Beneath the Shadows Chapter Two: Chasing Shades

[Ether]

'Damn it damn it how could I miss-' Elysia began to curse herself, as she attempted to dodge the incoming wind blast. Whether it was due to a lack of agility or simple distraction, her dodge was a failure, unlike Linn's had been, which set the ice mage off balance, and left her a sitting duck for the secondary strike. As the wind slammed into her abdomen, Elysia felt the force of the blow against her diaphragm, which caused her to immediately empty her lungs of air... not the greatest of positions as the hard wind forced itself down her throat. The force also dislodged the pendant that had been loosely hanging from Elysia's wrist, having not had a chance to fasten it, the piece of jewellery made it's way across the ground, by some sort of fortune opening at Linn's feet. Inside were miniature portraits of two older elves, a man and a woman.

And back to the owner. Flying backward a decent ways until her back caught a hefty tree trunk, the mage was sent sprawling to the ground, sputtering desperately for proper air as she tried to ignore the blood streaming into her eye from her final impact.

[Vestige]

"Shit!" Mages were scary indeed. He rushed over to where Elysia was slumped over and knelt down beside her. "Hey, hey, are you okay?" Obviously not. He tried wiping away the blood that was falling down into her eye, but it wasn't doing anything to fix the situation. "Should we bring a healer?"

[scorri]

Adari frowned. With a nod, she sighed. "Right. We'll take her if she wants. She'll need someone ta look out fer her though. Introduce her ta tha others, help her get adjusted, that sorta thing. Would ya be willing? She seemed ta be willing ta talk ta ya at least."

Sayina walked over to the man who was apparently injured and smiled. "Your friend said that you were injured and could use some help. Would you be willing to allow me to heal you?"

Rayil shrugged. "That's the thing. As far as we know, he's no one important. His name is Xane. He was traveling with Val over there as well as a couple of the others in the group, but none of them know any more than that. And yes, I'm sure they were demons." He shuddered. "Trust me. They were real."

[Oersted]

Having taken one of the forms when Adari left for other matters and being in the process of filling it out Zeke almost didn't hear the familiar voice of Conan. Well actually he would've ignored it had it not been for the fact only Conan had ever referred to him as 'pretty boy'. "Oi Conan, I told you to stop calling me that!" Zeke shouted, annoyed with the nickname as he set the now complete form on the table. Zeke was about to ask him where the medicine was; however, before he could say anything someone had asked if he could heal him; mentioning Conan in the process. Ugh, Conan you didn't need to pay a healer for my elbow. I just wanted some medicine... "Yes I would very much appreciate it," Zeke said, not wanting to seem rude as he rolled up his sleeve. The man must've been dragged from wherever the nearest worship place of the Shining God was and Zeke didn't want to trouble him further.

[Snike]

"He asked for it," Hale responded, without missing a beat. Linn then went on to inspect Zeff's glove, which, judging by the reaction of the two elves, had drawn their attention from the energy. The swordsman brushed Linn off, and without much further ado, the duel of the elements was on.

And it was rapidly settled when, after evading the first blast of ice magic, the wind mage knocked her ice counterpart -Elysia, or so he had heard moments ago- off of her feet and into a tree trunk with two gusts of wind. Ouch. Hale followed Zeff over to the fallen elf, and produced some sort of bottle, full of blue liquid.

"Here, have her drink some of this," he said, offering the bottle to the mercenary. "It's elixir, and it should fix her right up."

[scorri]

Seeing the contract in the man's hand, Sayina smiled. "Oh, have you joined our group then? Well, let me welcome you to the Harrier's by healing that arm of yours." Concentrating, Sayina uttered a quick healing spell and waved his staff over the man's arm. As the cut quickly healed, he smiled. "There. Couldn't have you fighting while injured, now could we?" He extended a hand to the other man, "My name is Sayina by the way. And you are?"

[Vestige]

"Right." Taking the bottle from Hale, he spoke to Elysia "Not sure how this stuff tastes, but just bear with it alright?" He took the cap off the bottle and held it to the female elf's lips, tipping it ever so slightly so that she would be able to ingest the liquid easier.

[Nanami Touko]

Linn's celebration was cut short by two things: the pendant falling at her feet, and Elysia flying into a tree. Not knowing the extent of the damage she'd caused, Linn quickly bent over and snatched the pendant, looking it and the picture inside over. I should probably give this back to her... Why isn't she getting up? Linn, starting to get more than a little worried, shot off to where she'd landed, and where Zeff and Hale had gathered. The sight was fairly jarring. "Oh, Gods, are you alright!? She'll be alright, right? Ohhhh, I'm so sorry!" This was a terrible idea, you know you don't have proper control over your magic, and yet you still wanted to do this. And now look at what you've done! Linn collapsed to her knees from the worry, praying that Elysia was going to be alright.

----------

"He must have some importance. An army doesn't send soldiers fer nothin'! Guess we'll be findin' out sometime soon, eh, laddie?" He brought out a gold coin, and twiddled it between his fingers. "Real demons, I'll believe ye fer now. If we've got to be fightin' this here nation again, we'll likely run into more of them, won't we? That'll be one fantastic fight, I'd imagine!"

Edited November 3, 2013 by I have opinions

[Oersted]

Zeke was slightly taken aback when the elf, now known to him as Sayina, turned out to be with his new employers. Nevertheless it wasn't too surprising; Conan did some pretty crazy stuff from time to time. Zeke was just glad it hadn't actually been a priest otherwise he would've had to sit through the healing process knowing that Conan had probably told the priest he had no prejudice about users of dark magic and would've had to of been told how wrong that was. "My name's Zeke," he said as he shook Sayina's hand. "Thanks for the patch up, the things been bugging me for a bit."

[Ether]

A light coughing fit and a gathering of onlookers later, Elysia found her breath, as well as a bottle of medicine practically being poured into her mouth. Gulping down what medicine had found it's way into her mouth, Elysia felt the pain in her body lessen, as the blood flow stopped from her head.

'So I lost, huh?'

With that realization having dawned on her, Elysia's expression sunk drastically.

'When did I... become this weak? Is this how the real world is...?'

[Nanami Touko]

Linn's worries diminished greatly as Elysia actually started to drink the medicine, a sigh bringing her breathing back to normal. "You had me really worried there, Elysia. Again, I'm sincerely sorry about that. I...don't have the best control over my magic. I thought it would be fine, but I guess not." She tried to laugh, but it wasn't happening. This had been the second time she'd done something terrible to someone with her magic, even if the first time had been on purpose. I have to get more control over this. I don't want to hurt any more of my friends.

[Ether]

"It's fine." Elysia replied, as she stood up from her position.

"I was simply too weak, there was no need for you to hold back regardless." The ice mage concluded, as she began walking back towards the entrance of town.

[Nanami Touko]

"Too weak? Wh--" but Elysia was already leaving, Linn bounding on after her. "Wait! Elysia, you dropped your pendant!" She caught up to the woman, and held it out to her, closed. "It flew off you when you...flew. Sorry."

[Ether]

"..."

Elysia stopped dead as Linn caught up to her, mentioning her pendant. Now that she mentioned it, the feeling of the chain about her wrist was gone. Turning about to see the pendant in Linn's hands, tears beginning to well in her eyes, Elysia's own hand darted towards the piece of jewellery, immediately frosting over as soon as the piece was secured, within moment's the elf's arm was encased with ice to the elbow.

Jerking back, tears running down Elysia's face, her ice-encrusted fist slammed into another nearby tree, shattering against the hard trunk. This was repeated a few more times until a sizeable icicle speared it's way clean through the trunk, ejecting a large section of wood out the back.

"Damn it..."

[Bluedoom]

As Caslan fed Joey the water and charcoal, Rimsky decided to bring Mehr next to Joey to keep an eye on him. Within moments he was back with Mehr, as he told Caslan, "Well Caslan, I think its best if my horse stays besides yours. This is Mehr, a beautiful mare that I raised back at home. I wonder where your horse would've eaten acorns, we gotta figure it out before these two end up eating them again."

-----

She wondered why her master was bringing her from some other part of the stable, she was happily dozing off prior to that. As she followed her master, she soon saw a fellow horse in a not-so-good situation. Ah, poor thing. I wonder what happened to it, she thought. Moving closer, she addressed the horse, Apparently someone just got into an unlucky neigh-bourhood.

[Rothene]

"Hmm...unless there were acorns in the horse feed itself, I have no clue how it got to eating acorns," Caslan replied shrugging as he continued feeding the odd mixture to Joey.

***

Bah, the seller must have mixed something wrong into the feed, Joey grumbled at Mehr, but I'm strong, a bit of sickness won't kill me!

[Nanami Touko]

"Uhm," was all Linn could manage to say, before Elysia started assaulting the tree. Linn was more than startled, backing herself off quite a few feet. Why is she doing this? What did I do? Very and truly scared at this point, Linn squeaked as the tree was finally punched through. Elysia seemed to stop, at least for the moment. Is she done? "E-Elysia? Are... A-Are you alright?"

[eclipse]

"I'm glad you're willing to accept her after that mess," Raelyn said with relief. "However, it's up to her whether or not she joins."

---

Celine shifted uncomfortably. The new clothes were itchy! Rather than go into the inn, she peeked into a window. The woman who'd grabbed her earlier and the hot-tempered woman were talking to each other. Hmph, so she's going to turn me in to that witch? I think not. It's time to take my leave. She quietly entered the stables, fully expecting them to be empty. Instead, she saw unpleasantness, and a smell that made her otherwise-insensitive nose wrinkle. Something black was being fed to a horse that looked extremely unwell. Several people stood around the unfortunate animal. "What the hell?" she said aloud, then covered her mouth. She wasn't supposed to draw attention to herself!

[Ether]

"It... it's nothing you need to worry about." Elysia croaked out, her voice dry. Giving her head a shake and taking a deep breath, the elven mage let out a sigh.

"You all can head back to town... I'll catch up later." She concluded.

[Nanami Touko]

Of course it's something we should worry about, you just punched a hole into a tree through sheer rage! is what Linn thought, and wanted to say. But the words wouldn't come out. "Alright... I'll see you back at the inn, I-I guess," was what she said, as she walked the long way around the mage. She glanced over her shoulder at her, before disappearing back into the village. That was... That was far too much to deal with, right now.

Wandering around the village with more than a few negative thoughts floating around her head, Linn found it fairly difficult to shove them out and bring her happy back. Perhaps she was drained, perhaps it was too soon to do so. Either way, she was hoping to run into someone, when her wandering brought her to the stables. One of the obnoxious women from the inn was there, as well as plenty of other people near the horses. "What are you doing here?" she asked the woman, rather unenthusiastically.

[Oersted]

With nothing to do other than watch others associate and whatever the current commotion in the inn was Ernce grew bored of it rather quickly. Iris had ceased talking, perhaps because he'd put his head on the table but that was irrelevant, and and from what he could tell wouldn't start again soon. Wondering what he could do he suddenly remembered Alfonso had said he wouldn't be against the idea of a spar. "If I recall correctly he's in the stables..." Ernce thought to himself as he stood up. "I'm going to stables," he said at Iris' inquisitive look. "If you want you can stay here." With that he left for the stables not caring if Iris followed or not. "Let's hope my trust isn't betrayed again..."

Upon entering the stables a foul stench assaulted Ernce's nose but he did his best to ignore it. He saw Alfonso milling about the stables, thankfully appearing to not be busy. "Hey, Alfonso," he called out as he approached the man, "are you busy at the moment? If you're not I was thinking you and I could spar. As you're well aware I was... incapacitated in our skirmish with the Senians so I was hoping that by sparring with you I you could point out any flaws you see."

[eclipse]

"I could ask you the same," Celine said, just as unenthusiastically. "You know these guys?"

[Vestige]

Turning to Hale, he shrugged and handed him back his bottle cap and all. "I'm not sure which is worse, your illusions or whatever the hell they pulled right there. And Linn was scolding you for going to hard on me. Right, as if. Anyway, I think I'm going to head back. There's something I need to ask you, but it can wait a bit. Thanks again for the practice."

Getting up, he brushed himself off and headed back towards the village, and spotted what would have been a startling sight, but wasn't. Following Reva's death there had been a couple occasions where he had erupted in bouts of rage, so he was hardly surprised, so much as concerned for Elysia. (But if he wasn't convinced before, he was definitely convinced now. Mages can be scary) Rather than console her, Linn simply walked off. That was odd. He contemplated consoling her himself, but truth be told, he didn't even know who she was, so he thought against it. As much as it pained him to see her in her current state, empty words were sometimes better left unsaid.

He walked on and a few minutes later arrived back at the inn. He noticed a commotion near the stables and eyed Linn speaking to a girl. Yeah, no. Not getting caught up in that. The last thing he needed was to be near Linn so she could pester him about his glove. As the saying went, 'out of sight, out of mind', so he was going to do his best to remain out of sight. He walked back into the inn and slouched into a chair. A few minutes passed by until he noticed he was sitting at a table that was already occupied. "Oh, sorry, do you mind if I sit here, or is this seat taken?"

...

"Wait, aren't you that girl from before..? Yeah...You're the girl that got smacked upside the head by that ice mage the other day. Aren't you..." he looked around "supposed to be under watch or something?"

[Nanami Touko]

"I'm just here to find someone, but he seems pretty busy. Probably just let him know I'll be waiting at the inn. And yeah, I know them," Linn said, as she started walking over to Caslan, waving as she did. "Hey. Is Joey alright?" She asked, looking around him at the poor animal. I hope he gets better. What could've happened to him? "I'll be waiting back at the inn whenever you're done, but seeing him like this, take as much time as you need." She gave Caslan a pat on the shoulder and left him with his horse, walking herself back to the inn.

[Snike]

As Zeff delivered the medicine, Linn approached and panicked upon seeing the state of her sparring partner. Naturally she calmed down a bit once Elysia stirred and drank the elixir, but good cheer on either side was ruined by what had happened. The blonde elf apologized for her lack of control over her magic, to which her silver-haired counterpart said that it was fine, and she was too weak, before getting up and heading back to town. Lovely. Regardless, the wind mage handed over a pendant to the ice mage, and that was where things got interesting.

Elysia started to cry, and as she grabbed her pendant, her arm was frozen over, to the elbow. Instead of trying to shatter that safely by dispelling the magic, the newly hired mercenary furiously smashed her arm into another tree, until the frigid casing was shattered and an icicle was stabbed through the trunk. That must have been frightening for Linn, as she asked if the ice mage was alright. She wasn't, though she responded to her sparring partner that it was none of her concern and outright told them to head for town. The wind mage complied, still seeming a bit intimidated by the display. Zeff too left, after handing back the elixir bottle. That just left Hale, to go.

"I'll let you be, then," Hale said, as he turned to leave. "But, just remember, that you're only as weak as your control is over your magic. If you want to get stronger, you'll need to control those outbursts."

And with that, the light mage left to head back to town.