to Lastonbell. She remembers the cloying, terrible oppression of the Malevolence in Emrys Mire. She remembers the stunning confusion, and sense of relief, at a pool of water untouched by such corruption. She finds a similar solace here, if not necessarily familiarity. But, she also finds a question.

Her eyes shift to Riesenlied. Then, to Jacqueline. Two people she knows. She steps forward, and calls up to the door.

"If it'll give us what we need," she calls out, "then yes! I will!"

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    The light fades. Ida Everstead-Rey blinks back spots, and glances behind her at her three companions--she's probably in the best shape of the lot, so to speak, so she gives them a moment to regain their bearings. Her hands clench and unclench at her sides, blood dripping from split knuckles. The wounds are slowly healing. The length of dark metal chain wrapped around her arms and torso shifts and coils with a life of its own, hungry for more blood. To those with poor resonance, this is the sum total of what they see: a pale, slim, slightly-less-haggard-than-normal young woman. Her long, dark hair spills down her back, and her sleeveless overcoat that puts too-thin, scarred arms on full display.

    To those with more considerable resonance, Ida is at least six feet tall, solidly-built and muscular. The scars riddling her body have split open into rents like volcanic fissures, radiating Malevolence. The Malevolent star in her heart burns, brightly. The chains wrapped around her glow, ever-so-softly. Her unruly mane of silver hair blows back and forth, as if caught in a crosswind.

    Ida undoes the buttons on her jacket pocket, and pulls something out. It's a chunk of stone, glowing with soft blue light--the light of this place--and engraved with strange runes. She smiles, looks back at Dean and the others, and turns to face the gates. "Of course," Ida says, to the voice she hears more than feels. Others arrive, but Ida seems more focused on the mystery before her, ready to crack it open. "Why the hell else would we have come all this way?"

<Pose Tracker> Mihaya has posed.

 The area around Uzda Il-jam has certainly been busy, with a number of groups moving in to plumb the secrets of these strange and mysterious islands. It had brought a number of curious Drifters, and that meant that there was opportunity for someone who was interested in gathering information about the new and unusual. Mihaya had managed to be among the first groups to arrive, but rather than doing research on the ruins themselves, she had been focused on another task.
 
 People watching - more specifically looking for these unusual Drifters from the Silver Star and their strange and unusual technology.
 
 While she's been willing to approach the Drifters and speak to them, there's also something to be said for making observations without her targets knowing they were being observed as well. And so Mihaya occasionally makes a round to collect information from her observation points, checking to see if anything new and interesting has turned up. Sadly there hasn't been anything particularly earthshaking - certainly not what she was hoping for. Her up close observations had been more useful, and she has the feeling that she'll need to plumb the ruins themselves and see folks in action to really find what she wants...
 
 Really, part of her hoped something terrible would crawl out of the ruins and really shake things up. That was probably the best way to get the information she needs.
 
 Alas, that sort of thing wasn't likely to happen. So the elf Symbologist just had to bone up and sneak in after another group, using their own progress to allow her to slip through with less effort. This of course means she misses a LOT of the weirdness that is going on in the ruin as well. Instead she creeps up towards the sealed gate, remaining behind a wall as she listens to all manner of strange things going on in the distance. It's enough to make her pause, and move her hands in a brief prayer for protection before she moves onwards towards the final area.
 
 She isn't sure what this seal is, and the elf has a rather uncomfortable feeling that not being aware of what is going on is probably severely to her detriment. But she has to set her jaw and continue, walking into the room behind the others and listening as everyone speaks.
 
 "...this place is..." she starts, and the pauses. Just what WAS this place? Everyone seems determined to crack open this final barrier. Better to wait and see if it produces something... unusual.

GS: Mihaya has attacked Mihaya with Moment of Prayer!
GS: Mihaya has completed her action.
GS: Mihaya takes a solid hit from Mihaya's Moment of Prayer for 0 hit points!
GS: Mihaya gains a Combo from Inspire!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.

    A strange hooded white-haired man follows behind a crowd of others, bearing a quarterstaff and an unyielding, unmoving gaze. Bathed in a calming white light, he steels himself and prepares for anything--
     A bottle descends upon their scalp, bouncing off of it with a glassy 'thonk' as they faceplant against the ground before they can step through.
     Somewhere on the other side, a surprisingly sturdy glass bottle that once held some sort of beverage produces a shining aquamarine sparkle of light that materializes in the form of an obese, silver-bearded man in ragged clothing of a light blue hue. He stays seated as he yawns, stretches, and scratches his side. The red light was debilitating... hot. He can hear the roaring right now.
     "...'m not ready for a nap." They comment, nonchalantly, unaware of what just transpired close by as they look back. Woozy as he might be, he is compelled to rise. He strokes away at his beard contemplatively.
     "...Talishe? Tethelle? Layna...?" They aren't here. Quite a few others are here, some of them familiar. Lanval stretches out again. He can't be caught nappin' right now. Not when he's in the presence of... well, he doesn't need to think or say that out loud, does he, as he steps gently and respectfully - with minimal staggering and imbalanced careening - across the breathtaking chamber. Oh, hey, those people from that weird metal carriage with no horse are here, and he recognizes the bespectacled one. He knows exactly what it means when she's around.
     Lanval ambles up and tries to help himself not at all discreetly to any number of potions he can get his hands on. His eyes open almost all the way when those words echo through the senses.
     "Mmmph," quoth the freeloading water spirit, as eyes track towards Talia's declaration that she will - and to the muscle-bound Hellion. Looks like he's going to need to wake back up a little bit faster than this.

<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

    Noeline's nerves are already severely rattled by the time she abruptly wakes from her moment of disorientation. The trials in the unmarked and unknown temple were bad enough, sapping the strength of their rather ragtag group - the metal demon is more and more aware of the physical difficulties her partner is facing, how quickly Riesenlied tires when under duress - but more than that, the spiritual energy swirling around the ruin is obviously threatening to overtake Riese, shrouding her as it tears at them.

    It leaves her momentarily uncertain - the idea of restraining the other demon is not one that Noeline relishes, not when there's clearly a goal Riesenlied is being led towards and especially not when she's likely to fight and struggle against an attempt to pull her back from it. Still, a little fear in the corner of the spy's mind whispers to her that this place might become very dangerous very quickly.

    As if that weren't enough, the spiritual energy swirling around the ruin is almost threatening to overtake her, and that's a strange and new sensation that she's still trying to get her head around. For all that Noeline is used to being able to sense the power of Guardians and sorcery by now, something feels wrong - her vision feels too sharp, the colours around her too vibrant and the walls of the ruin almost pulsing with power.

    Her hand grasps involuntarily at midair as she hauls herself to her feet, the fingers almost curving into a claw before she manages to catch herself. Ever since unsealing Duras Drum she's known there's a power within her she can pull at and drag out, but now it feels like it's positively overflowing - an explosive amount of force just under her skin, where the slightest touch could draw it to the surface and out.

    "Riese," she rasps in warning, dimly aware that they're far from alone here; her head swims for a disoriented moment before she clenches her hand into a fist, grits her teeth and simply does her best to force down the nausea with a sheer force of effort. She's dimly aware that Kaguya and Matilda are behind her; she'll apologize later for leaving them behind, but for the time being her attention narrows to a focus, and she pushes herself forwards in the direction of the other demon as alarms begin to go off in her mind. "I'm here! Listen for my voice!"

    Whether that will even get through, she can't say for sure - but it's not like that would change her having to try.

<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

PREVIOUSLY

Rosaline is running. This is something she is good at doing, even when semi-arbitrary tile shenanigans are involved, but it's made more difficult when she keeps glancing over her shoulder to check on Xantia and-- DID GARRETT FALL DOWN A PIT AGAIN?!

And then, a moment later, so does Rosaline. Her vision swims with red. She closes her eyes, grits her teeth as hard as she can, until...

NOW

Well.

Okay.

"'Wouldst though break the seal?'" Rosaline repeats, out loud, feeling a strange mix of exhausted and rejuvenated as she approaches the 'I' door. "Do we really have a choice?" She looks around, noticing that she isn't alone. She sees Xantia. Good. Garrett is... Well, hopefully he's okay. And then there's...

"Ida!" she calls out, relief in her voice. Honestly, it seems like Ida ended up faring better than they did, all things told.

GS: Noeline takes a solid hit from Riesenlied's ...Where Are You...? for 0 hit points!
GS: Noeline gains a Combo from Inspire!
GS: Noeline has spent 1 Combo on Reload!
GS: Noeline has attacked Riesenlied with When I'm With You...!
GS: Noeline has completed her action.
GS: Riesenlied guards a hit from Noeline's When I'm With You... for 0 hit points!
GS: Reload! Riesenlied gains 15 extra FP from Noeline!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    "Rosa," Ida says, turning towards her fellow Hellion. The smile on her face is confident--perhaps too confident--but there's an earnestness in it Rosaline hasn't seen in some time. "Looks as though this place gave you quite the tour, hm? You're just in time."

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

At the final door, amidst the gates, amidsts light, there is light but there is also darkness, a field of black that grows in front of the open gate and explodes outward to blind and obscure for just a few, key moments. Just a few. ...When it fades, Lily Keil stands there before the door, staring it down. The question rings, once again...

"Yes," she repeats, still dressed in her black military gear, armored jacket and strange sling-staff and all, "We would."

...It's at this point that she has the uncomfortable sensation of many people all around her, including some behind, and her ungloved hands curls more tightly. Violet light plays along each of her fingers, travelling up and down strange circuits up the backs of her hands, into her sleeves.

"...Riesenlied," Lily says suddenly, sharply, with concern--though she has not seen her mirror. She can feel her presence. The strange visions of the chamber are one thing, but--

"Good question," Lily says to Jay. "Be on your guard!"

Lily adopts a ready stance, her free hand lifting towards the gateway, ready.

<Pose Tracker> Arleph Ardan has posed.

      The light was something Arleph was not certain he could repeat, or even describle fully right on the moment. It was warm, pleasing and most of all, perplexing despite all of it's positive qualities.
 
      This does not changes the fact Arleph wakes up with his face on the ground, groaning up as he gather himself back t his feet, adjusting his glasses to look up at the ginormous gate. A brief glance around makes him frown, particularly at the sight of some people. Well. This place certainly got a lot... busier. "I did hear that voice, as well, Jay." He looks up, adjusting his jacket and shirt so that they fall more readily alongside his body instead of being awkward. "That is my question as well! What lies beyond?"

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    In desperation, a single prayer rings out against the chaos.

    The prayer reaches. They reach, crossing over the distance. The world settles into sensibility; they press through the door.

    For an instant, Avril is aware of light, brilliant light -- light that maintains in spite of the darkness that implodes through the portal they pass. All is light.
    She is light.
    And all is once again becalmed.

    And then, as if it had been any other passageway, any other journey, she is simply here. Lips parted, blue eyes widened, that particular sense of calm and peace still clutches to her and her expression as she takes in the unusual sight spread out before them.

    "Where... are we?" she finally says, taking a step forward across crystalline floors. Even that doesn't provoke the slightest sense of trespass or disturbance in this realm.

    "Have we come to another world?"
    That's how it feels.

    A moment passes. She suddenly starts, and advances towards Ida. Ida, who looks...

    "Dean-- are you--"

<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

Legends and academics both speak of the legendary Raylines, channels along which the very lifeblood of the planet flows. It is said that these rivers are the arteries which feed the Guardians themselves. This, this thrumming, pulsing-through of the very spirit is almost exactly what Cyre had imagined such a thing would feel like.

It is, in no small way, all too similar to the sensation he feels when he becomes a focus for Fengalon's might.

"I can feel it," Cyre whispers, feeling the ebb and flow of the vital currents of Lunar pulse through him, "It's... Amazing, isn't it?"

He sighs as he opens his eyes, allowing the euphoria to fade into the back of his mind. The world around him is... Unfamiliar. What is this place? How does something so... concrete exist within the Rayline? Cyre gently passes his fingers across the crystalline architecture, a curious noise in his throat.

Which brings him to the first door.

Break the seal? What seal? His expression turns thoughtful, brow wrinkling in that tell-tale contemplative way that suggests the gears inside are turning. And then he shakes his head. "Not a clue. But I don't see any other way forward, do you?" He flashes a grin in Catenna's direction and then reaches for the so-called seal. "I think I want to find out though. Wanna see what's behind door number one?"

<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

"Good," Rosaline tells Ida, raising her claws and flexing them. "I'll spare you the gruesome details. I just want to be out of here at this point." Seeing the expression on her friend's face is emboldening, in a sense, but she WOULD still rather be away from people and sleeping in a sunbeam right about now.

<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.

Matilda's... worried about Kaguya, but worried about Riesenlied, too; in the end, she moves forward, though with no small amount of anxiety about leaving Kaguya to rest. She's not entirely 'there' herself, though -- there's something about this new awareness she's been gifted that she finds... anxious, almost.

But then, when *isn't* that true?

Matilda lets out a slightly ragged breath, looking to Riesenlied, then Noeline... then out toward the others arriving. Her gaze turns toward Jay, in particular; she uses the merchant as a mental anchor, trying to pull herself back more clearly to the here and now rather than getting lost in her newfound spiritual awareness.

"... Break... the seal?" she asks, eyes narrowing slightly. "What...?"

<Pose Tracker> Tesni Inoue has posed.

Tesni Inoue had been through the strange ruins with several Drifters she's not worked with before, Rudy, Ambrosius and Cecilia. She looks around not seeing a sign of her companions and seems concerned then she spots Jay has appeared and she'll home in on her and any of the other Caravaners who are with her. "Jay!" She's glad she packed the deadman's hand in her duffle she's very low on arrows after the fight with the shadow elementals in the dungeon beforehand. She also feels something else but she seems wary she'll notch one of her last arrows as she paces over to her comrades.

 "This doesn't look good."

 Do they want to break it?

<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.

    Dean walks through the light, which energizes him, bolsters him, and lifts him up. He comes out the other side with a brilliantly confident smile--even moreso than usual. He nods over to Ida, Prissa, and Tabitha in turn--and then double-takes at Ida; he's never had good Resonance before now, so he'd always seen her as, well, her human self; between the double-whammy of Mt. Manfred's marble lotus and the trials of Uzda Il-Jam, his spiritual senses have gotten a considerable boost. Enough to see Ida's Hellion form for what it is.
    
    "Woah! When'd you get so buff?!" he declares, blinking wide-eyed at her in wonder. That wonder turns to concern when he next takes in the rent scars, the purple-black unlight, the ever-moving silver glow... The light itself in particular draws his eye, because it too wafts a sense of unease... that sense that he's able to pick up on minutely in the past. "Is that... Malevolence?"
    
    But the light of the gate shines brighter than Malevolence, and a voice asks: Wouldst thou break the seal? There's no hesitation in his mind when he nods back, Twin Fenrir materializing back into his hands. "Of course!" he says, echoing Ida unintentionally. He grins at her, the earlier tension breaking. "If you're going to test us, then we're gonna give you everything we've got!"
    
    But then there's lots and lots and lots and *lots* of other people, including people he's been waiting to see again. He brightens to see Avril take a step towards him and Ida. "Avril!" he calls, taking a few steps of his own towards her. "Yeah, I'm fine!" He grins. "I knew we'd all make it through just fine!"

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Id has left the party

???

Fei Fong Wong walks through an infinite labyrinth of cooridors. He doesn't recognize this place, not at first, but eventually he realizes he is walking through Arctica Castle, recognized through the coat of arms. He hears movement through the infinite labyrinth and he chases after it, 'Wait!' he calls out, throwing out a hand, but the movement moves farther and farther away the faster he runs to catch it.

He bends over, panting for breath. How is he tired in a place like this, he will never know. Perhaps it's mental exhaustion.

He looks up and sees an endless expanse of masks. He blinks in confusion. This place is also new. Is this some kind of metal demon factory? Sorry, he reprimands himself, Hyadean? They're people, Fei, well most of them are. Don't forget that, don't forget--you'll regret it if you forget.

He walks forward through the endless hall of masks for a while. It's so far away.

And then the hall isn't so endless. Or at least, there's a change. He looks out into the distance and sees some headless--no...faceless monster in the distance. Fei stumbles backwards in terror. That is definitely new.

He runs away--but not for long. As he's fleeing, finally--a familiar mask appears before him. It's a man with red hair and pale skin.

Then it isn't a mask. It's just a strange man. The strange man grabs Fei roughly by the shoulders.

It's your turn now. Go to them.

Fei is forced to turn around and he looks back towards the monster.

No, he thinks, not a monster. He reads the body language. Even without a face, he can understand the longing, the base elemental nature of longing, of wanting something so much as to be moved to tears.

AT THE GATE

There's a flurry of motion as Fei busts in from behind the group, easily the last one to show up, he raises his fists up into the air and even one of his legs, ready to fight whatever may come his way, swaying in an offensive martial arts' stance.

"I'm here to help!" Fei shouts.

And then he pauses for a few moments, gradually lowering his guard and unintensifying his gaze.

"...Oh, I guess...nobody's in trouble?" He looks towards Ida for a moment, a pained gaze, and a bigger frown towards Talia before he catches sight of it.

"Riesenlied!" Fei shouts, running over. "Noeline! Are you okay? I'm here to help!" He sees Lily too. "Lily, you're...dressed for the occassion, huh? Good to see you."

And then there's a smaller pause before Fei adds, "Uh."

"..."
"..."

"...where are we, exactly?"

<Pose Tracker> Prissa has posed.

 
Prissa, the Blade Dreamer, enters this realm.

Prissa has been seen by a range of people but right now she seems to be somewhat more armed for bear. She has a sword on her back and three on a sash laying over her usual supply of knives. She also has apparently cut off her pants at the knee as well as shedding her boots, revealing, among other things, that she likes to sunbathe at times, or is just naturally that shade of tan.

She has come here, in particular, in the company of Dean and Ida as well as SOMEONE ELSE, to be left nameless for now.

The voice that has drawn them forth raises a question. Prissa purses her lips and reaches into one of her blouse-wards pockets, drawing out her tinted glass lenses and putting them back on. Perhaps she anticipates needing eye protection soon; perhaps it is the growing grounds. What Ida says resonates with her, but she is not sure why.

Inwardly she thinks, if not in quite so many words: Well, this is the crux of whatever-this-is. I can observe, of course, but I cannot be AN observer, not now. Her eyes turn around the others, towards the swaying Riesenlied and Noeline moving to support her, towards Ida discovering a friend of some kind.

As others come in, Prissa, tho recently joined to a new society, feels a certain solitude. The person here who, perhaps, she is most bound to is...

"So," she says to Tabitha deVriese, "There is consensus, we are breaking this seal. You did not happen to bring a bomb, did you? I am fresh out of firesand."

When Dean speaks, Prissa frowns, looks at Ida, looks away, frowns, looks back - Her brow furrows. "Do you see this also," she mutters to Tabitha.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    Seeing Ida's self for what it was, now, is not new. But is it a trick of the eye, or does she now seem more solidly that? Has something about even Avril's spiritual perception shifted with that passage?

    She doesn't feel quite the same.

    Her gaze, one way or another, will meet up with Ida's for one, two heartbeats's space.

    And then there's Dean.

    Avril is calm. She's been calm since she passed through the door. But the calm that settles over her now is... different.

    She smiles.

    "Dean, I'm glad to see you. I had thought that if we continued through the ruins, we might see you again. Rebecca is with us. Ah, Rebecca--"

<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.

Tabitha deVriese, always a bit too eager for her own good, swans ahead of the others from her group - that strange moment from before, staring Ida down with a fascination bordering on manic, seems to have passed. She idly draws her gun, plucking back the slide on her weapon, but not tucking anything in - almost more like changing a firing mode, for some reason. "Oh, hello, Rosaline, dear," Tabitha chimes, wiggling her fingers pleasantly at the (resigned, with fire) cat nun.

Despite all the spiritual power of this place, she doesn't seem to see Ida or Rosaline for what they are. Some...how...? She glances to Prissa, tipping her head. "She seems like she could use a sandwich," she admits. "Despite punching a hole in a wall the thickness of a man." She fusses with her weapon some more, dialing in something...well, something, anyway. "Very unusual. But what is usual, anymore, really?"

"Seals are very passe, I think," she declares to the speaking door, and levels the weapon at the door. She doesn't fire, just sights down it, finger up from the trigger. "I find uninhibited monsters a bit more exciting, myself." She grins, speaking to the voice of the world about them. "I wonder what will come out? I can hardly wait to dance with it."

<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

This ruin started as honestly a pretty good time, as far as Xantia was concerned. Breaking things, fighting, good company... The company of two Hellions, yes, but she thought it was good company nonetheless. Things rapidly took a turn for the worse when puzzles got involved, turning things harrowing at the end. She doesn't quite remember how she ended up in this room, which is more than a little concerning. The last thing she needs is more amnesia.

But this is soon pushed to the back of her mind, as familiar faces come into view. The people she calls out to in particularly being, "Fei! Lily! There you are!" Xantia really shows up in the darndest places. With little idea of what those places are actually about, her friends being all the motivation she needs.

With that, she breaks away from her earlier companion to run in the general direction of where here fellow Black Wolves are gathering, moving to Fei's side. Nothing against Rosaline, of course, but she did come here to find her other friends, and Rosa has her own friends to reunite with, besides. Whatever intentions she might have had beyond that are stopped by hearing that voice again.

'WOULDST THOU BREAK THE SEAL?', it says. How is that even a question? Of course Xantia's going to break it. Breaking things is her most preferred solution to any problem, whenever it's an option. Why stop now?

"...I don't know, but I think we're supposed to break the seal," is the best explanation she has for Fei. That being the case, she sees no reason to waste time. "I can do that!" Cracking her knuckles, an aura of lightning bursts forth around her, and she heads straight for the door, intending to do a little more than a light knock.

GS: Xantia has attacked Xantia with I'm Gonna Wreck It!
GS: Xantia has completed her action.
GS: Xantia takes a solid hit from Xantia's I'm Gonna Wreck It for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Xantia!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"What no!" Fei shouts, too late obviously. "Breaking seals is bad! People make seals for a reason! Gaaah!!"

<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

A lot of people are here, Talia realizes. She blinks, looking them all over, before she cracks a smile -- and tries to not look too long in the direction of the Black Wolves. Hopefully, she thinks, they won't decide to start a fight. She looks ahead, though, and she stares as Xantia rushes at the doors.

She steps up; this places her, incidentally, close to Avril and Dean both. "I, uh, think that she--" She points at Xantia. "--may be the definition of running right into problems."

<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.

 
And then there was Lily. "Wait what are you-" Darkness floods her vision. "Buh!? Is it those things again?" Only to be replaced again by a flood of light so radiant it brings spots to her eyes. The dazzling shift from light to dark to light is causing all of her senses to reel.
 
And yet whatever anxiety of the moment is replaced by this calm feeling. She doesn't feel so tired anymore. In fact she feels better than she's ever been. It's like she has all the confidence in the world in herself. In her decisions. In her ability to just - do anything.
 
Something tugs at senses she didn't know she had - and it's like learning to walk again except with feelings. Except it's so simple. As simple as breathing.
 
Giddy - light, she wonders if this is how Avril feels when she feels those intangibles around them. "Avril - what do you mean another world-? I mean... we didn't go that far right?" Or if it's just - something different. Something new. "Would I what-?" She asks as if incredulous to the question of the seal, "I don't care about that."
 
Sure there's the joy of discovery - but that was never even close to the most important thing for her. Or even in the top five. There's something more important though - and as Avril mentions him, she starts and starts to jog over to the pair. "Dean? Dean!"
 
What matters is her childhood friend and the promise she made to Avril to see him again. "Well it's a good thing you were so confident about it! Because we were really worried about you dummy!" And yet there's no anger in her. Just relief. Just... relief and more than a little joy in her smile. "Of course I'm with you Avril! Promised you we'd see him again together - right?"
 

<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

Surprisingly I feel better than I did this morning," Catenna admits to Jacqueline with a blink. "Perhaps our passing the trial of this place has evoked something...."

Stepping over to Cyre, Catenna lays a delicate hand on his shoulder, smiling up at him. "I would like to know... but be careful. It may be something dangerous...."

Then Xantia runs right at the door.

"Uh, miss--" Catenna shouts out with alarm. "Miss!!"

<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

Rosaline's tail is a perfectly straight line for a moment, upon hearing Tabitha address her. "Hello," she says, her voice surprisingly cool coming from someone who is on fire, as she avoids making anything resembling eye contact.

Then Xantia runs ahead to do something alarming. Rosaline isn't that worried, though. She's curious to know what's behind, and as we all know, curiosity never did anything wrong to a cat.

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Jacqueline looks up as Tesni calls out her, then turns and offers her a smile. In this brief distraction, a certain Seraph will be able to pilfer a few potions.

"Ah, Tesni! It's good to see you!" She greets with a wave. It's this that keys her in to the fact that they aren't alone here. Others are beginning to arrive here - many others. Among them, some familiar faces.

She sends Matilda a smile.

"I'm not sure, but...Lily's right. I think we should be cautious." Jacqueline replies with a nod, then a nod toward Lily herself before looking back to her companions. Cyre seems eager to give it a try...and a call from nearby, from Talia, indicates that he's not alone in that. Not by a long shot.

...Well, there was nothing left to do but see what would happen...!

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    The dull ache of the cold, having inspired some pressing aches on the area where Gwen's shoulder is connected to her ARM, her aches from overextending herself, the fact that she practically ran a *marathon* back there-

    It's all gone. The sensation, at least. She feels light as a feather, more free than she's felt, even on the beach.

    And as her group enters, Gwen just babbles, overflowing with enthusiasm. "I can't believe I actually made it, oh Guardians, we all made it! I thought I was GOING TO DIE back there-"

    Dean. Ida. Rosaline. Rebecca and Avril spot them first, Gwen's gaze following behind, raising her hand in a wave. "Ah, oh, hey! Dean! Ida! What, who's buff? Oh, Ida? Yeah, she's-" Wait. Gwen blinks. "... Did you just get that spirit radar stuff and not realize it? Man oh man, that's-" She pauses. "... Exactly what happened to me, yeah. That's Ida's Hellion form. And Rosaline..." She trails off, feeling awkward. "Yeah. That's the long n' short of it, eheh."

    Huh. When'd Fei get here? Gwen squints at the ready martial artist, itching her head. "You don't remember? Must've gotten one of those concussions or somethin'. You still good for this? For, whatever this is." She squints up at the glowing symbol. "... I was kinda hopin' we'd get some clues as to what kinda seal this is. Uh, Ida! You got a clue?"

<Pose Tracker> Beast of the Lost Land has posed.

No answers come from the questions posed to the voice, to the room. Like some had observed in their time through Uzda Il-jam's proving grounds, this place feels empty. Lonely. But lifeless, it certainly does not. The pulse of life itself seems to flow through this place like the steady beat of a heart... and yet, there is nothing quite alive here in the conventional sense.

Nothing to answer them, save for the growing radiance.

Light from that door marked 'I' starts to grow in its intensity. Expand -- until it looks almost like a gateway being opened in what was once nothing but empty space. Beyond that gateway is nothing but an endless white. An endless white... and a distinct sense of heat that prickles at the skin.

                             THEN OPEN THE WAY

And a great, black claw bursts out from the white the exact second Xantia rushes the door.

That will smack her aside almost entirely by accident if she's not careful.

*WAP*

 

It emerges, then, almost like it was being called, being drawn out of some far away place. Like an opened cage or a cell. A lone red eye - its right seemingly missing - flares with vibrant, -seething- life as it drags its way out of that portal: immense, black, and almost quadrupedal in appearance, red decorates this beast -- this Hellion -- here and there, from spiked tail to head, but none more prominently than that wild, majestic mane of red hair that encompasses its blackened maw and chest, from which two long, dangerous-looking bull-like horns emerge. Heat seethes from from its gaping, skeletal maw as it drags itself out into the cool serenity of this strange, circular chamber as if in open defiance of everything this haven stands for. The Beast that was fought in the very bowels of the Proving Grounds...

... only this time, very much in the flesh.

And very much unleashed.

A fact proved decisively before it even manages to pull its way entirely out of the gleaming white of its portal. Malevolence seething angrily off it like vaporous heat, the beast yanks its head back and releases a long, furious howl into the air. And as if in response, heat -explodes- off of it in a rippling shockwave of flames, spreading like wildfire across the entirety of this chamber-turned-arena to engulf anyone unfortunate enough to get in its path. The beast stumbles out, hitting ground with a crack and shaking its head almost as if disoriented as the portal shuts behind it. That single, left eye flares with unthinking violence.

This is the gatekeeper.

And it is time for you to make your way forward.

                     M i s s i o n O b j e c t i v e
                               Open the Way

                    Defeat the Beast of the Lost Land!

<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.

    "Hey, excuse me for believing in you guys!" Dean protests at Rebecca, but he doesn't sound mad either; he's grinning too hard and too affectionately for that. "Still, I'm glad you made it through without any problems. " He's about to say more, to ask about Id and Lily, when-- "Oh hey Fei!" he calls, perking, waving over to his friend. To both him and to Talia, who is pointing at Xantia, he says, "It's okay, I think we're *supposed* to break this seal! It's been asking us about it this whole time!"
    
    So it's a good thing Xantia's not likely to stop just because Fei told her too. And hey, there's Rosaline! ... ...IS ROSALINE ON FIRE?? He stares at her, stunned, and frankly about to panic, when Gwen shows up and explains, oh, no, that's just her Hellion form. He blinks at her rapidly, then rubs his eyes. Yup. Still on fire. "Man, this is going to take some getting use to," he remarks.
    
    AND THEN MONSTER HAPPENS. More to come.

GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Mihaya with Keeper at the Gates!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Seraph Lanval with Keeper at the Gates!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Riesenlied with Keeper at the Gates!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Noeline with Keeper at the Gates!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Rosaline Calice with Keeper at the Gates!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Xantia with Claw of the Lost!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Talia with Keeper at the Gates!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Matilda Whitehead with Keeper at the Gates!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Keeper at the Gates!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Arleph Ardan with Keeper at the Gates!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Catenna with Keeper at the Gates!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Tabitha deVriese with Keeper at the Gates!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Dean Stark with Keeper at the Gates!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Prissa with Keeper at the Gates!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Keeper at the Gates!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Rebecca Streisand with Keeper at the Gates!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Keeper at the Gates!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Keeper at the Gates!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Lily Keil with Keeper at the Gates!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Tesni Inoue with Keeper at the Gates!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Keeper at the Gates!
GS: Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Keeper at the Gates for 77 hit points!
DC: MISS! Noeline completely evades Keeper at the Gates from Beast of the Lost Land!
GS: Rebecca Streisand takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Keeper at the Gates for 68 hit points!
GS: Riesenlied guards a hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Keeper at the Gates for 90 hit points!
GS: Riesenlied takes an additional 30 damage from Reaper!
DC: MISS! Prissa completely evades Keeper at the Gates from Beast of the Lost Land!
DC: MISS! Avril Vent Fleur completely evades Keeper at the Gates from Beast of the Lost Land!
GS: Dean Stark critically Guards a hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Keeper at the Gates for 27 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Keeper at the Gates for 156 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Jam, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Lily Keil!
GS: Seraph Lanval guards a hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Keeper at the Gates for 79 hit points!
GS: Seraph Lanval takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper!
GS: CRITICAL! Rosaline Calice guards a hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Keeper at the Gates for 95 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Jam, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Rosaline Calice!
GS: Rosaline Calice takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper!
DC: MISS! Talia completely evades Keeper at the Gates from Beast of the Lost Land!
GS: CRITICAL! Xantia guards a hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Claw of the Lost for 100 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Jam, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Xantia!
GS: Xantia takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper!
GS: Arleph Ardan takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Keeper at the Gates for 62 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has completed its action.
GS: Catenna takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Keeper at the Gates for 62 hit points!
GS: Tabitha deVriese takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Keeper at the Gates for 69 hit points!
GS: Matilda Whitehead takes a solid hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Keeper at the Gates for 140 hit points!
GS: Matilda Whitehead takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Keeper at the Gates for 60 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    Riesenlied can sense -- sense is the right term here, because none of the other Drifters filtering into the room are distinct to her. Everything is a clashing, sweltering swarm of lights, of auras and borders of souls touching upon each other... it's beautiful, but at the same time--

    Exceedingly terrifying.

    I'm here! Listen for my voice!
    ...Riesenlied.
    Riesenlied! Noeline! I'm here to help!

    There are voices trying to reach out to her, amongst a lot of other ones, but she can't tell who it is. As her consciousness becomes more and more aware of how muffled all her senses are, it inspires-- panic, more than anything else. There are more terrifying presences out there, as Ida and Rosa arrive in Hellic form, appearing as a musky, somewhat inky ebb of purple, but...

    There is a poison coursing through her -- not through her veins, but through the spiritual veil that ensconces her. It threatens to drag at her every move, prey upon the emotions that she exudes.

    Masks clatter to the ground as the Unit searches. She searches, and searches, and searches, but to no avail; she holds one up and frustratedly throws one aside, then another.

    There is no beginning and no end here...

    The Unit spots someone, somehow, despite having no face. Before she can reach out for guidance, the young artist has run away. Did he find an exit?

    Tell me... someone... anyone...

    There is then-- flame. And Riesenlied rather just rattles as she gets thrown off her feet, having no particular sensate presence to detect danger or react accordingly against it.

    Tell me...

DC: Riesenlied switches forms to Despair in the Fallen Sword!
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Riesenlied with Lost and Desperate!
GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
GS: Riesenlied takes a solid hit from Riesenlied's Lost and Desperate for 0 hit points!
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Keeper at the Gates for 78 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

Not even the mighty force that is Catenna being a mom can stop people from rushing the gateway. She rubs her temples with her fingertips.

And then she looks up as that voice rings out through her mind --

"Oh no!" she gasps as something reaches out, presumably to try and get ahold of poor Xantia. Such is the price of racing in.

The creature's a familiar one, and Catenna's high spirits fall a little as she realizes it's a Hellion - she'd hoped Malevolence wouldn't be involved this time, so sick is she of being forced to endure negative emotions being dreddged out of her heart. Scowling, she steels herself against it and drops her hand to her Medium.

The monstrosity breathes its flame nevertheless. "Cyre!" Catenna gasps as she lunges backwards, but trying to elude such rapidly-spreading flame completely is nearly impossible when it's just everywhere. Flames scorch at her as she flips through the air and somersaults through the peak of her jump, part of her left pant leg burned away by the time she comes down to a crouched landing at a greater distance from it than before. "This would seem to be a problem," she murmurs. "A Hellion so large would not have been sealed were it not horrifically powerful...."

As Riesenlied goes down nearby, Catenna widens her eyes, darting through the flames and coming down to kneel near her friend. "Riesenlied, hang in there!" she gasps, wishing - not for the first time - that she had the power to simply change her friend's metal nature.

All she can do is try to help. With a scowl, she levels a hand at the Beast and chants a few words in Zortroan, letting the Arcana of the Moon pour forth from her.

As with most of Catenna's spells, this one is unseen - there is no blast, no ray, no flash. There is simply a quiet, insistent groan in the air, and an abiding pressure. Gravity begins to multiply steadily for the immense Beast as Catenna attempts to slow its movements down.

GS: Catenna has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Encumber!
GS: Catenna has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Beast of the Lost Land guards a hit from Catenna's Encumber for 0 hit points!
GS: Break and Poison! Statuses applied to Beast of the Lost Land!
GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Catenna!
GS: Mihaya guards a hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Keeper at the Gates for 82 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

    "Miss Keil," Noeline rasps again, and immediately winces as her vision bucks; her voice still hasn't caught up to normal, rough and worn as if she'd been yelling herself hoarse rather than trying to navigate her way through a spiritual minefield of new energies and feelings. Avril's voice is welcome as well, and Dean's; between them, it at least means there are allies here, people she can trust to have her back. It lets some of the tension go out of her shoulders, though there's still plenty to spare there.

    "I do not know," she mumbles to Matilda, still trying to get her own bearings; she furrows her brow, wincing as she tries again to push through the nausea. "I still cannot sense a Guardian, but--" but if she had to guess, what they're unsealing isn't necessarily anything to do with the Guardians. The fact that the ever-present sense of Malevolence feels lighter here isn't something that's lost on her, but she's not terrifically willing to voice that out loud just yet, not sure if doing so would somehow dispel the reality of the place.

    "I'm alright," she adds to Fei, grimacing softly at the next pulse in her head as she looks up to the man with a frown. "Or-- I will be, given a moment. But Riese--" she swallows, and forces the fear out of her voice. Perhaps it shows how far she's come when she huffs quietly to the martial artist: "... help me with her, please."

    She doesn't get any further than that before their enemy makes itself properly known; the cessation of Malevolence is all the more obvious when it all comes rushing back, accompanied by a giant wave of rolling flame that threatens to engulf almost the entire room. With her newfound senses, it almost appears like a living, breathing wall of force - but at the same time, with her newfound power, she can see the cracks in it, the way it twists and shifts. It is far from absolute--

    --and she gives herself to that abandon, letting the rush of power carry her forwards in an attempt to try to cover Riesenlied's stumbling approach. When reality solidifies back around her she's passed straight through the wall of Malevolence, darting into the midst of the flames and yet somehow untouched in the way she dances around them. Her scythe is in her hands - still ornamental, but somehow larger, and flecked with a corona of sorcery that shifts between an unnatural purple and an equally unnatural green.

    "--Riese! Listen to me! Focus on my voice! Riese!" she continues to call; even if she's in control of herself when it comes to the battle around them, her heart is still caught in her throat. She doesn't move from where she's taken position in front of Riesenlied - but then she doesn't need to, her knuckles whitening as she pulls the blade around in a cleaving blow. The line it draws hovers in the air, spitting light - and then races forwards to impact against the massive Gatekeeper.

GS: Noeline has spent 3 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Noeline has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Black Velvet!
GS: Noeline has entered a Reflect stance!
GS: Noeline has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Beast of the Lost Land guards a hit from Noeline's Black Velvet for 189 hit points!
GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Noeline!
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

Any continuation of a quip to Avril, Rebecca, and Dean dies in Talia's throat. The assassin looks up at the immense, black and crimson beast that steps from the door. The familiar bubble of Malevolence rolls off it, and her eyes wince; she almost steps backward, as she looks upward. The heat, though, makes her eyes water.

More than heat comes for her. Talia throws Mirage up -- sending the grey-blue short sword hurtling towards one of those crystal columns. Chunks of ice blue crystal rain down when it strikes, and her form turns into so many strands of shadowstuff. They weave and bend upward, and she reforms, in a three-point stance on the side of the column, and above the creature. She aims a hand towards it, hanging in midair. "Something frosty sounding, ice and cold, metaphor for northern climes, blah blah snow..."

An icicle appears before her. It compounds outward, bit by bit, until it forms a large spear of ice. Then, it rockets down towards the back of the huge Hellion.

"...Freeze LANCER!"

Talia bicycle kicks off the pillar -- and slams down into the ground, next to Rebecca and Avril. She looks side to side, between them, before she asks: "Did you fight something that looked like this on the way in, too!?"

GS: Talia has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Freeze Lancer!
GS: Talia has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Ida's grin widens as Dean... compliments her? She turns to him, seeming to sober up somewhat as she sees the concern in his eyes. "Yes," she says. "This is... what I am when the Malevolence within me is allowed to express itself." She takes a step back, then, allowing Dean, Avril, and Rebecca to reunite as she walks up to Rosaline. "I promise we can return to the surface once we're through here," Ida says, to her fellow Hellion. She glances around, taking in the faces of the others here--Tabitha (annoyingly), that white-haired Seraph lout, Noeline (hmm), Riesenlied...

    Ida looks at Riesenlied a moment, concern flickering across her features before it's smothered. The claw bursts free from the door, and with it, the scent of Malevolence. Ida breathes in, her eyes flickering shut a moment as she scents the air. The Beast drags itself free, howling in defiance. Ida grins, a strange sharpness in her smile. "I was wondering if you would show up," she says, settling into a low fighting stance. She sights Fei out of the corner of her eye, and for a brief moment, feels glad to fight alongside him.

    It's almost enough to make her forget the things she saw inside his dreams.

    The Beast erupts in a firestorm. Ida drives her hand forwards in an open-palm strike at the very air in front of her; a thunderous bang erupts as a second, much smaller shockwave races out from her palm. It hits the fiery circle, disrupts it, but the Beast's fury is relentless. Fire washes outwards over Ida, forcing her to shield her face with her forearms. Flame crackles at her flesh, and blooms of pain alert her to brand-new injuries. Smoke wafts from Ida's arms and torso as she uncurls, stepping forward like she's suddenly decided she is now the party tank. "Not too shabby," the big Hellion says, as she glares at the much, much larger Hellion attacking her. "But we can do better. Rosa!" Ida turns to her fellow Fury, makes a beckoning gesture--

    And then seamlessly flows from that beckoning gesture into a knife-hand strike right at the Beast's gut. Her hand changes, fingers lengthening and sharpening into blackened, Malevolence-twisted claws.

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Devil Fist!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

"Fei," Lily greets in return, nodding his way sidelong while her focus remains forward. "Good to see you, too." She pauses short, then adds clipped without looking, "I just felt like armoring up. We're on an island." She seems... very casual about seeing Fei show up, but then, Lily is casual about most unexpected, troubling things. "Stick with me."

She spots Xantia next, and frankly that's another relief. ...While she has no intention of so much as commenting on the sweet reunion of Rebecca, Avril, and Dean, for all that she intends to watch them over from behind. It just becomes another thing that makes this feel exhilirating, not worrying, energizing rather than enervating. She has one of her own, with Xantia here, after all.

'THEN OPEN THE WAY'

Lily feels the light, the heat--and the claw. The creature whose phantom she once faced emerges, but its power is obvious. Even as it pulls itself from the portal the Malevolence hits Lily and her psyche both like a truck, forcing her backwards even before the flames start. "Ghh--"

Some of the armor plating in her jacket begins to melt immediately, her skin beneath the strange markings blistering in the heat. It sucks the air from her lungs, draws energy away from her, forces her head down--but she opens her eye again to stare at the creature. ...And to feel--

"Riesenlied!" She still hasn't moved. Lily growls in place and forces herself forward again, leaping between Riesenlied and the creature ahead. "Carver, what happened!?" To Riesenlied, her presence is strange; it can be detected more by the way energy is drawn towards her than by her own aura, which is strange, faint, flickering, almost a void. ...That, and the spike of power that comes as her markings blaze orange-red, and she conjures flames about her form.

Violence. Lily's golden eyes gleam with violence, as well, but they start to darken, precipituously. Ether begins to draw in around her, the beginnings of a vortex. "Creature," Lily says, "...<Show me>," in the ancient tongue she finishes, and throws out her hand. The flames about her rise, and crash forward, fighting fire literally with fire. For now.

GS: Lily Keil has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Hearthblaze!
GS: Lily Keil takes 8 damage from Poison!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

There is no answer. Jacqueline frowns. She really would like to know more...but it would seem the answers she's about to get are not the ones she was hoping to find.

The door begins grow ever more radiant. The heat begins to grow, as well...and then, a claw emerges from the door. Jacqueline backs away very quickly, though not quite quickly enough to avoid the shockwave of flame that herald's the beast's full emergence.

She recognizes its form. That creature they fought before... Jacqueline takes a deep breath, and offers her companions a confident smile.

It's rare to see this sort of confidence from Jacqueline. Whatever happened...

"It's alright. We defeated it before. We can do it for real this time, right?" She says, trying to reassure everyone. Not that they had a choice. She gets the very real sensation that if they did not defeat it, it would slaughter the lot of them...and she had no intention of dying here.

Catenna's words do bring her attention to Riesenlied. Jacqueline's smile fades somewhat, as concern starts to show on her face.

"Riesenlied! Everyone is here with you!" She calls out. She can't spare the time to go over to her, not with this beast right in front of them...

But Noeline was here. Things would be fine.

For now, he turns her attention back to the beast and assesses it. Being a physical creature, she has a feeling this one possesses a weakness that the one in their previous encounter didn't.

She draws a bottle lavendar liquid from her bags and then hurls it towards the beast's mouth. The contents within make one feel sluggish, dulling fighting instincts.

GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Sapping Solution!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Prissa has posed.

 
"Sandwich?" Prissa asks, before her brow furrows and she looks back at Ida, then back again. "Ah-h-," she says, "I understand you better now, I think."

"You are a crazy person," Prissa tells Tabitha, just as the seal breaches and a horrendous black claw emerges to kill Xantia! (Killing not guaranteed.) Prissa leaps upright, startled into sudden lethal alertness as it feels like everything is drawing into position, that the gravitational force of this THING is pulling them in, a being beyond the fiends and beasts that she has, hesitantly, confronted so far--

no, she tells herself, go! do it!

One of her knives is grabbed out of a sash, flipped open with a latching flick of the thumbnail. Her left hand draws out a long curved blade, held catty-corner as she sinks down into what is at least a mummer's representation of a readied stance. At least she keeps her legs planted well.

Shifting weight back and forth she screws her courage upwards, breathing swiftly through her teeth as she sees magic and fire burst forwards. Others are attacking - she isn't alone -

LUNGE! The curved blade is brought round in a single wide-arced slash at the side of the creature's leg.

I didn't die! Prissa thinks. Nonetheless she reflexively throws herself to the side, rolling with her knife clutched against one leathern sash to avoid stabbing herself in the process.

GS: Prissa has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Shamshir - Memories of Home!
GS: Prissa has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Tesni Inoue has posed.

There is no time to he fooling around not with something like this. The Bow is lowered she then carefully pit the arrow away and the bow over her shoulder. From that duffle comes the Dead Man's ARM, she loads it raises and it and levels her weapon at the beast.

 "I owe it one after it ran me over. Let's get to this."

 She looks to it down the scope of the arm lines up a shot and fires. Normally she'd keep the weapon hiddena wauy but right now there are other things worse than the Prime Directive to worry about. Namely this thing.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.

    A terrifying howl precludes the explosive shockwave of flames, a worthy follow-up to an already awe-inspiring, frightening entrance of a familiar beast. The Seraph of water stands something approaching 'firm' as he splashes out the contents of his gourd outward in a wave of water to dull the crackling heat shockwave. A burst of steam emerges from the collision of immense heat and cool water, and it would appear that it is the leftover product that washes over the divine drunkard, eyes shut closed as they slide back. In the elemental relationships that govern the interactions between power among Seraphim, water holds power over fire.
     That this much reached him, with that much effect, is a simple primer on the magnitude of strength the Beast of the Lost Land brings to bear. It will take all of them. Lanval's eyes open half-lidded as recent memories come flooding like a bad hangover. The way it seemed to effortlessly counter everyone's approach among his friends...
     "...Can't have shomethin' like that roamin' free in here," Lanval comments a bit too coolly for the sheer panic erupting among the gathered. He can feel the pulsing of this place. He knows exactly what it is... and he can't shake himself awake that much faster. The overbearing crimson light's sensations linger. His eyelids are so heavy... the more he struggles, the more it fights to see him go back to rest.
     He might seem to let it win as he steps forward a few times before promptly flopping onto the ground like a big fat rag doll, and with the sound of snoozing, that might be that. That might be the extent of what he contributes, occasional snoring while he lies there.
     Then sorcerous energies erupt around him - an incantation that seems only possible while he dozes as a great watery bubble emerges from his prone form and flits precariously between fierce techniques and powerful magics en route to the great beast.
     A strange Seraphic Arte, that one.

GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Sleepy Bubble!
GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action.
GS: Tesni Inoue takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Keeper at the Gates for 67 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Arleph Ardan has posed.

      Arleph do waits for a reply. A reply that never really comes.
 
      "How rude." Arleph muses, scratching his chin as he looks over at the accumulation of Drifters. The Stench of Malevolence, or at leas twhat he began to recognise as Malevolence. It's been growing stronger ever since he's been here, especially on the rare times he's meet a few people. Ida... bloody hell.
 
      The form that comes out of the door makes Arleph straighten, tightening his white, symbological gloves. "You're quite correct there, Jay. We've seen this better, we can beat it again. If someone needs support, yell in my direction!" With the incoming volley, Arleph slides with water-covered feet, an hexagonal-covered invisible barrier slamming into it.
 
      Arleph slides one foot to the right to ground himself, stretching out a hand while a symbological symbol spreads out from between his fingers. The mage steps back swinging his hand in an arc and then thrusting it with force into the MALEVOLIC(Malevolentic? What?) beast, a large burst of raw magical power slamming out into it.

GS: Gwen Whitlock critically Guards a hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Keeper at the Gates for 26 hit points!
GS: Arleph Ardan has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Magic Missile!
GS: Arleph Ardan has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Mihaya has posed.

% Well, she had wanted something that would help her gather information. It seemed that the ruins had helped to provide her with exactly what she was hoping for.
 
 Mihaya can feel the hair on the back of her neck stand up as the massive claw erupts from the door, the beast erupting from some ethereal realm to become something terrible and very much real and in the moment. She clenches her teeth, holding her staff out to brace against the wave of malevolence that erupts off the thing. And the elf curses under her breath, muttering something about unclean fiends, before she straightens and readies herself for battle.
 
 Or she will in a moment, at least. She fishes out a small crystal orb from her pack, setting it in a nook in the wall behind her so it won't fall down or (hopefully) be damaged. That's the best she can do as far as evidence. The rest will just depend on what the fight produces.
 
 A moment late the elf runs up to join the group who are standing against the Beast of the Lost Land, holding her staff in one hand as she looks at the strange monster from under the rim of her woven straw hat. "I hope whatever we're looking for behind this door is worth it!" she calls out, looking for the folks that she knows. Lily is there, and... honestly is probably the most interesting as far as figuring out what she's up to. Plus as a fellow symbologist, she isn't going to be the type to dive in and just stab things, right? She turns, making her way over into the fray as she shouts, "Do you have some sort of plan to deal with this thing?"
 
 Lily may not hear her, which would be... understandable in this mess. The elf raises her staff, invoking an element from among her collection of symbols. She could start bigger, but best to see just how this creature reacts. Her staff comes up, and Mihaya decides to add a little flare. "Strip away the ground with glistening blades!" she calls out, and levels her weapon towards the creature. "BOLT!"

GS: Mihaya has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Bolt Lightning!
GS: Mihaya has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

It was a near-certainty that something like this would have been sealed away here. A wave of profane flame washes over the pristine chamber, scalding soul and surface alike. It races toward Fengalon's Nahual to set his hatred and sinful humanity alight. Cyre grits his teeth, raises a hand and then--

...Leaps right up and over it on a burst of wind. Air twists and spirals around his legs as he kicks scars into and through the conflagration, somersaulting through twisting streamers of violet flame only to land safe and sound and somewhat singed on the other side of the blazing onslaught.

"I was afraid there was something like this back here," Cyre huffs, his hand going to his own set of mediums. "The hellion at the front gate, the weirdness inside the ruin itself. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if there were more of these things sealed in other ruins. The numbers would check out, but I'm not sure what the heck they're actually counting."

"Well, doesn't matter," Cyre lifts a hand high. A complex array of arcane circles materialize over the calamitous beast, revolving and rearranging until they unfold completely. The circles of light, engraved with prayers to the sun and sky, pulse and give way to a sudden and incessant downpour of brilliant energy. "I want to see what else is behind that gate and this thing's in our way! Let's break on through!"

GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has spent 1 Combo on Poison!
<Pose Tracker> Tesni Inoue has posed.

There is no time to he fooling around not with something like this. The Bow is lowered she then carefully pit the arrow away and the bow over her shoulder. From that duffle comes the Dead Man's ARM, she loads it raises and it and levels her weapon at the beast.

 "I owe it one after it ran me over. Let's get to this."

 She looks to it down the scope of the arm lines up a shot and fires. Normally she'd keep the weapon hiddena wauy but right now there are other things worse than the Prime Directive to worry about. Namely this thing, she's very wise to do so as the moment she opens up with a shot it's attacking and Tess is forced to stop shooting to dodge like hell, even with being fast on her feet she does not escape harm. She's singed burned and otherwise sizzled at least she didn't directly get caught in the fire.

GS: Tesni Inoue has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Rapid Fire!
GS: Tesni Inoue has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

Oh, great, Gwen is here too. There is nothing Rosaline wishes more right now than to get away from all of her friends who want her to be happy. (And Tabitha, too.) Rosaline's ears twitch. Dean merits a glance. Why is he so confused?-- Oooooh, right, she understands what's happening now. "Hi Dean," she says. "This is fine."

Surely that will be reassuring.

But light engulfs the room before Xantia even gets a chance to wreck the door. Rosaline shields her eyes, lowering her arms to see... something familiar.

She grins.

"YOU, we can hurt!" she declares, manic energy in her voice. But before she can do much of that, flames wash over the entire chamber, herself included. She attempts to protect herself with a burning shield of her own, but its does little to stop the flood.

As she cries in pain, Rosaline remembers something Garrett said about an hour ago, about fighting fire with fire.

But it doesn't last forever. She staggers, her body smoking. It isn't entirely clear, except to the Malevolence-blind (who are becoming rarer and rarer at this rate), which proportion of fire is part of her, and which proportion is just unfortunate for everyone involved.

But she isn't nearly done for the count yet. Ida speaks more optimistically than she has in a long time, prompting a shark-toothed grin from the beastwoman.

She runs in, lightning-quick, purposefully taking advantage of the blind spot caused by Ida's onslaught. A blink of an eye later and she's in the air, pouncing with an enormous claw of her own, mirroring Ida's grotesque limb with a flame-wreathed one of her own.

"DIE!" she states, eloquently, as she attempts to drive her claw into its gut, near the spot Ida just attacked, and pour copious amounts of flames into it. Fighting fire with fire, and such.

GS: Rosaline Calice has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with From the Shadows!
GS: Rosaline Calice takes 7 damage from Poison!
GS: Rosaline Calice has completed her action.
GS: Beast of the Lost Land guards a hit from Talia's Freeze Lancer for 115 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Beast of the Lost Land guards a hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Devil Fist for 83 hit points!
GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land guards a hit from Lily Keil's Hearthblaze for 51 hit points!
GS: Mighty! Statuses applied to Lily Keil!
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    "I... am not certain," she answers Rebecca honestly. "It's... as if we stepped through a door and were transported elsewhere. It doesn't feel as if it's a part of our world at all. And, it's strange, but my heart feels so light. I do not think I have ever felt like this before." Her gaze, for a moment, passes out into the distance, out perhaps into the eternity of this place.

    And it's then that she sights Ida and hurries along.

    "We did. When we were split up by those ruins, we were worried, but, as I said, we knew if we were to keep going we would see you again." She smiles, briefly. "Nothing is impossible, as you say."

    Which is when Talia runs up. "Ah? Who do you mean--"

    Avril follows the pointed figure right for Xantia.

    This time, when her eyes go wide, she not merely the stunned girl who has wandered into another realm. She takes one startled step forward, but there is not likely to be a world where she'll ever bridge the gap in time.

    "Xantia--"

    A great claw rips through the space beyond that door.
    Any warning will also, likely, be too late.

    Absolute Zero leaps to her hand; she raises the other in a ward to stay any movement from her friends and allies. "Do not--" she starts to shout.
    It's that... thing they faced in the Proving Grounds. That thing, though very now manifest in reality.
    In the moment before Malevolence roils through the peaceable kingdom, that shout is as much as Avril is able to voice.
    Where that force of corruption goes, so too does heat, pressure, flame. It's enough to singe flesh, scorch the throat.

    Absolute Zero's blade manifests in a pulse of light. As the flames advance, she bears right into them, swinging her sword with enough force to douse even this kind of fire.

    "We must," she utters, her stare right on the Beast of the Lost Land, "destroy this thing."

    She lowers her sword, as if in a sort of salute for the monster they are about to fight; nearby, Talia touches down.
    Avril inclines her head in a single abrupt nod. "Yes. This is the same, though now it is flesh and blood. I believe now we may be able to destroy it. Rebecca-- please, provide me with support."

    Why?

    Because Avril has has launched herself for the creature in a sudden burst of speed, blade held low and to one side. Only as she clears into melee does she shift her grip and raise her blade, angling in for a cut on the creature's legs best titled as 'cruel'.

<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.

Tabitha's grin slips wider and wider as she sees the light gathering together into something new, something strange. "Open the way, is it?" Tabitha murmurs. "What's behind it? What is here? If nobody wrote down the answers, then there's only one solution, isn't there!"

She laughs, maybe too freely, at Prissa. "Oh, no, dear," she says, setting herself with a long, deep breath. Her eyes are dangerous as she regards the beast tearing itself into the world. "Crazy would be the person who comes here unready for a beast like this."

"What a frightful thing you are," she murmurs. "Yes, you'll be a fine dance, won't you?" It doesn't seem to much want to dance, though, seeing as it opens by screaming with force that releases baking heat in all directions. Tabitha leaps - the wind around her whirling and vaulting her on a high, long trajectory toward the top of the chamber. She whirls around, feet touching the roof, and then whirls back down toward it. She comes down, swirling in wide motions to come down on the thing's HEAD, crunching into it with heeled boots before she vaults off, whirls a kick at the jaw mid-flight, and uses that momentum and a blast of wind from her feet to send her careening away, hopefully not directly under the thing's feet - speed making her difficult to tag as she bolts about.

GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Misty Soul!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has entered a Reflect stance!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.
GS: Tabitha deVriese has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Revelation Sequence!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has completed her action.

GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Totally Legit Solais Emsu Arcana!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

Xantia doesn't even seem to notice how alarmed people are as a result of her obvious intentions. As is often the case, she's of the same mind as Dean about this situation. Mysterious voice telling you to do something? Of course you should do it! It's probably part of the rules of this place. So down it goes!

Or so she was intending, anyway. She stops when it looks like the door is... opening itself? That's not fair, why did it ask her to break a thing if it was going to break it for her? Changing the rules midway like that is definitely cheating.

Before she can complain about this, something comes forth. Xantia sense it moments before a giant claw comes lashing out, striking the bracer she raised for defense, but raking her arm at the same time. A blast of flame follows soon after, while she's still staggered, and there's little defense she can muster for that, just having to weather the storm. Her lightning aura helps a little bit, but isn't really meant for defense. Still, even though she feels absolutely miserable, she manages to stay on her feet, coughing out a puff of smoke. Okay, okay, so maybe this thing that was sealed really was bad. But now that it's out, it can be punched. And isn't that a much better idea anyway?

No, of course this experience hasn't taught her the correct lesson. Unless punches don't work. But that rarely happens.

She briefly looks behind her with concern for the others, but all too soon refocuses her attention on this beast. Right now, she has to fight. That's always been the best way she can help people. "You look more solid now... let's see how you handle this!"

Without hesitation, she leaps up and forward, aiming a single strike directly for the creature's head. The sound of a lightning strike accompanies the swing of her fist, her aura crackling with even greater intensity then before. The force of her punch propels her backwards, into a somersault, and back on her feet. She's started smiling again. This is way better than dealing with puzzles.

GS: Xantia has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Elemental Fury!
GS: Xantia takes 5 damage from Poison!
GS: Xantia has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.

 
"Huh - when'd Fei get here?" Then again there are a lot of folks here that were drawn here once the barrier was broken. However then Talia calls her attention to something and - Rebecca turns to look at Xantia charging right in - "Whoa! Hey! Don't just-"
 
And then the beast charges out. It's huge - and it's also familiar in the sense of remembering that spectral being.
 
Also she's feeling it's angry malevolence searing right into her skull for the first time. Pounding like a migraine and shards of glass.
 
However she still has that rush of adrenaline coursing through her from that tile puzzle before. Twisting out of the way, she tries to hide behind one of the blue crystal pillars even as flame scour the side of the crystalline pillar sending her sizzling from the heat. Like the beast's fire might melt it - and her like glass. Sweat beading on her forehead, she draws her Pizzicato ARM, and leaning around her cover points her revolver at it to try to back Avril up on her declaration to destroy it, "Note to self - when someone asks if you'd like to break a seal in the future - say no!"
 
Something so big - you barely have to sight it as she squeezes the trigger three times from covering fire over her friends and Talia.
 
"Yep!" She responds automatically in agreement with Avril, "Wait you did too!? Dean what about you?"
 
Leaning back behind her cover, she puts a hand over her face trying to get a reprieve and finding none, "It wasn't doing this before though - guhhh - feels like my skull is on fire from this - pressure! I don't know what it is!"
 

GS: Rebecca Streisand has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Miracle Repeater!
GS: Rebecca Streisand has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.

    Ida follows up on Gwen's explanation, showing off her buff bod and the scars to match, and explaining it's how her Malevolence expresses her Hellion form... or something like that. It's a little over Dean's head, but in other words, she's no different from how she's been before now, right? Rosaline confirms that by greeting him and telling him it's fine, like it's normal. And... for them, it *is* normal, isn't it? His eyes set, and he nods to the two of them. He catches sight of Lily nearby, watching over his reunion with Avril and Rebecca, and also spots Noeline and Riesenlied on the other side of the room--
    
    *WAP*
    
    But then a monster happens. It ROARS, heat *bursting* off of it in a shockwave that, had Dean nod been facing that way, he would never have been able to get his guard up in time to defend against. As it is, he only barely manages to stay on his feet. "*You*?!" he yells the great red-and-black creature with widened eyes. "But we already beat you up!" Oh, right. Seal. He grimaces. "Okay, so I was wrong about the seal. It happens!" He nods firmly over at Talia, who apparently can't be bothered with magic incantations, then at Avril and Rebecca. "So you all did too, huh? Fine! We'll just beat this guy up again and send them back where they came from!" Before this intense wave of Malevolence sends them to their knees, he doesn't add. Being negative never helps, no matter how much that negative energy might make his head throb. They just have to hurry up and beat this thing. No big deal!!
    
    NO BIG DEAL, REBECCA.
    
    With that, as Rebecca opens fire on the monster while Avril charges at it, Dean charges in with her, though not in coordinated attack; he simply uses fire against fire, charging up to the creature with his combat rods glowing incandescent red until he *smashes* them into its foreleg. If it's not straight-up immune to flames, then the heat should hopefully leave behind wounds hot enough to burn for a while.

GS: Dean Stark has spent 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Dean Stark has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Burning Booster!
GS: Dean Stark has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei says, "Uh--not really, I am pretty forgetful but..." He does not start a fight with Talia but that's probably in part thanks to the giant monster. Fei makes dumb decisions sometimes but that's a bit beyond his willingness to mess up. Maybe later.

He watches the beast for a moment, exhaling. "I told you it was a bad sealed thing." He mumbles under his breath but it looks like it might've broken out anyway even without Xantia rushing it. He doesn't seem to recognize the beast either. Did he come in another way? Maybe he got the ESCAPE. What a loser.

He grimaces as heat explodes off it, trying to cool his body with ice chi in response. The fire still wins, though, blasting Fei off his feet but at least not immolating him or anything.

Fei nods slowly to Lily, not questioning how he just ended up on an island just yet. There's a giant monster! That can probably wait.

But Riesenlied somehow draws the bulk of his attention, even considering the monster. He's seen strange behavior from her before, even similar behavior to this, but considering the monster that's on the loose (this one an actual monster of some kind) this idiosyncrasy may be fatal.

"Noeline," Fei crouches nearby. "Of course I'll help." That's easier said than done. He's not sure HOW. He doesn't even know what the problem is in the first place! "I'll cover you, whatever you need to do--"

He doesn't know what to do. But this Fei doesn't need to know. Enough of Fei knows what to do.

???

The young artist returns to the machine, taking his time as he gets near. He reaches for a hand and says, "Hey...I'm sorry about before. I got scared." He manages a smile. "I'm a coward, it's what I do...Are you looking for a good mask to wear? Everybody wears one, it's okay. I'm wearing one too." He reddens a bit as he says that but he adds, "I'll...try to help."

He reaches for one of the countless masks and offers it up. "Would you like this one? If you don't like it, we can exchange it. Or you can have as many masks as you'd like."

AT THE GATES

Fei Fong Wong runs for the beast not to be confused with Beast as he shouts to Rebecca, "Don't worry about it!" because they can't really afford to. He wonders why he feels distracted, like his mind isn't entirely here even as it is here? Still, he has to try and focus. He summons his will and throws a wave of ice out from his fists for the creature. Remember, Fei! Attack the monster, not the beast! He eyes it warily, fully intent on breaking off to take a hit for Riesenlied if he has to, or even Noeline who has her hands full as is.

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Suikei!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Beast of the Lost Land guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Suikei for 93 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land guards a hit from Jacqueline Barber's Sapping Solution for 14 hit points!
GS: Weaken! Statuses applied to Beast of the Lost Land!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land guards a hit from Prissa's Shamshir - Memories of Home for 65 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land guards a hit from Seraph Lanval's Sleepy Bubble for 106 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.

The fire licks at Matilda, and she screams; everything about this creature feels so sharp, so in-focus, in a way it hasn't always before -- including her own pain. She falters, sword and shield taken up and almost immediately sagging back down.

Matilda closes her eyes for just a moment, trying to steady her stance and... honestly, mostly failing. The need to move comes well in advance of readiness; her blade comes up midway through, and her shield... well... that's not up yet, unfortunately.

Matilda leaps for the beast, then, going for a simple one-two set of slashes. It's not very fancy -- but really, giant beasts aren't exactly the compounder's forte. There's not a lot you can do to judo something of this magnitude, after all.

She hops right back within moments, though, forming up with Noeline as the Metal Demon calls out to Riesenlied. *Now* she has time to ready herself defensively -- though she's still not sure how to reach out to Riesenlied herself... or even that she *could* reach her.

GS: Matilda Whitehead has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Planting!
GS: Matilda Whitehead has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    "I'm sure you'll get used to it in a jiffy, Dean! Most of us don't look much different unless we're Hellions. Then we look real different. But it's still the same person!" Keep telling yourself that, Gwen. Keep telling yourself that until the truth finds a way to make you remember how complicated the reality of the situation truly is.

    But not now. There's a trial to be endured. "Huh-?"

    The slack-jawed expression of surprise is all Gwen is able to get out before she's forced to hold up her ARM, the Mockingbird transforming into a make-shift buckler against the beast's impressive might. Alone, it probably wouldn't have done much, but that boon from that white light is still there. Skidding backwards from the force, Gwen shakes out her ARM, flexing the digits of her metallic hand. "It's the Malevolence, I think," Gwen contributes helpfully to Talia and Rebecca's ongoing conversation. "This thing might be a Hellion too. Just, uh, keep yer wits sharp n' your mind sharper! Or somethin'. N' be glad we got some powerful friends."

    That's her nice way of saying 'there are friends who are Hellions on our side'.

    There's yet another pressing concern, however. "Riese is here? What's happened to Riese?" Gwen asks, concern creeping into her voice as she raises it to be heard. "Did something happen to her?" Maybe this place has an effect on Metal Demons, as the Guardians did back on Filgaia. That is, when the Guardians were making their contempt known. But this is Lunar. "Lemme see if I can slow this big guy down." Slipping a hand into her boot, Gwen slips out a Filgaian dagger, rugged and sleek. "I think I can get in there if you guys create some sorta opening..."

    And, there it is, more or less. Gwen keeps stepping to the side as the beast engages her companions, grey-blue eyes narrowed in on a specific spot on its body. Yes. This beast may be alien, but that looks like a tendon there. Just dart in, jab, and swipe out.

    And pray that you get out of the way in time.

GS: Beast of the Lost Land guards a hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Misty Soul for 77 hit points!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Comet Clip!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
GS: Beast of the Lost Land guards a hit from Rosaline Calice's From the Shadows for 111 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land guards a hit from Dean Stark's Burning Booster for 74 hit points!
GS: Toxin! Statuses applied to Beast of the Lost Land!
GS: CRITICAL! Beast of the Lost Land guards a hit from Cyre H. Lorentz's Totally Legit Solais Emsu Arcana for 68 hit
points!
GS: Mute! Statuses applied to Beast of the Lost Land!
GS: Hyper and Quick! Statuses applied to Cyre H. Lorentz!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land guards a hit from Arleph Ardan's Magic Missile for 64 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land guards a hit from Mihaya's Bolt Lightning for 63 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land guards a hit from Tesni Inoue's Rapid Fire for 56 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land guards a hit from Xantia's Elemental Fury for 76 hit points!
GS: Mighty! Statuses applied to Xantia!
GS: CRITICAL! Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Rebecca Streisand's Miracle Repeater for 91 hit points!
GS: Jam! Statuses applied to Beast of the Lost Land!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land guards a hit from Gwen Whitlock's Comet Clip for 31 hit points!
GS: Shieldbreak! Statuses applied to Beast of the Lost Land!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land guards a hit from Tabitha deVriese's Revelation Sequence for 79 hit points!
GS: Riposte! Statuses applied to Tabitha deVriese!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land guards a hit from Matilda Whitehead's Planting for 91 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Beast of the Lost Land has posed.

This is a Hellion, but aside from the Malevolence that exudes off it like any other, it does not attack with any raw emotional or spiritual poison. This is not weaponized Malevolence. And compared to the spiritual empowerment they have received through Uzda Il-jam's trials, the ambient Malevolence of this thing cannot reach them if they do not let it. This? This is just a monster. Powerful, dangerous, but a monster all the same.

A monster that runs almost entirely off mindless, raw, violent instinct.

Instinct that makes it lash out at the first threats it sees. Gravitic forces multiply around the large Hellion, applying a mounting pressure that bogs it down towards the ground. Its limbs bend, its head twisting upwards toward the open air as it struggles against that raw, increasing force. In frustration, its fists -smash- into the ground.

Seconds later, sparks ignite in several points through the air of this chamber before exploding into plumes of flame. One of them beneath Catenna, the source of its irritation.

Another, beneath Riesenlied.

Noeline next; the Beast seems blind to the plight of those reacting to the state of the former Metal Demon commander, its lone, blazing red eye seeing threats and food approaching it at high speeds. Food that carries dangerously -sharp- blades. A blade of light CARVES into the black hide of the Hellion, a howl of pain belching from its maw as it is -driven- into the side of a pillar with a CRACK. Its head shakes, still disoriented...

... and it reciprocates in kind as it -leaps- into the air, coming down with explicit intent to RAM its fiery body directly into Noeline with titanic force.

Movement. It sees it, from the corner of its eye, as it makes impact. It yanks its head around in time to see Talia in the skies, clinging to a pillar. Confusion is momentary. Momentary, at least, compared to the pain it feels as those icicles -hammer- into the Beast's back, shattering one by one against its hide as more than a few sharpened shards lodge in deep. It roars out...

... and -charges- Talia, a claw wreathed in destructive fire -swinging- down with intent to pound her into the crystalline earth with burning strength.

And beat upon her the Hellion might try to continue, if it weren't for the appearance of Ida before it -- and the knife-like hand that -jams- into its abdomen. Red eye widens, a hellacious snarl loosens as Ida's hand buries deeply into that gut -- -and then one mighty claw lifts with intent to -smash- powerfully into her.

Lily seems intent to fight fire with fire -- and the Beast, the Beast is only happy to oblige. Flames -burn- at it, catching fire and singing some of its red mane as it -spins- around to face her. It burns viciously here and there, but seems not to even pay attention as it rears back and snarls. Air sparks around Lily... and a swirling vortex of pure flame and heat summons forth before her, intent to engulf her if she is not careful.

<Pose Tracker> Beast of the Lost Land has posed.

Its head whipping wildly about, flames broiling from its open maw, it becomes the perfect target for Jay's tincture. It lands, and instinctively the Beast SNAPS its jaws around the bottle, shattering it. Lavendar drools out of its jaw as it thrashes once, twice, as if confused -- and then, slowed already by its increased, localized gravity, it grows even slower still, almost as if sedated.

Of course, 'sedate' is a relative term.

A fact Jay, Prissa and Tesni will learn all too well when the Beast turns its attention onto them. Blades -carve- at its leg just as a bullet ricochets off its head. That skeletal-like maw snaps to the side even as the curve of Prissa's blade scores blood. And just as Prissa celebrates her continued life --

--three lances of liquid fire forge in the air above the Beast, turning and launching upon Jay, Prissa and Tesni in turn in a broil of heat.

Blades, frost and fire join the fray in swift succession. Another cut to the Beast of the Lost Land's opposite limb by Avril earns a maddened howl from the monster as it sweeps its claw out for her, sharpened tips attempting to gouge her from shoulder to hip in one terrifying stroke. It might pursue, were it not for Rosaline's -own- presence. The wound that Ida had scored deepens as claws -gut- into its midsection. Ichorous blood pours from the wound as the Hellion's head shakes... but the ignition of fire helpfully burns -any- of it away before it can even pool on the ground. A hiss, and it -rips- aside, and Rosaline soon finds herself dealing with the burning, broad side of a spiked tail screaming her way with a painful lash... before shards of ice -pummel- into the beast. The creature stumbles backwards, staggering in confusion. And that lone eye fixates on Fei, looking almost sad in its seething, overwhelming anger before it simply -charges- at him. One claw extends -- and then -slams- down, as if intent to flatten him into the very ground beneath him.

Its claw rears backwards again...

... which is precisely when a big, watery bubble collides almost lazily with the Beast.

*POP*

For however lazy it might be, however, the potency behind those liquid magics is palpable; the burst of water drenches the Beast, putting out the fires ignited by Lily and Rosaline and flooding it powerfully enough that it goes stumbling off to the side until it cracks bodily into a pillar. As if it were made of water itself, that crystalline structure seems to wobble and yet hold firm... priming the Beast perfectly for the hail of light from Cyre that brilliantly bombards it. Pinned against the pillar, the Hellion howls and scrabbles against that strange, magical force it is patently unfamiliar with. Claws pound earth.

Which gives Cyre and Lanval all of a moment to react before the space -just- below them lights up with fiery symbols and -explodes- with enough concussive force and heat to launch them both skywards.

Lightning and arcane force are introduced to the Beast next as it attempts to recover itself. It hisses heat into the air as it turns its head around just in time to see the raw magic -rocket- into its red chest. It rears back upon impact, claws furiously sweeping into the air -- just in time for electricity to JOLT through it courtesy of Mihaya. Electrical arcs jump all around the beast as it spasms, -slams- into the ground, and desperately tries to find its footing once more.

And on instinct, it lashes out at both Arleph and Mihaya in turn, bubbling flame forging spears within the air to fly for both of them in impacts that will EXPLODE with raw, rippling heat.

<Pose Tracker> Beast of the Lost Land has posed.

Xantia, Rebecca and Dean, however, go for a more direct approach of guns and punching and... gun baton...ing. It's legit. Shh. Xantia and Dean come first, a blow to its skull and forelimb both finding their targets in turn -- as if the Beast just does not -care- enough to try to defend itself, save for the impressive strength of its hide. That fist sends its skull bowing downward. The CRACK of lightning just adds to the elctrical surge rushing through it as its limbs spasm... and find their footing disabled by the burning SMACK of a burning combat rod. Heat -scalds- at its black skin, burning and scorching it as it collapses onto its back knees -- and the following trio of bullets -ricochet- off its chest, sending it falling to the ground with an impact that makes the crystal floors shake. Tongues of flame lick the ground.

And Dean, Xantia and Rebecca will all find arcane symbols of fire opening up beneath them, the magical lines -bursting- into flame to burn at them painfully as long as they stay within that magical heat.

And as it struggles to reorient itself, it finds itself challenged in this proposition by the efforts of Matilda and Gwen both. A powerful jab from Gwen's ARM of an arm into the Beast's limb finds its mark, abused tendon making its control slip and loosen for a split second just enough to let it stumble -- stumble just enough for Matilda to take advantage of it with those single, simple slashes of her blade. The sharp edge shrieks across its hide, scoring wounds across thick, dense, Hellionized flesh -- just how long has this thing been the way it is, exactly? -- before it finally finds enough of a footing to just -spin-, -lashing- out with the snap of its tail to PUMMEL both Gwen and Matilda with the spiked bottom of that limb and the churning crackle of degenerative heat that accompanies it.

And just as it completes its spin, it inds itself mightily kicked in the head courtesy of gravity-boosted momentum. The CRACK is resounding as its head knocks downward, but even slowed as it is, even weighed down by gravitic fluctuations as it is...

... the Beast is still marvelously, -frighteningly- fast as it LEAPS after Tabitha, landing on the side of a pillar, gripping their tightly...

... before it descends like a missile towards where it thinks she is liable to land next, full-bodied.

This, it seems, is how it dances.

GS: Beast of the Lost Land has spent 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Flame Lance!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has spent 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Tesni Inoue with Flame Lance!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has spent 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Prissa with Flame Lance!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Catenna with Crown Fire!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Riesenlied with Crown Fire!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Noeline with Decimation!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has spent 1 Combo on Disease!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Talia with Entropic Impact!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Claw of the Lost!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has spent 1 Combo on Disease!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Entropic Impact!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has spent 1 Combo on Disease!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Rosaline Calice with Entropic Impact!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Claw of the Lost!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Seraph Lanval with Crown Fire!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Crown Fire!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has spent 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Mihaya with Flame Lance!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has spent 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Arleph Ardan with Flame Lance!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Rebecca Streisand with Flamme Rouge!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Dean Stark with Flamme Rouge!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Xantia with Flamme Rouge!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Tabitha deVriese with Decimation!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has spent 1 Combo on Disease!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Matilda Whitehead with Entropic Impact!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has spent 1 Combo on Disease!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Entropic Impact!
GS: CRITICAL! Avril Vent Fleur takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Claw of the Lost for 96 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Jam, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Avril Vent Fleur!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz takes a solid hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Crown Fire for 145 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Catenna takes a solid hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Crown Fire for 176 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Jam, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Catenna!
GS: Talia takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Entropic Impact for 69 hit points!
GS: Disease! Statuses applied to Talia!
GS: Talia has been weakened by Disease! They take 0 damage, and burn off their temporary hit points!
GS: Talia takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper!
GS: Prissa takes a solid hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Flame Lance for 153 hit points!
GS: Toxin! Statuses applied to Prissa!
DC: MISS! Matilda Whitehead completely evades Entropic Impact from Beast of the Lost Land!
GS: CRITICAL! Riesenlied guards a hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Crown Fire for 129 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Jam, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Riesenlied!
GS: Riesenlied enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Riesenlied takes an additional 30 damage from Reaper!
GS: CRITICAL! Rosaline Calice takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Entropic Impact for 85 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Disease, Jam, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Rosaline Calice!
GS: Rosaline Calice has been weakened by Disease! They take 0 damage, and burn off their temporary hit points!
GS: Rosaline Calice takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper!
GS: CRITICAL! Dean Stark guards a hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Flamme Rouge for 79 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Jam, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Dean Stark!
GS: Arleph Ardan takes a solid hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Flame Lance for 140 hit points!
GS: Toxin! Statuses applied to Arleph Ardan!
GS: Rebecca Streisand takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Flamme Rouge for 56 hit points!
GS: Mihaya takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Flame Lance for 75 hit points!
GS: Toxin! Statuses applied to Mihaya!
GS: Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Flame Lance for 81 hit points!
GS: Toxin! Statuses applied to Jacqueline Barber!
DC: MISS! Ida Everstead-Rey completely evades Claw of the Lost from Beast of the Lost Land!
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Entropic Impact for 76 hit points!
GS: Disease! Statuses applied to Fei Fong Wong!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has been weakened by Disease! They take 0 damage, and burn off their temporary hit points!
GS: Gwen Whitlock guards a hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Entropic Impact for 131 hit points!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has been weakened by Disease! They take 0 damage, and burn off their temporary hit points!
GS: Seraph Lanval takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Crown Fire for 78 hit points!
GS: Seraph Lanval takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper!
GS: Xantia takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Flamme Rouge for 59 hit points!
GS: Xantia takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper!
GS: Tesni Inoue takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Flame Lance for 76 hit points!
GS: Toxin! Statuses applied to Tesni Inoue!
GS: Noeline takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Decimation for 175 hit points!
GS: Noeline takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes 5 damage from Poison!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes 14 damage from Toxin!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has completed its action.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    Riesenlied, hang in there!

    Where she has fallen, she once more hears... no, she senses. Once more, there is a presence that looms over her, as she tries to seize something, anything in the air. She grasps at ground and tries to hone in on something, anything...

    --Riese! Listen to me! Focus on my voice! Riese!

    There is... a flame. A dancing flame that is hued green, and purple... it is familiar to her. A sensation that is not human, or beastman, or Malevolence--

    It's the Leyline.

    But next to her, there is something akin to a void-- a lack of presence, albeit with energy ensconcing around it... she does not have the werewithal to be sure, but the gleam of golden, the burst of flame...

    The machine factory erupts. A rafter collapses and hangs along its suspension wires. Sparks erupt from where a machinery nest is now on fire.

    The young artist approaches the machine again. The Unit cannot respond to Fei, for she she has no mouth (and yet must scream). She, too, is a coward... but at the very same, she welcomes his assistance. The Unit nods.

    I am going to die here. If I do not do something... everyone is calling to me, but what mask do I wear...?

    She shifts, as she gazes. There is one safe option. The one safe option she knows.

    Would you like this one?

    It is the mask of a machine. That will do for now... she nods and accepts it from Fei.

    The simplest mask of all. A mask with no nuance, no ambiguity, no subtlety...

    No life.

                                  A -Machine-
                             Designed for a -Task-
                   Dragon Unit No. 1 Type R initialising...

    Suddenly, Riesenlied's wings spike outwards and begin to crumble. One by one, each arch of her skeletal wings rip and separate, even as she withers and struggles underneath the plight of the flame being erupted from beneath the floor. Each jagged, metallic shard begins to float in thin air...

    ...a thin blade of light erupting along one edge of it. This is a familiar tool to those who've experienced them before:

    Pinions.

    Her head lifts up--

    And a red irisoid flash gleams from her eyes. Scanning. She glances towards Noeline, towards Catenna, towards Jacqueline and Dean and Ida and the others-- intoning: "Providing Support..."

    The remote rectrices launch, not towards any Drifter, but towards the terrifying Beast. They criss-cross at various angles, stabbing and slicing through from awkward ranges that no particular humanoid attacker would be able to muster.

    She may not be able to see, but it is clear even to her senses:

    The enemy is the Malevolence upon which all the other energies is directed towards... this much, she can be certain of.

GS: Riesenlied has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Alone in a Crowd!
GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Riesenlied's Alone in a Crowd for 138 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Lily Keil with Flare Vortex!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes 7 damage from Poison!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes 9 damage from Toxin!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has completed its action.
GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Flare Vortex for 146 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Jam, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Lily Keil!
GS: Mighty! Statuses applied to Beast of the Lost Land!
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

Talia only has a brief moment to size her new comrades up; a brief moment to try to get a good sense of their characters. So when Avril rushes in, blade coming fast and with a cruel, brutal strike... it isn't so much that she found this at odds with her character. She is, however, quite surprised. "She is... something else, no?"

She asks it of no one in particular. She glances sideways at Rebecca, and then she nods quickly. "It sounds like all of us did! I wonder what the hell this big, ugly thing is?"

She grits her teeth. Uzda il-Jam's trial has hardened her against the worst of the wave of Malevolence that rolls against her. More worrying, however, is the way that the creature seems to bend gravity to its will. To say nothing, she thinks, of its sheer force. Her eyes go wide as she sees the creature charging at her.

"Get clear!" she yells at the others near her.

Then, Talia tries to leap to the side -- and the fiery claw slams into the stone. Chunks of burnt, blackened rock fly up into the air, and she stumbles and skids across the ground. She turns, staring down at the Beast. Her teeth grit. "Look out!" she yells at Dean and Rebecca. "This thing has magic!"

She charges. Talia goes running across the battlefield, and jumps -- kicking off a rent piece of rock on the ground -- and then rises up. She comes at the creature's huge head, and twists -- then slams a foot at the side of its head, near where the horn joins the skull.

"Demonic Swallow Kick!"

GS: Talia has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Demonic Swallow Kick!
GS: Talia has completed her action.
GS: Tabitha deVriese takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Decimation for 150 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

At least this one isn't trying to sass at her. That gives Catenna at least some relief.

Until the gigantic thing starts lighting off sparks. Catenna blinks as sparks dance through the air around her, and she glances downward.

She gasps and attempts to hurl herself downward - but she's just a second too late. Fire explodes out of the earth and she's lost within it.

The flames pass, leaving Catenna sprawled out on her face, holes burned into her garment and across her body. She doesn't move for several seconds. The good news is she's not bleeding out.

The bad news is it's because she's been so severely burned that any wounds that opened up simply cauterized as soon as they were inflicted. It's less blood that's the problem than burns, scarring and screaming pain, though she herself isn't screaming, largely because all she can manage to do is struggle back to her knees with some effort, coughing out a lungful of blood and smoke. Everything hurts and she can barely see, but she can't muster up enough energy to scream, just groaning as she fights to find enough strength to come back up to a standing position.

Something red flickers. Riesenlied's pinions. Catenna widens her eyes, breath catching in her throat a little.

"Riesenlied... please don't die," she breathes as she staggers forward, remaining within range of her friend. It's all she can do to keep standing, but she holds her hand out nevertheless.

Again the air ripples and flows around the monstrous Hellion - but this time, it does not seek to weigh the Beast down. It's doing something different this time. Gravity pulses across it... and seeks to toy with whatever fluids dwell within the monster's head, and to distort its sight and senses with curious lensing which begins to obscure and divide the warriors within its vision.

To confuse its mind, rather than its body.

GS: Catenna has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Feeble Mind!
GS: Catenna takes 7 damage from Poison!
GS: Catenna has completed her action.
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Talia's Demonic Swallow Kick for 57 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Catenna's Feeble Mind for 0 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land suffers Infect, extending negative statuses by 1 turn each!
GS: Mute! Statuses applied to Beast of the Lost Land!
<Pose Tracker> Prissa has posed.

 
The person with whom she has the closest specific location is leaping around like they're on coca-wine, but Prissa is reassured, paradoxically enough, by the sound of gunfire. It's a good, honest sound. It has the reassuring tone of "something that might work," in her view.

But that is the end of her main opinion on firearms. Especially as she is being faced with some fired ARM - okay, that is a reach; the erupting burst of flame behind her makes her dive into another roll, a moment too late, the flame licking at her.

What is, perhaps, salvific here, is that she is not encoated in oil. Singed and scorched she is, but this is heat she can bear... mostly. For a moment she lays on the ground, flattened, as the pain reaches her and she hisses like a teakettle that hasn't been fully stopped-up. As she rises to her knees, she slides the shamshir back into its sheath.

She is given a helpful update on how the creature uses magic. Prissa gets back to her feet, lurching slightly. Nothing is ever easy, she reflects, before her fingers come to a fat, thick hilt wrapped in slightly sun-worn leather. Drawing out the shorter blade, now two edged, she glances at the verdigris'd copper in its hilt.

Her attention comes up to the creature. And then...

She runs to its side, just as it lurches up to pursue Tabitha. Prissa blows out breath through pursed lips.

At this point she is faced with the absurd behavior of standing there, like a jackass, waiting for the creature to get nearer, watching it intently and praying to whatever gods there may be that she doesn't get caught up in the crossfire of the gunners.

When the opening is there, first thing she does is leap back for the passage of the great worm. Then she leaps back forwards to try to stab the short sword into a joint.

The weapon has force behind it, yes, but upon penetration into flesh it discharges into muscular fibers. A short, small, sharp shock that aims to make the wound spasm and tear itself even further.

GS: Prissa has attacked Seraph Beast with Xiphos - Coming Ashore With A Crunch!
GS: Prissa takes 10 damage from Toxin!
GS: Prissa has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

    "It's simply too much here! Can't you tell yourself?" Noeline yells back to Lily over the sudden din of the creature's roars and the clash of battle. She can probably be forgiven for sounding a little sharp, given the tension that radiates off of her. "Something about this place - it makes your senses stronger! For someone like Riese, who can already get lost in them...!" She doesn't know how else to describe it - but also figures she doesn't exactly have to say anything more, making herself understood with that much.

    Dimly, she recognizes the call of the Carakin off to one side; she almost grimaces to herself as she imagines what Jacqueline Barber is throwing herself into this time, but it's not as if she's got the space or freedom to get into a grumping match right at the moment, the back of her head pulsing with pain and disorientation as the giant Malevolent creature begins to bear down on them once more.

    "I do not-- I do not know what to do," she admits back to Fei; that comes out a lot more softly as she lets out a worried breath of air, shaking her head. "Situations like this are not anything I know how to cope with. All I can do is stay by her side and hope that she can hear my voice." The admission rankles her a little - but all she can do is let the words out, let them hang in the air for a moment as she refocuses her attention forwards towards their enemy.

    The pause gives her a chance to breathe and steady herself against the nausea; she looks and feels more centered afterwards, puffing out a slow breath as she nods to Matilda joining at Riesenlied's side. "Kaguya?" she asks simply, but there's not a great deal of time to worry more than that. Gwen is on the other side of them, yelling after Riese and her health - but Noeline's rapidly finding herself with too much to keep up with, too much to react to--

    --her scythe shifts without her even thinking about it. The sensation of the beast's mass bearing down upon her is something she reacts to instinctively, the metal of her weapon bulging and shifting unnaturally under the corona of sorcery that covers it into the slablike greatsword she's used before. She braces with it - using it to try to meet the Gatekeeper's mass head-on.

    Were she in better condition, it might even be able to deflect the gigantic creature, but as she is now, her feet suddenly ground hard as she yelps from the effort, the stone beneath her cracking and breaking apart from the weight of the downwards slam, her balance disrupted by the heavy strike.

    That's just pain, though. Pain, Noeline can deal with and push past. The emotionless tone that comes from Riesenlied as she suddenly begins to act again, that she's not at all sure how to deal with, and it's all she can do to ignore the stab in her chest and the sudden paranoia that rolls in her mind. "--Riese," she calls again, though less sure than ever that it will actually work, and instead she feels a sudden burst of anger at this place, at the creature that threatens them.

    The ire as controlled as the spy ever is - but here in this volatile place, it's still enough to let the flames along her weapon pulse harder, let the metal of her sword begin to deform once more-- and she simply pushes back against the ground to force her blade upwards, letting tendrils of the metal tear and twist against the Malevolent flesh.

GS: Noeline has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Hades Tear!
GS: Noeline has completed her action.
GS: Prissa has canceled their attack on Seraph Beast.
GS: Prissa has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Xiphos - Coming Ashore With A Crunch!
GS: Prissa takes 12 damage from Toxin!
GS: Prissa has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Jacqueline knew this creature was dangerous. She was certainly not underestimating it - she knows that her tincture was like trying to put out a roaring wildfire with a single bucket. It might not be much, but every little bit helps.

It does, however, cause the beast to turn its eyes on her. A lance of flame shoots in her direction. She dodges at the last moment. If it hit her directly, she is not certain she would have survived - but even so, the heat radiating off of it is scorching.

She feels Riesenlied's eyes on her and Jacqueline glances toward her. She offers a smile, but...she has a feeling that, wherever Riesenlied is now, it cannot reach her.

'Providing Support', said in that tone of voice...it makes her heart ache a little, but she elects to provide some support in her own way.

She digs through her bags and draws out a few potions, which are tossed throughout the crowd. One she aims for Catenna, who she knows just got injured. The others...

...Well, they will reach someone who needs them, she's certain.

<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

Rosaline draws her burning claw back as her feet touch the floor, but not in time to let her escape the mighty beast's giant, sharp tail. It tears into her, badly, but the good news is that it ends soon enough as she is knocked across the chamber.

She draws herself back to her full height, hissing in pain the entire time. And already, she sees the flames she lit have gone out. How frustrating.

But no matter. Her ears twitch, warning her as a potion comes flying her way. She raises a claw, catching it as if with a pitcher's mitt, spares Jacqueline a silent, thankful glance, uncorks and downs it.

Wounds close up, some semblance of color returns to Rosaline's deathly pale cheeks, and she stands up straighter all of a sudden. "That's more like it."

She gestures and incants, leaving red, burning sigils hanging in the air as she does so. The air in the room is already heated, and Rosaline isn't helping matters, as she draws upon whatever Malevolence she can find in the air to ignite, swirling around her. She points, directing them towards the Beast.

The flames form up, flying towards the creature in a geometrically pleasing yet relentless barrage. "Look who you're up against," she taunts, knowing she might as well be taunting a tornado, "do you really think you have a chance? Just save us some time, lie down and DIE!"

GS: Rosaline Calice has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Curtain of Flames!
GS: Rosaline Calice takes 7 damage from Poison!
GS: Rosaline Calice has completed her action.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Catenna with Distribution Theory!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Rosaline Calice with Distribution Theory!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Dean Stark with Distribution Theory!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Lily Keil with Distribution Theory!
GS: Jacqueline Barber takes 9 damage from Toxin!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
GS: Catenna gains Restore, shortening negative statuses by 3 turns each!
GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Catenna! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
GS: Dean Stark gains Restore, shortening negative statuses by 3 turns each!
GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Dean Stark! He gains 100 temporary hit points!
GS: Rosaline Calice gains Restore, shortening negative statuses by 3 turns each!
GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Rosaline Calice! She gains 0 temporary hit points!
GS: Lily Keil gains Restore, shortening negative statuses by 3 turns each!
GS: Jacqueline Barber heals Lily Keil! She gains 100 temporary hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Noeline's Hades Tear for 89 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Prissa's Xiphos - Coming Ashore With A Crunch for 97 hit points!
GS: Disrupt! Statuses applied to Beast of the Lost Land!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Rosaline Calice's Curtain of Flames for 128 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.

    For Lanval, it's something of a meditative experience. The continued disorientation from the roar of the phantom of the great beast slowly pushes aside as he takes in the thrumming of where they are. It remains unthinkably silly to witness. There he is, in the company of a terrible beast and at least twenty others. Their feelings, their screams, their power. He seems like he might be apt to sleep through all of it.
     How much could this spirit have comfortably rested through? The claws pounding the earth seem poised to probe into that. The concussive shake of the ground by its paws doesn't seem to do much but have Lanval turn a few rotations to his left as a column of flame begins to erect itself underneath him.
     That simple roll a short ways to the left, as though incidental tossing and turning in one's sleep, is enough to avoid being thrown skyward by a direct eruption of fiery energies from underneath. It does not clear him of being washed about in the proximity of heat so intense as to be searingly painful to be in proximity of. The ground shudders violently in the wake of its eruption, bidding Lanval rouse himself from his meditative slumber. To take in any character of the waking world is to wake up to how he feels like he's burning up.
     "Mmmph!" That's an exclamation mark. Lanval rolls further off to the left, just missing flame spears flying overhead for any given Symbologist. Half-opened eyes fully take in some of the chaos. That strange dragon-like woman seems to have her bony wings rip right out of her back. He tries to track where the two other Hellions he knows of present are - the muscular one and the smaller one that's on fire. He stretches again, the urgency from being cooked alive slowly leaving him in favor for a more leisurely recovery, rising up at about the time Gwen moves in to punch at an assumed anatomical weakness. He starts ambling along, just in time for the hot displaced air from its swinging tail to splash at his face like one might a cold bucket of water.
     He stumbles in, swinging the gourd outward wide. It misses entirely, for the Beast of the Lost Lands has taken to leaping after Tabitha. Overcommitted to this swing, Lanval spins in place comically, teetering on the edge of balance as he stands at the tip of one of his bare feet. This seemingly pointless ballerina spin continues for a while.
     Turns out it's not so pointless. Once he's built up enough momentum from spinning about, a guding hand grips the otherwise free-spinning gourd and tilts it downward, spilling a whole lot of water as though gushing from a violent waterfall - aimed to intercept the Beast of the Lost Land's chasing pounce.
     Lanval starts to work up a quiet chortle.

GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Spilling Goblet!
GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action.


<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.

Tabitha has barely even started her gravity tricks. This is wind, pure and powerful, that guides her - but her eyes widen as she sees the thing BLUR. "Fast--" she has time to hiss out before it's CHARGING at her. She balls up, arms and legs crossing as the thing screams at her with claws bared. She loses that exchange, sent streaking away to slam hard into the ground. She skips off the ground like a stone, half-cape flaring around her as she pinwheels away, slams down again, dust blasting up around her. She swings her legs down, a faint purple glow surrounding her for a few heartbeats as she slows like a greatly heavier object might, grinding to a halt. She sucks in a breath, looks up, and...grins. "Fast...quite a partner I've found. If you're hoping screaming and leaping about is a turnoff, dear, you'll find I have rather different preferences than you're expecting!" She sets herself, squaring her stance. The air around her ripples, wind curling like it were preparing to explode - and then she SHOOTS off, blasting on toward the thing. She blurs right past Prissa's shoulder with a wild grin, arcs over her to hit the ground hard, leaps again and - floats, drifting lazily through the air, upside down and over the beast's luxurious hair, in a way that nobody here would know to compare to lunar floating as she lowers her gun and fires, again and again and again, blasts of green light pelting the thing's hide, each blooming into an explosion of razorwind.

GS: Tabitha deVriese has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Spire Inversion!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Mihaya has posed.

 The creature was both quick and mean. Lacking any real context with the beast to make an assessment as to how different it is from others of its kind, Mihaya has to be content with mere visual observation.
 
 It's large.
 
 It's fast.
 
 It's very mean.
 
 The other problem is there is just so much happening around her that demands attention BESIDES the monster. Enough different methods and weapons that it's almost a mind dazzling array of firepower and magic. That strange winged girl was unleashing some sort of attack, and there was all manner of martial arts and other attacks flying at the beast. And some sort of spirit in the battle as well - her eyes snap to Lanval as he unleashes a torrent of water against the Beast. She pauses for a moment, and grins even more broadly. "I had wondered..." she whispers, and then bows her head politely. After all, it wouldn't do to be rude to a good spirit that had shown itself to assist them.
 
 All of this... it was exactly what she had been hoping for! It was that aspect, more than anything else, that helps her resist the waves of malevolence rolling off the thing. Hope and awe, that things might actually come out well in the end...
 
 Of course, the flames that the creature unleashes are going to be a problem, and Mihaya snaps her staff around and touches the ground with it. A channeled symbol raises a pillar of ice in front of her, the shard breaking the flame spears as they slam into it. The heat that comes from the backwash is bad enough, and it sets part of her clothing on fire to boot! But that has to wait, because the monster is certainly moving to continue the attack. As the pillar in front of her collapses into a pile of slush, the elf turns her staff around and raises it above her head once more, the crystal blazing with a pale blue light as she access a different set of symbols.
 
 "Freezing wind, speak of forgotten truths! ICE THREE!"
 
 There is a shimmering wave of cold that appears about the beast, spinning in place for a moment as it solidifies into a massive shard of ice that hovers in the air for a moment. Mihaya poses with her staff for a moment... and then brings it down towards the spine of the Beast.
 
 The huge frozen shard of ice follows suit.

GS: Mihaya has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Ice 3!
GS: Mihaya takes 9 damage from Toxin!
GS: Mihaya has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Ida's face twists into a predatory smile as flesh gives beneath her fingers. She steps back, sinking into that low defensive stance, and rips her hand free of the Beast's abdomen with a horrible squelch. Trails of blood follow her fingers, and the chain wrapped around her upper body twists downwards, soaking in the blood splattered across her arm. And yet, despite this wound--despite all the wounds being heaped upon it--the Beast still stands.

    good, Ida thinks.

    The massive Hellion raises its claws, and brings them down with terrifying, bone-crushing force. Ida barely has time to react--barely has time to act on anything more than instinct. She rushes forwards, her body loosening at the edges--like she's sinking into her own shadow, melding with it, twisting into it. The shadow that is Ida skitters between the Beast's legs in the nick of time. That massive claw slams into the ground where Ida stood seconds ago, a shower of earth and stone spraying into the air. The shadow slides across the floor and twists, reforming into a humanoid shape--Ida, in a three-point crouch, one hand halfway to the shadows within her cloak.

    'Providing Support...'

    That voice is a locus of emotion, Ida can tell, hollow though it might sound. Ida glances towards its source, her lips twisting. She didn't think those ragged wings were still capable of that. Emotions twist in her chest, feeding the inner core of Malevolence. "Fine," Ida whispers. "Fine. Rosa!" Rosa gets smacked across the room. Ida's eyes narrow, and a hiss escapes her lips, alongside a puff of Malevolence. She immediately throws herself between the massive Hellion and her friend, the length of chain that once belonged to Berserk coiling into her right hand. The metal lengthens into a long, barbed spear; Ida rises, prepares to throw. "Come on, you!" the Hellion roars. Her Domain ignites around her, a brilliant aura of violets and reds with a pitch-black inner core. Anger all but radiates off her. "Come at me!" She thrusts her arm forwards, throws that horrid, barbed weapon right for the Beast's center of mass. The chain unwinds, but it still remains coiled around Ida. If this hits, she is going to end up hooked to it. On one hand, this might keep it from going after the more vulnerable members of this impromptu party, but on the other, well. Ida is fairly sure she can handle it.

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Raging Thunderbolt!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

That's a silly question, Noeline 'Frillyasviel' von Riesewife. The CaraKin goes wherever there is danger, adventure and opportunity. Theirs is the right of all true merchants, to go forth and seek fortune amidst the most terrible of dangers. This is the fundamental basis of all capitalist endeavors, to pursue those sparkling fragments of hope which hang like stars upon the forever-distant horizon!

ALSO, the CaraKin were all here for vacation and everything just so happened to turn into an amazing journey through the bowels of the earth to this mysterious hidden place. Funny how summer fun can quickly transform into horrible danger, isn't it? It's straight up Hardy Boys.

"Catenna--!!" Cyre yells, his heart dropping into his gut as the shamaness is all but swallowed up by a surge of flame. Vitriol burns at the back of his throat, surging through his body and demanding bloody vengeance.

And then he gets exploded too.

A blast of heat and fire erupts from underneath his feet. The veritable geyser of explosive force sends him up, up, up, his robes burnt and charred, his flesh not much better. Cyre's yells are silenced only when he slams into the ceiling and begins plummeting to the ground.

...One which is rapidly arrested by a loud and booming BLAM.

A shell falls away into a swirling vortex of wind, buoying the shaman's descent where it is soon joined by another and another and another. Spent casings tumble around a frankly unreasonably long rifle. Bolt after bolt after bolt of ammunition erupts from the barrel, each one swathed in a sheath of ultra-compressed air. Each shot powers another revolution of a prayer-wheel built into the firearm, repeating stanza after stanza of prayer to the myriad Guardians. "Ida," Cyre snarls, "I sure as hell hope your gunsmithing can stand up to this kind of punishment, because I'm not stopping till I run out of ammo!"

GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Tempest Barrage!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.

... Kaguya. Noeline reminds Matilda that she has a lot to worry about beyond the moment -- and it gnaws at her, even distracts her, momentarily. It throws her off a little -- though not quite as much as what Riesenlied does. This is a side of Riesenlied that Matilda's been exposed to very sparingly if at all, and it...

... to tell the truth, there's a tension in her reaction between concern and comfort. Even as she takes herself into a second, controlled leap, moving back further from the beast's tail, what she's *thinking* about is Riesenlied.

... Maybe she'll have to check in with her again, later.

As she lands from her harrowing leap away from the beast, though, she's got to get her head back in the game. No time to worry about Kaguya, or about Riesenlied. "Noeline -- I'll support you," she calls, as the spy rips her blade upward. Matilda joins her a moment later, advancing with a steady, even gait.

Her initial strike is simple -- subdued, even, as she steps up toward the creature, going for a simple straight thrust with her silver blade...

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily does happen to hear Mihaya, as she throws her magic, and she glances once to her to look Mihaya over. "Dive in," Lily answers her in a clipped voice, "Kill it."

...Mihaya might be disappointed about Lily's combat approach. "Xantia!" Lily breathes out, forcing her voice loud enough to reach the other woman. "Remember! Think about how it feels!"

Fire. Fire, sparks everywhere, and through the medium of fire, Lily Keil begins to understand the beast before her. Its great size, its great speed--the fire she uses helps her to get a taste of what its form is like, what its power is. ...But it retorts more than in kind; the air around her sparks with flames not her own, and this time the vortex crashes all around her. She fades from view completely amidst the great conflagration, shooting backward and skidding into stone, rolling back into a heap. Her black clothes smoulder, her armor partially deformed. ...The staff, however, is untouched.

"Yes," she murmurs, rising to one knee, staring with interest at the creature. The vortex about her had briefly paused, overwhelmed by the other. ...But only briefly. Briefly, at the same time as her eyes snap towards Riesenlied at the pinions. "Riesenlied," she hisses. "Don't. ...It'll... destroy you..."

She's pale, for her part; already the battle with the beast has taken a great toll on the sorceress. That awful tone of voice echoes in her mind--but as she gathers herself, she sees Jay's bottle moving towards her, and she snaps out her hand to catch it in waiting fingers. "Heh..." Her markings pulse violet as rather than managing to open it, she simply obliterates the top of the bottle, setting it to her lips and downing it, letting it reinforce her form, take away the weakness, the burning--

And then the pulse moves in again. "Y..-es," Lily shouts back at Noeline, "I can feel it. It's--it's almost too much. But I--there's--power, too, it--"

Riesenlied can feel that the strange non-presence is louder, spiking with energy, drawing much more towards it, as Lily's eyes go completely dark. Her circuits disappear. Then her eyes, they pulse once, twice, then a straight, colored circle appears where her pupils were, one in each eye. Around it notches, line by line forming a ring that could be an iris, circuitry blazing back up her forehead to form a streak in her hair, down her cheek towards her neck, spreading into her clothes, across her body. Wings of energy burst from her shoulderblades, brilliant colors cascading over her hands. She launches upward into the air, hovering before the creature.

"<Limiters... released.>" The tongue of Zeboim echoes in her voice, half-droning as if perfectly recalled, "Ether output: eighty-five percent. ...New power source... detected.>"

She feels the leyline's nexus, feels its power as her body tries to draw in all the Ether she can manage. And her eyes alight on the creature. "...Your aura can't even reach us here, can it...?" The horrifying, terrible monster before her is too fast.

So rather than staying back, Lily charges in through the air, her jacket's hem flapping behind her as she holds out her arms. Violet lightning crackles all around her, her light all turning with it, as abrubtly she's holding two gigantic dual-heaxed axes made of nothingness, one in each hand, light as feathers--and she slams them both down to the creature, conjuring more as she swings the last, chopping over and over. "Hah--!"

GS: Matilda Whitehead has spent 3 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Matilda Whitehead has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Straight Thrust!
GS: Matilda Whitehead has completed her action.
DC: Lily Keil switches forms to Awakened - Omega Stage!
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with The Blood-Ember - Axe!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei at least was going to try to help Riesenlied but it's actually hard to use the Cover ability against monsters with knockback. It doesn't help that when Fei looks into that eye, Fei sees something in that eye that weakens his guard. Is this a monster? Was it always a monster? Why is it looking at him like that? "I'm..." He begins. "I'm sorry, I have to stop you--" He manages which isn't the most mighty of battle calls, especially in a quaking, quivering voice but he does at least manage to steady his body enough that when the beast slams its claw into his body, he is certainly smushed into the dirt but not so hard that he POPS like the water bubble that collides against the monster shortly after.

Fei, in the Yamcha pose, lays there for a moment. Unlike Yamcha, Fei does spin around and manage to flop back onto his back. It'd be nice if more was going on here than met the eye and the violence could be stopped but this seems to be unavoidable here.

He watches Riesenlied transform and roll out in surprise and bewilderment. It takes him a moment to realize: Like back in Kislev. He remembers how much that seemed to pain her but even as a 'machine', he believes in Riesenlied and forces himself to stand back up.

The howl. The rage. The pain. It doesn't hit him as hard as it used to. It still hurts, but it's like he's been numbed to it, recognizing its presence but with enough distance it doesn't make him scream in pain.

???

Despite being a self proclaimed coward, the young artist doesn't flinch when the machine factory collapses around them. While fearful, this is not amongst that which frightens him.

He smiles, like a child, even if the mask is a cold one, a plain one. A mask so simple reflects back upon those who view it far more than those who wear it. It is not out of a lack of appreciation for her personhood that he took that mask, but rather an appreciation of the humanity even in the mechanical, even in the simple. There is no shame into stepping into a role like this. Not every mask needs to be an ideal self.

But at the same time, the artist can't help but recognize that even in this much, they can't wear it as themselves.

"Don't worry," The young artist assures the machine. "You can change it again. There's no shame in contradiction." He laughs, embarrassed. "It's nice not being alone."

THE GATE

Fei takes in a deep breath. He should try his best here, steadying himself. He feels at his ribs. He looks back to Noeline, wincing as he thinks 'yep, definitely gonna feel that tommorow'. "Can you use Laevantinn?" Fei asks, uncertainly of Noeline. "If you can, she won't need to hear your voice. She'll feel it. She wouldn't be able to escape it." The question of why he is so certain of this is unanswered. "Or...would she need to do it? Or maybe..." He looks towards Ida for some strange reason. Why is he looking at her, he wonders, when he is thinking about entering Riesenlied's mind space. Ida can't do that.

Can she?

"Ida, did you...bring the...thing?" He begins, not even knowing what the 'thing' is here.

He trails off because he sees Tabitha being nuts, only now realizing she's there. Why is this random etone he saw mucking about in Pendrago here? Why is she spouting those cool lines?? And she's moving so quickly!

Regardless, the only recourse that may be viable here is violence. It's Filgaia's language after all. He runs for the monster, intending to leap into the air at the last moment and slam his feet repeatedly into its skull. "Come on, come on, come on..." He mutters sharply to himself. "Just don't look at me like that...!"

Oh good, he thinks distantly, Lily is doing the thing. That means it should be over soon one way or the other, right?

GS: Fei Fong Wong has spent 3 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Tenbu!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Tesni Inoue has posed.

THe Beast has turned it's attention on her she's managed to score a few hits and one round bounce off it's head? Oh dea that' scheeed it off ans there comes the fire it burns she tries to roll to smother it but the damage has been done and she's now the owner of several painful burns. She's far from dead yet and she'll keep shooting as she looks to her compansions. "I have never seen anything quite like this thing!" The Rifle is armed again and Tess keeps on shooting as she's on the move but now every movement is pained due to her injuries.

GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Seraph Lanval's Spilling Goblet for 98 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Tabitha deVriese's Spire Inversion for 67 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Mihaya's Ice 3 for 132 hit points!
GS: Tesni Inoue has attacked Seraph Beast with Shooting!
GS: Tesni Inoue takes 13 damage from Toxin!
GS: Tesni Inoue has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    Thank goodness the Malevolence is not the overbearing sort, just a light background noise overshadowed by the oppressive heat of the beast in motion.

    The knife blade sinks into a tendon, Gwen giving it the necessary twist to free her weapon, cutting through Hellion flesh in the process. It's a quick motion, one that would be merciful on a much smaller animal, but it's still effective here.

    Because look at that tail coming straight at Gwen whoah it has spikes and

                                                                                                                - - ----ow ow, guardians, that *hurt* ow

     Now Gwen is the one who thinks she has a concussion, nevermind what malady made Fei forget his exact path to here. Groggily stumbling into something resembling a standing position, Gwen's eyes are drawn to the fierce displays of Ida and Rosaline, daring and vicious. Her stomach twists, memories of recent and past events of gentler moments contrasting sharply against the here and now.

    She doesn't have to like it, she reminds herself. But it also means it's not in her power to try to change them. Only they can do that.

    To add insult to injury, Gwen spots Riesenlied, or someone she *thinks* is Riesenlied, judging by the fact that everyone is calling her that.

    And Lily... what is going on with Lily? Those circuit tattoos are no longer just lovely lines that shine even in the sunlight, they're weapons, violet and violent and-

    Breathe. She really took a heavy hit there.

    "Gonna havta slow it down," she murmurs, loading some pellets into her ARM, pressing them through a designed flap in her blouse sleeve. "Jus' calm down. Focus. Y'got this." She continues to talk herself down, raising her ARM, straightening it, following the dance of the beast's movements. Aiming.

    She takes in a breath, her eyelids lowering in concentrating. She releases, and fires her shots.

GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Crackshot!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.

    The plus side: since this is a mindless monster, acting solely on rage and violent instinct, that initial, painful burst of Malevolence that assaults Dean's head soon fades; his natural optimism and stubbornness give him that initial defense against it, and then let him push past it as he focuses on beating this bad boy up alongside his friends.
    
    The minus side: it's a big bad monster running almost entirely off of mindless, violent instinct.
    
    Dean doesn't have time to respond to Gwen or to register that something's wrong with Riesenlied; he *does* have enough time, simply because she's enough enough, to tell Talia, "It must've been what was sealed here!" Then it's charging out through the crowd, storming into Talia, claws tearing towards Avril, and Dean yells, "AVRIL!!" He starts to dash over to her, only to come to a screeching halt when a blazing red sigil forms under his feet. Talia warns him about the thing's magic in time for him to cross his combat rods in defense--but overwhelming columns of flame are rather harder to defend against than a wave concussive force. He screams again in pain, and when the arte dies down, he staggers in pain, every inch of him scorched--but he's still on his feet, for whatever that's worth.
    
    He's even on his feet after a potion bottle bonks him on the head-- "OW!" --and spills its healing goodness all over him, soothing the worst of the burns, though the injuries themselves remain. Dean shakes it off in amazement, then follows the trajectory back to-- "Thanks, Jay!!" he calls, waving to her vigorously.
    
    With that done, he can focus in on--and hurry back over to--Avril and Rebecca. "Guys! This thing's a lot tougher than we thought. We gotta pull it together, give it everything we've got!" he declares. "Ready?" He slides and half-turns in towards Rebecca to stand side-by-side with her behind Avril, Twin Fenrir pointing towards the massive monster. Energy glows within the bullet chambers of the paired ARMs, then a pair of massive bolts burst out, spiraling towards the monster...

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    'Ida, did you... bring the... thing?'

    Fei's voice slips through the blood-haze permeating Ida's thoughts like a knife through armor. She turns to him, a bit of the blood leaving her face as shock replaces that relentless battle-hunger. "Of course I didn't!" What 'thing'? What are they even talking about?

    Oh God, Ida thinks. How did he--? Then again...

<Pose Tracker> Arleph Ardan has posed.

      As things starts getting ramped up, Arleph can barely defends himself against the assault of the Malevolence. The onslaught of the monster is not something that Arleph is poised to at least attempt to defend himself against.
 
      The flames comes washing over them, the Symbologist throwing up his defenses to try to counter it, a hastily summoned stream of water to crash against it. Unfortunately, it was not charged enough, too fast. The flames washes over him, burning through his intimate protective shield and scorching some of his body, clothing and hat. It's enough to make him scream out, falling to a knee.
 
      It's perhaps time to kick it up a notch.
 
      "ALL THINGS HAVE WEIGHT!" Arleph shouts, staggering to his feet as he lift his glowing fist, a symbological circle spreading out and roaming around him. The beast is big, but at least his contribution will help with this spell. The air and moisture in the air condeses around the monster, making visible wisp of water to make a large bubble around, with it at the center. "ALL THINGS OBEYS THE INVISIBLE HAND OF GRAVITY -- EVEN THE AIR!"
 
      With the last incantation, the bubble condenses into a smaller, tighter magical burst that increase the weight of wittin, much like at the very botton of the ocean -- as well as being hideously moist.
 
      And then it implodes in a shower of motes.
 
      "ATMOSPHERIC CONDENSATION!"

GS: Arleph Ardan has attacked Seraph Beast with Atmospheric Condensation!
GS: Arleph Ardan takes 7 damage from Toxin!
GS: Arleph Ardan has completed his action.
GS: Arleph Ardan has canceled their attack on Seraph Beast.
GS: Arleph Ardan has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Atmospheric Condensation!
GS: Arleph Ardan takes 8 damage from Toxin!
GS: Arleph Ardan has completed his action.
GS: Tesni Inoue has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Shooting!
GS: Tesni Inoue takes 11 damage from Toxin!
GS: Tesni Inoue has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

It feels good to punch things. A simple feeling, but it means a lot to Xantia. It means that she's helping. That she's doing her part to keep people safe. She still doesn't feel like she's capable of much, but fighting, that she can do. It never fails to raise her spirits, fighting something incredibly dangerous with the support of so many others. She perhaps lacks the proper amount of caution, but enthusiasm counts for something, too.

Soon after delivering a lightning-charged punch, something appears below her. Knowing that this can't be a good thing, even correctly deducing what kind of bad thing is going to happen, she is quick to leap backwards from it, escaping the worst of the flames that burst upwards. The blistering heat alone is not a great feeling, but all things considered, that could've been a lot worse.

Looking around her a moment, she takes notice of Talia - once opposing them, now assisting them. She smiles to herself, happy to see that this feeling she had of this not being an enemy was correct. This is the only proof she needs to come to that conclusion. But she's not about to take her eyes off their foe for long. A moment's distraction could be a serious problem at a time like this.

Though her lightning-charged punch clearly had an effect, Xantia is a bit dissatisfied. She's got to be able to do more damage than that. But how could she...?

'Remember! Think about how it feels!'

That was Lily, calling out to her. "How it feels..." Xantia repeats, flexing her scintilating hands. And that's when Lily herself shows how it's how it's done, crafting weaponry out of thin air.

Xantia grins. Undoubtedly inspired by this sight, her hands crackle violently, elemental force shaping in the form of twin hammers. She dashes in, providing support from the ground while Lily attacks from above. Her hammers are only good for a single strike each, exploding in a shower of sparks on impact, but as she dances around the beast's massive frame, she forms a larger hammer in both hands, finishing off with a devastating two-handed blow to the creature's center of gravity.

Whether or not this is what Lily actually meant by it, it sure feels good to her.

GS: Xantia has spent 2 Combo on Gatling!
GS: Xantia has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Megavolt Hammer!
GS: Xantia takes 6 damage from Poison!
GS: Xantia has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.

 
"Only just now noticing?" Rebecca says wryly to Talia. Like Avril's special sort of drive - and poetry in motion she felt was hard not to be noticed. The girl with amnesia was a force to be reckoned with and one she's always admired.
 
The recoil of her revolver is familiar. The three slugs ricocheting off cause it to fall and Rebecca has to plant her feet to keep her footing as the floor shakes. "Something that should have never gotten out!" Against something so massive she wants to stay in cover.
 
The arcane symbol that opens up beneath her tells her 'Nah.' very clearly. Even as Talia warns her with a 'Get Clear.'
 
A flash of light in her periphery leads her to diving onto her shoulder in a roll as fire shoots upwards in a geyser. Rolling more heavily against the ground, she comes up on a knee and pats her back to try to extinguish the flames. "Thanks! Definitely didn't expect that!"
 
Snapping open the cylinder, she quickly slides in three shots before watching how it dances. "How are we supposed to get an advantage on this thing..." And then Dean suggests, "Wait - everything!? You mean you wanna do the... Okay!" She says in quick agreement. Breaking into a run where she skids to a stop beside him, "Here we go then!"
 
As Dean charges the shot, Rebecca presses a hand onto his shoulder, then pushes herself up in a one - two step to vault herself up into the air in a reverse flip. Upon reaching the apex of her leap to sight the beast, she starts sighting it down in a rapid fire rain of a half-dozen slugs to try to keep it pinned down in one spot for Avril's coming advance.
 
"You've got this Avril - bring it down!"
 
Upon her landing - she's side by side with Dean again. She resists the urge to high five and celebrate too early.
 

GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Raging Thunderbolt for 117 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Cyre H. Lorentz's Tempest Barrage for 136 hit points!
GS: Sneak! The true nature of Matilda Whitehead's attack becomes clear!
GS: CRITICAL! Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Matilda Whitehead's Iron in the Garden for 215 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Jam, and Poison! Statuses applied to Beast of the Lost Land!
GS: Hyper, Quick, and Shield! Statuses applied to Matilda Whitehead!
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    "You can both feel it now," Avril utters, as she glances from Rebecca and Dean and takes in their expressions. "This... is the nature of Malevolence. This is what is laced through this world. But, both of you are strong enough to see it and stand firm. I know you are."

    Even she feels as if a change has been bestowed. Something in her has grown stronger. She can feel the Malevolence -- present as a fact now and not a spiritual threat. She knows its danger, what it says of the monster before them. But as long as she stands tall it will not touch her.

    As a trio, they fall in; perhaps the experience of a battle-honed soldier may not be theirs to claim, not yet. But they possess something else.
    It's trust. Perhaps someone could call it a cliche, could scoff or shake their head. But they have something powerful that binds and guides their movements as they combat the horrible beast that stands before them.

    Avril knows that Rebecca is back there, ready to follow up with a barrage of bullets.
    She knows Dean is not far from her side, working to direct attacks from another angle and keep the monster on its toes.
    She scores a hit and, spotting the beast's own next movement, begins to roll backwards to flatten her profile, blade held in a raised guard--

    Not fast enough.
    Though she is spared a crippling gouge from hip to shoulder, crimson still rises in a heavensward spray. A short, sharp cry slips from her; she hunches, bleeding freely from that still deeply scored shoulder wound.
    She takes a breath, and fixes the Hellion with a gaze that could freeze flame. Before a shout wrenches her attention away from that point.
    Towards Dean. And the sigil underfoot.

    "Dean-- stay back!"
    The warning comes too late; he suffers a serious burn for his trouble. Breaking off from the monster as it rages and turns its attentions elsewhere, she pulls back in the chaos that bubbles up around them all for the vicinity of her friends.
    (Somewhere, she's aware of a pulse of ether, bundling and folding in on itself. But it's a footnote against the spiritual, magical, and physical warfare on display).

    "The wound is not deep," she informs the both of them, that wounded shoulder held rigid. "But, you are correct, Dean -- if we are to defeat this creature, we must place everything we are into our attacks." She raises her sword, leveling it at the beast. "Nothing less will suffice."

    Does Dean want to do 'that'? Avril glances back just once, over her shoulders at the both of them. "Let's." She nods.
    "Ready."

    The pairs of light come spiraling out, joining together in their flight.
    Avril leaps. Frost glazes the air in a sheet. Now even that is underfoot, a fragment of ice that grows at the same rate that it melts from the blast that now lifts her up, carrying her high into the air. Right for the Beast of the Lost Land.
    Her grip on the hilt tightens; Rebecca's bullets ring out, perhaps buying Avril the opening she requires.

    With one outward kick, she directs her fragment of ice for the monster as she simultaneously launches herself higher, hovering for one critical half-second.
    And descents in glittering arc, blade driven down to slice into the beast in her descent from heaven.

    As Rebecca had said, it's time to bring it down.

GS: Avril Vent Fleur enters a Counter stance!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Seraphic Soul!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur takes 9 damage from Poison!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.
GS: Rebecca Streisand has activated a Force Action!
GS: Rebecca Streisand has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Pizzicato Pistol - Shooting Star!!
GS: Rebecca Streisand has completed her action.
GS: Dean Stark has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Bullet Shower!
GS: Dean Stark has completed his action.
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Tesni Inoue's Shooting for 74 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's The Blood-Ember - Axe for 153 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Tenbu for 237 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's Crackshot for 72 hit points!
GS: Cripple! Statuses applied to Beast of the Lost Land!
GS: CRITICAL! Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Arleph Ardan's Atmospheric Condensation for 206 hit points!
GS: Mute! Statuses applied to Beast of the Lost Land!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Dean Stark's Bullet Shower for 130 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Seraphic Soul for 149 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Rebecca Streisand's Pizzicato Pistol - Shooting Star! for 147 hit
points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Xantia's Megavolt Hammer for 193 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Beast of the Lost Land has posed.

Flame and Malevolence ripple in equal parts off the Beast's hide as it rises from its point of impact. Its lone eye flares a deep crimson as claws scratch the crystalline earth. Slowed, it is still a furious sight to behold, bristling with an old anger that does not even seem to be its own -- but wears its black hide well all the same.

And it is that mindlessly ferocious sight that turns upon Riesenlied as that change rolls through her. Fire ignites around the hide of the Beast in the same way that a porcupine's spines might bristle in a defensive measure against something it instinctively recognizes as a threat. The pinions fly.

And with an utter lack of any sense of self-preservation, the Beast LUNGES for them and their master. Pieces of black are stabbed through plating to bite into flesh beneath, blood seeping between the wounds. Other points of black hide are simply carved off.

But the Beast still blazes, as it rams for Riesenlied with all the runaway fury of a cannonball, horns-first.

Wherever it ends up colliding, however, Talia is there to meet it. A foot CRACKS at the junction of skull and horn, just as Catenna's magics disorient it, making it all the more susceptible to the blow. The sound of foot meeting bone rings through the air as it lurches lazily, confusedly to the side.

And then confusion is replaced by rage, as the Beast lashes out blindly.

Its head yanks backwards. Its howl, angry yet lonely, reverberates throughout the chamber. And a furious red light ERUPTS all around it for a brief few seconds. Threatening to consume Talia in its wake...

... before a lance of flame SCREAMS outward for Catenna.

The Beast's head shakes, unaware of anything else that transpires around it save those immediate threats. Threats such as Noeline and Prissa, coming at it with blades both normal and enchanted with strange flames. The deformed edge of Noeline's weapon drives into the thick hide of the Hellion, tearing through flesh in bursts of black blood that make the Gatekeeper howl and scramble across the ground, forcibly -ripping- itself free. It does yet more damage to itself in the process... and opens itself up for Prissa's reprisal as her blade bites flesh and sends muscles spasming violently with that sharp -jolt-, creating a worser injury for its involuntary shudders as it peels back and pounds its way across the ground.

Each pound of crystal earth creates arcane sigils beneath Noeline and Prissa. And each one bursts into a storm of flames, not seconds later.

It is an onslaught that might see a brief reprieve, however, as Rosaline goes on the attack. Ignited Malevolence hammers the creature's hide in quick succession; the taunts may be meaningless to what seems more like an animal than anything that was ever approaching human, but the message is received loudly in the violence the other Hellion inflicts. Flames burst to life around its spiky spine, the pain clear in its unearthly hiss that looses from its maw before it responds in kind -- igniting bubbling lances of flame one after another to -launch- them at Rosaline with relentless, vengeful fury.

And then enter Tabitha once more. The firing of an ARM, of all things, seems to draw no small amount of confusion from the Beast as green light lances through it, punching holes here and there again and again. Its body trembles and -shakes- itself violently, magic surging around it as the gravitic woman arcs past. And that's when Tabitha might well notice the sparks chasing after her. Sparks that EXPLODE into heinous flame a second later, rippling outward like claws. Flames that might distract from how the Beast turns towards her...

And JUST as it lunges to capitalize on the opening it seeks to make, Lanval's deluge unleashes itself, a gush of water toppling with all the force as if it were falling from a cliffside to pound into the Beast and send it CAREENING into one of the chamber walls. The entire place shudders with the impact as its front claws -clench- into the ground...

And magic thrums, in crimson crackles around Lanval the Water Seraph. Crackles, and solidifies into chunks of strange, crimson crystal.

Crystal that EXPLODES around him in a furious vortex of Malevolent magic and sharpened shards of red to tear through and electrify with that strange, ill power.

<Pose Tracker> Beast of the Lost Land has posed.

A storm that only continues for so long as it takes Mihaya to complete her chant. A glacial chunk of ice drops from the heavens, unseen by the Gatekeeper in all of its fury. It collides with its back in a SHATTER of ice that nearly impales it through that spiked spine, driving it to the ground and breaking its concentration as that storm of crimson ceases. It stays there, scrabbling for a time. But its fury, nor its speed, are to be underestimated, and within seconds it is -shattering- the rest of that weight on it and CHARGING Mihaya, one clawed limb rearing backwards with intent to DRIVE right through her.

It is only at the end of its rush, for good or for ill, that its wide, red eye comes to focus on Ida Everstead-Rey and the chain that she wields. Too late; the barbed weapon IMPALES and hooks into the Beast's red chest like a fish caught on a line. Its cry is one of pain as its large claws reach up to yank in an utterly futile way at the weapon lodged in it. It holds the Beast down, to be sure -- more than long enough for that simple thrust from Matilda to -drive- into the Gatekeeper to devastating effect.

But it's not always a good thing, hooking a fish.

A fact Ida is well acquainted with, and is about to become exceedingly moreso as the beast -rears- itself backwards. The chain tenses. -Yanks-. And has every intention of sending Ida FLYING towards the Beast if she keeps fast hold onto her weapon... just before the space surrounding the Beast of the Lost Land IGNITES into crimson once more, pure, monumental concussive force that seeks to sweep up both Matilda and Ida in its wake.

More bullets, fueled by air impossibly compressed, punctures through the veil of red not seconds later. Ida's gunsmithing supplemented by Cyre's magic might well save her life as those shells hit the Beast with all the strength of a cannon blast. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM goes each, and the flash of crimson ends as the Beast hits its side, hard, against the earth. It is unfocused. But not unfocused enough to lash out at the one who hurt it, flames dancing a chaotic symbol at Cyre's feet to try to catch him in a swiftly-growing cage of fire.

The Beast is still recovering by the time Lily makes her transformation. That wide red eye sets itself upon her, burning raw and angry and yet also confused -- as much as a creature of its ilk truly ever could be considered such. She has become something different in a way the Gatekeeper seems to feel rather than truly see...

... and yet it does not stop it from CHARGING at her just as she does it, red energy crackling along mighty forearms as it rears backward.

Dual axes of void meet crackling claws of Hellionflesh as the crimson-charged limbs seek to -hammerblow- Lily just as unflinchingly as she -chops- through the thick body of the Beast. Blood splatters around her scorched clothes, an ichorous decoration for her violence as the Beast crashes downward...

I'm sorry, I have to stop you--

It's a battle cry that might not be impressive, but certainly is backed up with more than enough force soon after as Fei's feet -SLAM- into the beast's skull. With its downwards momentum, it makes it an easy task to -smash- its maw into the ground beneath it with force enough that weaker fundament might just crater in, even for how large it is. It crumples into the earth, and from that position, it certainly can't look at Fei like anything...

... which really does not make that searing vortex of crimson that erupts from its maw any less deadly, as pale crystalline chunks churned from the ground in its mouth start to bleed into a deep red shade as the storm of raw Malevolence rips through the air for Fei.

More bullets lodge into flesh this time rather than ricochet off courtesy of Tesni Inoue's ARM. Pain ripples through the Beast, visible in the broil of flames and crackle of crimson magic as it rears itself upward and lashes out purely on instinct. One crimson charged paw flies upward -- and then slams down for Tesni with titanic force, looking to do no less than swat her into a wall with monstrous strength.

<Pose Tracker> Beast of the Lost Land has posed.

And it is just as it lunges with that claw that the specialized pellets of Gwen's ARM rip through its body, at its flank just before the whip-like extension of its tail. The shot RIPS through, staggering it in a way that seems to hobble the tremendous thing. It staggers -- but the way it almost just -instinctively- lashes out with the magic it is infused with is almost as impressive as it is deadly, for even as it struggles to find its bearings again, violently shaking its leg in the midst of its spasming...

... the air around Gwen grows hotter, mere seconds before it ignites into ravenous claws of grasping flame.

But even so, Gwen accomplishes what she was looking to, setting the beast up perfectly for Dean, Rebecca, Avril and Arleph's counter-assaults on the Gatekeeper. The Beast is still trying almost desperately to recover, eye wide and flitting about in erratic patterns like a frightened -- or frenzied -- animal just as the air around it starts to rapidly condense. A bubble of liquid encases it even as it stares in open confusion -- and then it feels the crushing weight of the ocean's depths bearing upon it mercilessly. Its body weighed down, it scrambles within that sphere, claws dragging at the bubble as its hide dents inward, as pressure starts to crush it.

And as the wates implode --

-- the Beast, damaged and -enraged-, -rips- free, single eye widened in roaring fury as it brings a crackling tail -whipping- at Arleph, infused with that almost electrically crimson power that jolts throughout the entire Beast's body now.

But slowed as it is, it has no chance of even reacting to Dean, Avril and Rebecca's combined assault. Slugs rain in a hail of gunfire, some lodging into flesh in splatters of ichor, some rebounding off, but -all- penning the Hellion in to a very specific area that it is further corralled into by the charged BURST of Dean's ARMs. They drill into the monster with screaming fury, sending it collapsing towards the side. And just as it is about to turn its violence upon them -- Xantia provides a precious, last minute distraction with -devastating- power brought to bear behind it, the twin, electrical hammers POUNDING into the beast over and over in jolts and electrical arcs that stun and -ground- it into the earth for the other trio's coup de grace.

Ice crashes into its head, chilling and frosting at black, thick skin even as Xantia feels a bone crack beneath her blows. Avril starts to descend, rapidly.

But Rebecca was right, not to celebrate yet.

It takes all of a fraction of a second. A fraction, for the Beast to RIP upward in a sudden lunge through the air, intent to meet Avril halfway with one red eye widened in mindless, incomprehensible fury like a rabid animal. Her blade IMPALES into the beast... and its large claw -lances- out with intent to snag her within its wrathful grasp. Shards of red crystal form around it, following it like thralls as crimson electricity races through its body. It hits the ceiling. And, whether Avril is in its grasp or not?

Charged full of that furious red Malevolence, it -bounds- off the ceiling in a blur of black and red to make impact with the center of the chamber below.

Dean, Rebecca, and Xantia are all at ground zero when the impact comes, receiving the bulk of the magical blowback as crimson, crystalline spires EXPLODE through the ground around them in discharges of magic, threatening to impale anyone who gets to close. The ground quakes violently...

But that is not the worst of it.

No. That would be the sigil that burns itself into the ground, something old, something that looks like it might have once been on a flag, but now, just sears with violet light that covers the entirety of the room.

Violet light that shines with pulsing, poisonous radiance to engulf anyone who cannot outpace its magical wrath in time.

GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Riesenlied with Decimation!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land enters a Counter stance!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Talia with The Forsaken Hound!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Catenna with Flame Lance!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Noeline with Flamme Rouge!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Prissa with Flamme Rouge!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Flamme Rouge!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Rosaline Calice with Flame Lance!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Flare Vortex!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Tabitha deVriese with Crown Fire!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Seraph Lanval with The Forgotten Beast!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has entered a Reflect stance!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Mihaya with Claw of the Lost!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with The Forgotten Beast!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has entered a Reflect stance!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Matilda Whitehead with The Forgotten Beast!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has entered a Reflect stance!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Lily Keil with Desolation!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Fei Fong Wong with The Forgotten Beast!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has entered a Reflect stance!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Tesni Inoue with Claw of the Lost!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Crown Fire!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Dean Stark with The Forgotten Beast!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has entered a Reflect stance!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Xantia with The Forgotten Beast!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has entered a Reflect stance!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Arleph Ardan with Desolation!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Rebecca Streisand with The Forgotten Beast!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has entered a Reflect stance!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Frenzy of the Beast!
GS: Riesenlied takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Decimation for 77 hit points!
GS: Catenna takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Flame Lance for 74 hit points!
GS: Poison! Statuses applied to Catenna!
GS: CRITICAL! Matilda Whitehead takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's The Forgotten Beast for 98 hit
points!
GS: Cripple, Jam, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Matilda Whitehead!
GS: Matilda Whitehead takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper!
GS: Mihaya guards a hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Claw of the Lost for 99 hit points!
DC: MISS! Noeline completely evades Flamme Rouge from Beast of the Lost Land!
DC: MISS! Rebecca Streisand completely evades The Forgotten Beast from Beast of the Lost Land!
GS: Jacqueline Barber critically Guards a hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Flare Vortex for 25 hit points!
GS: Mighty! Statuses applied to Beast of the Lost Land!
GS: CRITICAL! Rosaline Calice critically Guards a hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Flame Lance for 36 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Jam, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Rosaline Calice!
GS: COUNTER! Avril Vent Fleur strikes at Beast of the Lost Land with a counter attack!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Frenzy of the Beast for 104 hit points!
GS: Talia takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's The Forsaken Hound for 101 hit points!
GS: Talia takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper!
GS: Lily Keil takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Desolation for 48 hit points!
GS: COUNTER! Beast of the Lost Land strikes at Avril Vent Fleur with a counter attack!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Counter Attack for 206 hit points!
GS: Prissa guards a hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Flamme Rouge for 74 hit points!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Counter Attack for 104 hit points!
GS: Dean Stark critically Guards a hit from Beast of the Lost Land's The Forgotten Beast for 36 hit points!
DC: MISS! Arleph Ardan completely evades Desolation from Beast of the Lost Land!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's The Forgotten Beast for 85 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has completed its action.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    Riesenlied is bristling, even as the Unit within has made her decision. She glances around the room once more, catching the sensations of each of the Drifters within her, but--

    ... all I can do is stay by her side and hope she can hear my voice.

    The Leyline, from before -- she must focus on that. There is a power like gravity, like the Arcana -- but none like the illusory flames of the Hades Guardian; there, within, within that flicker of sorcery, she must understand and follow it to its natural conclusion.

    Riesenlied... please don't die.

    The Unit, now donning the machine mask, looks up towards Fei. Her voice is hoarse, synthesized and distorted as the camera sensors on her round eyes light up. Fei encourages that it's all right. No shame in contradiction.

    "tHanK yOU... i wILL tttRRRYYY..."

    It is a mask. Bereft of genuineness, bereft of soul and life, bereft of dignity and feeling... yet perhaps, this attempt is the most genuine feeling of all right now.

    The Unit lifts her heavy head up. She bumbles along, perfectly machine-like with how it ambles forward in search of an exit. Even as everything starts to fall apart around her.

    "evERYONe... NOEElliii... ne...!"

    A Domain, Ida's, erupts around the area; Rosaline's flames contribute to that presence. Riesenlied bristles for a moment, as she starts to become confused again. Malevolent... the target... where...

    No. Focus on the Leyline. Focus on the energies. Do not be distracted by other like presences -- focus on where energy is being directed towards, and how they oppose...

    Noeline... I'll support you. Another presence is nearby. A familiar one, tense but nonetheless supportive, and they've been through... Kaguya...

    Kaguya... is she all right?

    The non-presence makes its presence, ironically, clear with the field of energy that spikes around it. Circuitry, line after line sensating into a field of wings...

    The Beast comes for her. It is terrible, isn't it? Mindlessly ferocious, but it is no stranger than her, right now; she is just as single-minded as it is, as they tear into each other. As the Pinions fly off, the Beast lunges for her--

    "Evasion..."

    She instinctively twists to one side, but the mere contact with the Beast's quill-like spines sends her careening off to one side as she clips and lands in contact with the floor. There's a twitch...

    "Major damage... but... protection will continue."

    Riesenlied rises off her feet as she takes a defensive stance in front and above Catenna, within the surrounds of Matilda and Noeline; she doesn't quite follow after Lily. Because she doesn't need to...

    That iris flash is there again, thinning to an ominous red line as she manifests a hilt from her chest once more. The Fallen Sword rises from within her once more, indefatigable with the glow that shines from within.

    "Strategic layer, tactics level: 1.
     Enemy threat level established.
     Acquired target -- locked on."

    The Fallen Sword is brandished to a downwards lock. Its gleam crests to an ebbing shine, owing to the motes of light it draws from the ambient air.

    "Fallen Sword -- Maximum Discharge."

    Incandescence falls from above, a gorging burst of energy irradiating... a few feet away from the Beast itself -- and then Riesenlied sees fit to just drag the power across as it begins to literally devour the scenery. A casual fleck of the sword, and Riesenlied begins to pull the roaring light towards her target.

GS: Riesenlied has spent 3 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Peccatum Mortale!
GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Riesenlied's Peccatum Mortale for 291 hit points!
GS: Hyper and Quick! Statuses applied to Riesenlied!
GS: Xantia takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's The Forgotten Beast for 90 hit points!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz used Mystic on Cyre H. Lorentz! Status effect durations increased by 2!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has activated a Force Action!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Flamme Rouge for 54 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Seraph Lanval takes a solid hit from Beast of the Lost Land's The Forgotten Beast for 241 hit points!
GS: Cripple, Jam, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Seraph Lanval!
GS: Seraph Lanval takes an additional 15 damage from Reaper!
<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

"This is the first time I've met her!" Talia cries back to Rebecca.

Talia did not intend to stop it from reaching Riesenlied, but it isn't a success that she will find complaint with. Her foot slams into it; she begins to fall, not even aware in her descent to the ground, that the beast was addled by Catenna's magics.

She leans belatedly, as a flame lance careens towards the shaman -- and then flame rolls outward. It slams into the mercenary; her clothing and hair is singed, and she is launched, slamming back into the crystal column she hit before. Once again, a rain of shards of shattered crystal come down to the ground.

She slams onto the ground, landing in a shaky three-point stance.

She stares, across the field, as Avril, Dean, and Rebecca demonstrate their teamwork. She draws in a small, but sharp gasp. Then, she looks back ahead. She grits her teeth, and then looks back to the monster.

It isn't finished yet. The Beast rushes to meet Avril, and then it slams into the ground. She gasps, softly, and then she charges. She doesn't know Avril's name, so she settles on a nickname: "Silver! Get out of there!"

She throws Mirage. The weapon goes flying, spinning rapidly and shooting at the Beast. It slams into the side -- and Talia turns into a series of shadowy, smoky strands. She reappears, a moment later, and pushes at Avril with the flat of her free hand.

Sickly purple light burns, before she rips Mirage free. Red eyes blazing, she turns, and then leaps into the air. She throws the weapon -- and it slams into a wall. Talia anishes, again, only to reform. Her hand gripped on the hilt, she hangs off the wall, and looks down.

"What the hell is it doing!?" she yells.

GS: Talia has attacked Talia with Warp Point!
GS: Talia has completed her action.
GS: Talia takes a solid hit from Talia's Warp Point for 0 hit points!
GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Talia!
GS: Riposte! Statuses applied to Talia!
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

With a breath of relief, Catenna takes the potion Jacqueline casts to her and downs it. The earnest young alchemist's brew is potent; the least of Catenna's burns begin to fade away, the worst hurting all the less. She breathes in; life seems a little better.

Until Cyre gets blasted too. "CYRE!" Catenna calls out, her eyes going wide and her voice peaking with alarm.

She fights to hold the spell; the sheer power of the Beast is impressive, and even with so many friends and allies here, it's a challenge.

So is the fact that it's spewing a fire lance straight at her - and at a speed Catenna probably isn't going to be able to avoid - not fully, anyway.

Jacqueline's potion helps - she's alert enough to see the monster rearing, and she's already moving by the time it lets the flame fly. With a gasp, the Moon Shaman lunges to the right - and the fiery blast shrieks past her, flames searing along her side and burning against her armoured bustier, metal heating agonizingly against her skin. A few drops of steel actually bleed off the armour and hit her hip, and she winces, suppressing the urge to whine with pain even as she hits the ground and rolls. She keeps on rolling to try and put out the fire clinging to what's left of her left pant leg.

And then something pulses violet beneath her. Catenna's eyes go wide. "Oh, no."

Immediately, she touches one of her Mediums. With a breath, she calls forth the power of Lucadia -- and just as the seal beneath her pulses, Catenna launches herself high into the air.

She soars up over the battlefield, even sailing up over Riese for a moment, before coming down with a click of heels - just in time to see her friend coming up off the ground, more like an automaton than anything else. It's unsettling and upsetting. "Riesenlied," Catenna murmurs, beginning to reach for her friend, but she comes up short as she realizes Riese is still in the fight... in this horrifying way.

"...Riesenlied, please don't overexert yourself," she murmurs as she moves closer to the wayward Metal Demon. Medium in hand, she wheels on the vast Beast, clutching the stone tablet and bringing her hand level to focus on the creature.

The power of gravity works all the better on large creatures, in Catenna's experience. Please let this be true now!

Clenching her fingers, Catenna chants under her breath in her own tongue, her voice echoing subtly. The weight of the world seems to multiply for the Beast - and yet it comes unevenly, its top half and hands beginning to grow heavier than its bottom, as though Catenna were somehow pouring all of its mass into its extremities. The intense pressure mounts and mounts, escalating madly - until she thrusts her palm forward.

Gravity suddenly bursts out from her hand in a wave - and all that accumulated mass suddenly collapses inwards as Catenna attempts to collapse the Beast in on itself, compressing its body with an insane amount of force as she struggles to crush it under its own mass.

GS: Catenna has spent 2 Combo on Gatling!
GS: Catenna has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Polarity Clutch!
GS: Catenna takes 7 damage from Poison!
GS: Catenna has completed her action.
GS: Gwen Whitlock guards a hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Crown Fire for 92 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Mihaya has posed.

 Well, if they were going to throw themselves into the fray... shouldn't the elf do the same? Mihaya isn't exactly comfortable with the idea of throwing herself into the middle of a fight! This isn't how a caster was supposed to fight! You had big, strong people to stand in the front line to take the hits while you summoned unfathomable destruction upon your foes! Just jumping in and getting yourself smashed was just... just... "YOU DRIFTERS ARE ALL CRAZY!" Mihaya shouts, followed by a string of something that's probably cursing in some weird, slightly guttural language. "Don't get yourselves killed just because you have some crazy style that calls for killing the monster from the inside or something!!!"
 
 Oh god it was coming right at her! The elf watches the monster just come racing straight at her, roaring forward with a considerable amount of menace as it swings its claws at her. It's all that she can do to dodge to the side, using her staff to block the worst of the blow as it is hurled straight into her. Given the sheer mass of the monster, it doesn't actually pierce her skin with the blow. But the contact alone is enough to toss her backwards a dozen feet, the elf landing on the ground in a tumble and sliding to a stop a few moments later. "Oooooowwww," she manages, looking up at the monster. "See, this is why being on the front line is bad...!"
 
 Well, if this thing was going to be this aggressive, she was just going to have to see what she could do to put it down for good. Pushing herself back to her feet, Mihaya braces herself using her staff for a moment. And the moves to push her hat up slightly, as is her norm before she prepares a big spell... and the elf looks mournfully at the pitiful, still burning remains of her poor hat. That was going to take a little while to repair, wasn't it? ...no, repair wasn't really an option. The hat... was dead.
 
 Right, this thing was getting annoying!
 
 Holding her staff in front of her, the elf chants as she channels half of her inscribed symbols into a powerful attack.
 
 "Oh, blackness shrouded in light, crimson destruction that descends from above, engulf those who would oppose me in hellfire!" Mihaya pauses, and thinks for a moment. "And... um... dangit this is why I don't do these chants that often, damnit. EXPLODE INTO PIECES!"
 
 And with that roar, Mihaya levels her staff at the monster and invokes her spell.
 
 "FLARE!"
 
 A spiraling nebula of red sparks burst into existence around the beast, drifting around the Hellion for a moment before they all collapse inwards in a single moment. The air around the creature flares white hot for a moment... and then explodes outwards, flame erupting in all directions.

GS: Mihaya has spent 3 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Mihaya has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Flare!
GS: Mihaya takes 10 damage from Toxin!
GS: Mihaya has completed her action.
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Beast of the Lost Land's The Forgotten Beast for 104 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

    Noeline pushes harder against the beast's hide; what was once a scythe and then a sword is now a simple extension of her, an array of metal whips and tendrils that snake out of the main bulk of her weapon to tear at whatever they can reach. The creature falters, if only briefly, and that gives her a chance to set her feet anew and spare enough time for a glance across at Matilda's quiet comment.

    "... alright," she allows, and, "Thank you." She could still suggest that Kaguya should be Matilda's main objective - it nearly reaches her lips, even - but she bites it back and settles just for shaking her head instead. That isn't her choice, and that isn't her call to make. At least she can use the empty moment to break away from the monster's underside, using the weight of her sword like a lever to drive it into the ground and push herself away.

    "... Laevanteinn... isn't my sword to draw," she confirms for Fei, her brow furrowed as she lets out a sigh of air. "I-- I have never exactly been as empathic as Riesenlied, after all. If I were to try, I don't begin to know what would happen, or if anything would even happen." Still... that sparks a thought of her own, and she frowns down at her hand for a moment as she flexes her fingers, and feels the sorcery around them. Laevanteinn isn't the only way she can try to connect with Riesenlied, and for a moment she has to wonder..."

    She dives down low towards the floor as Lily's wings burst into view and as Riesenlied breaks into a storm of pinions, pushing down whatever she was about to think before it can fully surface. Instead, she forces those thoughts inwards - using them as fuel for her efforts. It really is easier to tap into Duras Drum's power here; she can almost feel the disparate pieces of the Medium lodged inside of her, and before she's even fully aware of what she's doing she's grabbed for them, dragging them together into one coalesced mass.

    There's a roar, and it takes Noeline a moment to realize it's coming from her rather than from the Gatekeeper in front of them; not her voice, just a rush of power in her ears. Abruptly, she can feel her own unusual brand of sorcery channeling around her, surrounding her with a shifting nimbus of twisting purplish smoke, the drifting power of illusions and dreams.

    Carefully, as if her chest might break from the effort of it, she drags in a slow breath and shifts her fingers to and fro as she watches the incandescent flames lick across them and tries to pick out what exactly she's just managed to do. It isn't a Material summon, she's sure of that much - after all, Duras Drum hasn't abruptly shown up to say hello and begin wrecking the room, she thinks to herself madly - and she's working entirely on impulse as she focuses, pulling as much of her power together as she can.

    She can't wield the Laevateinn-- but the voices that mingle together in Riesenlied's certainly provide her with the surety she needs to marshal the power around her and act as a beacon, the power rolling off of her shining brightly as a blacklight for Riesenlied's benefit. "I'm with you, no matter what - no matter how," she whispers the promise out, her voice somehow managing to carry and sound far louder than it should past the flames that erupt around her.

DC: Noeline switches forms to Hyades Guardian!
GS: Noeline has attacked Noeline with Illusionary Gathering!
GS: Noeline has entered a Reflect stance!
GS: Noeline has completed her action.
GS: Noeline takes a solid hit from Noeline's Illusionary Gathering for 0 hit points!
GS: Tabitha deVriese takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Crown Fire for 75 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Catenna's Polarity Clutch for 187 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Mihaya's Flare for 213 hit points!
GS: Hyper and Shield! Statuses applied to Mihaya!
<Pose Tracker> Arleph Ardan has posed.

      Sometimes, people are just lucky. Some people would say that Luck is not really a thing that exists, Arleph would be one of them. What we consider 'luck' are a melting pot of events, circumstances, parameteres and outside events to what we can perceive that ends up in a manner we didn't expected, or when we didn't expect it to matter. Something happening that you didn't expect as pure 'luck' is ignoring the multiple chains of events that leads up to it, as well as the other ones that led THEM up to it.
 
      Right now, however, Arleph seriously do not give much more thoughts on the matter as he watches his spell cause destruction with the dangerously sharp tail lashing out at him. He ducked, hurriedly throwing up a shield to defend himself in reflex and...
 
      Well, it completly whiffs him by a few inches.
 
      He'll call it 'luck' this time around, in the adrenaline high.
 
      "IT'S ON IT'S LAST LEGS!" Arleph shouts, scrambling back up to his feet, giving some worried look at Riesenlied. That girl's been pushing herself, he can feel it. Not to mention everyone around. "GIVE IT EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT!"
 
      The Symbologist follows upon his own order, gloved hands slamming into one another, knuckle sto knuckles. The impact sends sparks flying in both direction as they are pushed apart by new circles. Beneath his clothing, his tattoed circuits flows with energy, lighting up as the multitude smaller tattoos are called into others, acting them up to call into one new spell.
 
      "MANY ARE UNSEEN, UNHEARD, YET HAVE GREAT POWER!"
 
      The previously used moisture and water stirrs and violently jerks to form another bubble, covering the beast and around it. It does not stop much other attacks. Symbology's neat like that.
 
      "FEEL THE COLD EMPTY SPACE BETWEEN ATOMS AND DESPAIR!"
 
      Arleph snaps a finger. You'd be surprised at the amount of practice one need to snap with gloved fingers. That takes more dexterity than you might think. At this command, the circle flash again, with a single central point within the water suddenly freezing at absolute zero, flash freezing the water and expanding out, bulging, creaking... and then, violently exploding inward.
 
      "AQUA FRIGORE!"

GS: Arleph Ardan has spent 3 Combo on Headshot and Gatling!
GS: Arleph Ardan has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Aqua Frigore!
GS: Arleph Ardan takes 9 damage from Toxin!
GS: Arleph Ardan has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

The Beast rages as viciously as the flames it brings to bear. No one is spared from its wrath, not even Jacqueline. A whirling vortex of flame is sent in her direction and she reacts quickly.

With a gesture of her left hand a gust of wind launches out, parting the flames around her. The heat prickles against her skin, still a little reddened from the earlier flame. She winces, but holds.

"Hold strong, everyone! This isn't over yet, but I know we can do this! Don't give up!" Jacqueline calls out, rummaging through her bags. She draws out a pair of bottles and mixes them into a third, forming a bright yellow liquid with a faint glow to it. She shakes it, shuts her eyes for a moment, and then hurls the bottle into the maw of the Beast like she did before.

But this time, rather than a simple sapping solution, the bottle erupts with the force of a ferocious lightning storm, focused on a single location.

GS: Jacqueline Barber has spent 3 Combo on Gatling!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Apothecary's Lightning!
GS: Jacqueline Barber takes 9 damage from Toxin!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Arleph Ardan's Aqua Frigore for 211 hit points!
GS: Mute! Statuses applied to Beast of the Lost Land!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Apothecary's Lightning for 192 hit points!
GS: Tesni Inoue takes a glancing hit from Beast of the Lost Land's Claw of the Lost for 87 hit points!
GS: Tesni Inoue enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.

    So Avril wasn't hurt *too* bad... That's a relief. But hurt any is still too much in Dean's opinion. "You're right," he tells her of the Malevolence sense. "I think... I might've always known it was there. At least, I've felt this way before. It's hard to describe..." He holds up a hand and looks down at his palm, then clutches it tight and gives them both a firm nod. "But you're right. We're not going to let something like this keep us down. Because we're a team!" He grins at Avril and Rebecca. "No, not a team. We're *best friends*!"
    
    And so he, Rebecca, and Avril combine their power to send a massive combination attack the monster's way--and in response, it cross-counters Avril's frontal assault, meeting slash with slash. If Talia weren't there to *throw* her weapon, turn into weird shadow goop, and then shove Avril to one side...
    
    Well, one thing's for sure. Talia is permanently in Dean's good books. Just like Ida. Or Id. Look at the company you're keeping, Tali!!
    
    "Who cares what it's doing! We're gonna take it down!" Dean shouts back over at her. Everyone else is pouring all their heart and souls into their attacks, and so he can do no less. "Rebecca, it's time we poured on all the firepower we've got! We can't let Avril face that thing by herself!" Well technically she's not by herself, she's got Talia and Rebecca and him and an entire roomful of peopl"You with me?!"
    
    He aims his twin ARMs towards the monster again, this time calling upon the power of his copy Sword Medium. Through it, he channels the strength of Equites, which gives him an intuition as to the monster's weak points and where to fire upon to strike them--and then he unloads on the creature with every single bullet he's got.

GS: Dean Stark has activated a Force Action!
GS: Dean Stark has spent 3 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Dean Stark has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Twin Fenrir - Sonic Vision!
GS: Dean Stark has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Ida's muscles strain, visibly bulging against the chain wrapped around her. The Beast's blood drips down the length of repurposed Living Metal, mingling with Ida's own; she sets her feet, digs in her heels, and tries to root the monster to the spot. "They aren't the ones who'll kill you," Ida grates out, her jaw tight, the tendons in her neck sticking out. She skids, slips--

    And then the monstrosity hauls her off her feet, reels her in. Ida shuts her eyes, clenches her teeth, and braces. Her Domain flares around her, condensing into a wall of indignant rage. This creature dares hurt her?

    You deserve it.

    The shockwaves slams into Ida in mid-flight. Still linked to the Beast by the chain, she flies back like a tetherball, links tightening around her chest as if the Malevolence-infused weapon is trying to crush her. Ida's breath leaves her lungs in a sudden rush. She sees stars. She dangles limply from the Beast for a moment, even as it rampages among her fellows. Light and shadow and boiling heat slam into the Beast, one after another, and the spear Ida buried in its flesh isn't so much torn loose as burned loose. The spear-end comes free, and Ida comes free with it, hitting ground with a sickening crack. For a moment, it looks as though the Hellion is out cold. Blood drips from a fresh wound at her temple, where her head bounced off the floor. She hears Arleph screaming, and then Mihaya chanting, but it's like they're a thousand miles away.

    Is this how you want it to end? Lying on the floor, fallen, humiliated?

    No.

    Ida's eyes snap open, blazing like violet suns. She reaches up, grabs the chain entangling her, lets the Domain seep into her, infusing her. Its glow shines through her skin, as though she were a paper lantern wrapped around it. She breathes in, tastes a thousand years of rage and bloodthirst, and bends them to her will.

    Ida roars. Her voice is almost an echo of the Beast's, but not quite--and it's underscored by the horrible, metallic groan of the chain snapping in several places. It bursts off of her, lands on the floor at her feet, immediately starts slithering back together, the corrupted Living Metal regenerating. Blinded, Ida rushes forwards, driving a knee towards the Beast's torn, bleeding midsection. She ricochets off, skids a little, and lunges right back at it, leading with a wild haymaker aimed at its skeletal jaw. She flows from that into a series of brutal, violent strikes, undisciplined and utterly furious. At the end, she raises both hands, and brings them back down at the Beast's skull in a double axe handle.

<Pose Tracker> Prissa has posed.

 
Prissa frowns at Tabitha's spinning swiftness. Frowns big.

Of course there are many other problems. Magic and firepower fall upon the great creature and for a moment Prissa feels a frisson of doubt. Can swords really make their mark as a weapon of decision in the face --

OF COURSE THEY CAN, she thinks, back stiffening, lips tensing into a frown. A vision comes to her, a spark:

The sword that can cut the bullet.

Also there is a flash of silver. Prissa says, in the chaos of war, "That's rad," although it doesn't sound like that. She will remember that.

Especially when there is words spoken from another source. The Fallen Sword descends. Power surges. Especially - wait, Prissa thinks, am I standing on -- her eyes turn downwards a moment before the bursting flames erupt and send her hurtling up into the air, tumbling arse-over-teakettle as she silently curses her fate. I can't die here, she thinks. I've had three new visions:

And then she stops.

Twisting in midair, her braids spread out like the tentacles of a broad octopus, Prissa faces her rescuer.

Her hand, still bearing the xiphos, points towards her. "Woman!!" she addresses her rescuer. "I am an artist, not a hero. I cannot slay a beast such as this. The most that I can do is harry, and these flames grow in heat and ardor every second. Soon they will begin to fall, and it will be a chain reaction that consumes us all. But..."

Her head tilts up. (Down?) Either way she is looking down her nose towards her rescuer. "I do not intend to perish here, at the hands of some sealed-away Malevolent creature. Here! My greatest work in this scale. Bane of all that strides Lunar upon four legs." As she says this she unfastens a strap, catches the falling object, twists it -

And holds it out!! "Take it! Slay the creature! But remember that it was this blade that won your victory!!"

The sword is over three feet long and, from the scale of the scabbard, pretty thicc, too. The hilt is wrapped in dappled leather. The accents of the guard are... is that blackened hoof?

"Also don't drop me," Prissa adds, far less imperiously.

GS: Prissa has spent 2 Combo on Inspire and Reload!
GS: Prissa has attacked Tabitha deVriese with Emergency Sword Rental!
GS: Prissa takes 12 damage from Toxin!
GS: Prissa has completed her action.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has spent 2 Combo on Gatling!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Gleeful Cessation Of Restraint!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Dean Stark's Twin Fenrir - Sonic Vision for 319 hit points!
GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Dean Stark!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Gleeful Cessation Of Restraint for 212 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land loses a Combo from Interrupt!
GS: Tabitha deVriese takes a solid hit from Prissa's Emergency Sword Rental for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Tabitha deVriese!
GS: Reload! Tabitha deVriese gains 15 extra FP from Prissa!
GS: Tabitha deVriese gains a Combo from Inspire!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.

    So Avril wasn't hurt *too* bad... That's a relief. But hurt any is still too much in Dean's opinion. "You're right," he tells her of the Malevolence sense. "I think... I might've always known it was there. At least, I've felt this way before. It's hard to describe..." He holds up a hand and looks down at his palm, then clutches it tight and gives them both a firm nod. "But you're right. We're not going to let something like this keep us down. Because we're a team!" He grins at Avril and Rebecca. "No, not a team. We're *best friends*!"
    
    And so he, Rebecca, and Avril combine their power to send a massive combination attack the monster's way--and in response, it cross-counters Avril's frontal assault, meeting slash with slash. If Talia weren't there to *throw* her weapon, turn into weird shadow goop, and then shove Avril to one side...
    
    Well, one thing's for sure. Talia is permanently in Dean's good books. Just like Ida. Or Id. Look at the company you're keeping, Tali!!
    
    But Dean's not so powerful that he can afford to worry solely about others. The Beast, after its assault on Avril, leaps off the dang *ceiling* and POUNDS the floor below--with him at ground zero, magical spires ripping and tearing at everything in their way. Dean holds his ground, combat rods crossed in front of himself, knees bent to keep himself from falling over, and his stoutheartedness is rewarded: though the shockwaves travel up his legs painfully, he's able to absorb most of the shock with his flexible stance, and the magical spires that *would* have struck, he endures, using his ARM rods to knock himself in between where the attacks are at their weakest.
    
    Talia wonders what the monster's doing. "Who cares what it's doing! We're gonna take it down!" Dean shouts back over at her. Everyone else is pouring all their heart and souls into their attacks, and so he can do no less. "Rebecca, it's time we poured on all the firepower we've got! We can't let Avril face that thing by herself!" Well technically she's not by herself, she's got Talia and Rebecca and him and an entire roomful of peopl"You with me?!"
    
    He aims his twin ARMs towards the monster again, this time calling upon the power of his copy Sword Medium. Through it, he channels the strength of Equites, which gives him an intuition as to the monster's weak points and where to fire upon to strike them--and then he unloads on the creature with every single bullet he's got.

<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

Rosaline's laugh echoes as she continues pelting the beast with flames, her Domain spreading outward as she does, leaving patches of the ground on even more fire than they previously were. She gathers those flames quickly enough, at least, first as ammunition, then as material to shield herself when the pained beast responds in kind.

She continues to laugh as her barrier actually holds out this time, outright absorbing some of the projectiles to fuel itself. Surprisingly, there is genuine joy in that laugh. It's good to be fighting alongside her friends again, with Gwen, with Xantia, Riesenlied, Fei and the others, united against a common foe. For a precious few hours, she could actually believe that this could be business as usual, that things might actually be okay. Perhaps pushing everyone away wasn't the solution.

But of course, this feeling is ephemeral. Cracks appear in Rosaline's barrier. Malevolence stops burning and resumes being Malevolence. Deep-seated cynicism is given form, warring with itself and gradually falling apart.

"No," Rosaline says, quietly, her laugh silenced.

"I won't LET YOU TAKE THIS AWAY!"

And as her barrier breaks, she leans in and dives straight into them, engulfing herself in flame. She cries out in pain but doesn't slow down, engulfed in a thick, burning cocoon. It runs, faintly humanoid-shaped, until it leans even further forward and starts running in a large, quadrupedal, faintly feline form. Cyre might find the general idea familiar.

The burning beast (as if Dean's bean wasn't already freaked enough about Hellion forms) bears down on, well, the capital-B Beast. Its pain, its rage has already been well-documented, but it is tinted by an intense feeling, a strange, Malevolent contradiction-- That one dare hope, while also deeply believing that hope to be an illusion.

Her own body curled up within the elemental beast, Rosaline claws and bites, relentlessly, screaming bloody murder all the while. It's not an unfamiliar sight, coming from her-- Just on a grander scale.

GS: Rosaline Calice has activated a Force Action!
GS: Rosaline Calice has spent 2 Combo on Gatling!
GS: Rosaline Calice has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Gloves Off!
GS: Rosaline Calice takes 8 damage from Poison!
GS: Rosaline Calice has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Kaguya makes no answer. Kaguya isn't here. There's no sign; on the other hand, there's no sign of her in danger, either. Even her aura is gone.

But Lily, here, finds that there is no rush like the one she feels as she and the gigantic beast both charge straight at each other. She swings down with pulverizing force, harder than even her muscular arms have the right to swing, and chops hard enough to spray blood all over herself. Chop, chop, she is covered in red, bits of it disintegrating outright as it hits her blades before she has charged past--before, weaving through one claw blow, and then another, the third finally slams down, clipping her just enough to send her spiraling off-course into a mass of crystal that shatters beneath her. "Gh--"

Her weapons hack apart everything in her path before she lets them burst out of existence, skidding through the air before she catches herself with a strange, gravitic hum and a pulse of Ether. Lily's energy wings do not need air for lift, but she flaps them regardless, rising one more time.

"Good work," she breathes, "Xantia. Just... Like that." Even the blood of such a fierce, fiery creature is hot enough to burn through her clothes. But she manages a smile. What was it she told Xantia, about how this felt...?

About how alive she feels? To Riesenlied, her presence is darker than every, even harsher a non-presence highlit by the sheer power of magic surging around her, transformative and terrible.

She catches Fei's eye once, if she can, her black sclera making the colors of her irises all the easier to glean. ...From Fei, she looks to Noeline, feeling the sura about her. It's hard to get ahold of illusory power, but... Maybe it will be enough for Riesenlied.

Lily sees no way she can help the other woman right now. Unless--

Lily shuts her eyes an instant, feels out for Riesenlied's presence. Searches for it with her own. Riesenlied can feel the un-presence tug in an instant, tug towards her, open suddenly, as a red flash pierces the air between them. A connection? If it works, it's all the easier to feel the pulse of Ether next.

Pulse it does. Lily hovers out into the open, staff gleaming with strange green power as she channels its Wind to help heep her anchored aloft. "...Nimue," she murmurs. "Hope you put a lot of magic in this damn thing..." For an instant--maybe it's imagined--maybe her energy pulses in time with the Fallen Sword. Just maybe.

But now, Ether rockets towards her, drawn from the very air itself all around her with a horrid whine, something unnatural ripping the blessings of Lunar towards itself, a draw from the plentiful magic suffusing this place. "...<Ether Absorption: Critical.>" Lily's eyes snap open. "<Overload imminent. Immediate discharge-->"

Lily's hands do not move. But all around her fire blazes into existence, tiny cyclones of it wracking the air about her before she can manage to focus them forward, teeth gritted--and the flames about the Beast erupt further, not only its own. "Little... more..."

Ice lances down from above like lightning next, crashing towards the beast in a great wave all at once; it's barely aimed, but there's so much of it. Her other hand finally moves, her fist clenching as now with the light her markings gleam gold, and an aura of power erupts from that hand before she hurls it straight for her enemy along with everyone else's. It becomes a golden sphere crashing towards the rest of her magic hovering in place. Blood sweats from her pores at her hands as she draws in a breath, and throws the last component:

From a tiny pinprick, the darkness starts, and then explodes outward; the four elements together erupt into a vortex of violet power.

"<RELEASE!>"

GS: Lily Keil has spent 2 Combo on Headshot and Gatling!
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with The Island-Grinder - Maelstrom!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Rosaline Calice's Gloves Off for 201 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's The Island-Grinder - Maelstrom for 239 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.

 
"She makes a memorable first impression!" Rebecca says coyly - given Avril's first impression of coming down from the sky in a Golem Arm.
 
There's that word 'Malevolence'. "Is that what this is?" Putting that word to this feeling gives it a little more clarity. Makes the connections to that which Avril spoke about in the past. Before it'd just been a 'bad feeling' in 'bad places' and now it just felt so much more real.
 
That was then though - and this is now. Now Rebecca is watching Avril as the Beast lunges at her. Her breath catches into a smothered scream as it rockets upwards.
 
And that's when it hits the ceiling and - "TAKE COVER!"
 
Rebounds back. She's already broken into a run. The crystalline explosion discharges into a massive explosion of magic, and Rebecca is leaping away when a crystalline spire threatens to impale her.
 
Twisting in mid-air, she plants her foot against the side of the spire and shoves herself away desperately as the ground quakes tremendously beneath her.
 
As an acrobat in training, she prides herself on sticking the landing. This is an exception because her landing is heavy. Sloppy. It jars her knees and sends her staggering down to where she actually has to put a hand down in that three point landing.
 
Eyes frantically seek out Avril - "Avril!?" Flipping open the cylinder she swiftly reloads. "It's going nuts!" She sounds a little panicked. "Right - of course I'm with you! Let's get it off her case!"
 
Trying to calm herself - she tries to imagine the Beast's massive body as something as simple as a ricocheting can. It's a ridiculous thought - but a calming one. To bring order to this chaos.
 
Then taking a deep breath she begins pulling the trigger rhythmically - spacing out each shot with its breathing. One - two - three. She fires at a massive claw - a leg - the head as rapidly and accurately as she can.
 
One - two - three. A different target as quickly and accurately as she can.
 
The revolver cylinder snaps open the moment she empties the sixth shot and she's done reloading in the space of a single breath. Leaping off one foot, she flips backwards - and shoots.
 
Emptying the revolver again quickly and accurately into the Beast's anatomy before she lands again. This time she sticks the landing at least.
 

GS: Rebecca Streisand has spent 2 Combo on Headshot and Gatling!
GS: Rebecca Streisand has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Justice To Believe!
GS: Rebecca Streisand has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Tesni Inoue has posed.

Fire and Malevolence not the concept but an actual think that can effect those around it seem to fuel this alien horror. She's come under attack as well she's still sufferinf rom that burn from before too. The impact sends Tess flying ans she was again quick enough to not get hit directly, still the impact and being so close to it it enough to really wreck her day, but even a she watches Arelph unleash his magic? She's about ready to go all out as well.

 She thumbs a part of the rifle's stock, nothint outwardly seems to happen. Inside the small factory produces a round and loads it, an anti-gear round is chambered. She takes aim for the center of mass firing the round which will detonate if it manages to breach the beast's armored hide.

GS: Tesni Inoue has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Dead Man's Hand!
GS: Tesni Inoue has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Rebecca Streisand's Justice To Believe for 206 hit points!
GS: Jam! Statuses applied to Beast of the Lost Land!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Tesni Inoue's Dead Man's Hand for 145 hit points!
GS: Break! Statuses applied to Beast of the Lost Land!
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    We're best friends!
    Avril just looks back at him and smiles. In spite of everything around them, she smiles. Sometimes there is no need for words.

    Avril continues to plummet, hair spreading out above and behind her like a cape. There for an instant, she might cut a figure like an avenging angel as she descends, blade set and ready for impact.

    She sees, too late, its hateful stare. Its attention, all for her. Her entire world is in an instant made of just that red eye. But she holds the sword in an iron grip; does not shirk what she had set out to do.

    Even when her blade tastes flesh.
    Even when the claw rises to pluck her out of the air. Even when she's siezed in an ungentle grasp.

    It's simply this: action, then reaction. It bundles her in its paw and she lances out with her blade.
    Maybe it's enough to force her release. Whatever the case, it doesn't come easily or painlessly, particularly when the beast lands in world-shaking crash.

    'Get out of there!' she hears as if at a distance, swaying when she finds her footing. Blood, briefly, patters along the once-pristine floors. Avril holds a hand against her injured swordarm and breathes out.
    Something goes flying for the beast. It takes her a moment to process what it actually is.

    Ah, a sword...

    And there shortly after comes the hand against the small of her back. It serves two purposes:

    It moves Avril from the fray.
    It serves to jolt her back more firmly to the here and now.

    In a flash, Absolute Zero's blade vanishes. Avril pulls back, well aware of her body's condition, heading in a direct line for her friends. At this rate, she knows she's bound to get torn apart. "Dean! Rebecca! I'm here! I'm--" She cuts herself off, jaw set. "I have an idea. Will you hold it back? I will need some space--"

    She trades the ARM hilt for something else. A stone tablet is produced from beneath her wrap, a single snowflake chiseled onto its face.

    She kneels, here on the field of battle, the tablet held in both hands. Blood smudges one side of the stone.

    Her eyes close, and here a single invocation arises amidst the chaos:

    "Aru Solatu... hear my call. I invoke you, merciless heart of winter. Strike down what stands before us." The aura that burns off her figure is white, filmy, and painfully cold.

    "Primeval Frost."

    For an instant, there comes the ghostlike presence of the beastly Guardian. Baring its teeth, it opens its jaws wide to loose a plume of cold dredged from the most ancient of glaciers, all right for the Beast of the Lost Land.

GS: Avril Vent Fleur has spent 2 Combo on Poison and Gatling!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Material - Primeval Frost!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur takes 6 damage from Poison!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Material - Primeval Frost for 196 hit points!
GS: Toxin! Statuses applied to Beast of the Lost Land!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

???

Fei? It is Fei right? He smiles when the machine promises its effort. "That's all anyone can ask for," There's not much else to share today. A mask like that reflects back upon those who view it. The factory crumbles around the two of them, but the machine hears Noeline. The machine hears everyone. Even as a machine, Riesenlied is still Riesenlied. It's nice to know that some people can still be themselves, to be so kindly in touch with those contradictory elements that even the self that is feared struggles to help those it cares for rather than just pulling further away and developing an antagonistic relationship with their other selves. But perhaps that's why she has found so many blessings. He hopes that she can hold onto them all even as she delves into her past, even as she forges a path for herself and hers away from relationships that would lovingly bind her to a dark path, full of good intentions.

He walks along the way towards the exit. He will be there for her until she finds it, only when she sees it will he let go and remain behind.

Not that he ever really lets go of anything. No matter Riesenlied's past mistakes, she can be forgiven for them. She can carry the weight of the world, but no matter how much that hope shines, he can't truly reside within it. The blood staining his hands is fresher than anything. This fight against this beast is but a tiny sample of the stains that never quite fully dry. After all, even if he doesn't know the full breadth of Riesenlied's crimes and pains, he is certain of one thing at least that makes her easy to forgive and love.

She did not kill mother Mother mother Mother mother Mother mother Mother

There is no forgiveness for them. He can't walk out with her, but he can smile at her, both like a child and both like an ancient, as she finds her way. For his old friend, for his estranged brother, for this new strange friend of his. It's the least he can do, really.

THE GATE

Fei doesn't like it. It's not looking at him like 'that' anymore, but that doesn't make it any easier. He seems confused by Ida's response on the matter of the mirror, as if he barely remembered asking about the 'thing' even as he said it, but he doesn't comment any further on it. Part of him is saying he doesn't need to worry about that anymore. What will be will be. If only they could have spent more time together, there. It was a nice dream, an intrusion--but fondly unremembered all the same.

It's not Noeline's to draw. Fei can barely hear those words between the sounds of his feet hitting monster. He hates doing that, no matter how mindless it feels alive enough. Even if one were to kill a cow for its beef, you wouldn't be so cruel as to end it so slowly as this.

The red voice doesn't answer any requests. When Fei is slammed by raw Malevolence and sent flying free through the air and into a nicely placed wall, all he has is himself. He flops forward--but he doesn't fall, pained as he is.

Instead screaming he throws himself into the air and screams wordlessly, desperately as he bursts into flames and then crashes into the Beast like a meteor, an eruption of flame bursting forth from him upon impact.

GS: Fei Fong Wong has activated a Force Action!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has spent 3 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Kakei!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Kakei for 201 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.

Tabitha peppers the thing with shots from her ARM, then twirls away like a merry ballerina, easily and effortlessly--oh shit.

She stops her twirling - somehow?? that's not how physics work?! - to aim back at the things, firing two shots that she hopes will disrupt them. One goes away; the second cruises at her fast, blooming into an awful claw! Her feet hit the ground, grinding against it, and just then is when her eyes cut barely to the side, seeing the Beast turning its eyes upon her. She sucks in a breath, but its gathering strength is dashed by Lanval's assault. No time to celebrate; she gathers the wind to her and VAULTS skyward, soaring high on whirling winds to evade the screaming claws, letting them spatter flame across the ground. She has time on this flight to survey the field; Ida, channeling powers Tabitha can only just barely detect; Lily, channeling powers she can VERY DEFINITELY detect, her eyes widening with fascination; the strange dragon woman - Riesenlied, she remembers her from Vane - acting...rather unusual, from what she recalls of her...? So many lambs, so little time...

She seems at home in the air, swirling easily through the battlefield. And when Prissa gets thrown, of course it is Tabitha there, hair and cape swaying luxuriously in the breeze of her passage, grinning down at her teasingly. "Well, hello, darling, fancy meeting you here!" she chimes. She arcs toward the ground, to get Prissa to a habitat she's more comfortable with, and Prissa responds...unexpectedly. The Etone looks at the weapon thrust into her hands, eyes narrowing. "Hah. Well...I do have an idea," she says. She comes to ground, sets the woman down, then whirls around, the sword beginning to flicker and glow in a strange way - like it were absorbing some unseen power. "Watch closely, dear! Though I'm afraid your weapon may not survive what it's about to do!"

And then she BLASTS away again, wind blasting at Prissa's face and hair and clothes as Tabitha vaults skyward, gathering more and more power into that weapon. She comes to a halt loosely above the Beast, and---

Oh. She comes to a halt, feet touching the ceilng and adhering like it were the most natural thing in the world, above the beast. She swings the sword a few times, testing its mass, and then looks up - down - at the Beast below.

She sweeps the sword once more, then releases from the roof, beginning to fall toward it. And then she whips the sword back, and hurls it like a javelin toward the beast.

Except that after it leaves contact with her fingers it accelerates towards the beast at several dozen times the commands of gravity, splitting the distance of the room in a thousandth of a second and causing a massive explosion from the sheer kinetics of its descent, the ground fracturing in every direction, shockwaves blasting out as the thing falls.

GS: Tabitha deVriese has activated a Force Action!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has spent 3 Combo on Smite and Gatling!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Inversion Reversal!
GS: Tabitha deVriese has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.

Matilda's not nearly so fast this time; she commits to what looked at first blush like a seemingly noncommittal thrust, and while it strikes true, she pays for it in a big way. Swept up into the beast's wake, Matilda lets out an agonized yell -- she has good positioning and solid morale, at least, but there's only so much she can... do.

She lands hard, on her face; it looks... pretty rough there, for a few moments, as she starts prying herself up off the ground. She stands amid the swirling purple smoke, eyes slightly narrowed, stance sagging. "Nnnhh..." she groans, as she tries to find a stable stance again. She moves toward Riesenlied and Noeline again, but slower this time -- movements labored, body shaking.

The truth is -- Matilda's very tempted to run, to try to find Kaguya and simply book it out of here. Even Noeline, it seems, wouldn't judge her for it. But... something ends up drawing her on. Maybe it's worry for her Metal Demon friends... maybe it's something else. Maybe Matilda's just desperate for a problem she can respond to.

Whatever it is, it keeps her moving.

Matilda stays in front of Noeline, doing her best to provide protection. She considers advancing in again, but... no, it's better to stay back, for now. She keeps her shield up, but sheaths her sword, and reaches for something she hasn't in a long time. Her hands stray down to Freischütz, and she hastily shoulders the weapon. It's been behaving so strangely since her arrival on Lunar -- she scarce wants to use it, but...

... she still keeps it with her, and it's still loaded.

Carefully shifting her stance to make it easier to one-hand the ARM, Matilda fires. She fires over and over again. There's little intensity to it, though -- it's not kinetic, it's not complex. It's just Matilda, using her terribly complex gun for its simplest purpose: to propel metal forward.

GS: Matilda Whitehead has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Seven Bullets!
GS: Matilda Whitehead takes 6 damage from Poison!
GS: Matilda Whitehead has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Prissa has posed.

 
"Do not HURL it," Prissa says, TOO LATE

<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

"But gravity," Catenna gasps. Also too late

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    Fire's been an old fear, its claws sometimes giving Gwen enough space to deny it purchase, whether by momentum of her task, the circle of safety her friends provide, or some other dynamic to roughly push it back into its hellish corner in her psyche.

    Today's not that day.

    It starts with the way the air turns comfortably hot, old scars feeling that distracting itch they always get when Gwen is a little too close for comfort to an open, roaring flame.

    Then the flames ignite, drawing a terrible sort of scream from Gwen, the sort that only comes when pain is only outmatched by the mindless trauma of *what could happen* now that this pain has begun. She curls.

    It hurts.

    ...... .. .

    Don't give up. Hold strong. It's on its last legs. We're gonna take it down. Drifters, being crazy. Riesenlied, trying her best to hold on. Everyone's voices, reaching out to her, a hand, reaching out. LIke it did, on that day-

    She was never alone. "... Friends."

    There was always someone.

    I won't let you take this away.

    Flames singe and tatter Gwen's clothing, revealing a flash of something glowing on her back as she raises the Mockingbird, the glowing scar of energy echoed in the brightening pulses in her ARM. She charges, her hair beginning to rise from the static collecting in the air. She breathes.

    "... That's our answer."

    A blinding laser fires from Gwen's hand, pushing the courier back with the effort of holding against the recoil of the blast.

GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated a Force Action!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has spent 4 Combo on Headshot and Gatling!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Corona Discharge!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

It's working. It's definitely working. The monster's weakening under this assault, Xantia can clearly tell. She smiles happily at the praise she receives from Lily afterwards. She can tell Lily is having a good time, too. Not really... seeing the entire context, but does that really matter? Not to her.

But before she can even think of a follow-up, the beast suddenly... leaps. She experiences a mix of frustration and concern as she looks on, unable to do anything to help until it's back on the ground. And unfortunately, in doing so, it's aiming right for the general area she's standing in.

"Everybody run!!" She shouts to the others nearby, who probably didn't need to be told that to tell what's about to happen. Xantia immediately follows her own advice, clearing herself out of ground zero, but the force of the magical discharges emitted from the newly formed crystals blows her off her feet. Helping her get clear, but not in a way she would have preferred, crashing painfully to the ground a good distance away.

But this is no time to be lying around. Forcing herself back to her feet in short order, she takes stock of the situation up ahead... taking notice of Ida for the first time. Probably being one of the few who could say she likes what she's seeing. Because she's not seeing any of the bigger picture, she's only seeing somebody going absolutely mental on the creature in the direct sort of way she prefers as well. No wonder she had no problems accompanying a couple of Hellions through this place.

And then she charges, once again. Now there are some kind of magic crystals in her way, but they're not about to stop her. Focusing power in her fists, lightning is replaced by a swirling mass of energy, just waiting to be discharged. It collides with the crystal barring her path first, one strike breaking the top half clean off, sending it in the direction of the Beast, to strike or possibly impale it the same way it tried to impale her just now.

That was left-handed. The punch she throws with her right hand is aimed for the crystal she sent flying ahead of her once it's directly next to the creature, energy erupting in a massive explosion of force, sending razor-sharp crystal shards raining down all over its body.

As she backs off, Xantia casts another glance to Lily, who's using Ether to do something far more... unusual, to put it mildly. She's not smiling anymore.

GS: Xantia has activated a Force Action!
GS: Xantia has spent 2 Combo on Gatling!
GS: Xantia has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Exploding Fist!
GS: Xantia takes 9 damage from Poison!
GS: Xantia has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Tabitha deVriese's Inversion Reversal for 230 hit points!
GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Tabitha deVriese!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Matilda Whitehead's Seven Bullets for 175 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
GS: CRITICAL! Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's Corona Discharge for 198 hit points!
GS: Jam! Statuses applied to Beast of the Lost Land!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Xantia's Exploding Fist for 179 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

There's a small part of Cyre's mind that is quietly wondering why it is that he has not had to fend off the typical emotionally ravaging onslaught that all previous encounters with Malevolence have entailed. It's not an unwelcome notion by any stretch, but there's a certain amount of... unresolved tension about it. The sense that any moment now the other shoe is going to drop and he'll have to deal with unbidden rage or despair or anguish out of the blue is palpable and impossible to ignore.

But it never comes.

Instead, there's only a crushing collapse of flame. A purely physical pain. Cyre screams as the burning cage tightens and constricts, the whole world becoming nothing but a shell of agony and heat so intense that even the sensation of being immolated alive begins to die away as nerve endings are set ablaze.

But--

If he were going to be done in by this much, then he would have died to Neriah, or to that twisted, seraphic monstrosity or to the Lord of Calamity, or to his own brother.

It's time he pull his trump card.

A pulse of raw elemental energy reverberates through the air. The atmosphere seems to tremble as a something, somewhere, reaches across the void between worlds and laves an unfamiliar impression upon the spiritual landscape of Lunar. All around Cyre, the cage of flames begins to wrestle not with human flesh, but with a widening hemisphere of emerald energies. The Nahual's scream disappears into a deafening roar.

There's... Something different this time. Something unusual. A wave washes across his mind, across his thoughts. He has reached out to the world here of all places, at a point closest to nature's own beating heart. The earthpulse rages through him, surges through his spirit and threatens to wash it away. Euphoria. Nirvana. A sense of oneness with all the world that consumes the mind and calls the soul back to the current of origin.

After so long fighting Malevolence, fighting that negative nature, such an attack on the self is a wholly alien experience. For a moment, that emerald light flickers and ebbs, being carried off into the ether.

But then he hears a voice call his name.

That's right. He has a name. He is not the world. Not yet. That can come when he dies.

But first--

The sphere shatters. The flame scatters. Standing where there was once a man, there is now a beast.

A mandala unwinds over its shoulders, sutras singing the praises of the silver storm-brother etch themselves over its limbs. The Shintai of Fengalon opens its eyes and--

Gives Rosaline 'plagiarist' Calice the flattest possible stare.

Cyre sighs as the Guardian-Form begins to lift from the floor, a soft breeze seemingly more than enough to convey him upwards. He raises one massive, clawed hand, wind surging between his fingers. "I who walk with the wind call upon you, o' gentle brothers; remember your rage, and together we shall scourge this blight from the world, Cyre rumbles as currents of air begin to stir and surge, gathering together around the massive Hellion. They twist and turn, enfolding upon themselves, becoming a hurricane in miniature that crushes inward tighter and tighter toward impossible pressures. Galeforce winds gather in the Nahual's hands, forming a singular lance of compressed, elemental air. Cyre roars, hurling the bolt into the heart of the howling sphere, "AWAKENING AIR!"

Contact.

The storm explodes, unfolding into a cataclysmic vortex as the whirlwind is finally allowed to unwind.

DC: Cyre H. Lorentz switches forms to Nahual - Fengalon!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.

    Lanval has only scant moments to take in all sorts of interesting things going on while he leans daintily into the gourd-produced gushing waterfall. That woman there - Lily? - who has turned into some kind of sorcerous conduit of pure power - who or what is that? She's not a Hellion. Neither is the woman with the detaching skeletal dragon wings. He doesn't have a descriptor for what he's seeing. Troublesome is seeing Ida attempt to hook into the beast, and his eyes open a touch more when her Domain flares. The trials they've all gone through - are all still going through - have left them weary. Several have drawn and are utilizing those weird-looking fire wands (the only way he can rationalize them) flinging tiny pieces of shrapnel. There's one of those weird sorcerers that draw stuff on their bodies putting forth water-aligned power in a way even he has to acknowledge is something potent. Several are just up and punching the thing like nobody's business. Others are moving around in ways he didn't think possible.
     To think, Lanval has a moment to appreciate... he could've gone his whole life probably not seeing any of this crazy stuff. Not that he minded the life he's lived, but to get to see all these weird mortals(?) who all seem to have united for some greater purpose - despite each other, despite themsel--
     Magical crimson crystalizes about him, as though the last vestiges of the phantom's roar decided to come together for a final encore. From every angle, every space he looks, as though it anticipates any which way he can ever move or weave. Lanval flaunts this descriptor immediately by bending back to balance on his head and his toe to avoid exactly one such surge of power from one direction.
     The rest catches him. He writhes, eyes squeezed shut and teeth clenched in a cartoonish grimace as he contorts and bends while his manifested body gets zapped and prodded by rage turned into fell sorcerous energies. Succinctly, it feels less like it's trying to disintegrate him and more like it's trying to completely immobilize him so that he can suffer longer - lest he dematerialize and retreat into his vessel to escape further torment.

GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has spent 2 Combo on Headshot and Gatling!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Awakening Air!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.

    Mihaya's icy assist breaks this storm of energy and shrapnel, but Lanval continues to twist and bend like he were still on the puppeteering strings of agony with strange vocalizations each time. He goes into one final spin as he's clipped by the Beast en route to them charging Mihaya, tumbling him further across the room.
     Some things are a bit of a blank at that point. The only 'good' point is that he gets knocked free of the epicenter of the Beast's central room dive, from over in the corners. Lanval rests upside down, legs up against the wall, sitting on his upper back.
     Eyes track to the young woman - Catenna - who pulls out one of her Mediums... wait, right, that looks kind of like one of the things Tethelle has, and just watches her leap off. He watches the Hellions just let themselves loose - anxiety and cynicism in tandem given unbelievable power. And then he witnesses... that's a Fengalon. It was that preacher on the horseless carriage, all along. Lanval strokes his beard...
     No, enough of that. The thrum of the room reminds him what's at stake. They're all weary from the trials, to varying degrees. The trials aren't over. They're still in one.
     The trials that've also left them resolved, no matter how methodical, how emotional, or... how lethargic... they may all be. Sore as he is, using every little trick in his playbook from his many years of life to just keep himself together, intact, and himself, the trials and the dangers they put him through - are putting everyone through, right now - reinforce one thing.
     I keep laying around here, I'll never get around to telling them after this. I'd say that's a good way to put it... this is the last 'after.' Lanval works up a dumb cat-like smile. So, about that after.
     Lanval rises, ambling towards the Beast of the Lost Land in the center. A mindless beast, driven by fury. Nothing to reason with. He staggers about and around so many powers at play. His movement is seamless, even for a gait so slow. He weaves, bobs, dips, and sways around others with no complication, interruption, or collateral.
     "Hey." He says to the Beast of the Lost Land as he takes a swig from his gourd. His eyes open up some of the way, a brief hint of aquamarine. Coming this close to the beast, it's hard to appreciate how quiet, more muted the Malevolence coming from it is. It helps that he has a very specific 'after' in mind.
     As Lanval comes close, he winds back the gourd, spinning it about playfully in preparation to....!
     Just plant a fat hand on the hide of the flaming beast - the soul-rending heat and massive differences in projected mass be damned - and give it a shove.
     A mere shove, off-handed, and an unintelligible but contented-sounding grunt preceding an actual word, the culmination of his... generous... contribution to the collective alpha strikes.
     "Shoo." He says, with a low chuckle that echoes across the room. A tiny hint of something more, to be lost in the cacophony of the clutch counter-offensive.

GS: Seraph Lanval has activated a Force Action!
GS: Seraph Lanval has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with Shove!
GS: Seraph Lanval takes 6 damage from Poison!
GS: Seraph Lanval has completed his action.
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Cyre H. Lorentz's Awakening Air for 195 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Seraph Lanval's Shove for 87 hit points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
GS: Noeline has activated a Force Action!
GS: Noeline has spent 3 Combo on Gatling!
GS: Noeline has attacked Beast of the Lost Land with The Errant Blade!
GS: Noeline has completed her action.
GS: Sneak! The true nature of Noeline's attack becomes clear!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land takes a solid hit from Noeline's The Errant Blade Extension - Pyrrhic Flame for 224 hit
points!
GS: Beast of the Lost Land has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Beast of the Lost Land has posed.

What the hell is it doing?

It might be a question that will never really be known.

That symbol, however, seems less a deliberate act on the Beast's part and almost like the Malevolence that it is composed of reacting to -it-. Whatever this thing is, wherever it comes from, that Malevolence has a specific taste to it, one that might, almost, feel faintly familiar to some who were present at the Sundering of Lastonbell. That sigil carving into the ground pulses with violet light like an antithesis to the pale blue of the chambers around it, reacting, like a kneejerk response, to the damage its host body has so accrued.

But thanks to the efforts of those here, it is never realized.

Huddled at the center of the room, the Beast seems almost like it is trying to curl in on itself for a few, precious moments, like an animal protecting itself from the outside world. Like a glimpse of whatever lies within all those layers of layers of Malevolence.

It doesn't last. It can't. The Beast's head rears upward, fury igniting that single eye once more as it recovers from its impact point. All those crimson, crystal spires begin to crackle as if charging off the violet power the ground-wide brand --

-- and then with a casual flick of a sword, devouring light starts to gobble through crystal and Hellion flesh alike.

The Beast of the Lost Land turns its head just in time to see Riesenlied's frightening display of incandescent destruction just before it collides with the monster. It burns into flesh, SEETHES its way through it, even as the Beast struggles mindlessly against it -- as if it truly doesn't register what, exactly, is happening to it.

That it is dying.

It is a struggle that it continues as if it knows nothing else -but- the struggle. Even as a vial is tossed towards its open, howling maw, even as it shatters and gives birth to a force of nature within its maw. It crackles with storming lightning, and the sound of superheated plasma and clapping thunder is all the Beast knows for that short span of pain as it wheels backwards.

It is still struggling Catenna almost literally tries to turn it into a singularity by increasing its mass to a point of implosion. The crunch of bones -- or whatever accounts for skeletal structure, amidst all that Malevolent flesh and muscle -- is all too audible as its front right claw bends and cracks, crippling it in a way it will not recover from swiftly.

It is still struggling as Mihaya looses a stellar storm upon it like she was spawning the white hot core of a stare, exploding it outwards into a cosmic flame that burns away plates of black and red and ignites its mane with a fire not of its own making. And it struggles still as Dean and Rebecca exploit the weaknesses that Catenna's gravity has wrought to devastating effect, assaulting fractured bones and the weakened flesh from others' assaults with their ARMs that send it toppling onto its back, ichor pooling beneath it. And yet still it stands. Slowly, shakily. Because it cannot stop itself.

Because its struggle must continue, even as Avril -impales- shards of ice through it; it reaches out with its one, working front claw, as if it could snatch her out of the air, crush her before she freezes it. But everything happens much too fast.

<Pose Tracker> Beast of the Lost Land has posed.

Before it can reach Avril, before its claw can close around her, Ida rushes in with raw, Malevolence-fueled strength. The power behind her blows are inhuman, enough to send it toppling backwards, scrabbling to recover itself. A blast of crimson light rips from its maw, just narrowly missing the descendant of dragon slayers thanks to the haymaker she plows into its skeletal jaw. And in the end -- that final blow -drives- it groundwards...

... setting it up perfectly for the multi-elemental calamity that Lily Keil wreaks without fury or relent. The accumulative powers assembled against the Beast prove themselves strong enough for this place, for the challenges that lie within. It roars, red crystals bursting from its flesh almost like a defense mechanism -- but it is too little, too late. Violet light churns through them, turning them into sharding fragments of red like swimming in a sea of purple...

... when the anti-gear round that Tesni fires PUNCHES the Beast of the Lost Land straight out of that tempest like it was little more than a rag doll, SLAMMING it into a nearby wall.

There was something there, something else. Once, a long time ago. But now, all there is is the struggle, the mindless fury that the Malevolence has poisoned this creature into. There is a sadness to it, inescapable... but even as Fei Fong Wong drives at its damaged body, it -still- lunges for him, as if intent to devour him in the seconds before he CRACKS into the Beast like a runaway rocket, wreathed in flames and force enough to -launch- it skywards.

And there, in the air, unable to gain control of itself, it is a sitting duck for the assaults of the others. From the laser from Gwen that SEARS through it, punching a hole straight through the Beast, to the bullets that rapidly rip through its injured flesh courtesy of Matilda's Freischütz, to its own crystals fired off at it from physical force that makes them build with such raw momentum tiny shockwaves erupt across the creature's body every time Xantia's assaults batter it.

To the impossible acceleration of the sword Prissa gifted Tabitha, screaming towards the Beast with all the runaway fury of a railgun and IMPALING clean through it, driving it hard and fast into the ground below with a BOOM. Pale blue dust floods the room, still somehow feeling so warm despite the rage of the Beast. The sword, of course, shatters on impact. So long, sword. You died for a good cause.

But even then, it struggles. Even then, one limb broken, parts of its body missing, it rises up mindlessly to its feet. It is violence. It is rage. And it turns that one-eyed stare onto the first thing it sees, and attacks.

And damaged as it is, it is still so shockingly fast as it rips forward, bearing down towards Fei Fong Wong just beyond it--

Shoo.

Before, in those fateful, final seconds, a single, simple, almost mundane -push- of a hand pressing suddenly into its side diverts its momentum.

A simple movement from a seemingly simple Seraph, that sends the Beast of the Lost Land toppling into the waiting, watery bubble of Arleph's symbology.

It captures the Beast. Freezes it in place.

And in that moment, a beast of Malevolent fire and a beast of spiritual wind bear down upon the Beast of the Lost Land almost in perfect tandem. Ice sheers off of it, caught within that hurricane of force, crunching inward, shattering from those forceful winds...

... just as the sweep of Rosaline's claws ignite the swirling vortex, creating a cataclysmic whirlwind of flame.

It grows brighter, and brighter, and brighter... until it feels distinctly as if it is not only that final, combined assault that is causing that searing light.

Something blossoms in the soul as the Beast fractures. The Earthpulse beats like the pulse of a heart, filling the mind with images--

<Pose Tracker> Beast of the Lost Land has posed.

A flood of memories rushes the soul. So real, so vivid, it is like actually experiencing it first hand -- like playing active observer to the events of the past. A shard of a planet's memory...

A small puppy with black fur and a tuft of red just at his chest darts excitedly around a father and daughter. They sit on a bench overlooking a vast sea as the puppy yips and yaps, the water clear and sparkling and pure. Dressed in finery that would indicate nobility, they just watch the waterfront, and the faint glimmer of a city so far away on the horizon.

Behind them is a grand city of tiers and stone, and in the distance at the center of it all, the towers of a grand church can be seen.

The daughter looks up at the father. The father looks down at the daughter. They both smile, and look out at the glittering ocean. It is a truly beautiful sight.

The daughter coughs once into her hand.

                                    ---

A young dog with black fur and a tuft of red just at his chest peers curiously outside the clear pane of a closed window. Outside, men and women revel. The sounds of debauchery and violence fill the air as plentifully as the dark violet motes rising through the air. Someone shouts about how the Goddess has abandoned them.

Behind the young dog, the father and his daughter argue. She is dressed up. Make up is caked on to hide discolored blemishes. He is pointing in the direction of her room.

The young dog looks back at them just as the daughter falls into a coughing fit, drawn back to her room with only the glimpse of the red that stains her hands.

                                    ---

A dog with black fur and a tuft of red just at his chest sits in front of a tombstone.

Linked loosely by leash, the dog watches as the father crouches down to lay a bouquet of white lilies at the feet of that tombstone. The name and date are obscured by his position.

Around them, several funerals are taking place. There are more Hellions than there are humans in attendance. The cemetery grounds seem fresh. New.

They are already almost full.

                                    ---

An older dog with black fur and a tuft of red just at his chest scrabbles across the streets he has been thrown into with confusion. He looks up at the father, much older and weathered and tired and seething with black and violet mist.

He looks at the older dog with open conflict and sadness for several seconds as the panic and turmoil of the city voices itself around them. The sounds of violence are not far off.

And then he turns his back, closing the door on the dog, leaving the animal alone on the open streets of a once beautiful city.

He coughs wetly, once, into his palm as he goes.

                                    ---

An elderly dog with salt and pepper fur and a tuft of muted red just at his chest limps his way past broken windows and smoking stone. He has adapted to the sounds of violence nipping at his heels the same way an animal might when subjected to the same shock one too many times.

The sound of coughing laughter takes away what little energy the elderly dog has left to devote to his survival. Dark eyes glance towards an alley to see the not-uncommon sight of lizardmen rooting through the pockets of an old man who has fallen in in the grime of the street.

The father. Old, frail, diseased. Bleeding.

Protective instincts take over. The dog is upon the lizardmen. But he is an old animal now. He leaps, biting the more vulnerable wrist of one of the warped looters.

An angry shout and a claw gauging his face is the elderly dog's reward.

The dog hits ground with a wet thud. Blood drips from his right, ruined eye. Laughter rings as the looters go back to their dying treasure trove. Wisps of something rise from the elderly dog like steam.

There is a roar to end the laughter. And the last thing the looters see is the sight of the Beast and its one glowing red eye lunging at them.

The Beast stands over the violence it has wreaked. It does not notice what it has become. It just turns and nudges its maw at the body of the old father. It doesn't know why he feel so cold. Or maybe it simply refuses to acknowledge it.

With a final nudge, the Beast lays down protectively next to the body of the father, and shuts its eye.

                                    ---

The Beast awakens. It does not know how long it has slept. The body of the father is gone.

And all it sees is madness.

It does not know how long things have been this way. But buildings twist inward around it as if alive, creating bizarre structures roped by tendons of viscous black. So many more beasts just like it bound through once-beautiful cobblestone streets in roving packs. Other Hellions run rampant.

And at the center of the city, above the once-glorious church, a massive ball of condensed Malevolence broils.

The Beast does not revel at these harrowing sights. It flees from the city in a panic.

And behind it the great, burning maw of the Saint of Sinners starts to emerge from that swirling darkness like a chick from a shell.

                                    ---

The Beast runs. It does not know for how long or how far. It attacks people and villages indiscriminately. Whatever it once was it is something else entirely now. Something violent. Something subsumed. Eventually it feels something calling it. Something soothing. It finds a door of faint, pulsing blue. And as it approaches, it is drawn in to a world of white.

And the Beast falls into a slumber most needed...

And the memory fades...

<Pose Tracker> Beast of the Lost Land has posed.

... and in the aftermath, the Beast of the Lost Land is slumped into a curled position, protective of something that is no longer there. Flecks of Malevolence rise off of it as it slowly begins to dissolve away. Nothing but spirit, supported by spiritual blight. And as the damage catches up to it, as it finally starts to crumble...

... that lone, red eye shuts, and it looks, at least, finally at peace.

                                    ---

It is only when the Beast is finally, fully gone that the chamber seems to shine, softly. Everyone within will feel that radiance infuse them, bolster them -- strengthen their spirits all the more. A door -- an exit -- opens behind them, shining with soft light from which one can vaguely see the island outside these strange ruins. Pale blue crystal begins to mend itself, gathering together, regenerating architecture.

And at the door the Beast spawned from, that simple 'I' shines brightly...

                              THE WAY IS OPEN

... and the seal on the door breaks.

Opening a new, and unknown path within these equally unknown halls.

                               M i s s i o n
                                 Complete!

                        LINAWEYUL, THE FIRST ORDEAL
                            is now accessible!

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    Riesenlied can hear Arleph encouraging her, though the machine is unflinching; she does, indeed, give it everything she's got as she coalesces with Jacqueline's efforts. She's glad she's there and on hand to assist Catenna, knowing that Riesenlied's own support is limited to... to... ... to destruction...?

    That isn't right.

    There is a pause as Dragon Unit No. 1 Type R nearly gets crushed by a falling I-beam. "wwWWHAT isNT... rrrIIGHT...?"

    She looks towards Fei, and nods enthusiastically as the two head along past the machine factory, towards the landscapes of Arctica. The Unit is staring upwards as she more clearly hears a voice now. A voice within the Leyline. The Leyline that she can sense. But more, within that Leyline, further beyond that, there is emotion. And emotion is her domain,

    I'm with you, no matter what - no matter how.

    "nnnOOEE...lIIINE....!" squeaks the Unit.

    Riesenlied can still sense that Domain, and perhaps more uncannily, the sensation of corrupted Living Metal... not unlike her own Tainted Metal... in the distance. The rage, the fury... Rosaline's flame gathering alongside her...

    The Fallen Sword hisses with a crackle of sparks. Riesenlied's eyes are beginning to flicker as that exhortation of energy begins to twist her beyond her limits...

    That non-presence reaches out again. And then it--

    "yyYYYYYYYAAAAAA--"

    Tugs, which in mental-space terms means that the adorable little Dragon Unit (and probably the artist, if he's holding her hand) just got pulled forward and fortunately across several pistons that would've crushed her.

    "...LiLLYY..." A pause, as the Unit whips its machine-head around. Hey, there's an exit there, a shining door amidst the seemingly endless passage of memories...

    The Unit turns towards her companion in headspace. "ttHANK Yoou..." as her voice begins to dissolve into something approaching a very familiar cadence. And as she faces that door...

                               -Task- complete.
                               This -Machine-...
                                    I am...
                               ......I am......

    Everyone is giving it their all, pouring all their power into the Beast itself. The Beast of the Lost Land... does it refer to Uzda il-Jam, or something entirely different? Those are not questions that she knows the answers to, but--

    Lanval shoves. "Shoo," he so casually says. It is like a breath of air, a crystalline, aquatic cleanness--

    Before she can even realise that's happening... everything's suddenly become crystal-clear once more, as she finally breaks free of the spiritual shackles of her trance.

    Reality catches up with her, and the wings begin to hiss beyond their limits as the Fallen Sword dissolves around her hands and forces her to drop to one knee as her wings wink out.

    "Lily... Matilda... Noeline... Noeline, oh--" she whispers, voice breaking up--

    Because she's crying.

    And oh, what a feeling it is! The ability to cry, to feel such sensation on her cheeks, to feel a glistening reflection off her eyes, to hear the audible sound of her whimpers, the taste of blood and salt welled in her mouth...

    The sensation she feels as she gleans true and well the vivid memory of the loyal beast that stood over the body of the old father. She weeps for it, its loyalty, its non-understanding of what has happened... she gazes to the city, the church--

    And she weeps for that city, as Malevolence consumes them all. As that old dog continues to withstand it, no matter how doused in it it becomes. She weeps for it.

    The emotion she can feel from all her senses makes her feel--

                                    Alive.
                                                                               
                  The Unit wobbles to a seated position and salutes.
                                                                               
                                 I am ....... Alive.

<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

Talia comes down from the wall, Mirage wrenched free, and she slams down on both feet. She looks at the Beast, watching as it death throes play out; as the flurry of attacks, finally, end it. She shudders, feeling the flash -- and the rush of the Earthpulse, which hits her mind. The black-haired woman's eyes widen, when the memories crash through her mind like waves slamming against the breakers.

Her eyes narrow; her fingers tighten about the hilt of Mirage until her knuckles turn white. Her teeth grit -- and she looks, for a moment, tense enough to be ready to lash out.

It fades, though, and slips away. She looks over the others here. Her eyes settle, finally, on Dean, then Rebecca, and finally Avril. She flashes a quick smile. "Looks like... we put him to rest, no?" She turns, then looks at the door. She forces herself to keep her expression even.

It's not entirely easy.

"...I wonder what's through there," she muses.

DC: Riesenlied switches forms to Hope in the Rising Heart!
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

So much force is brought to bear upon the beast that Catenna can scarcely believe it. She drops back to fall closer to Cyre, her eyes wide as the monstrous Hellion bears blow after blow and keeps coming until it can come no more.

But soon, it falls silent. The Beast of the Lost Land slouches away. And a memory beats against Catenna's soul. Her mouth hangs open just a little bit as she steps forward.

    A dog with black fur and a tuft of red just at his chest
    An owl with white feathers and black markings at his wingtips
    does not notice what it has become
    does not notice what it has become
    Whisps of something rise from the dog like steam
    Whisps of something rise from the owl like steam
    Whatever it once was is something else entirely now
    Whatever it once was is something else entirely now

As the Beast of the Lost Land collapses into that curled position, Catenna begins to move towards it. Those memories play through her mind, not hers, but cutting entirely too close to the bones of her spirit. Beside that fetally curled Hellion, she sinks to her knees, laying her hands gently on it even as its eye shuts and it begins to crumble away.

From behind her, a tiny white shape comes toddling forward. During the fighting, the Owlet had hit out behind a crystal outcropping, but now it moves to perch on the crumbling Beast's shoulder. The small bird looks down at it with quiet eyes, steady and inscrutable.

Catenna's are less so. Tears trace down her cheels as she looks up towards the bird. "...I wish it could have been saved," she murmurs. "And I wish that your mother could have been saved. Forces like this... such bitter loss...."

She can't force the words out. All Catenna can do is lay both hands on the dead creature and begin to focus through her sadness... and from her hands, a white glow begins to radiate.

It's not much. But she's attempting to dispel the last of the Malevolence from the dead creature. She can at least bury it as the good dog it once was.

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Finally, it seems as if the Beast has been beaten back. It is pushed back, and begins to fracture... And then Jacqueline's eyes open wide in surprise and she staggers backward, clutching her head.

"I-I don't...I don't understand...!" She says, and shuts her eyes tight. Then, things start to clear up. She starts to understand, the images and emotions flashing into her mind. Tears flow unbidden from her eyes...and then, gradually, the memory fades.

...Jacqueline opens her eyes. The tears still begin to fade...and she offers the Beast a soft smile s Catenna approaches it.

"...I'm sorry. I didn't know. You've been through so much." She says, clasping her hands together. As Catenna does what she can for it Jacqueline bows her head, as if in prayer. "...Please, rest now. You've earned it, I think. I'm sure they must be there waiting for you."

...And then it is gone. Jacqueline shuts her eyes again and wipes away some tears. The room begins to become bright, and she can feel something, deep within her soul...

She opens her eyes and sees the new pathway that has opened. But right now...

"Is everyone alright? If you're injured, please let me know!" She calls out, but as she looks around, she spots a certain someone.

"A-ah, Riesenlied! Are you alright now? I was worried...!" Jacqueline says, stepping towards her.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    It's already dying.

    The thought crosses her mind as she passes her friends, as she settles to her knees.
    But even if it's dying, she cannot show mercy -- indeed, mercy might be to end this here and now. Before it drags out any longer. Before anyone gets hurt in its dying rage.

    And she draws down winter's heart to this place, wherever it may be.

    She lifts her gaze from the Medium.
    It lunges for her.
    Even under the best of circumstances, it would have been a gamble whether she would have been able to escape. Here on her knees--

    It's Ida's strike that knocks it back. Avril, shoulders tensed, with Medium in hand, stares.

    Measure by measure--
    It's enough. That's it. That's that. She rises to her feet.

    "It's--"

    She's midway to her friends when the memory blossoms out, unfolding in a panorama across her mind.
    That beast... was a...

    She blinks. Her gaze is unfocused. A single tear streaks her face, then is gone.
    Her gaze tilts for the moment back at the blood-stained Medium in her hands.

    "...Yes," she answers Talia at length. "Yes, I think so."

<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

    The rush in Noeline's ears is almost all-encompassing; the impossibility of what she's doing hangs over her with all the surety of a thousand years of history, but is instantly burnt away in a moment's manic plan and validation. She's managed to steal pieces of Duras Drum's power before, but never quite like this - never with the Guardian unsealed, and never with so much spiritual force focused behind it.

    (Not for the first time, a little analytical piece of her wonders at the back of her mind whether the 'seal' this place is daring them to open is actually anything external, or if it's just an oblique reference to something inside themselves instead.)

    Her senses prick as she hears Ida's roar, somewhere past the flames surrounding her; with the Beast bearing down on them all once more she can only spare so much time to glance across, but that's enough to pick out a few details of what exactly the woman has done to herself and what materials she's merged together into a new form; Noeline actually has to pause, ever so briefly, and suck in a breath of sympathy she wouldn't normally offer... but can't bring it in herself to look any longer than that.

    In the same fashion, she swallows as Lily looks her way; she doesn't need to feel the warrior's eyes on her to recognize it happening, and that's another new sensation she's going to have to pile onto the mountain of them she's come across today. Somehow, she can instead simply pick the fact out of thin air, her senses expanding beyond those she knows-- but she dances carefully around the feeling, as if focusing on any one thing might cause her entire illusion to come tumbling down around her.

    Attacks rain down on the beast amidst cries of pain and anger; her fingers twitch with the tempo of the battle, and before she's even quite aware of what she's doing she's managed to slip forwards through the intervening space. Her path is-- difficult to describe, even to her, and Noeline isn't honestly certain if she actually moved or if she just shifted, especially through the disorienting burst of power around her. All she can say for sure is that one moment, she's at Riesenlied's side - the next, she's instinctively chosen to capitalize on a moment of the beast's weakness, slamming the blade of her scythe home against the demon's side.

    Gritting her teeth, she wills her living metal further, feels it bind with the Guardian's power in a way it has only once before - when she gave everything she had to try to put Berserk down. The edge of the scythe positively melts under the mental command, tearing and digging into the beast's skin in an endless array of tiny stabbing rivulets; it latches on, Noeline's knuckles white on the shaft of her weapon as she melds it to herself in turn. One breath, then two--

    --and her entire form ignites, the black flames around her drained away and into herself and then pushed out through her hands, tearing into and through Malevolent flesh, burning it away around each of those spokes of metal.

    She pushes again at the answering roar-- and suddently and abruptly there's a broken, lost moment of time before she finds herself standing in front of Riesenlied, her intact and inert sword brought up to defend her as the last of the flames wick away from around her.

    Momentarily wide-eyed and blinking, it takes Noeline a long and almost stumbling moment to work out whether her attack actually happened, or whether she just imagined it all in some kind of trance of her own. The chamber is quiet, almost ominously so - but the soft light speaks to their having passed whatever trial they were set, and there are new memories whirling around her head, and that heightened sense of awareness remains.

    Not that she's paying any attention to what just happened; it all suddenly and abruptly takes a back seat in her mind as she hears a sob from behind her, whirling in place to stare - and then sweeping forwards to very nearly scoop the other demon right up. The noise she makes is absolutely not a quiet sob of released tension badly disguised as a huff, but she plonks her head against Riesenlied's shoulder anyway for good measure.

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei sees it. Fei sees it all. As he crouches on the floor, covered in flames that rapidly dissipitate away into nothingness, no doubt saved by the strange Seraph who gave it a timely shove. Fei doesn't look up towards that Seraph. He might not even know he was saved by the man, he might never know, because he's barely in his own head right now, staring forward listlessly like that his potential demise by a killer dog-turned-monster is an afterthought to his situation. The eyes don't look alive. He saw something behind those eyes even as he struggled to kill this monster, and now that it's dying he can only think about how it was a living entity. Even if it's just a dog, is Fei himself really so different from a dog? From a wolf? How many times has he laid beside a corpse and died?

In that strange shared mental-space taking part in a connection that is never really gone thanks to a promise that may yet one day be regretted, the one that may be Fei pushes aside falling debris as if it wasn't even there. He is thanked, and he looks away, embarrassed even in here.

'Be well, my brother's daughter.' He says. He can't follow. It's not in his nature. Not today. Maybe never.

But in reality, in this world, the Fei that is control watches the Beast at peace. He says, out loud, "I'm sorry." to the dog who only ever meant well. "This is the best I could do." His pain is genuine, his heartache pounding. He never knew this dog, but he KNEW this dog as if he had lived with it himself. He wished he could have saved him.

But he also knows that the dog is lucky. You see, it gets to be dead.

Fei only ever gets to play dead.

Fei sees the door open but more importantly, he hears Riesenlied crying and waking up and he manages a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. Even if he didn't manage to help her, it seems like she made it out okay. That's what's important. He feels his strength give way and he collapses to the floor, unconcious.

But he lives.

He lives.

<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.

    Everyone's efforts come together to defeat the Beast--to slay it, once and for all. As Avril had requested, Dean and Rebecca support her, giving their all in their own attacks before she dives in--but it's not just the three of them. It's everyone. And when the Beast falls, memories fill reality with such vividity that it feels to Dean like he's really *there*, like he's experiencing it all in real time...
    
    He doesn't know those people. He doesn't know the father or the daughter or the city in which they live. But he knows the dog. And he understands this story. And as it plays out, it breaks his heart, made all the worse by the fact that he can't do a thing to help. Whatever is going on here--whatever this vision is--it tells of events long past. And when the old one-eyed dog transforms into a Hellion to protect its dead master...
    
    "You just wanted to protect the ones you loved, huh?" he says softly, gaze filled with sad compassion. He rubs at his eyes (but he's not crying, he's *not), and then the light fills the air, intensifying his spiritual senses once more, though he won't realize it for some time to come... Talia speaks, and he looks up at her. "...Yeah, looks that way," he says, subdued. Looking back at Rebecca and Avril, he gives the two a nod. There's a lot going on--Riesenlied bursting into tears, Catenna trying to dispel what remains of that Malevolence, the door opening and revealing further buildings within--and sometimes, all you can do is focus on what's closest.
    
    Right now, that's Avril, and the bloodstained Medium in her hands. So Dean rests a hand around her shoulders to help steady her if she needs it. "Hey," he says quietly. "You need to sit down for a while? You got beat up real bad in that fight." He looks over at Rebecca. "I think we all need a rest right now. Yeah?"

<Pose Tracker> Rosaline Calice has posed.

Rosaline tears into the Beast, synchronized with Cyre despite her blatant plagiarism. And soon, the monster is slain. Then...

Well.

The memories fade. Flames swirl away from Rosaline, who is curled up on the floor, in fetal position. She's crying. Needless to say, she doesn't have the slightest interest in the door that just opened.

A sunbeam would be great right about now.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    "Yes," Avril replies. "I think that would be a good idea." Weakly, she manages a smile. "All of us. Isn't that right...?"

<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

There once was a good boy. He was born a good boy. He lived a good boy. Even when he was told he was not a good boy, a good boy he remained. He died a good boy. He came back a good boy. He died again.

A good boy.

The Nahual of Fengalon watches silent and still for a moment longer, thinking back to his home. The animals there. The unconditional love (mostly, there are cats) that they share. The tiger-god closes its eyes and with a long sigh, fades away into a fine emerald mist.

A pair of arms hug gently around Catenna's waist, damp eyes press into her shoulders. "He was a good boy," Cyre says, "Wasn't he?"

<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.

 
The creature fractures. She was about to do a simple spin of her gun before holstering it. However then the memories from the earthpulse seep into her skull in this spiritual experience.
 
And instead she just looks at the barrel of her gun. And her eyes slowly blink. It's a hard thing to stomach.
 
Harder still to do so with dry eyes.
 
Are these the kind of things Avril sees with those spiritual senses of hers?
 
But Rebecca Streisand decides she has to be an adult about this.
 
Sometimes it's necessary to put a dog down. And to be an adult means you do it with dry eyes.
 
     "It was a mercy."
 
She decides as she answers Talia far too quietly for her to actually feel things so simply, then slowly slides her revolver back into her holster.
 
"Dean - Avril - how are you both doing? Should I break out some berries?"
 
She needs to tend to others instead of... her feelings. Luckily it looks like they're all alright. And finds herself instead looking long and hard at Avril's face as she sees the glimmer of a single tear while Dean puts a steadying arm around her.
 
And part of her just freezes. Dean never could ignore a girl's tears.
 
And yet Rebecca doesn't cry.
 
Eventually she nods absently, "Yeah... I think we could all use a rest real bad." She says to Dean before... and nodding to Avril, "All of us... I don't think... moving on right now would be a good idea."
 
Seeing Fei collapse on the floor though unconscious causes her to walk over to him though, as she kneels down to give him a onceover in a similar way to Wayside's triage exercise. After a moment she nods. "I think maybe this boy needs it most of all." She says with a wry note before checking him over for any wounds she might have missed.
 

<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

Even as the enchantment works its magic, Catenna's barely managing to hold it together.

When Cyre comes over and says those words to her, it's more than her emotional control can withstand. With a wide-eyed look up at him, she sniffles once, then reaches forward, buries her face in his shoulder and starts sobbing, curling her arms around him. There are so many things that hang on the point of her tongue. How it was just like the Great White Bird - the owl from whence the Owlet came. How it was just doing what its heart told it. How it wanted to do the right thing and it couldn't. How unfair it is that there are so many evil powers that act on the frustration of unfulfilled ambitions.

None of those words can take an eloquent shape right now because all that will come out are tears. She just bawls into Cyre's shoulder as the enchantment does its work.

The Owlet keeps its head dipped over the Beast, almost as if reflecting on what has transpired.

<Pose Tracker> Prissa has posed.

 
The beast struggles as Prissa descends towards the ground. Her first instinct when she sees her zanbatou burst into flinders after being treated with such violence is that Tabitha is banned. From what? Everything, probably.

Then

It comes.

The memories pour into her like a cup of green water into a clear vessel. Prissa can feel them thread throughout her thoughts. Some part of her feels an obscure and secondhand shame at the simple purity of the memories. She struggles underneath them - thrashing. Ego reconstitutes itself, a robust thing.

Her cheeks are wet. She takes off her shaded glasses and rubs at her cheeks. She breathes in and she breathes out.

The glasses go back on. With one loud sniff Prissa strides forwards, bold as brass, towards where her lent sword was thrown and shivered to flinders. Another strap is loose and she sets down that drum of hers, untying the skin of the drum. It comes off easily.

She half-mumbles half-chants something to herself as she starts to collect pieces of steel and leather wrappings. When her hands are full she dumps them into the top of the drum.

"Not enough," Prissa says to no-one-in-particular. "Not enough to finish."

But even now, even with the half-dozen other visions, she can see the dog.

<Pose Tracker> Tesni Inoue has posed.

The Horror goes down from the combined assault upon it. She's making ready with another round to bring the creature down.

 "Time to put you down you have not place in this ...."

 Tess ferver melts away as she sees something else.

 Long, long ago on a distant world from Lunar? Manking met their best friend, they suffered together, lived together, and when they went beyond the pale blue dot they brought them along. Who is to say that it didn't happen elsewhere but either way? This horror was a dog, once a very good dog. She's overwhelemed almost she doesn't stop and she feels them fade she looks to Cyre and Catenna.

 "Yes he was a good boy, he was a good boy."

<Pose Tracker> Matilda Whitehead has posed.

Matilda closes her eyes, thinking about the images. There are... elements of them, that are -- hard for her to watch. She flinches, more than once. When at last that spiritual playback ends, though...

... Matilda turns away. She shivers, quietly. She says nothing, and *certainly* makes no move to try to investigate the seal now broken; she needs... to rest. Of course, the fact that she's not as bad-off as many of the assembled isn't lost on her...

... which means that she ends up moving toward Riesenlied, as the Metal Demon begins to cry. Yet again, she says nothing -- but at the very least, she subtly opens her posture to Riesenlied, making it clear that she's there for her, in... whatever capacity that might entail.

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Power. Lily Keil does not let the sign of her opponent showing pain stop her from advancing; that sort of mercy is not a problem she's entertained in a long time. Nevertheless, it takes time to channel her power... and even as she does, she sees the next assault slam into it, and then--only then--

...Then does she feel that sadness to the creature, and her strange eyes remain on it for a few moments, her lips half-open in a question she can't quite voice. Soon, it is simply gone. Brighter, and brighter... Until--

Lily's eyes blaze green as the vision floods through her, solid orbs unseeing of anything in the world passing beyond the grand city and the rush of memories. Quickly, so quickly they pass, and Lily feels the daughter's sickness as if it were her own?

The dog, the dog, through time and time. ...It passes. Lily continues to feel the visions as they go, and it seems so strange. The aging of the man... The death--the transformation--



...As the memory fades, Lily blinks, and her eyes are strange black-and-colorful again, tilting down to see the form and spirit of the Beast fading away, at peace. There's a pang in her heart, as she hovers before it. The strange feeling of something bolstering her spirit makes Lily look down at her hands, her body, and then the doorway. ...Before she turns. Again, not seeing, but feeling--

Riesenlied is there, crying. And Lily blinks her eyes, finding a strange, bloody liquid filling them too. She hovers, wavers, then falls to the ground roughly on knee and hands, the Ether gathered about her dissipating, fading into the air around her. But she knows Riesenlied and Noeline are there, at least. Her eyes close, but the markings on her skin for just a moment disappear. "F...ei," she manages, looking at her fallen friend. Her eyes flicker open, and they are normal again, but red-rimmed, and still marked with blood. "Let's..."

A small, black dog with short fur and floppy ears rushes across the ruined stone, hopping from place to place to rise up and start licking Lily's face. "Let's... go back to the beach," Lily murmurs, petting the dog with one hand and sliding to the ground to rest. Her eyes close.

"But why... why is..."

For just a moment, Riesenlied might feel a sense of being watched. But Lily isn't moving for a few minutes.

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    It's over.

    Gwen lets herself collapse onto the ground, falling on her back. Letting out a sigh, she closes her eyes, allowing the pulsing light and its images wash over her.

    ... ah.

    So that how it was.

    ...

    When Gwen finally sits up. Feeling the air against her back, she scoots back against a piece of debris, then silently looked on the scene at hand.

    It's a good thing she didn't bring that lucky scarf Zed gave her. She'd hate for it to be destroyed, so quickly. Or maybe, she would have been able to find a different path if she had it?

    No, she's overthinking it.

    "It wasn't gonna let up." Gwen says, looking over to Catenna and Cyre. "We gave it a proper end. It died, protectin' something important. And in the end, it or something else was able to show us why. And we'll honor that memory. Pretty decent end for a guardian, as sad as it is for us to know." Why was it summoned here, just for this task?

    Gwen's body sags against the wall, feeling its cool touch against her back. "... If everyone's doin' okay and gettin' saw tom I'm gonna just shut my eyes for a bit," she murmurs, her head too heavy to even consider the strange new hallway that opened up. "I'm glad we were able to give it our all. It deserved nothing less. Let's be proud of it."

<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.

    And so Dean and likely Avril shore up with Rebecca around Fei to fuss over his unconscious form and sit together to patch each other up and rest. Because rest is needed, and Dean certainly won't let his friend Fei just lie there on the cold, hard ground.
    
    Maybe later they'll veg on the beautiful beach right now. And maybe later than that... they'll explore the depths they fought so hard to uncover.

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    Riesenlied feels the fierceness of Noeline's embrace, more than ever, holding her extremely tightly as she sobs back in turn; she whispers, "I am back... I am back, Noeline..." she shakes her head, dabbing at her eyes with the sleeve of her dress as she looks towards Jacqueline.

    "I was overwhelmed... by this place... but I managed to escape--" she hesitates, as she looks towards Fei as he collapses. "Fei...!"

    She bites her lip, looking towards Catenna and whispering, "Thank you..." as the shaman cries over Cyre's shoulder, and looks towards Dean, Avril, Rebecca... especially as the latter goes to medicate him, whispering, "Thank you, Rebecca..." She's being so strong right now...!

    She's surprised to see Prissa here, not knowing she's opted to become a Drifter. Matilda is approaching closely as well-- and she looks up towards them. She gasps, gasping aloud as she whispers, "Matilda... thank you-- thank you for staying with us."

    "Let's... let's make sure Kaguya is okay."

    She coughs out some blood, wiping it away with her sleeve again and whispering, "Let's--let's do that, Lily..." A pause, as she expresses, "Thank you. Thank you for reaching out to me, both of you..."

<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.

In the end, the enemy is defeated. Xantia watches the beast for a long time as it crumbles. And-- she receives memories. Memories not her own, but memories nonetheless. Xantia realizes their meaning, their importance, their weight.

Rather than speak, she casts her gaze across the room. Seeing how these revelations affect the others present. Many look miserable. Some even cry. And she...

She doesn't feel anything. She has a factual realization of events, but no emotional reaction. And that doesn't seem okay. She should be feeling something after seeing something like that, shouldn't she? All it takes is a look across this room to be certain of that. And yet...

Should someone look around for Xantia after the battle, they will not find her. This... no longer felt like a place she belongs in, right now.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Part of Ida's brain has already seen the symbol the Beast is etching into the floor, however unintentionally. She remembers it. Red-hot fury blazes past her head, missing her by less than a foot. Ida snarls, her lips peeling from her teeth in an almost feral expression. She lands in a crouch, her chest heaving, the Malevolent star in her chest blazing like a bonfire. She watches the Beast fall, and then rise. She takes a breath to prepare herself to renew the assault, but in the span of that breath, the Beast is already on its feet, lunging after Fei.

    "FEI!" Ida screams. It might be a waste of that breath. Sudden fear pierces the battle-haze. A hand touches the Beast's hide, and oh-so-gently guides it elsewhere. Rosaline's claws finish the job.

    Something thrums beneath Ida's feet. She thinks back to Castle Rabenstein, to her experiment, but her own memories of fear and failure are washed away before the onslaught of memories that are not hers. Instead, Ida finds herself remembering other memories.

    "I thought you could use something to keep you company," says a man, as he lowers the wicker basket onto Ida's lap. She's been bedridden for the better part of two months, and she still can't lift her right arm past her shoulder. She's trying not to think about how the injuries the Wels left her with--the bites they took from her arm and shoulder as she shielded Professor Oxford with her body--look like the scars her mother still bears. The man has Ida's grey-blue eyes, and his hair and beard are just starting to go grey. "Open it, he says."

    Ida lifts her left hand, and oh-so-gingerly pulls the top off the basket. A small bundle of fluff pokes its head up, a black-and-white puppy with big brown eyes and fluffy ears. The puppy clambers out of the basket, and onto Ida's chest. Ida laughs.

    "You were talking about perhaps purchasing a dog," says Ida's father. "So..."

    "Her name is Lola," Ida says.

    Time passes. Ida now stands at the railing of a steamship, waving with her healed right arm as it pulls away from the dock. Mother and Father are at the dockside, and so are Edmund and Sylvia and Aunt Anna and Uncle Harold. Lola is not there. Lola is at home, and while Ida told her she wouldn't be returning for a while, she's just a dog.

    ...She won't be returning...

    At some point, during the visions, Ida sinks to her knees. Tears stream down her cheeks, even as she stares ahead, at nothing. When it's all over, she fights back a sob, fails, and... turns to force herself to look at the guardian Hellion's dissolving corpse. She's shaking.

<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.

Tabitha drifts comfortably down to the ground....and in the heartbeat that her feet touch the ground, she is...invaded? No, not quite. These memories aren't hers - unfamiliar and strange. But she understands, in her way. The Drifters, all together, show that they have seen the same things, this animal put to such extremes of sorrow.

Well, it is only right that they sympathize with animals.

Tabitha, for her part, finds her lips curling upward again. "Malevolence," she whispers, trying the word out, swirling it around her tongue. Yes....yes. That is that power's name. She'd heard it, before, but to have it stamped so firmly in her understanding is a new, strange kind of comprehension.

"What interesting things they get up to up here," she murmurs to herself, eyes alight.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.

    Somewhere in all of this, Lanval's back to sitting down on the ground as a subconscious thing as the flood of memories take him - and the rest - on a heartfelt tour through the life of a dog and how they got where they have now. The Seraph sits, eyes closed back down. The various dramas play out around him as he sits and... well, it's hard to watch with eyes closed, isn't it? He sits and witnesses. Every so often, he takes his gourd in both hands and has himself another sip as the lot of them come to their collective grips about what it is that has transpired.
     He exhales audibly every so often. Seraphim don't need to breathe. One of those unneeded human tics that long-lived ones tend to pick up just from proximity. Everyone around reaches out to check on others, or otherwise work through the lingering anxieties and traumas surrounding them. He looks about as placid as placid can be, for the circumstances. How many tragedies has this one seen, in his years? Where did he actually even spend all his years prior to this, anyway?
     He holds the gourd up high, mouthing something along the lines of 'drink away your worries, too.'
     He turns his head as Rosaline comes down from her high, curling up in the floor and crying.
     As the Fengalon returns to their original form to see to their beloved, he takes note of Catenna moving to purify the Malevo--
     ...
     ...
     One eye opens all the way.
     ...
     ...
     She's not the Shepherd. He doesn't see any Prime Lord. He'd know if there was one present, because... he won't be dwelling on that facet. How is she doing that? Not that it's a bad thing, no, quite the opposite. That's incredible.
     He exhales again. It's time. He has to tell them - Fox Company, and a couple of other friends he's made among the mortals. No matter what he's risking, it's a bigger one not to--
     The Hellions stew in their emotions, over there. One thing at a time.
     Slowly, Lanval rises. He has to take it slow. He is so battered that maintaining his manifestation is kind of a bonus trial unto itself. He ambles over to the two of them, about thrice the length of arms' reach. (Ida's arms, for exacting measurement. Ida's arms' reach, for exacting wording.) He makes sure he's not seated out of their vision, as to not startle them. He waits until the dog finishes dissipating, the work of Catenna's purification of the lingering Malevolence helping to ensure no more of the force that has ensnared the loyal dog lingers.
     "Hey." Lanval speaks. These two are powerful Hellions in their own right. It stings to be near them while their emotions flare. He has that genuine cat-like smile on his face. It's also genuinely stupid-looking. He sits back down. A seemingly vulnerable position, as if not to loom over them threateningly. To the extent he can ever really loom. "They're at peace now. They've found reprieve."
     He lets those words linger, to be digested as they will.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Ida looks up at Lanval. She's on her knees. She's bloodied. She's crying, and her tears evaporate in hot, acrid plumes not long after they leave her eyes. She hardly looks like the woman who was delighting in combat not ten minutes ago, but what are Hellions if not creatures of contradiction? "I know," Ida says. Her voice is small. She looks over to where Rosaline is lying, curled up, and suppresses another sob. "...He was a good dog."

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

"...I..." Lily speaks over Dog's happy noises to Riesenlied, "Wasn't sure... It would even do anything. Did it help...?" She blinks again, but winces--keeping her eyes open is going to hurt for right now. She will look for Xantia, and not find her--but maybe she can find her eventually. The memories continues to rest heavy with Lily regardless.

"...Anyway, Riesenlied..." She inclines her head, nodding whether Riesenlied can see her or not. "Always. I won't... leave you behind."

Dog looks up, tilts her head at Ida... and then noses against Lily until she starts dragging herself away with her staff. "Persistent, aren't you...?"

She ends up stopping by Fei, who is already not alone. Then that'll be good enough for a while.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.

    Lanval's brand of seated slouching is practiced. He's shorter than Ida's Hellion form to begin with, so she doesn't need to strain her neck much. The differential in height is an attempt to ensure she doesn't feel like she's being overpowered, or attacked from a point of vulnerability.
     "Mmmhmm."

<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.

    With a heaving sigh, Noeline draws back from Riesenlied, and only then seems to notice the people around them; she has the grace to be quietly bashful, at least, grumbling out a comment softly to herself under her breath. Try as she might, she can't convince her fingers to stop clinging onto a part of the other metal demon's robes, but at least she looks mollified as she nods her head to her partner's statement.

5t"... welcome back," she says softly in return, and it would be very romantic were it not shortly before a small dog decides it would be great fun to poke at one of the ribbons in her hair, eliciting a surprised yelp as Noeline is forced to pitch suddenly sideways to cope with it. "Gh--!"

 <Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
<poem>
        "It's not fair," Ida whispers. She looks away from Lanval, at some point on the floor. "Nothing is fair." She settles into a seated position, tucks her legs to her chest, and curls her arms around them. "I'm so tired."

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei remains passed out! He probably would be embarrassed and grateful to see folks fussing over him were he in both his right mind and also conscious.

But of course part of him would wonder why they care about this coward, this fake, while he remains alone(ish)...so maybe it's for the best.

Either way he's gonna need to be carted to the beach since he ain't movin' on his own.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.

        Lanval lets himself lie on his back, as Ida repeats just how unfair it is. Everything's happened beyond anyone's ability to do anything about it. He patiently hears her out her complaints, her sadness, letting her dictate the pace of the conversation - what of one exists. He sneaks in another sip of his gourd... or two... and flops that arm on his chest. He avoids flopping it on the ground. Weightless as he is by most standards of physics, he doesn't want to startle them with the sound of something hitting the ground.
        "Shure am, too... shure am. Mmmmph." This place tested them. Maybe the real test will be to find the energy to get back up and leave. The Earthpulse continues to thrum along underneath them all.
        He'll stay as long as it takes until the actual idea to leave comes to them, rather than push it himself.

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

         There was going to be some shuteye. But hearing the voices around her, Gwen couldn't do much about sleeping, as exhausted as she is. Hearing Ida say that, and seeing the strange... person nearby her, Gwen adjusting her shirt around as best she can, then sits up and steps quietly to Ida, kneeling down with a squint and a slow nod to Lanval.

         "...." She wants to retort, say something witty, even tell some quip to lighten the mood.

         Instead she hugs Ida, a sloppy, tired mess of an embrace, even motioning Lanval to join if he feels the need. At least, that was the plan. At some point, the notion of expending anymore energy than necessary became a foolish one, so instead, the hug begins to loose form, Gwen's tired head falling against Ida's shoulder. There's a murmur, something reasuring, but it's lost in sleep soon enough.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

        Ida's arm wraps around Gwen's back in some sort of awkward hug. She stays like that for a few moments, before mustering up her reserves, shifting Gwen's weight, and gingerly draping the courier over her shoulder. The Hellion rises, and after a moment or two, something emerges from her shadow--an umbral blur that quickly takes the form of a coal-black mare with bright violet eyes. Without further ceremony, Ida drapes Gwen over Grey Lady's back, and then goes back for Fei.

        She knows Rosa probably doesn't want to be touched right now. There will be plenty of time for commiseration later.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.

        Lanval doesn't take in the embrace. He waves a hand gently as if to say 'no, I'm OK.' He kind of is. The feel of the Earthpulse at his back is nice. He allows Ida to leave on her own terms, once she collects those who need help leaving - like his friend over from the snowy mountains, Fei! The one who stood up for him when the young Fire Seraph tried to do... the thing pretty much all Seraphim do with himself.
        He'll patiently wait for Rosaline to feel the need to move again, taking special care not to agitate or spook her any by lying as still as still can be as he takes regular, audible breaths so that the sight of him won't surprise her once she's capable of looking outward again. He imagines Talise and the rest are doing okay, given how peaceful the environs are.
 
        MEANWHILE
 
        A certain white-haired man finally awakens, rubbing his head. He looks around, unsure as to what's going on or where anything is. He takes out a shiny-looking rock and gives it another look-over, holding it at an angle as though he doesn't even want the ambient blue glow of the ruin itself to witness it.