Return of the Emblem Chapter Twelve: Divergent Paths

[Mercakete]

When the human suddenly came over, Rizen neighed, turned to at least somewhat face her and backed away, lowering her horn defensively. Her hand was out. Had she tried to take something? Was she trying to hurt her rider? She wasn't holding a heal stick...and she'd approached really quickly...

[scorri]

"Whoa, whoa, Rizen. It's ok. It's ok. I'm just trying to help you and your rider." Lumi backed up a few steps and held her hands up so that it was clear she wasn't holding anything. "Hey, it's ok. You're injured and so's your rider. It's ok." Talking in a soothing voice, she continued to just stand there, not trying to approach any closer. "I don't want to hurt you. You can trust me, it's ok."

[Snike]

"We just had a cavalry unit completely wiped out. The 'soldiers' you spoke of, the ones left, are two in number, and while I trust them, that's not enough manpower as-is," Blake said, clenching his fist. "We can't be sure that that was the end of it, or that backup will arrive in time if there are other demons around. The fact that Fury left is exactly why I'm going to help the evacuation effort, so it can go off while it's still relatively safe. As for the estate... I'm of more use here, where most of these people can't defend themselves, as opposed to there, where everyone can. As I previously said, I'll head over to the estate once that's done, but for now, I have to do this."

[ReformBlade]

Rolling his eyes at Angelica, Jericho went a full rotation right back towards Eva, "The name's Jericho, a travelling... Um... My name's Jericho, I set things on fire and I guess I know healing on the side though really I should learn how to work that into a song or something... Man that'd be badass, bust out my harmonica and just BAM!" A clap for emphasis, he couldn't hide his enthusiasm, but it didn't last very long all the same.

Aneda walked in on Lumi acting super cautious, guessing what was up with all her shouting ahead of time. Making sure not to draw much attention to herself with wilder movements, something she totally would have liked to do, instead she just sort of spoke in a hushed tone to her companion. "Hey, Rizen's uh... a bit protective of her owner. Might wanna just take it easy until we can... Well damn, not much we can do. Where is that kid anyway? he'd probably have a better shot, heh." Hearing her rider's voice, Hannah decided to pay a visit too, nipping Aneda on her ear, prompting a yelp and a giggle. "Hannah! Oh come on girl, shush, don't startle me like that..."

Edited January 12, 2014 by ReformBlade

[scorri]

Erion

"I... alright. I'll do my best to keep Raquel at ease until you get back, but I can't make any promises. I wish for her sake that you were coming back, but I'll accept that you have your reasons. Good luck with things here." Erion nodded and then turned back to Raquel. "If we want to try and help out with a possible attack on the estate, we should probably head back now or soon. I'll ride back with you, if you don't mind?"

Lumi

"Well, I need to look at his wounds. If they've already started healing, we'd be better served to get them clean and then heal them. If they're still bleeding though, then we should get Eli to stop that. We don't want to risk him getting infected. I'm also worried about Rizen. She's pretty injured too so I don't want to leave her like this..."

[Mercakete]

Rizen was still on-edge, but she was glad that these humans and the pegasi with them were leaving her and her human alone. They were speaking gently, but that was a thing humans did sometimes, regardless of her being around, or if they wanted her to stay still. It did help to ease her slightly, though. Still, she took a wary step back. What with her rider being in the state he was in and she being in the state she was in, she much preferred fleeing to fighting. This was probably the safest place she could be, though, so all the pegasus could really do was hope that help would come or at least that they would be left alone. Either way, she refused to stop pointing her horn in the general direction of the other two and the humans, letting off a soft, warning nicker and fanning her spread wings as best she could with her near-raw wing-shoulders being in the condition they were in.

[Phoenix]

Herding Cats

Joanna carefully moved the handkerchief so she could see the wound and then proceeded to heal it. Being as minor as it was, there wasn't much to it, something she was glad for; there was no telling how much more work she was in for that night. "All done. Are there any other injuries?"

As more and more chitchat filled the air, the occupants of the tavern became curious. Had the army gotten here? No, but it was much safer now than it had been a few minutes ago, one man found out as he peeked outside. "What's going on? Who are all these people? Mercenaries?"

Ken smiled helplessly and then shrugged at the guy. "I ... guess you could say that. You should head back inside for now though; I don't think we're ready to leave just yet."

"I wonder if they'd be willing to let us borrow one of those wagons to get these people out of here," Jessica quietly mused. It didn't seem too unreasonable if they could get people out of the area faster.

Raquel had been standing by, her glance shifting from the wagon, which was now facing the other way, and the exchange between Blake and Erion. She hoped the latter could convince the former to just come along with them, but if she couldn't do it, would he fare any better? The answer was no, but that was the result she had been expecting, so she wasn't anymore disappointed than before. Instead of moping about the half completed mission, she focused on what would inevitably come next, heading back without Blake.

"Okay ... let's not waste anymore time. The sooner we make sure everything at the estate is fine, the sooner ... wait." She'd just realized that by her own logic, she'd have them coming back here after merely 'checking in' if that's what it came down to, which seemed a bit repetitive if not utterly useless. Perhaps Blake would have finished escorting people to safety by then, or perhaps he'd have found more people to help by and this would become a cycle. Her head was starting to hurt just thinking about how many more hours this could drag on. "Okay, one step at a time. Let's go see how things are back at Weyland's." If they haven't been attacked by now they probably won't be; everything's calming down around here, at least ....

Stray Cats

"This just goes to show how apathetic the gods really are. No matter how bad it gets, they don't life a finger to help anyone," Nadine muttered while helping Reign along. He could walk well enough, but his arm was still in a great deal of pain and so she used her arms to keep him steady.

"Yeah, no kidding. I'm not too upset about it, though. I'm sure their help would be expensive, financially or otherwise," Reign replied. "Besides, at least we've got magic, light magic in particular.

"Yeah ... but what was that theory about magic coming to the world from the heavens? Sometimes I wonder if they're just ... 'relieving' themselves on us and 'magic' is just ... divine feces or something to that effect," she explained, half jokingly.

Reign winced slightly. "Oigh, that's messed up. Don't put that image in my head; we're covered in this stuff, Nadine ...." She shrugged at that as they continued on.

Blown Away; Blown Up

As the smoke was struck by the wind spell, it cleared away, leaving the trail much shorter than before, but only a glimpse of a figure running into the younger parts of the smokescreen could be seen. The second Anna felt she could get off a shot without hurting any allies, she took aim and fired. She wasn't expecting a clean kill, but she had a good feeling she was going to set one of the fallen up to be recaptured or killed ... she wasn't sure if she was about to blow up a former prisoner or a would be rescuer and she wasn't picky, either.

As the bolt struck the ground in the center of the tail end (the new tail end) of the snaking smoke, it exploded and a sizzling figure came tumbling out and into the air as another section was dispersed. It was one of the fallen, the bald one, and Anna didn't know his name.

<"Help me, princeeeeeess,"> Gunnar yelled as he tumbled helplessly through the air, propelled by the explosion. He tried to right himself so he could fly away, but by the time he figured out what he was doing, he landed halfway up the staircase right near the guards. He groaned weakly as he tried to decide which hand to nurse his back with.

"Well that's one," Anna noted as she reloaded her crossbow. She figured with the guards recovering from the surprise attack and so many others around, this one wasn't getting away.

Long Time No Plea

Siv's gaze darted from person to person as she tried to catch up on what was likely happening. From what she could gather, there was some doubt that Valdimarr was no longer a threat. Was it all of these little lights? She tried to take one into her hands out of curiosity, something that hadn't occurred to Weyland, Gabbie, or Steinn before that point, but nothing seemed to come of it. As far as Siv could tell, it was a seemingly weightless glowing speck, a beautiful speck, but a speck nonetheless.

Gabbie turned away from the scene and pretended to go back to her battle oversight, but she had something else in mind. Given the likely nature of the situation they were in, Steinn was in serious trouble; Weyland too. Steinn or any of the other two fallen might pick up on what she was really doing, but if she let that stop her from at least trying, whatever happened next would be partially on her head. I don't know if you can hear me anymore ... or if you're even listening ... it's been a long time, but ... ... but I seriously need a favor.

In the middle of Gabbie's prayer, Steinn looked over his shoulder to see if he could get a glimpse into her jumbled senses again. Like always, he wasn't picking up anything visually or audibly useful, but what she was 'talking' about was curious. <What deity is she praying to ...?>

Just then, he caught a glimpse of something in her thoughts, something vaguely human, but inherently different. After that, whatever she was picturing became too foreign for him to interpret. He thought it best not to interrupt her and instead get back to his own planning, but Weyland would have inadvertently prevented him either way. "If Valdimarr isn't actually dead, then we need to move you to another location. The problem is I can't think of a location completely safe from his warping ability."

"He wasn't the only one who knew that technique," Steinn noted, hinting at himself. "... but he has mastered it on a level I've never encountered before. My brothers must have died pitifully," he ended, frowning as his gaze fell to the floor.

I know he's a fallen, but he's a cute one--AND MORE IMPORTANTLY ... he's ... trying to turn this situation around. Please ... please help us survive this.

[spoiler=A Proud Soul]<"NOOOOOOOOOARRRRGH!!!">

Ragna winced as she saw her sovereign cry it in rage. He slammed his fist the floor several times as well, making the atmosphere even more tense for her. She didn't bother asking what the hell just happened to make him go from being calm cool and collected to being consumed by overwhelming rage. She could tell what went wrong just by listening a little closer. <"He ... defeated you.">

Valdimarr took deep breaths as he stared at the ground, the look of shocking and bitter realization on his face. What had him so upset, more than failing to kill Steinn the first time around, and more than failing to complete his other objectives, was the fact that ... if not for Obelisk summoning him for that talk, and explaining the situation to him, as well as granting him his new power, he would be dead right now. Knowing this, knowing that he was one missed meeting from being obliterated from this world was infuriating. As he stood up, he looked out over the city and took another deep breath.

<"Do you know what that's like, Ragna? To be so close ... and then to have victory taken from you by such cowardice?">

<"Forgive me for saying this but ... I'm almost certain Steinn would feel the same way. You aren't willing to give him the honor of being struck down by the real Valdimarr?"> she asked, cocking her head at him.

<"NO!!! Never ... if that worthless piece of garbage won't face me in a duel then he won't face me at all. He can choke on these pale imitations, instead."> He might have continued on, but Fury arrived shortly after his ranting reached a pause.

<"Fervor. My lord,"> he greeted them. The first thing Ragna noticed was that he was holding his left hand in his right and smirked. <"Fervor, you will reattach this for me.">

Her smirk immediately became a slightly annoyed, slightly confused expression. <"You know I only answer to our sovereign here ... convince him or do it yourself,"> she teasingly laid out her conditions before strolling to Valdimarr's side. <"It seems you have a choice now. Go back and finish Steinn off, or ... fall back for now. I have no objection to either since ... aside from killing Steinn, everything else has gone splendidly.">

<"Indeed. Aside from a few special individuals, the strength of the humans living here in the north is well within the expected range. We can defeat them in a full scale invasion. We need only test those in the northeast, and then we can begin. Whether or not Steinn lives will not hinder our plans any further.">

<"At least he won't be able to with your new found power,"> Ragna amended.

<"Power ..."> Valdimarr scowled and held up his right arm. After pulling back his sleeve, he and both architects could see a glowing golden bracer on his wrist. <"... I'm not sure I want to call this a ... power.">

Fury took a step closer and leaned ever so slightly to get a better look at Valdimarr's accessory. <"I sense your reluctance, my Lord ... but it is your responsibility to survive and to lead. You cannot allow yourself to be slain, and not by Steinn of all people. Your death would spell the end of this plan.">

<"I don't ... want to rely on this ... thing,"> Valdimarr hissed.

Ragna waited for a moment, and then quickly stepped in front of Valdimarr, placing her hands on his shoulders. <"At least use it to deal with Steinn. He would never face you directly with or without it ... so why should you even consider holding back? Use it, destroy him, and prove to everyone who still doubts that you are our sovereign ... please? Whatever you decide to do, don't hold onto that terrible expression; I can't stand to see you this conflicted.">

<"Face Steinn without the device,"> Fury offered. <"It will make little difference this time ... if the disgraced prince has already revealed all of his tricks and traps.">

It soon became apparent to Valdimarr that he was getting conflicting advice. Well, there was always the third option ... and no, it wasn't retreating; that was never an option as far as Valdimarr was concerned. Falling back a few paces, sure, but what he had in mind was more thorough anyway. <"... Steinn deserves to die a dog's death ... but I do want to see it with my own eyes. I'm going, but I'm not going alone.">

The two architects stood back as Valdimarr began to stretch his limbs a little and a golden glow surrounded him. Before long, they were seeing double, as an identical twin emerged, walking out in front of the original. Once they were free of each other, the golden glow vanished, they stood beside each other, and there was nothing left to distinguish the two ... ... except for ....

[scorri]

Erion was about to follow then paused. "Wait. Blake." He grabbed his horse's reins and offered them to the man. "Take my horse. That way at least you'll be able to get back to the estate quicker than if you were walking." Turning back to Raquel, he nodded. "Right, lets go then. Lets go make sure everyone's ok."

[Nanami Touko]

"Jerry, alright. Three names to remember so far; shouldn't be that hard." He's a traveling 'Um' that sets things on fire. Cute. Eva laughed a little more. "That'd be pretty neat. Get your music to heal anyone that could hear it. Imagine how useful that'd be. Is that even possible, though?" Hmm.

[ReformBlade]

"I can see that, but look how defensive she's being about this. You'd think she'd never seen anyone else around her before..." That seemed odd to Aneda in a sense, but she wrote it off as the poor thing seeing its owner hurt, it being injured too, and getting spooked. "I just think maybe we could try getting her feeling better first before one of us gets hurt just trying to do the right thing to a scared animal. I mean if you can heal her or fix her, I got your back but uh... yeah."

"Jerry huh? Haven't been called that in years, now that I think about it..." He smiled at her, reminiscing about days gone past before thinking about how she seems quick to apply some nicknames pretty swiftly. Eh, maybe she just likes doing that. "And I dunno about you, but if my music could heal, I could see that getting real obnoxious real fast, hahaha."

[Nanami Touko]

Alright, that name gets to stick. Didn't get a death glare for it. "Hope you enjoy hearing it often. I tend to throw nicknames at everyone I meet to make it easier to remember their names. If it's a bother, I normally get informed," she said, motioning at Angelica. But quickly, back to Jericho, Obnoxious? "What, is your music bad? If you play well it would probably be fine. Unless you mean you'd just play forever."

[Snike]

"...Thanks," Blake said, as he accepted the reins from Erion. "Good luck."

With that said, and the mercenaries preparing themselves to leave, the Ursian man returned to the tavern, forcing himself to present a calm front.

"We need to start evacuating, while the area's relatively safe," he said to the two privates. "We'll try to escort the survivors to the gate, but I think we're definitely going to need the aid of the adults. How many adult survivors do we have?"

[Snowy_One]

With the group getting ready to leave, Robin was way ahead of them. She had little and what little remained she already was carrying with her. She only needed either the order or general command and she would be ready to go back to the estate. Not like there was anything of value here for her.

---

Meanwhile, Tia had been busy, carefully tying together bits and pieces of her clothes so that they could keep together during the walk. The cat's attack had, doubtless, been purely feral, but these clothes weren't just ordinary clothes to Tia. When she had completed her studies her master had given them to her as a gift. Blue robes for the water mage, woven with the upmost care and expensive. She hadn't made a fuss about it before, but before any damage done could have been easily repaired with thread and needle if any had been done or come out with careful application of magic. Now, hunks of the dress were missing! There was no needle in the world that could fix that! Even if she found the cat and, somehow, it still had the shards, the damage was done. The dress was ruined. When they got back to the manor she'd need all new clothes to say the least.

"Too bad healing magic doesn't work on clothes." she said with an annoyed grunt before idly wondering just how many adventurers were skilled with the needle. It would need to be a sizable portion as such a skill would be useful for sure.

Edited January 15, 2014 by Snowy_One

[ReformBlade]

"Call me whatever, just so long as I know your'e talking to me and it's not derogatory" He smiled as he went on, "Well I wouldn't really play it forever but, hmm... I dunno, when I'm hurting, I probably don't want like some song number every time I'm down. You know?" Jericho shrugged, "Anyway, I don't think I'm bad but I don't want to friggin serenade you as you've got a bullet wound, hahaha."

[Nanami Touko]

"Haha, alright." Whatever I want, huh? Wonder how he'd feel about Jer. Probably not too keen on it. "Why not? It'd be so romantic, singing your allies back to the battle~" she clasped her hands together as she spoke, "like some old tale, the music of love filling life into those around it. Or, something." She pulled her hands apart quick, wondering how weird she'd already come across as. "Sorry about that. Don't have much to do while I fly, so I read a lot. Sometimes they're pretty stupid."

[Phoenix]

Tavern

"Umm ... about seven?" Ken answered with uncertainty in his voice. When Jessica saw him glancing at her, hoping for some confirmation, she almost shrugged. In spite of not giving that obvious signal that she didn't know, her expression told him everything he needed to know. "At least seven," he amended.

Feeling now was a good time to bring up her point about the wagons, Jessica spoke next. "Is there any way they can spare one of those? They don't seem to be heading back with as many as they came with ... even the new people can fly or ride on horseback. None of the people in the tavern have that luxury."

"I doubt they're willing to share ... besides we can just find our own wa- ... wait, WHAAAT THE HELL ARE WE DOIIING?! If we're escorting these people to the outer wall, and those people are heading to Weyland's--yeah I've been eavesdropping--we can just all go together. They don't have to take these people as far as Weyland's, but as long as we're heading in the same general direction, we should stick together."

"Aside from the dwindling wagon space, that sounds like it might work out," Jessica admitted.

As Raquel approached the front end of the wagon she was going to be riding back in, she glanced back to see the tavern; she wouldn't be able to after taking another step. Blake was speaking with the two surviving soldiers about something, but she was way too far away to hear anything other than Ken's initial outburst, and aside from that, she had no idea what he could be on about. Just need to get back quickly and make sure everything is alright, She told herself.

Joanna returned to Valter and stood by, a little lost in her own thoughts. I hope others aren't still suffering nearby while I'm just standing here. I miss knowing what's going on. I've felt so completely isolated since I left home.

[Oersted]

Orville had been in the tavern when the fighting started and there when it ended. There were at seven other adults like him, inside prepared for the worst yet not courageous enough to step outside and fight, and three more upstairs with the children. It was a pitiful adult to children ratio though it was painfully obvious why it was so low. Adults, parents, would and could fight to protect. Children as young as these could only run and watch in horror as their parents and others fought to the death for them. The only solace Orville had is that he had helped get some of these children to the tavern, though it did little to outweigh the fact that the parents of most of said children were dead. At the very least the sound of battle had ended.

"Is the fighting finally over? Are we safe from those things?" Orville asked as he poked his head outside the door to the tavern. It was a redundant question, if they weren't he'd probably would've just died, though it still felt like it needed asking. He answered his own question with a glance around the area. Ken and Jessica seemed to be in the middle of a conversation, something about being uncertain about the number of adult survivors. Something which Orville knew. "I'd say the number of adult survivors is eleven unless I missed someone upstairs."

[Phoenix]

Tavern

"Well, 'safe' would be a ... relative term at best, and an outright lie at worst," Jessica explained. There was no telling if other demons were just waiting for the chance to strike.

"But we may just have a way around the problem of walking into an ambush," Ken noted, pointing to the closest of the two wagons. He didn't trust the mercenaries to go along with his little idea without at least a little pressure. After all, with eleven adults and even more children, some people would be forced to ride on the roofs for them to have enough room for everyone here.

[-Cynthia-]

Veronika

Veronika waited in a wagon for everyone else to get moving. If Blake insisted on staying after all this, then she doubted they could convince him- at least it seemed unlikely that another large wave of demons would be coming through this way.

Nadya

Nadya occupied herself with healing the wounded and moving them out of the doorway- which seemed like a particularly good idea when some strange smoke began to appear. I ain't goin' in there, she decided, sticking by the wounded away from the estate entrance.

Fallen

Sigrid and Haldor managed to fly out of a window of the estate back to the arranged rendezvous point outside of the city. She was approached by Skari shortly after landing.

<"So were you and Lord Valdimarr successful, Lady Sigrid? I am afraid that my demons were slightly overmatched by the human security forces so they were unable to assist- I really must reinforce their spines more carefully in the future and perhaps make more bears yes the venom was quite-">

<"Lord Valdimarr is dead and Siv remains in Steinn's custody,"> she cut him off, saying no more for the time being. I shot an arrow at the future Emperor...how am I going to talk my way out of this one I wonder?

[Toogee]

As Amon put her down, Jam found herself leaning against the wall for support. Though her wounds were mostly healed, she was still quite a bit sore, or at least that's how she felt. Worse, a cloud of smoke emerged from the front door. This cloud hid the enemy within it, as evidenced by Anna's shot at one of the foes. There was no way of getting out of its way without risking further injury, so Jam scooted along the wall until she was next to Alphonse. They had front row seats to the Fallen's final act of the night.

[ReformBlade]

"Oh come on, do I seem like the romantic type to you? Tsk tsk, you got some learning to do, young lady..." Shaking his head in mock disappointment, "Anyway, it looks like things seem to be wrapping up, so if you're gonna come with us or tag along and what not, awesome, hitch a ride." Randomly saluting the girl, he entered a wagon and sat his rear end down, awaiting transit to Weyland's with his arms crossed in deep thought. Or out of boredom.

[Nanami Touko]

"No, not really. Not at all, honestly," she said with a smirk. "And I'm not that young. I'm twenty one. You can't be that much older, if you even are." She hopped onto the wagon, and kept standing, not in a mood to sit. Despite it being night she was still far too exhilarated from what had happened earlier. "Guess I will, sir," she said in a mocking tone, giving him a half assed salute in return, with a small chuckle.

Edited January 13, 2014 by I have opinions

[Balcerzak]

Most of the fog from earlier had cleared, for some reason, and as he was looking around, it seemed like everyone else had a firm control on the situation regarding the wounded. If Mushirah wasn't out of Sinbad's line of sight, no doubt he would have thought differently. Still, everyone seemed to be either tended to by healers, or already moved out of any likely way of harm by folks like Gytha. Guess there really wasn't much left to do besides find his pistol after all.

As he was thinking that, though, some guards had poured out of the entrance, followed by an almost slithering, serpentine coil of dense smoke, completely unlike the fog from before. Some crazed Weyland employee fired into it, without regard for friend or foe before Sinbad could stop her however, and the results turned out to be charmed, as miraculously it was an enemy that was hit by the bolt fired by what appeared almost to be a monstrosity of a crossbow. The fallen was in a bad way, and close enough to the guards that nothing the cowboy would have done would have been any more effective, but the foul feathered fiend was unlikely to be alone, what with what seemed to be a screeched appeal of some sort in its native tongue. Perhaps fortune was with Sinbad, though, as he spotted a glint of reflected light in the periphery of his vision, perhaps from the explosive bolt, that clued him in on the location of his flintlock. Well, time to get it, and get prepared, it seemed.

[Phoenix]

The Parting Shot

Gunnar tried to forget about his aching back and pick himself up so he could flee, but one of the guards immediately stepped over him and conked him over the head with his sword hilt. He wasn't knocked out by the sudden attack, but any thought of escape was easily replaced by a desperate need to make the pain stop. <"Ahaaaaaagh, whyyyy-">

<"Princess, we're not just going to leave Gunnar here are we?"> Runa asked Norn while following her through the smokescreen.

<"There's too many of them; if we go back now, all of this will be pointless. I can only hope he dies a warrior's death,"> Norn painfully replied. Despite Gunnar's shortcomings--and there were many--, she still--too many to list here in fact--considered him one of her loyal and dedicated followers; she didn't want him to die, but turning back now meant certain capture or death. <G-g ... goodbye, Gunnar. Fight well,> were her parting thoughts to her oddball of a warrior.

Suddenly she sensed something off; Loki was moving straight backward. Without even looking, she knew what he was trying to do, he was trying to save Gunnar. <"Loki, wait,"> Norn pleaded, but he had already left the cover she was providing and began tossing ice spells at the guards surrounding Gunnar.

The very guard that had tried to violently subdue Gunnar wound up with a long icy shard stuck in his leg. He lost his balance from the combination of intense pain and his own attempts to remove the projectile and went tumbling down the stairs as Loki approached.

Runa, hoping to give the two some kind of fighting chance, emerged from the tail end of the smokescreen and unleashed a spell of her own before rushing back into it to follow Norn. It was another one of her ensnaring spells and it had been aimed straight at Anna. Despite seeing the move coming before it hit her, the thing was traveling way too fast for her to evade and rather than risking an explosion too close to herself by using the Visceral again, she braced herself for the hit. The spell was rough on contact, but only forced her back a ways; what really made it a nuisance was that she couldn't move much after the hit, as she was completely tangled up in the dense dark energy. Urgh, need to get out of this thing, somehow ....

The Arriving Shot

Gabbie was running out of ways to reword her pleas and so stopped after a moment and began to use her ability like she had until then, pretended to use. What she sensed initially was much the same as before, but once the man she was looking for came into range, she knew all of their suspicions were at least partially correct, but there was something more, something extremely disturbing about what she sensed.

She quickly raised her head and began to speak, saying, "Steinn, there's more th-" and being cut off by Valdimarr's sudden reappearance. He'd been moving so quickly between his warps, that he came into the conference room somersaulting. When he stopped, he was facing the western wall of the conference room and supporting his upper body with his left hand. He slowly turned his gaze toward Steinn and smirked.

<"Time for our second bout, little brother.">

Steinn winced ever so slightly. <"I suppose so ...">

"Wait a minute, there's two of them," Gabbie finally managed, but as she said this, Steinn was struck across the jaw by another instance of Valdimarr and was forced back several feet. "Oh no ..."

<Urgh ... he didn't warp to me to land that strike just now; I sense two of them ... this is a completely separate person! What's going on here?! Is this the power of the fire emblem at work ...? Unbelievable ....> Steinn was seeing stars after that hit, but a mild concussion and an incredibly sore jaw were the least of his concerns right now. He knew the only way to defend against two Valdimarrs at once would be to fall back to his barriers, and take a defensive stance until a good opportunity presented itself. There was no use relying on miracles in a situation like this, he felt, especially not since the miracles seemed to be under Valdimarr's control for the time being.

[roymbrog]

OoC: Until further notice assume I don't read any of these things before I post them because I'm not. They don't get posted if I do @__@

People were getting ready to head out, as evidenced by Raquel and some of the others getting into some of the wagons. Kat took this as here cue to sit up and be ready to leave herself, which took all of ten seconds. She was pretty sure they were just heading back to Weyland’s, in which case she could just fly there on her own, but it wouldn’t hurt to check first. She had Volga walk around to the back of one of the wagons, where the wyvern curiously popped her head in. Kat shoved it back out after dismounting.

There were a couple of people there she didn’t recognize, but vaguely remembered the redhead from earlier in the day. “Hey, do you guys know if we’re heading straight back to Weyland’s, or if there are any detours…?”

---

It appeared they were done here, as people began packing the wagons in preparation to leave. The discussion over by the tavern caught Valter’s attention, though, as he could hear at least part of it from where he was standing. Though ultimately it was up to Raquel, he saw no reason why they couldn’t lend wagon space. Blake was right there though, so he would probably take care of that on his own.

More relevant to the horseman at the moment was Joanna’s appearance next to him, and he was a bit worried that she looked worried. His first inclination was to ask, “Are you alright?” but quickly realized that was probably a stupid question, considering the events of the last few hours. Based on her stated reasons for wanting to come along in the first place, he at least had a guess as to what was troubling her. “No one would accuse you failing to help. You’ve done your best, with the circumstances. I hope you’re not worrying about that,” he said.

---

The wind spell had been enough to reveal one of the escapees, who was soon sent flying out of the cloud into the middle of the guards. Synthia’s smug expression quickly disappeared as one of the other fallen left the cloud to fling ice spells, and she rushed out of the way in case they started missing and traveled back towards her. There wasn’t much she could do for the guards from where she was at the moment. The mage was pretty sure she wasn’t the best one to fight one of those things, and she didn’t particularly want to.