Return of the Emblem Chapter Ten: Converging Destinies

[roymbrog]

“Sounds good to me,” Valter replied. “I’m not sure which direction it came from, though. I’ll just follow you I suppose.”

[Phoenix]

Raquel

Keeping up with the phoenix was a lot tougher than Raquel had expected. She was in much better shape judging by how easily she was outpacing her, though much to Raquel's surprise, she had an even 'girlier' posture to her movements. "Well she's definitely not a perfect copy of me ... hey, how far away is the center of the ar-whoa!" She wanted so much to ask the man in black how far it was to the arena grounds, but seeing him keep pace with her by floating along mere centimeters off the ground was too much of a shock. "Why are you floating?"

"It might be too bumpy for her otherwise," he explained. He was likely referring to Kit.

"Urgh, okay so how far is it until we reach the center?"

"Not long, but I don't know what you plan to do when you get there."

"Me neither, but I'm not going to stand around and do nothing at all."

Reign

"Dark magic? Yeah that's what I'd put my money on at this point," Reign replied. Then Faatina nearly went into hysterics about her missing items. Reign felt fortunate, as all he was missing was his tome. "Don't worry, we'll figure out what's going on but first we'd better look for the others. Then a thought occurred. She might no want to be seen like this by everyone in the group. "If you want, you can borrow my coat for a little while. Luckily all I'm missing is my tome."

Ringo

Ringo glanced back at the source of the roar and saw Volga following him. His top priority was finding Gabbie though, so he kept on going, expecting the other wyvern to follow or give up. Once he was clear of the coliseum walls, he began flying around the outside of the building, closing in on his target as quickly as possible.

Gabbie

"I'll err on the soide of caution before wandering into the big run down building, thanks," Gabbie shot back. That was when she saw a wyvern flying around the outside of the building. It looked like it was circling the whole thing until it began to descend right toward her. "Ringo?"

Ringo came down at high speed and inevitably crash landed, sliding across the ground up to just a couple of feet from Gabbie. As soon as he came to a stop, Gabbie reached over and stroked his nose. "Good job foindin' me, though I honestly have no idea how you do that ... heheh."

Luca

She wasn't taking the reins like Nadya usually did, so that made Luca wonder if she was really 'taking' him with her or not. Either way, he didn't want to stay here all by himself, so he followed along for the time being, keeping an eye out for anything familiar. Eventually there was a noise. Luca thought it sounded familiar, but it wasn't the voice he was looking for. Veronika went into hiding though. Being too big to effectively 'hide', Luca decided to stay where he was.

Colin

"... I never asked for this ..." Colin muttered as he looked out over the abyss. He had appeared at the edge of the landmass same as Gabbie, only on the opposite end. "I could have at least waken up with one of the ladies, couldn't I? Though, I did feel like someone was on top of me just before I came to ..." He sighed. " Probably long gone by now. Ah well. Time to head inside and see what's happening, I guess. As he turned to head inside, he saw something that could only be described as a disturbance in the air. Partially spherical and partially human in shape, as if composed of multiple layers, and heading toward the coliseum the same as him. "What is that? I can barely see it ..."

As soon as he said that, the anomaly picked up its pace and began moving away even faster. Colin gave chase only to find that this thing was much faster than him. As soon as he had closed the distance by about five feet, the anomaly raced off at high speed and faded into the background. Having lost sight of it, Colin slowed to a stop. "... what was that ...?"

[Mercakete]

Well, there wasn't any time for a reply as that predator came barreling in towards them. Rizen either had more pegasus sense or not enough pegasus sense than to stick around and so turned and bolted. She'd just find someone else to help her look for the missing things.

[Ether]

"Ah... sure... thank you Reign." Faatina replied sheepishly, taking the coat and draping it over herself. At the very least she wasn't cold anymore.

"S-should we go take a closer look?" Faatina asked, not quite sure what to make of this.

***********

The response came from the lancer girl, who was then accosted by a wyvern... though it appeared to be familiar enough with her to receive a pat on the snout.

"Do you think he can handle getting the three of us over that wall? It'd be a lot faster than trying to get through here."

***********

Such a considerate fellow. This guy had so much more sense than Raquel's gang.

[Script]

Dream of a Called Gar

"That's not, oh whatever, charge! Or fly charge whichever!" Gar thrusted out his finger after the other flying wyvern.

[roymbrog]

Ringo kept flying, but Volga was pretty sure he had seen her so she simply followed. Maybe he knew where the other humans were? Gar started yelling something at her and she recognized the word fly, so she did. Ringo was quite a bit faster, so by the time she touched down (much more safely) behind him he and Gabbie had already reunited. There were a couple of humans here, but no Kat. Volga refolded her wings and slouched. The wyvern was a disappointed.

[Phoenix]

Stands

"Yeah, but be ready to make a break for it if something happens," Reign warned. Better to decide on how to respond before something happened, he figured. With that, he began carefully making his way down toward the arena. He didn't plan on getting too close, only close enough to figure out what was slowly overtaking the ground down there.

Battlegrounds

Catching up with her phoenician double before she reached the arena grounds just wasn't going to happen, Raquel knew. In fact, by the time they caught up, the entire situation had changed. She saw the phoenix sprinting at top speed heading toward ... "Chip?! CHIP!!!" The little monkey was scurrying around desperately searching for his gun, unaware of the gathering darkness approaching him on all sides. The phoenix quickly came sliding in and scooped him up before he could be engulfed and then kept on running. "Whew ... hey wait! Where's she going now?!"

"Her way back is blocked now, so she may be trying to find another way out."

"What is that black goop all over the place anyway?"

"Dark energy, condensed almost entirely into a liquid state ... that or living tar. Assuming the former, something like this wouldn't be feasible in the waking world, would it?"

"The kind of power that would take is unimaginable, but I guess that means the one behind it is the dragon head ... right?" Raquel inquired. His world, his rules, she figured.

"You'd better find the dragon quick then, or that poor phoenix is going to get cornered and who knows what will happen then ..."

Outside

"No way he can handle three people," Gabbie answered in the negative. She even shook her head for emphasis. "At best, he could make two trips," she offered as an alternative. Barring that, it was using the door like normal people.

That was when Volga touched down and Gabbie offered yet another suggestion. "Or, the third person could hop on that thing with Gar and ... Gar what happened to your clothes? Not that I'm complaining, but ..."

Other Side

Colin eventually arrived at the coliseum wall opposite the other outside group and just stared for a moment. "Gods, this place could come down any second. Welp, on the bright side, maybe being crushed flat will wake me up."

[Snike]

No weapons, no allies, no signs of life. Blake was, to say the least, unsuccessful in his search so far. Perhaps it was time to enter the coliseum itself and see what was within its' depths... Or maybe not, as a tremor nearly knocked Blake off of his feet the moment he turned to enter. Alright, then, whoever was running this dream. He'd keep doing what he was doing for a few more minutes. The man corrected his course and continued around the arena's perimeter.

***

"It's fine. But, missing your things, huh...," Grant said, subconsciously reaching for the tome and the bolts that weren't there. His face flickered into a frown for a moment, before returning to friendly. "He took my belongings as well. Right, well I'm guessing the others are around here, so we'd best be moving."

Before he could take the initiative on that statement, there was a tremor that hit the whole area. Grant was nearly knocked off of his feet, but once he recovered, he could see dark spots appearing on the floor of the structure- it was an arena, so if this was supposed to be ironic then it had succeeded in its' task-, each of them swelling at an incredible rate.

"And let's stay away from the ground level, alright?," Grant added, as lightly as possible. "That doesn't appear to be too pleasant."

Edited March 18, 2013 by Snike

[Script]

Dream of Gar Called

The wyvern chase scene ended with a link-up with lance-woman and new-woman and pink-boy. "Yeah, I dunno about my clothes," Gar traced one of his many, manly man many scars as he did so. "Woke up without them and a lot of my gear. Got a sack of bacon apples though. And speaking of which," Gar pulled one out for the wyvern he rode in on.

Edited March 18, 2013 by Script

[Ether]

"Yeah... we are unarmed after all." Faatina replied, agreeing with Reign on the matter, as the pair began to make their way closer to the arena floor where everything seemed to be happening. Faatina couldn't pick out much despite the better point of view... that was until a woman dashed through into the center of the pool of darkness, the way she came soon being blocked off.

"Reign, that woman, she- that's not Raquel, is it?!" Faatina exclaimed, pointing the woman out to Reign... on closer inspection while she certainly looked similar to Raquel... though the merchant would have had to fall into a few buckets of paint before looking quite like this woman.

*********

"Well that's right convenient. We can all get inside with two wyverns, eh?" Arietta echoed as she exited the ruins of the arena and stood next to Gabbie.

*********

"I gotta say, that's pretty impressive." Kit noted at the spectacle occurring.

"Keep showing me stuff like this and you aren't ever gonna get rid of me, Raquel."

[Eail]

Zach had been troubled by the tremor that had just occurred, something like that shouldn't exactly be normal on a floating arena. "Yeah... this isn't good." The sage muttered looking around. Up in the sky he could spot two wyverns before one landed a ways away, maybe they were part of the group. If nothing else Zach could seek them out, deciding to peek over the edge of the wall where they were he spotted the growing black ooze coming out of the center. "We need to find the others, now! I don't know what the hell that stuff is but it wont be good."

[roymbrog]

The sudden quake shook the arena and Synthia managed to brace herself on the wall instead of falling over. “What the hell…” The dragon was seriously trying to kill them, wasn’t he? Grant mentioned the ground floor, which drew the mage’s attention to the puddles of black goo spreading across the arena surface. That was indeed unpleasant. “I agree completely. To one of the gates, then?” she asked, but started off towards the nearest one before waiting for an answer.

-----

Oh, happy day! Volga hadn’t found Kat, sure, but she got another bacon apple. The wyvern pried it out of Gar’s hand and then sat on the ground, mostly content. What had she been doing again?

[Balcerzak]

There had been a succession of oddities, one after the other at the camp, until things had finally settled down and a meal of bear meat shared by all around the fire. Just how Sinbad had managed not to pull his pistol on the woman with the fox tails was somewhat of a mystery even to him, though, as his knee-jerk reaction of "fallen-spawn, treat with extreme prejudice" would easily have warranted it. Perhaps having seen the phantasmal dragon head previously had led him to grow to expect the unusual and the arcane, at least for tonight, in this company. The fact that she wasn't met with overt hostility by any of the others probably helped as well, but Sinbad got the feeling he'd be constantly on edge around her, whether he wanted to or not.

After the meal, everyone had hunkered down for the evening, each finding sleep wherever they were comfortable, and Sinbad was comfortable close near his mare, resting up against a fallen log. A shallow sleep soon found him riding Hatsune across the open plains, heading off into a picturesque vermillion sunset. And then suddenly they were riding along a flat stone surface, some midway up what appeared to be a gigantic circular structure, obviously intended for gatherings of some sort, based on the rows and rows of bench-like seating heading up and down wherever you would look. Sinbad quick turned his head behind him, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Had they just ridden straight out of thin air. Puzzled he reached up and scratched the back of his head, continuing to take stock of things. He was apparently on some sort of well, not really a landing but a somewhat wider section not immediately filled with seating, and near the bottom of a set stairs leading up to a section above.

Ah, a pair of folk he recognized, well, perhaps this was the start of the teamwork exercise then. Everything clicked into place a little, and he nudged Hatsune to trot on over to the pair. Going up and down the stairs might get a little interesting, he thought in the brief time it took to reach them, but we should be able to manage. Best dismount now though. Swinging off he addressed his fellow dreamers, magic users the both of them if he remembered right, but honestly which element or whatnot he would certainly not have been able to peg down. The lady in blue with the headband, hmm, blue maybe water? The fella with the grey hair and green cloak, wind perhaps? Would it matter either way?

"Reckon I'm not just dreaming ya up, and this thing has started proper now? That dragon fella sure chose an interestin' place to magic us into. Don't seem to be around though, where you reckon we find him?"

[Mercakete]

As she ran, Rizen eventually came across another human. She'd seen him before in the herd, so that was lucky. There weren't any predators around this one either, so she simply ran up to Blake sand gave him the same greeting as she'd given the others before the predators arrived. Surely this one would be able to help her find the things!

[Parrhesia]

The merchant was in a bad way, muttering incoherently to himself. He could barely see... his vision was blurry, nothing made sense... doubt gripped at his heart as he knew deep down something was wrong...

Magic. The blasted stench of it was everywhere.

"to kiIILLL th'se _{r'sponsible..."}

Rook's feet dragged in the earth as he walked blindly, clutching at Marella. Suddenly, he heard a name, and red hate flashed out before him. _{"D-damn it... can}not be seen weak li- like this 'n front of _{that dog-whore}..."

With a massive amount of effort, Rook stood to his full height in the spinning madness that made up this dream world, and tried to focus on the task at hand. "What do you want," he said, gruffly but faintly.

[Snowy_One]

Robin and Tia - Confusion Junction!

"<I agree with you Zach.>" said Robin, taking a peek over the side as well. "<At the least that black ooze is magical or nightmare, and for dream training, both are probably really bad. Come on, we have two mages, a hunter, a drunkard, and your girlfriend here and if we run into something like one of my nightmares involving large animals attacking me, we're all screwed. Never mind whatever Rook could probably dream up.>" she said before grabbing both Zach and Tia on the shoulder.

"<Let's go. I think I can hear some of the others and, even if not, I know a bit about navigating things like this.>" she said before starting to pull/lead the two away.

"Hey! Stop speaking in funny-talk!" squeaked Tia as Robin started to pull the girl along, trying to reach the stairs in the arena to head to the passageways where she could swear she could hear several people, including Shadrak.

Edited March 18, 2013 by Snowy_One

[scorri]

Raising an eyebrow, Marella gently grabbed Robin's wrist. "Now, before we go rushing off, how about we figure out exactly what we're going to do? For instance, running off with two members of the group and leaving the other two to fend on their own doesn't seem like a great idea. For that matter, running anywhere isn't a good idea. Moving quickly, but deliberately is the way to go here. Someone should be in front who has a weapon, so Zach, you should lead. Bringing up the rear should be someone who's ready to deal with surprises and can also fight. I'll take the rear. Spread out on two sides should be the people who have an eye for spotting danger so that can be our two archers. And then in the middle is a supporting attack who can go anywhere, aka our wild card. Which means you Tia. Now. Any questions before we start moving off to find the others?"

Edited March 18, 2013 by scorri

[Snike]

After a few more minutes of fruitless searching, a pegasus came up to Blake, snorted, whinnied, then just stood there expectantly. Upon further inspection, the winged creature was Norbert's mount, so, assuming this was the place, Bert would be around here somewhere.... And knowing Bert, he'd probably just rush head-in. Great.

"... Alright, let's go find your rider," Blake said, gesturing for the pegasus to follow him, as he took the nearest entrance into the coliseum. Hopefully there would be some ramps inside so he could get a vantage point. If not, well, he'd probably find Bert in the arena proper, knowing the pegasus rider.

***

"Got it," Grant said, picking up a few stones as he followed Synthia. They weren't much, but if anything nasty came along, he might be able to distract it for a few seconds or so. Luckily for them, the first person they came across was the Kigenese man along with his mount who had joined them while he was in the woods. Looks like he wasn't imagining this, after all.

"No, I don't think this is a dream," Grant said, evenly, as he put a few of the stones in his newly-emptied pouch. "And I'm more concerned about our weapons being taken away. Do you have yours?"

[Mercakete]

As she was walking down the hall, the vendors' various booths eventually stopped lining the walls and as she turned a corner, she halted, a bit surprised by the sight. For a moment, she just stared, then wondered aloud, "What's a horse doin' here?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As Norbert was muttering and grumbling to himself while his eyes darted to and fro, he was still rather stuck on the fact that his maces were missing and how much that upset him. He was able to break out of that for a moment, however, as he thought he heard something. He stopped walking. The footsteps he heard were clearly not his own at this point. I'm at a disadvantage if whoever they are have weapons.

Immediately thinking whoever it was had to be the ones who'd stolen his maces, Norbert hid behind one of the large pillars in the area and waited as silently as he could muster, fully intending to ambush whoever it was.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Finally, some progress! Clearly this human knew where the things were and was taking her right to them! What a considerate human. So, Rizen proudly followed this human. She'd done a good job at finding a way to find the things! Now her rider wouldn't be upset!

Edited March 18, 2013 by Mercakete

[Eail]

Zach

Zach, urked, for a lack of a better word once Robin began to drag him off, thankful to Marella that she'd actually stopped that though before he'd have to say anything about Robin's endeavor to split up the group. "Works for me Mar. Just one question though, which direction do you think we should start at? I mean I saw the Wyvern fly off over there." Point in the direction he'd seen Volga go "But that might be a risky move, who knows if it's actually one of us or not."

Luka

The pinky was, rather confused by the half naked man in front of them with a so called bacon apple. The tracing of his scars wasn't exactly a fun thing either, letting out a little shudder as Gar did so. All of the stuff that was happening right now really made the healer wish that Rika was with him, it seemed like this Wyvern had come through so why hadn't she? "Let's just find the others as soon as we can I say, who am I riding with? ....A Wyvern shouldn't be too much different than a Pegasus right?"

'Oh Lady Mercy if you can hear me please not Gar, please not Gar, please not Gar'

[-Cynthia-]

Veronika

The footsteps were getting closer...and finally it spoke, inquiring about the horse. It sounded like a lot like Gytha, which relieved Veronika somewhat.

She stepped out from her hiding place cautiously. "I really have no idea what it's doing here- or what we're doing here for that matter. I thought 'training' wouldn't involve being stuck in random hallways. It's good to see someone else is here in any case, do you have any idea where we should go?" she asked the mariner hopefully.

Nadya

Nadya walked into a room with a lot of pillars and listened carefully. "I don't hear anythin' now- maybe it was just a giant rat or somethin'. This place is pretty old," she whispered to Valter.

[Mercakete]

Oh, well, that was a surprise. So, Veronika was there now and apparently she didn't know why the horse was there either. Nor why they were there, but still knew they were in the dream training area. She also didn't know where they were all supposed to go.

In response, Gytha shrugged. "Yer th' first person I've met here since I woke up," she replied, "Just came from someplace that looked like merchants should be, but it was empty. As fer why Dragon Head brought us here... Not sure. D' ye have any weapons, by any chance? Both o' mine're gone. Even me spare shot. Me money's missin', too, but I guess that doesn't matter too much here."

Then, the mariner added thoughtfully, "N' if ye don't have any weapons... Well, that'd make sense, I think."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Norbert was too far away to make out what was being said, but he heard whispering. Did they hear me earlier? Blast it... I'll just have to listen for a good opportunity. When they start leaving, I'll see if I can get closer...

[-Cynthia-]

Veronika

"It seems part of our training is trying to make us more resourceful or somesuch. Maybe we're supposed to improvise with our hands or the environment or something. Let's stay on alert and look for weapons or allies. Raquel and the others should be in here somewhere, right?" she asked Gytha somewhat rhetorically.

[Mercakete]

"Hmm actualla, I was thinkin' this doesn't have t' do with fightin' so much," she explained, "Y' see, th' trouble with us isn't when we're in combat. When we're all fightin', we can work t'gether a'right. It's when we're not fightin' anaone else that we start fightin' each other. Maybe we don't have out weapons b'cause we're supposed t' work t'gether t' figure out what's goin' on. That's what I think, anaway."

[scorri]

"We have no better place to start off with, so we may as well start that way. Remember, quickly, quietly, and in diamond formation. We have to assume hostility from anything here." Fading back to the rear, Mar waited for Zach to start heading out.