Return of the Emblem Chapter Twelve: Divergent Paths

[Phoenix]

Payback

Raquel shut her eyes tight, fearing Synthia was about to die while they stood by. She wouldn't be able to hold herself back for long, she knew, but she tried to hold on for just a few more seconds. Consequently, she didn't see Nadya rescue the mage.

"DIE!!!" Shadrak unleashed a death sphere that exploded against Tuncay's chest and began to burn into his armor. Tuncay ignored the damage to his armor and swung wide, aiming to cleave Shadrak in half, but Eva, despite the last round of violence, took the attack in his place. Tuncay outright parried the counter, however, having no intention of falling by the sword.

"Maybe you should lead with that next time," Reign muttered at Shadrak, noticing the good amount of damage he dealt, but the enraged druid didn't hear him. Raquel was still glowing, but not as brightly as before, and honestly, there were already three people on that, so he kept his eye on the fighting, or rather, he tried to. Io caught his eye when she yawned and then made for the entrance to the outer chamber. Was she leaving? I know watching fights from the sidelines can be pretty boring for some, but you'd think the host would at least see it through ...

"M-Miss Io," Simon called over. "Where are you going?" Not to get the authorities, I hope ... "The fight isn't over, yet."

"Out of energy," she lazily called back as she waved over her shoulder at them. "Word of advice, stay at least five meters from the source if you don't want your secrets exposed." With that cryptic advice delivered, she was gone down the dark hallway they came from.

Shadrak attacks Tuncay! Rolls 1,3,2

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4423622/

-12 hp

Tuncay counters! Rolls 4,1,3

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4423623/

-8 hp

Eva counters! Rolls 2,5,3

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4423624/

Miss!

Enemies:
Koray 0/51
Tuncay 4/48 Erratic
--------------------
Allies:
Shadrak 21/21
Eva 4/30
Erion 24/24
---
Nadya 1/21
Theodore 10/21
Hoshi 8/18
---
Eli 18/18
Katrina 8/24
Zachary 13/18
---
Synthia 0/15
Lumi 18/18
Orville 10/24

Edited March 8, 2014 by Phoenix

[Nanami Touko]

Despite being in severe pain, Eva didn't get much chance to rest, as Shadrak launched his magic into the knight. Without even flinching, he charged at the mage, sword flying for a definitive strike! She threw herself in the way and took a hard slash into her arm. A poor attempt at a counter was made, though for little effect. But she wasn't down yet! "You've... Both hit me... Three times! Three! And I'm still up! Come on... You can do, better... Than that!" She was gasping for breath, and in quite considerable pain. But it didn't seem like the fight would last much longer, not after that magic.

[scorri]

Erion

<"Eva, please, fall back. This is almost done, and you're hurting badly. There's no need for you to risk yourself any more."> Gripping his daggers tightly, Erion moved his way to set himself in between the lone knight and Eva. Gulping slightly, he set himself into a defensive stance, hoping to protect her if this continued.

Hoshi

"Hmm... this dark magic... If the emblem uses dark magic, it could be the source of this. But otherwise... something else would have to be the source, not the emblem." Hoshi was relaxing slightly since it seemed that the fight was almost over and she was starting to let the research part of her brain take over again. Hearing Io's comment, she raised an eyebrow. "Hmm, the source. Perhaps it is the emblem. Put maybe it's something else... Some sort of dark magic storage.... But reveal our secrets? That... Well hopefully I'll get to see soon."

[Script]

A Man Called Gar

"Annnnnnnd she knows more than she lets on. Wonderful." Gar rolled his eyes at the lazy woman drifting away. Gar put two and two together and came up with something that felt accurate. "Secrets huh?" Gar tapped the side of his head. "Hope we don't get a trip to the center of that arena again."

[-Cynthia-]

"What's the source? The new emblem piece? And what sort of secrets would it expose?" Veronika asked no one in particular, finding the priestess's words quite confusing.

[Nanami Touko]

Eva lazily pushed herself back in front of Erion, finally under control of her breath, only one hand on the sword. "<No way. We're almost done here, and I can take it. I've got at least one good hit left in me, so stay back!>" It sure was easy to act tough, but unless someone did knock this guy over, it'd be lights out for Eva.

[Oersted]

All it'll take to end this is one shot if I can aim it just right... Orville thought to himself, concentrating on the most recently damaged area of Tuncay's armor. "There!" he suddenly shouted as another orb of darkness was launched at the armored construct, never taking his eyes off the orb until it hit Tuncay directly in the chest. "Yes!" Orville exclaimed, clearly pleased with himself; though, his mirth lasted not even a moment as when he turned back to Tuncay it seemed as though whatever was in the suit was staring through his very being. It was then Orville realized that if he'd have somehow managed to flounce that last attack he could've easily have been cut in two by Tuncay.

[spoiler=roll] http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4423639/

Orville does 7 damage to Tuncay.

Tuncay is defeated!

[scorri]

Erion

Erion had been about to snap at Eva when Orville sent the final blast of magic into the knight and the process that had happened with the first knight was repeated. Almost collapsing in relief, he threw an arm around her instead and just whispered quietly, <"Please. Don't do that. We just met. There's no reason for you to be risking your life like that. I'm completely unhurt because of your brave actions. Sometimes you need to know when to back down though. Protecting me isn't worth risking your life.">

Lumi

As the final blow was dealt, Lumi lost control of her magic and dropped the lance she'd formed. It fell to the ground and shattered as she unsteadily walked over to where Synthia was on the ground. "Please... Tell me she's alright. I'm so sorry. I couldn't protect you."

Hoshi

"Hmm, yes. Now that this is over, hopefully we'll get some answers. I suppose that's why the woman left. She could tell that we were going to surely win..." Hoshi glanced over the group, noting that the one woman who had been sent to the ground was being taken care of. Glancing at Theo, she raised an eyebrow. "You should probably try and find a healer to patch up those wounds. Uhm, thank you for your protection, by the way."

[Nanami Touko]

Oh, thank you, Orville, Eva thought to herself, almost about to hit the floor when Erion threw his arm around her. It was enough to keep her up, though she didn't quite appreciate what he had to say. At least, in a certain sense. "<I'm flattered you think I was doing that just for you, but you're gonna have to realize, I get a little nuts when it comes to fighting... If you care that much, I can try to tone it down, but this was the most fun I've had in months. Maybe that's a little sad, but that's how it is.>" She offered him a small smile, and glanced around for any of the healers, wondering if they had time and magic to spare.

Edited March 8, 2014 by I have opinions

[ReformBlade]

Maybe it'd be something even we didn't know about ourselves? Or maybe she's bluffing. Man, I gotta stop expecting that, even if I still think it's completely rational. Jericho thought, not quite sure what to do about the events that just transpired. "I don't know." he said out loud, if only to actually show he was listening. "But I like to think I got nothing to hide? Still though..."

[Phoenix]

Abundant Darkness

"Is that it?" Reign pondered aloud. As if to answer that question, Tuncay's entire body began to shake violently for a little over one second. At the same time, several cracks emerged on his chest plate and an intense violet light shone through them. As soon as Tuncay stopped shaking, several more cracks appeared, and then the whole plate exploded, sending smoldering fragments toward the group as Tuncay's body fell into a kneeling position similar to Koray. The biggest shard just barely missed Reign's head as he ducked over to the right and embedded itself firmly in the wall.

If that wasn't bad enough, the thick cloud of dark energy erupting from the hole in Tuncay's chest quickly mixed in with the energy from Koray. The area around Tuncay's body began to produce sparks as the two masses interacted. The closer to Tuncay the sparks were, the more blueish they appeared in color, while those further away tended toward redness. The area was turning into a thick cesspool where parts of spells could form on their own, dark thunder's charging phase being among them, it seemed.

Shadrak hadn't been affected by the explosion, but the sparks, he noticed, were spreading out thinly which was of some concern. They didn't seem capable of building to dangerous levels, but he didn't want to get a light shock just trying to reach the inner chamber door. He looked back to Io hoping to ask her how to unlock the door now that they wouldn't be skewered for trying, but she wasn't even here anymore. "Where did she go?!" he snarled. Of all the times.

The sound of the explosion, as well as the feeling of shards crashing into things nearby snapped Raquel out of her withdrawal early enough to see what was going on and though the darkness in the area was increasing by the second, she was relieved to see that no one was dead. Her golden glow finally faded completely, and Nadine let her go. "What caused that explosion ...?"

Reign glanced at the piece of armor stuck in the wall, trying to peer through the smoke it was giving off--it must have been extremely hot from the blast--and see if there was a clue there. He could see glowing violet lines on what used to be the inside of the chest plate fragment. He didn't see how it was possible, but he supposed that perhaps these rune knights were controlled entirely by runes. They were tiny, but working together, maybe they could have produced the monstrosities he'd just seen them fight.

The inside of Tuncay's chest looked similar, with rune markings appearing by the thousands throughout the interior. There was something like a black mannequin inside the suit, blocking off view of most of the rune strokes written on the armor, but the mannequin itself was covered in them as well, though they weren't glowing as brightly as the strokes on the armor. The explosion had severely damaged the mannequin's chest though, and the burns were overlapping many of the markings. Tuncay was probably no longer functional at all.

[Toogee]

At last, the final foe went down. With all the threats seemingly gone, Eli walked back to the group. He was feeling significantly braver now that the swords were still. He found his work cut out for him: several people had been seriously injured. Among them, the girl named Synthia was still on the ground. Lumi appeared quite concerned for the girl, so Eli decided to start with her.

A quick examination revealed the smell of vulnerary; the healer’s wounds had previously been cleaned. That Eli could quickly get to work. With an outstretched staff, he focused on Synthia’s wounds to stop further blood loss. Eli sighed in relief as the healing magic helped the body regenerate.

“She’ll need rest, but she’ll walk away from this,” Eli said to Lumi before turning to her. “You OK?”

And then the knight Eli thought was defeated began to rumble. Upon hearing the explosion, he dived to the ground in a panic. He stayed down for a few seconds before peeking upwards. A dark mass of sparks was gathering; Eli immediately ducked back down to avoid retaliation.

[Script]

A Man Called Gar

"I wish all our enemies exploded."

[scorri]

Hoshi

"Wait, runes? Hmm..." Hoshi walked closer to the armor that only a few seconds ago had been animated and set to inspecting the runes. Pulling out a notebook from her satchel, she started to write down some of the runes that had been used. She couldn't see all of them, and many of the visible ones were obscured by burn marks, but that didn't stop her from trying to get down as many as she could. "Fully operational sentinels being fully controlled by runes? If I could replicate this..." She let her musings trail off as she continued to inspect the motionless suit of armor.

Erion

<"I just..."> He sighed and shrugged. <"You're right I suppose. It just doesn't make much sense to me to have you out in front when you're so wounded and to have me hide behind you when I have not a scratch on me. Not that I'm complaining about the job you did. You're an amazing fighter. Just... I don't know, no need to sacrifice yourself when both the people you're taking care of are completely fine. Though I guess I'm not really in a place to tell you how to fight."> He grinned at her. <"Oh and looks like you never had to 'save my ass' so I guess I escaped being punished, huh?">

Lumi

Seeing the multiple healers taking care of Synthia, Lumi stood and closed her eyes for a second, before opening them again. Walking back to Orville, she grinned at him. "Nice fight! That last blow was awesome. So did you listen to me and have fun? Aside from the one scary bit where I though that we might have lost one of our group, I know I did. And it looks like she's going to be fine, so in the end it seems like it was a good fight!"

[Nanami Touko]

Erion shrugged and Eva finally fell over, falling flat on her ass and groaning. She was quick to pick herself up, even if the task took her a few moments to accomplish. "<Let me be as serious about this as I like to be. If your regular battles are easier than this one, then, piece of cake. I'll be just fine.>" She brought out a smile, but coughed, and tasted a bit of blood. Ohhhh, that's no good. "Any of you healers free? If you're not, that's okay and all, I can wait." As long as she didn't have to wait for a few hours, she'd be fine. "<Yeah, how unfortunate. But you did good, so I won't complain. Wonder how you'd have done if I hadn't been standing in front of you, though...>" she mused with a wry smile. Damage didn't stop her attitude.

[-Cynthia-]

"So this was...a doll or something?" Veronika asked, looking at Tuncay's remains. "This isn't any sort of magic I am familiar with."

Synthia appeared to be stable and that other guy was handling it anyway, so Nadya made her way over to the man who grabbed her elbow earlier. No one else appeared to be critical, so she figured healing him sooner rather than later was a good way to thank him.

[Oersted]

Once Orville realized he was being talked at he shook his head a few times to clear his head. Think about death ruined nearly every conversation. "Well, it was certainly a step up from what I'm used to!" Orville said with a slight chuckle. She certainly seems excitable. "But other than the whole sword-to-the-side thing it could be called fun. Speaking of which, I should probably get that looked at. Know any free healers or someone with some spare healing salve?"

[scorri]

Lumi

"Oh, of course, I'm so sorry, here." She quickly pulled out a vulnerary from her belt pouch and offered it to the man. "I'm sorry, of course you'll want to take care of yourself." She chuckled slightly and then paused for a second. Her face quickly composed into an almost too-innocent expression before she said to him, "So... did I hear right during the battle? Mr Stick-up-his-butt from before the start of the battle has a kid?" She shook her head. "Almost have to feel sorry for the kid that has him as a father. No fun would be allowed it seems."

Erion

Seeing Eva fall to the ground, Erion immediately regretted moving from where he'd been supporting her. <"I'm so sorry, I didn't realize how much I was supporting you... Hopefully a healer will be by soon."> Putting his arm back around her, he wryly grinned. <"Oh trust me. If you hadn't been around to help guard me I would've been sent flying into a nearby wall in seconds. I'm not exactly a heavy weight and as you can see, haven't got any armor. So you indeed did save my ass after all I suppose. Does that mean you're going to take back what you said about not punishing me?">

Hoshi

"Well... It appears to be some sort of rune magic," Hoshi mused in response to Nika's comments. "Some of these runes seem to be protection runes. They'd be what were helping prevent some of our attacks from doing as much damage as they might usually do. Then others would have been what were animating the bodies and likely what were allowing the swords to return to them. Hmm, perhaps there are runes inside the sword that when there was enough dark magic caused it to reunite with a rune inside the gauntlets? But still... to have been as free-moving as they were... almost sentient yet completely controlled by runes... And where's the source for this dark magic? Perhaps within the mannequin?" She trailed off and quickly fetched a few of her stored tendrils. She set to probing both the mannequin and the armor with them, hoping to find out something more about these things. "What I wouldn't give to be able to take them back with me... There's so much we could learn... Perhaps even enough to replicate."

Edited March 9, 2014 by scorri

[Nanami Touko]

"<No problem, legs just didn't feel like working for a second there. I'll be fine.>" Not that she'd distance herself from him any time soon, having him next to her was quite enjoyable. Eva proceeded to laugh. "<I feel bad for not letting you get hit then, that would've been quite a sight. Maybe we can give that a try with something less dangerous than a sword.>" His comment about punishment made her think, as he had a point, if she hadn't been there he definitely would've been tossed about. "<Well, then...>" She thought for another moment, then quickly leaned in and kissed his cheek. "<There, your punishment.>"

[Snowy_One]

Tia gave a small sigh as she flipped through the pages of the book she was reading as it rested admist a pile of others she had already tackled. She had picked them out almost entirely at random, selecting from those with magical elements in them and avoiding fiction as best as possible, but otherwise, it had largely been whichever books had stuck the farthest out. As a result, books about the intricacies of manipulating dark magic were mixed in with useless stuff like the effect of water magic on crop yields, and she was planning on reading all of it... if she could survive the tedium that long at least. It wasn't that the information was useless, but... well...

An advanced method of water control was devised and implemented in Western Ursium soon after revolving around utilizing the natural water tables collecting water in a well in... up to 5' depth before being moved up by water magic utilizing upward surged in this pattern to allow the water to spread out in a... as a result the crop yields in fields 24, 25, 26, 28, and 29 increased by 20 tonnes of grain by the end of a two year trial period... the cost of employee training and equipment replacement totaled...

"Ugggg. Why master? Why?" groaned Tia as she slumped down, looking at the baggy, ill-fitting clothes she was now wearing. "You told me to seek out all the knowledge I could, to keep an open and inquisitive mind. But you never told me this world could be so... dull and disappointing." she grabbed part of the shirt. "The dress you gave me is torn, but you said it would be with me forever. Were you lying to me? That there would be things I can not do no matter how much I learn? I want my clothes back. I want you back."

Edited March 9, 2014 by Snowy_One

[Phoenix]

Suppression

There was still the matter of the door, Amon noted to himself. He wasn't here for the emblem anymore, but any information about it the archives could provide him ... nonetheless, he reached for the trinket Aisha had given him and raised it to the height of his chest. It was glowing intensely, but with Raquel so close by, that was to be expected. He frowned in her direction as he put it away. No way to tell if it was her or the emblem piece in the archives ....

Raquel just missed eye contact, but she could tell he was looking for signs of the emblem piece ... and she certainly wasn't helping matters. She frowned as well and looked away, feeling a little guilty for a moment. That was when she remembered that despite being the bane to Amon's existence when it came to detecting emblem pieces, she could sense them too, if not better, and she still felt something nearby. She wasn't sure exactly where it was coming from, but it certainly wasn't behind her. As far as she could tell, it was somewhere in front of her. She was starting to wonder if she could train to get better at pinpointing them. That'd be nice if she could figure out how to go about it.

Shadrak lost interest in the knights soon enough; the emblem was on the other side of this enormous door and all they had to do was pry the damn thing open, so that's what he was going to focus on next. Not having to worry about Koray or Tuncay taking a swing at him, and the other knights being too far away to do anything without him having time to react, Shadrak approached the door with fire in his eyes. He was careful to steer clear of Tuncay, who was still releasing dark energy into the environment and causing a few random sparks here and there.

"He's just going to walk up to the door again ..." Reign said, sounding a little surprised.

Simon took a step forward. "Hmm ... I don't know what should be done about all of this dark magic, but this area isn't safe right now. We should consider containing some of it," he suggested, slowly making his way toward the door. He hadn't forgotten about his goal here, either, getting into the archives. Though the archives or at least something beyond the door leading to it, had other plans. The darkness obscuring the ground began to flow like a gentle stream of black clouds toward the door to the archives. "Goodness!"

Shadrak, not having any idea how to respond to this surprising development, braced himself against the door, his back facing away from it. Looking over his shoulder, he could see all the dark energy coming his way. He wasn't sure if he was in a dangerous situation or not, only that he'd sorely regretted approaching the door so soon. "Oh man, what's going on?" he asked, nervousness evident in his voice. What was going on, was the dark energy was gathering on the other side of the archive door, getting through even the tiniest cracks at alarming speed as time past. The glow from the runes on the knights were quickly losing their light, which made them impossible to read by the time the magic had been siphoned off. What they were left with were a pair of mannequins in enormous armored suits and a clue as to the 'source' Io mentioned.

[Script]

A Man Called Gar

"Let's hurry up and get this over with before any other nasty surprises rear their ugly heads," Gar loudly advised. Though there'd certainly be another nasty piece of work beyond that door for sure.

[Toogee]

Meanwhile, Eli was still lying on the ground, waiting for the inevitable doom surely to be brought by the dark cloud. Once he looked back up, not only was the cloud still there and not killing them all, but the others seemed to have moved on away from him.

Sighing, he picked himself up and brushed himself off. No one else was worrying about it, so he may as well die on his feet rather than the ground (the latter would have been a shorter fall however). Eli returned to his rounds, spotting Eva clearly struggling to get up. He raised his staff to send a healing spell her way.

[Eail]

It all seemed to be over, for now at least, though Zach was still keeping a wary eye on the rest of those incredibly strange and rather intimidating Dark Knights. There would be time for study and theory later, for now he was more annoyed that rather than actually helping out the wounded, Raquel and friends had just decided to basically ignore them and focus on the emblem.

Finding a suitable spot against a wall, Zach leaned against it to relax, still clutching his side where he'd been wounded. Nadya had patched him up a bit, but the wound was still there and bleeding. By no means was it fatal, but being torn open like that tended to hurt like a bitch. A healer would get to him eventually he figured, until then it seemed to be a matter of waiting things out and hold back his growing frustration with just about everything go on around him.

[ReformBlade]

Well... I should probably be able to help out now, right? Jericho questioned, a bit uneasy about the room still. He eventually steeled up and went over to help mend up Zach who appeared to be in a bit of pain still but nothing fatal from first glance. "You ok?" he asked, more to hopefully break his silence than really trying to get a conversation going but the latter would be alright all the same. Though in retrospect, one look at the guy would've told Jericho all he needed to know, but still.

Edited March 9, 2014 by ReformBlade