The look on Torrins face showed there was more going on in his mind than he was letting on, but this wasn't the time or place to question it, not when the darkness was closing in. She had spent far too much time in darkness for her liking, and while the darkness in Eventide was different, not as suffocating, it still made her uncomfortable to think about. Her hand twitched at her side, torn between summoning her keyblade and not. She stared out at the darkness until yellow eyes started to materialize and what seemed like a couple hundred heartless appeared. This was not good, not good at all. Her magic supplies were running low as it was, she could only do so much. She wondered if they should have taken a rest, but at the same time she was wondering how long until these Heartless would have emerged, if it was for the best that they were dealing with this now. Summoning her keyblade to her hand, she took a bit of a defensive stance. Fighting heartless, that was what Torrin trained her for. She spent a month on daily patrols dealing with the heartless between her regular training, and while her physical body rotted for some time after that and was still recovering, the skills she learned were still sharp. She would start strong, from there it was just a task of maintaining and not doing anything too stupid. She was still hurt from the last battle, if she pushed herself too far here, she might put herself at risk, and a dark space like this was not where she wanted to take her last breaths. Holding her keyblade out she launched herself at the heartless unleashing a blitz of attacks on them before turning around taking a few more swings of her sword to see what sort of damage she could do before taking up a defensive position. Tinarah used Blitz HP: 58/80 AP: 28/58 MP: 5/30 DP: 0/3 Tinarah Killed: 2 Neoshadows 2 Blue Rhapsodies Remaining Heartless: 66 Darkballs (12AP) 49 Neoshadows (16AP) 12 Yellow Operas (4AP) 7 Red Nocturnes (4AP) 10 Blue Rhapsodies (4AP)
Well it had worked, she had managed to get the attention on her for the moment, but as soon as she did the woman disappeared into the trees. Thea spun around looking for her but not seeing her. Instead she got her attention on Zephyr who had gotten himself stuck too it seemed. Just as she tried to head for him, there was a voice behind her. Before Thea could turn around, sharp thorny webs pierced her arms homing her in place. Thea cried out in pain as she was lifted in the air and her power started to be ripped from her. The blue flames that previously surrounded her flared out trying to hit the source of the pain. The fire was wild and things near by started to catch on fire. Xilyn leaned in and as her fangs started to pierce Thea, the girl screamed out once more, not willing to go down that easy. She wasn't going to let the demon get away with this. She wasn't going to die and give the demon the power to hurt her friends. Fighting the poison that had started making their way into her veins, Thea exploded into gold flames. Bright vibrant and deadly hot golden flames that knocked Xilyn back but also left the area immediately around her ablaze. The webs holding Thea burned away leaving her to painfully drop to the ground, her golden flames still burning around her, more controlled than the blue flames. She didn't have the energy to fight the other spiders any more but she could at least send them out to the webs that were preventing movement, burning those away and trying to make a path for them before her magic failed her completely. She was already noticing the edge of her vision going dark, she wasn't going to hold consciousness much longer, not at this rate. But maybe she could get her friends out. Maybe her golden flames were enough.
Izra was up and managed to help get some spiders away from Thea, but it wasn't over yet and at this point she was struggling to keep her magic in check. With her magic eating away at her from the inside, she couldn't really take the time to find the control that she needed. Instead of trying she needed to figure out how to deal with this situation. Maliel was in trouble again and Thea knew that she couldn't help her, not when her magic was so wild. she didn't want to hurt Maliel. Looking at the demon lady, if she could deal with her then maybe the other spiders would go away. Thea just prayed that Gavin's wind shield would hold up against her magic if it tried to spread as she sent blasts towards Xilyn. Like the first attack, they started red and in sleek design, aiming only for the target, but blue flames burst from it and began to engulf the flame, making it something entirely different, a ball of burning blue flames, exploding on impact. "Leave them alone!" Thea shouted at Xilyn, knowing it wouldn't make a difference, but she didn't want to see anyone die today, and she was afraid for Selena's life. Maybe if she could just distract Xilyn, Zephyr and Gavin would be able to save everyone.
Listening to Arctus she didn't know if she should tell him how it sounded a bit like her own life back home. Not the same but similar. Karina bit her lip however and kept her mouth shut, she knew that Arctus didn't need to hear all this, he deserved his moment to talk. She had ranted plenty about her life. Sure not to Arctus that much but she had told Beuce and Kel and a few others from SoS about her life before, she had her time to rant, and now it was his turn. Karina didn't think she could be as helpful as they were to her, but at the very least she could try and listen. Arctus didn't get a chance to talk that much before they had to turn their attention to Joshua. Perhaps she would learn more later. It seemed that Arctus wasn't fond of being sent off, and she didn't blame him for it, though she didn't think any amount of yelling would help. She rolled her eyes before Arctus suddenly just summoned a keyblade. Karina was shocked as he was trying to get his sword back. Finally she just sighed. "It doesn't work that way dumb-ass." Karina sighed. "You are a keyblade wielder now, you don't just get the sword back. You should feel lucky." She didn't always feed lucky for having a keyblade, but it was the reason she was able to escape home so at least she had that going for her. "So what now, can you do this with me or am I still on my own?" Karina asked, keeping her voice steady hiding the discomfort of the idea of going through things alone.
Tinarah looked up surprised that Torrin heard her. She stared at him for a long moment before finally figuring out how he wanted to explain. "When training with Stamatis, I couldn't summon my keyblade for a long time. He was desperate to find a way to get me my keyblade back, so he employed a method he believed that Uncle Fost would use. He took me to the edge of darkness and let the heartless attack, I had a sword at the time and it didn't do much.. I wasn't able to do it... but I think wherever Chrono was, he lent me strength. It was the last time that I wore one of these." Tinarah explained to him. She still didn't know what to think of it. At the time she was happy to have it back, now she knew that it was weakness that kept her from gaining her own back, that she still had lacked the ability to believe in herself. It wasn't until much later when she couldn't look to anyone at all that she learned to believe in herself. She had to remember that as they stepped into the heart of the world. The darkness was close and unsettling. She had felt the darkness close and bothered her. She felt this darkness before and it was unsettling when she was with Stamatis. She went to summon her keyblade, but hesitated. With the other Torrin he always told her it would attract the heartless, and Tinarah wasn't convinced she wanted to speed up that process. It all felt so wrong. Tinarah glanced at Boreas and Torrin, it was familiar, it was home to them. She found the concept a little strange, hard to grasp when for them it was so foreign being this close to the darkness. As Torrin looked back at them and warned them to be on guard, she caught the slight glow to his yellow eyes. She still found it a little unsettling to look at . At least he was able to see things a bit better, meanwhile, those not raised in the Realm of Darkness would sit at even more of a disadvantage to the situation. While it wasn't so dark that she couldn't see anything, it was dark enough that she strained her eyes to see all around. If Torrin didn't see the heartless, she definitely wouldn't see anything. Tinarah took a step closer to her brother and friend, Take. At least they were in the same boat as she was, if they stayed close hopefully they would be able to defend themselves and this world.
Hedgrit lingered at the bottom of the ladder, keeping his eye out as Zelph started to carry Tellia up. Zelph didn't look totally stable, and Hedgrit cringed a few times as he tried to climb, but in the end Zelph and Tellia got up fine. With confidence that he was okay, Hedgrit then climbed up himself. Tellia seemed nice and tucked in, so Hedgrit found a spot on the other side of the landing, opposite to Tellia and Zelph. He gave Zelph a small wave before curling up himself, taking off some of his armour before he fell asleep. (I rolled for it, the night will pass without incident.)
What happened to not hurting these people. Aislinn tried to grab John but he took off running. "Wait!" She called out after him, preparing to follow, but a tribe of what she assumed were these Indians stepped out, weapons trained on them. Aislinn tried to look not threatening as she looked between them and her companions. "I am Aislinn. We were sailing the seas and got lost, wound up here. The man was suppose to be helping us orientate ourselves." Aislinn informed him, half lie, half truth. It was the best way to lie and while she usually didn't encourage lying it was her best bet to get them out of this situation right now.
Already on her toes and ready for whatever was to come, Auburn had her sword swapped to a gun in an instant, and an instant later it was fired at the Ursa who had popped out of one of the bushes. Looking around they were surrounded and there was not a hole lot they could do but fight their way out of this situation. Letting her mind go blank, Auburn let her training take over as she prepared herself to go on the offense. Defense was a good strategy when trying to protect someone else, but it was also easy to get overwhelmed if you were too passive with attacking. Under her breath she whispered some instructions that her father had taught her. "Left foot in front of right, right hand back. Breath." She told herself as a Beowolf launched itself at her, so she launched back, keeping herself small and lower to the ground as she jammed her blade up through it's heart and watched it drop to the ground beside her. It was a good start but there was still more to deal with. She had just taken out two, but 15 still remained. Alone Auburn didn't know if she could handle this, but she wasn't alone, she had a team, a team that she hoped would have her back. She might not be as good as her father, but she still knew what she was doing enough to hold her own, as long as everyone else could say the same, they should be fine. He had hoped they would back down, but Arian smiled a little bit as they clearly weren't ready to back down. "Impress the boss. I would look forward to seeing the reaction when they find out who you almost killed, but you won't be living long enough for that." Arian pulled his bow out, parting it into two blades. "I don't know who is holding your leashes now. But you have lost the true meaning of the White Fang, I don't feel bad for you." He stated before launching himself at the man who seemed to be leading. Arian didn't waste time taking him out before turning to one of the near members and going for his neck. Stepping back, Arian bared his elongated k-9's at them, his ears tucking back for a moment. "Are you sure you want to do this." He had taken out two already, but he didn't want to continue if he didn't have to, Arian hoped that this was enough of a scare to chase them away.
Tinarah took the cloak and looked at it for a long time. "I haven't worn one of these since I got my keyblade back." She spoke quietly mostly to herself. It was true however, the last time she was close to the darkness and protected from it was when Stamatis pushed her to the limits, in a space a little too close to the darkness. Tinarah couldn't help but wonder how that darkness compared to the darkness that Torrin was trying to bring to Eventide when she had arrived there and trained there. She was in no such protection in that world, so she wondered how she would fair comparatively. It was a question that she wanted to ask, but a question that could wait. Tinarah honestly wasn't even sure if Torrin would have an answer for her, not when he didn't have any idea what the other Torrin did to the world, and what was happening in that universe. Slipping on the coat and gloves Tinarah tried to not think of the past, but instead the here and now. About the cloaked woman and the core of the world, the issues they would be facing. Flexing her fingers a bit, Tinarah slowed her breathing and cleared her mind, meditating a little bit to calm herself down. She knew that she was being stupid going into this and not agreeing to the rest, she was out of magic and she was worse for wear, but she didn't want to wait and see other people get hurt, so she was willing to pay the price. Pushing back a dull ache in her arm she looked over at the others. "Do you think he will actually give us anything more? Perhaps it is best if we just head out now?" She tried suggesting.
Walking close to the mayor, Thea's heart hammered. She thought she knew what she doing. Thought that she was going to save everyone, but now, more than anything, The found herself terrified. Her hands were shaking at her side as she slowly lifted her gaze, waiting for the mayor to let go of Maliel. She then heard Maliel scream out and Thea whipped around to see her new friend collapsing. "No!" Thea screamed, her magic echoing it. Those who knew anything about her magic could feel it growing, see it in her face, her cheeks becoming slightly red as the head of her own flames started to take its toll on her own body. Thea clenched her hands at her side, trying her best to keep the flames in control as she looked back to the group then the mayor, before the lady appeared and started to talk to them. Thea was frozen for a moment, not long, but long enough for the mayor to slip away, after handing over Maliel, but Selena was not free to go. "No! Stop!" Thea screamed and cried at the lady, listening to Selena scream, and seeing Izra slowly dying on the ground. Her pale blue and gold eyes seemed to dance with a blue flame as Thea stepped forward shooting of a flame towards the lady. At first it was a red arrow, but moments after leaving her body it was a ball of blue flame instead, lashing out at everything around it, uncontrollable wild fire. The same wildfire, that, unbeknownst to her, killed her own family. She was so focused on the lady doing this all she had not noticed the smaller spider that had crept up behind her. Thea let out a yelp of pain as the fangs sunk into her thy. Blue flames shot back out at the spider, incinerating it where it stood but Thea already found herself a bit dizzy as now blue flames danced around her, seeming ready to harm anyone near the child who was having a bit of a meltdown. As the water splashed the first of Everette's mirror clones faded away as the water hit it. Everette kept on the move though, he could see how much Conrad was hurting it, and he could see how annoyed that the creature was getting. Just a little more time, he needed just a little more if Conrad was going to do this. He couldn't keep up mirror clone trick forever, so instead he took up a fighting style he had seen someone else use before. If he kept changing the way he fought it would make him unpredictable. This style was more for damaging, and while Everette knew that wasn't his main goal. Maybe if he hurt the snake enough it would draw attention back to himself instead. Taking a step back, Everette channeled a large amount of his own magic into the sword as he held it with both hands. He wasn't very quick moving with this fighting style, but it was more meant for damage than anything else, and he was certain that with the amount of magic he had poured into his sword, damage would be fine. Waiting for an opening, Everette launched himself forward at the snake taking a few large swings at it, putting all the force he could behind each swing before praying that Conrad would finish the thing off quickly before he tired himself out too much.
Hedgrit nodded for a moment before staring at the girl for a bit longer. "I am sure she will be fine, with a brother like you to take care of 'er." There was some sense of compassion in his voice as he watched the two of them. Hedgrit then stood up and stretched. "You get first watch, I am going to get some sleep. Are ya sure you don't want help getting her up." Hedgrit looked to the top of the ladder where he had started to set it up for them to sleep. At the very least he would let Zelph go up first and wait right at the bottom just in case. Hedgrit still worried about having Tellia with them, but he would do his best to help care for her, he wasn't quite so heartless to let them struggle on their own.
As Reno glanced around the battle field, taking in those who had fallen, suddenly a sharp pain in his leg caused him to yip slightly as he was pulled off his feet. An involuntary snarl slipped from his lips as he stared the dog down, watching as his summoned eagle rushed behind to aid him. Reno was barely able to manage to get himself to his feet, much less attack at this time, the attacking had to be left to his companion that was there helping him. With it being nearly as dangerous to run, Reno was forced to stand his ground as he watched Freedom claw and bite at the hound that was previously trying to down him. With a few strikes in from the eagle the hound suddenly looked a little less willing to pick this fight, his master and one of his companions had already been dealt with, and he wasn't in good shape himself, the hound looked as though it was ready to do the smart thing and run. Reno let out a snarl of warning along with his eagles screech, warning the remaining to run. Spoiler: Rolls 1+3+2(from flanking)= 6 to hit, miss the first talon Attack 9+3+2(from flanking)= 14 to hit, hit on the second attack! 4 Damage 13+3+2(from flanking)=18 to hit, hit on its bite attack! 2 Damage!
Buying Ray of Light and obtaining White Mage Job
"It certainly is." Aislinn stated as she got slightly closer to the waterfall, looking from a distance at it. There was a smile across her face as she looked back at Smith. "You see this is why I love the adventure so much. It is so rewarding! So beautiful!" He exclaimed turning back to the group for a moment looking at them all. "Aren't you glad you came with me?" "Yes it is much better than going back to camp. This was so lovely, and not an Indian in sight." Aislinn pointed out more than a little relieved at that fact.
Hegridt sat there seeming stunned for a moment like he had no idea how to react to it, and well that was because he didn't. "Yer tellin' me that another whole entity lives within that tiny body?" Hedgrit knew that was what he had just said and still it didn't seem to sink in. "Would it ever be dangerous to us?" He then asked. He didn't necessarily plan to send them away, but he never paid much mind when the girl started to talk to herself, now he wondered if he should be on his guard. Right now she looked like she couldn't hurt a fly, but the thing that lay beneath, it was because they didn't know what it was that scared him the most about this entire thing.
"Oh you have mistaken me. I don't intend to hunt I am just checking things out. They move around a lot you see and they might be the first to attack if they decide they don't like us. It is just good to know if we should be on the look out." John Smith explained. He in himself was not a bad guy, but even Smith questioned some of the decisions of Radcliff and the company. "Why must you insist on calling them Savages then? Wouldn't Indians do just fine?" Aislinn pressed trying to get him to stop with what he was doing, it was, really annoying her at this point and it seemed like Luna and Kel were not a fan of it either. "I guess it is just ingrained in the brain." He shrugged seeming like it wasn't a big deal. From the sounds of it they were nearing a water fall and he smiled, and Aislinn smiled back. "Come on, lets check it out. I bet it is beautiful!" She exclaimed as she started to head towards the sound of water. It was still a ways away, but Aislinn picked up her pace in that direction.
To have Torrin not only acknowledge her, but compliment her, Tinarah found herself a little baffled and embarrassed. "Well... you know, Master Stamatis taught me a lot about magic, he was really good at it." She informed him, though she wouldn't say he taught her everything, not when she had caught on to Torrin's fighting style a whole lot easier. Tinarah crossed one arm over the other one, holding onto her arm to hide one of the more nasty scratches on her arm that she wasn't able to heal for herself. On the side there was a conversation with the enemies about the plan, but Tinarah couldn't find herself all that interested in it. It made little sense to her and she wasn't going to do much with the information anyhow. Instead she chose to pay attention to the conversation between Torrin and Boreas. "You... can head to the heart of a world?" The concept seemed very strange to her. She had fought heartless on the world but never in the core. It made her wonder how that would even turn out.
Cerdic stepped up behind Daeni and put a hand on her head for a moment before speaking up. "Woah, calm down." He warned her before removing his hand from her head but turning her to face him. "She never said she was throwing her daughter out to die. We are not welcome here, and we know that, it is fine. But Mora could use proper training with the keyblade if she ever wishes to succeed with it. She just has to leave to be able to learn, and once she is good and ready, I am sure she can come back and help stop things from going that badly again. But we can't stay and there is no way for her to learn here without someone like us with the skills of the keyblade. Yes it bothers me too that she just got back to see her village safe and is forced to leave again, but it isn't our place to fight it. There was nothing said about her despising Mora." Cerdic then pulled Daeni into a hug. "I know... I know it has been hard on you... on all of us. I know you are upset because of more than just this, but don't put other emotions that don't belong in this situation here. It doesn't help it at all, it just makes it worse." Letting go, Cerdic then stepped in front of Daeni and faced Mora's mother. "We are sorry for all the trouble we have caused. We will take Mora, make sure she is trained, so when she comes back she can protect you all, but we will not be returning. We have overstayed our welcome as it is. As soon as you are done your goodbyes, we will be on our way." Cerdic assured the woman, looking over at Mora hoping that she would be okay and understand. He hoped that Daeni's little display wouldn't upset her too much, because to him it seemed she made it sound worse than it was, and he didn't want that. He didn't want Mora to fear not being welcomed home, he wanted her to embrace the training. And while Cerdic wasn't confident in his skills to train her, maybe Alder could. Or if not that at least the master on his world might be of some help. He was sure she would never turn anyone down who needed help, she was too kind for that.
It caught Karina's attention when Arctus actually brought something up about his home world. She actually fell back a bit to talk to him. "What exactly is there to resolve on your home world? You have never mentioned it before." Karina pointed out hoping she could get something out of him, some shred of humanity past the man who could sometimes make her laugh and have fun, even though a part of her had believed that she lost those emotions long ago. She had seen several people grow in who they were, saw how things tended to not be what they seemed, so it left Karina wondering who Arctus really was because she was sure there was more too it than what she saw. Karina just didn't know if she would like it or not, so perhaps it was stupid to try and pry, but she couldn't help herself. As she was trying to talk to Arctus, Shiro's loud voice spoke up and Karina realized that they were back and standing before some kid claiming to be the composer. He was going to run her Mark of Mastery? This was sure to be interesting. The boy then looked at Arctus and told him that he wouldn't be able to come and Karina cringed. She knew that she joked about him following her like a lost puppy, but if he left, while there was still others around, there wasn't really anyone else that she really like, so it would feel rather alone. "I-I guess there is no escaping the others." She tried to joke to hide the discomfort of the idea of going into this essentially alone, as far as she was aware.
Hedgrit nodded as he listened before he finally spoke, offering up his own bit of information on his life. "I... uh... I was workin' in the mines at the time. Sometimes we stay up there for days. I was only gone for two, but when I came back down, most of my town that wasn't in the mines were crawlers... includin' my wife. I chose to put her down before she could do too much damage, but I couldn't take on the entire town so I fled." Hedgrit admitted as he pulled out a charm that he was wearing, hidden beneath his beard the entire time. "She was the most lovely thing I had ever met." After offering a little more about him however he still had another question for Zelph. Up until now he hadn't understood so he mocked it, hadn't wanted to understand. But how he described it in the story, curiosity had gotten the best of Hedgrit. "What exactly is this little friend? Is the wee one crazy, thinks she has other people in her?" He had heard of medical cases where people went insane and ended up believing they were several different people, but something told Hedgrit that it wasn't quite the same as that, not the way she seemed to fight against her own mind when things go too much.
