[Official NPC]

Nero Seaglade and Kiel Taskel have both arrived at camp at the most inopportune moment: Faust pulls back from Ardiccioni, knife in hand and a startled look on his face, the ropes sawed away from the Rutilus' wrists. The rest of Ardiccioni's group are already free and are helping Faust's men, who are attempting to physically haul Jericho's stubborn taroch down the mountain trail Nero is now blocking.

For a second, they all freeze and look to Ardiccioni and Faust for their cue. When Ardiccioni jerks to his feet, rubbing his wrists, and Faust launches himself across the camp site to attack Kiel, they are jerked into action themselves.




It seems that Maaike's suspicions are confirmed: Faust has helped the intruders in their escape and is trying to steal the treasure! You must stop them if you have any hope of profiting from this expedition.


This is the final chapter of The Dionica Crucible. It ends on the 25th of February. The battle should take no more than 30 minutes in-character.

You are encouraged to post back/forward-dated threads separate from this, and not everyone will hear the battle or rush to help. Participants are expected to post at least once a week, with all their participating characters, to keep the plot moving. If a character misses a week, we will assume they have gone back to camp. If this happens during combat scenarios, we will assume they have fled the melee and hidden somewhere to avoid the danger. However, this could negatively impact their relations with the other characters from then on.


Treasure Hunter's Manifest:

Priest Nikandros Phadra ... Priesthood of Xanth
Vilfredo Faust ................... Faust's Gang
Erasmos Eugene ................. Faust's Gang
Kiel Taskel .......................... Hired Bodyguard
Aella Karakinos .................. Bodyguard
Maaike Sullivan ................... Hired Tracker& Bodyguard
Mortimer Jericho ................. Investor
Lazuli Kitay ....................... Treasure Hunter
Nero Seaglade .................... Support
Neal Jean .......................... Faust's Gang
Jason Underwood ............... Faust's Gang
Ilda Carine ........................ Treasure Hunter
Theodora Caito .................. Treasure Hunter
Benedetto Faucher ............. Treasure Hunter
Gratien de Filippis ............. Treasure Hunter
Marcellin Ardiccioni ........... Treasure Hunter


It is winter in the north and the mountains are cold. Camp remains in a leeward, sheltered groove in the mountainside. Expect snow and freezing winds, but the temple is slightly warmer.

Pets, mounts and personal NPCs are allowed, but you are responsible for them and any supplies necessary for them.

[Lazuli]

Lazuli had been sketching for so long her hands hurt, the cramp running all the way to her elbows. While not ambidextrous, she had somehow managed to use both hands to copy the more interesting reliefs onto paper, which she'd borrowed from the Priest (much to his chagrin as the sheets requested had steadily increased). Now she sat like Buddha in an puddle of parchment scattered all around her, the more-or-less explosive result of her surge of creative energy. The sketch of the fountain relief was one of the more developed sketches, and that one she placed gingerly on top as she gathered all the fifty or so sheets into one pile. She brushed her bangs from her forehead. The air felt cool against the sheen of sweat that had gathered there. “Whew! Nothing like a good hour's work!” she said, although more than one hour had passed.

She looked around for Byron, whom she suspected had been goofing off with Kiel's shadowkin for most of that time. Surely enough, he padded over with his fur slightly wrinkled and sniffed at the pile. Lazuli wondered what art smelled like to a shadowkin. Hopefully good. And she also hoped that he had good dreams whenever he slept on her piles back home. A realization struck her. “Oh! I've been sitting here for so long that I've been missing out!” she said, referring to the other discoveries in the ruins. “Come on, Byron - and Shane, you too - but where is Kiel?”

At that moment, Byron hissed, and Shane leapt off as though a great force was compelling her out of the room. Byron narrowed his eyes at Lazuli - a signal - and followed Shane toward the entrance of the ruin. “Ah!” Lazuli didn't spare any second glances and shoving her papers into her bag, bounded off after them as fast as her non-feline legs could carry her.

The commotion outside confirmed her instinct -- something bad was happening!


(( ooc: Emma, I hope you don't mind that I took Shane with them! ))

[Kiel]

Kiel gawked at the knife in Vilf's hand for, like, ever, and then his glance flicked to the bad guys and back. By the time his brain had processed what was going so he could regret all those "Naw, he's a good guy"s he'd spouted at Maaike, Vilf had already, like, totally pounced on him, man!

Kiel stumbled back under the Rut's weight, his hands leaping up out of reflex to clutch at the wrist that was plunging down with the knife. He didnt have time to be, like, check to see if anyone was going to be on his side and instinctively gave a shriek that was both mental and verbal. “Wah, help!” Even though, like, he was meant to be the guy doing all the protecting and stuff, Zeph hadn't gotten to the part in his training yet where he could, like, take on an army of mercs or something all by himself, you know?

And then, like, Shane was there. He felt her presence first through their emotional connection first and was reassured to realise she was bringing someone else with him. Like, he couldn't tell who but he totally hoped it was one of the Nymphs, man, 'cause, like, even though they couldn't be all "rawr" and stuff, they packed a pretty cool punch and totally made him with he'd been born all elementally and stuff.

Kiel was still struggling with Faust (who had been degraded from friendly "Vilf" now that he was all attacky) when the 'kin shot out of the temple, mindless of the weak winter sun even though she immediately started to smoke, and used her weight and momentum to knock Faust clean off her Chosen. Just in time, too, 'cause that knife had come awful close to redesigning Kiel's face, you know?

As soon as he was back on his feet with his hook swords in hand, Kiel yelled, “I'm good, I'm good, go!” Like, he could feel her pain, you know, and it freaked him out so he couldn't concentrate on fighting until she was sheltering in the shade of a tree, still watching out for an opening.

“Lazzy, man, am I glad to see you. Like, he helped them get free!” He was still kinda stunned about that, actually, but the Skotadi was already trying to fly off and Kiel wasn't gonna let the guy escape, you know, so he tossed a knife and crowed victory when it embedded in the Anyeli's wing.

[Nero]

“What.”

Now in spite of the fact that Nero hadn't even arrived to the camp yet, it was easy for him to know that something wasn't right. For one, the camp was noisy and it wasn't the usual celebratory noise he would expect out of a successful party it was...well, it was just messy altogether! He wasn't too sure what was happening just yet but he still found himself slipping his sack off his shoulder, letting its weight drag his left hand down to his side where he held it still and his right fingers curled slightly to form a shallow bowl of sorts. His muscles tensed. Goddess damn it, it wasn't supposed to!

“Hey, hey, hey, what's happening?!” he demanded of the figures he saw dripping into his horizon and...was that a taroch they have right there?

[Jericho]

When Lazuli and the two shadowkins bolted from the room, Jericho knew immediately something was wrong. He wasn't sure exactly what, and for all he knew it might have been something personal (like the Nymph suddenly realising she also had "to pee"). If she had gone off alone, he might have just ignored it as being none of his business, or assumed that she was wandering off to explore other parts of the temple like the rest of the group. But she didn't go alone - she followed the 'kin bonded with the chatterbox and that seemed far more significant.

She was also followed by Neal Jeane, but there was something about his movements that seemed furtive. When Jericho glanced toward Jason Underwood to confirm his growing suspicions, the human averted his gaze. There was definitely something going on.

Using Rusty's hand for leverage, Jericho stood with as much grace as he could muster and, with only a jerk of his head, gestured for his companions to follow. Ninian immediately darted off to investigate while Rusty stayed behind as protection, and they followed at a slower pace with Jason inching after them nervously.

They arrived at the camp in time to see Kiel loose a knife that grounded the Skotadi, and a flash of red hair that indicated a newcomer who might prove dangerous, but what concerned Jericho more than the fighting was that Ardiccioni's group was attempting to make off with Viv and Bessie. “My - the treasure! Stop them!” Ninian was already flinging himself at the Apali to take her greedy hands off Viv's reins, barrelling her to the ground with a yell. Rusty was preparing to launch himself as well, but a scuff behind them drew their attention. Jericho whipped around but it was Rusty's beefy hand that stopped the human's cowardly attack.

“I've got him.” Laying hands on Jason's shoulders, Jericho gave the smaller human a grim smile and flexed his fingers. “Go help Nin.”

[Maaike]

Maaike hadn't gone far, preferring to circumnavigate the camp in search of easy prey rather than getting too far away to know if something went down. Unfortunately, they'd been camped there for long enough that most of the local wildlife had realised the area was dangerous, so it took her a while to track down a rabbit that was two shades shy of dumb. She was almost back at camp when she heard the yelling and the clank of metal, and the Maaike-wolf dropped the bloody rabbit from its jaws to leap over a fallen tree, claws scratching on rock as she raced the rest of the way. She came to a halt at the edge of the trail, wolf eyes fixed on the red-haired newcomer and narrowed with suspicion. Was he one of Faust's gang, or Ardiccioni's men? Had he come to help them escape?

She surveyed the chaos of the camp and growled. Sure enough, Ardiccioni's group were free and trying to sneak off with the carts already laden with treasure, but the redhead was too far away to have freed them himself. Maaike could give a damn about money (though it would be nice to have cash on hand instead of all her assets being tied up in Greenview and the business). It was Faust she wanted, and that damn Rutilus kid was in the way.

Maaike raced by the redhead, making sure to snarl at him on the way past. He could take it as either a prompt to help or a warning that he was being watched. Maaike didn't care which, but she'd be damned if she let Faust escape, and since he was already preoccupied with Kiel, she seized the Viridis' ankle between her already-bloodied fangs and bit down hard.

[Lazuli]

“Good job, Kiel!” Lazuli said when Kiel's knife hit the mark. It stopped the Skotadi from trying to fly away, but the anyeli wasn't done yet. So Lazuli acted fast. With a sweep of her arms, she Shaped the nearest twenty square feet of snow into a brilliant white wall and swept it in the direction of the Skotadi and a few other of Ardiccioni's men. The cold wet snow soared like a mini-tsunami of ice crystals, sending up glittering showers of snowflakes in its wake. She grinned at Kiel. “Don't worry, we won't let them get away for sure.”

Around the same moment, Byron snarled at the sun but instead of finding shade under a tree like Shane, he shifted into the form of a thorny, shadowy lizard and vanished behind the collar of Lazuli's coat, protected from the light by her fairly voluminous hair. Confident that her 'kin was safe, Lazuli looked around to gauge the situation better. Everything was happening so fast. The camp cluttered with fighting and shouts as Jericho yelled, Maaike the wolf suddenly charged in out of nowhere, and a red-haired man came on the fray. His appearance immediately sparked Lazuli's memory. “Wait, I know that person!”

[Nero]

Well! Whatever was happening, this was clearly not the right time to come strutting into a camp with dreams of love and family reunion! As if it wasn't bad enough that it seemed like a war had just erupted right in the middle of it all, a wolf had nearly bitten his hand off if he hadn't stumbled away and pulled his arm up. What happened to the law of animals being kind to nymphs?! Perhaps even that had gone to pot...

Either way, Nero found himself in a dilemma and he wasn't going to lie, he did look over his shoulder to check his options but in an instant, he knew that walking back the way he came was not going to be his idea of moving on. For one, it was a long way back and for another...well, just, no. Besides, what if his father was somewhere in there? Hopefully not being stabbed to death yet if he was...

So he did the one last logical option (which is to say, the most illogical one) he had left and swinging his sack back to his shoulder, he hurried, hunched low, towards the closest contraption, crouched there and peeked from behind his safe haven to watch the collective crap of all the tarochs in the world hit Xanth's immaculate fan.

[Kiel]

If Lazzy knew a guy, it was usually a safe bet that he wasn't gonna be all, like, "rawr" at them, but the way she said it made it seem like he might not be all fluffy bunnies and sunshine so Kiel still glanced over to the newcomer, like, more expectant than suspicious. He couldn't see very well 'cause Faust was totally in the way and doing that growly thing that some Rutili seemed to do so well (Zeph included but at least he was kinda sexy with it, wahaha) while Kiel himself sounded like a panther cub or something totally lame when he tried to mimic it. The guy ducked behind some of Nik's equipment, too, which helped to block him from Kiel's view and totally dented any hopes he had of getting some support from that quarter. Like, dude. Aella and Erasmos must be totally distracted by the temple, 'cause otherwise they would have been blasting away like they weren't Nymphs at all. That fire thing was awesome, man, for sers.

“Don't worry, we won't let them get away for sure.”

Kiel missed Laz's grin but shot her one of his own anyway. “Wahahahaha!”

But Faust was totally strong, man, and knew what he was doing. He kept cornering Kiel against boulders and rocks, forcing him to sacrifice ground just to stay on his feet, but at least he could concentrate on his own battle. Faust's men were scuffling with Jericho's and Ardiccioni's group seemed more intent on stealing the treasure than helping the guy who'd helped them escape. And then they weren't escaping any more 'cause Maaike was there, and Lazuli launched a kinda mini avalanche that Kiel would have stopped and ogled if, like, you know, he weren't getting his arse totally kicked. He needed a proper katana. Maybe this time he'd ask Zeph for two for his birthday (you know, so he could have one as a spare for when Elysia's wildlife decided it needed another snack). Or better yet, one that tasted disgusting so they'd just spit it right back out. Like, yeah.

Feinting left, then right, then left again, Kiel darted out of the corner he'd found himself and pivoted to whack Faust's backside with the flat part of his hook sword. “Wahahaha!”

[Maaike]

If Maaike could talk in wolf form, she would have taken the time to urge the newcomer — very gently, of course — to quit cowering and help them out. She wasn't sure whose side he was on and that made her antsy: forcing him to act one way or the other would have eased some of the stress of the battle rather than having to keep him in her sights and wondering when he was going to turn.

But she couldn't speak in wolf form and she swiftly became too busy digging her fangs into undefended limbs to tell him what was probably already self-evident. She was tiring, too, already having spent too long in wolf form and quickly approaching cut-off, so the not-speaking problem would be moot soon anyhow. At least some of the others had arrived; maybe now they'd believe her. This whole situation warranted an "I told you so" that Maaike would never voice (though she would pin them all later with stares that would say as much).

Snarling, the Maaike-wolf snapped at the heels of the Viridis, who had ducked behind the cart and started throwing heavy artifacts at her, apparently valuing life more than wealth. She shook her head when an ancient tome bounced off her wedge-shaped skull, her ears ringing at the sudden impact and her vision blurring but forging on in a slow stalk anyhow. He yelped as she wove around a boulder and leaped at him, his hands coming up and burrowing into the fur around her thick neck as he was borne to the ground by her momentum. At first, Maaike thought he was going to try and choke her before she could rip out his throat, but then she caught a glimpse of his smirk as pain tore through her muscle by muscle, nerve by nerve, until her whole body twitched and writhed in agony, her scream rending the air like a nightmare as her wolf form forcefully succumbed to the human.

Damned Viridis. She should have known that a 'Varian tagging along with a bunch of crooks would know how to inflict pain as much as relieve it. She couldn't lift so much as a pink, slender finger to shove away the 'Vari so he'd stop touching her, and her now-furless body shivered inside her clothes.

[Nero]

Holy sh--

Nero lost mind of his jaw when he watched the Therian return to her human form. So she was a Therian and he didn't know? He blamed his half-blood for that. But anyway, that didn't matter now! What mattered was that--

Before he knew it, he was two steps within roundhouse kick range of the Viridis but the shock had stunted his legs and instead, he threw himself over to the Dracovarian with a quick cry and he felt the impact against the enemy's back through the arm he held against his shoulder. Why he was doing this or if it was because of genetic duty (because the Dracovarian was a part of his as much as the Therian was. What has the world turned to?), he didn't know -- but if there was one thing that was crystal to him, and it was that he would not want to be the witness of a murder at this time!

They rolled away from the female Therian but sheer will brought Nero on top and he found a knife hidden by the Viridis' thigh and he slipped it off its leather sheath and pressed it against the Dracovarian's throat so that he choked. So much for not wanting to be a murder witness. “Before I kill you, I need to ask you something,” he snarled, “Do you know a man named Yohanides Namara?” Well, he had to start somewhere, hadn't he!

[Jericho]

Jericho would recognise the sound of that scream in his sleep. He heard its ilk often enough at his own hands that it should not have startled him, but his own victims were currently rolling around at his feet and whimpering, and the direction was off. It took him a second to register the fact that the sound was not of his own making, but the most he did was glance across (out of curiosity rather than any desire to help the victim) to see Maaike huddled in her human form and two men grappling beside her.

Beyond the trio, he glimpsed Genevieve's wild eyes. Even well-trained taroch like her would bolt in a situation like this, taking the cart packed with their equipment and treasure with her, and the fighting was too close for her comfort. She'd break a leg -- or worse, her neck! -- trying to race down the mountain trail if he didn't stop her. He was damned fond of the pair, despite Bessie being an inanimate object, and had spent far too much money on Viv to let her race off like that.

“Rusty, take this.” In one hand, he clutched the shirt of a man already on the verge of fainting, and the other hand was raised ready to punch him in the face. (Even a man like Jericho found pleasure in visceral punishment when he was sporting a very new black eye courtesy of said victim.) As soon as Rusty grabbed the man by the back of the collar and yanked him upright, whimpering, Jericho darted across the camp site in as graceful a manner as possible while slipping on the snow, and caught Viv about the neck to croon and smooth the braids of her white mane.

“Easy, girl, easy. That's my treasure you have there. No one wants to hurt you.” It wouldn't make sense to kill an already-broken taroch even if they did steal her, but if they tried, they'd have to go through him.

[Maaike]

Maaike hadn't expected to be rescued. She knew she wasn't well-liked at camp because of her insistence that half the expedition was going to turn on the other half. (Her personality might have something to do with it, too, and she was sure they'd expect a few "I told you so"s from her before the job was done.) She certainly wasn't expecting her rescue to come from left side like that.

She was sprawled on her knees, one cheek planted in the snow and her fingers spasming like claws as she watched through narrowed eyes the man who had just saved some of her dignity if not her life. Thankfully, either the Viridis was only to inflict pain while touching his victims or the redhead had distracted him long enough to loose his grip on Maaike's systems, because just as suddenly as the pain started, it was gone. “Ugh.”

Shoving up onto her knees and flicking her hair back over her shoulder and out of her face, Maaike couldn't resist a pat-down to make sure she as physically intact. Pain like that fooled a body into thinking it was completely broken and it took her a second to realise that, no, she was intact — if freezing.

Her sigh of relief and uncharacteristically grateful, “Thanks,” swiftly morphed into confusion and then utter disbelief as she realised what the redhead was demanding. “Is this really the time for that?” She probably ought to protest his threat to kill the 'Varian, and ordinarily would have insisted on taking the man in to be punished properly, but the fact that he was 'Varian and had just violated her in such an awful way blocked any remorse and mercy she might have had, though she did stop just shy of encouraging the newcomer to gut the vlareon like a fish.

[Lazuli]

Maaike's scream was horrible to hear and Lazuli spared a momentary look of worry to see the red-headed nereid pin down the Viridis. She would have rushed to help, but the nereid looked capable, and the other of Faust's and Ardiccioni's men were keeping both her and Kiel quite occupied. The traitors were a resolute group. Fortunately she and Kiel made a pretty good team to be reckoned with, too.

Her mini-avalanche slowed the enemies down considerably, which let Lazuli pick up the perfect pace of keeping them at bay. Shaping the nearby snow, she created glittering white columns of water and ice, sweeping them toward the enemies and blocking most of their attacks. A couple of strikes had made their way through, but small-framed as she was, the nyad could handle a few scratches and tears as well as the next daring adventurer. Her strategy revolved mainly around playing a combination of defense and offense, with the main goal of enclosing and wearing the enemy down. She would not let them attack her or Kiel, but she wouldn't let them escape, either.

“Come on, Kiel, we've almost got them -- Oof!”

A new wall of snow exploded just as one of the mighty Rutilus crashed through, knocking her backward onto the ground. Her breath gone, Lazuli saw stars -- bright lovely things stars were, except a set of angry red eyes were glaring down on her.

[Kiel]

Kiel's swords were flashes of metal glinting off the reflections on the snow and ice Lazuli threw around him, and he used her labrynthine defense to his advantage. Like, the other guys were big and strong like pretty much every other Rutilus he'd ever met, and the Anyeli had wings and pretty nifty ideas on how to use them even when they were grounded, but Kiel was fast and had a bunch of Nymphs on his side. Like, the whole thing reminded him that if the species ever quit with that whole pacifistic Creed thing, Elysia was done for, man, for sers.

Zig-zagging and pivoting and, like, jumping and leaping and hopping and swinging his swords like it was going out of fashion, Kiel had managed to disarm (temporarily at least) most of their opponents at least once, but there were too many to keep track of them all. Jericho downed someone, their pained shrieks raising the hairs on the back of Kiel's neck. And then the Skotadi, wings even more damaged after an attempt to fly away with Kiel's knife embedded in the feathered muscles, walked right into Kiel's elbow and fell to the floor unconscious. The Apali and one of the Ruts came at him from opposite directions, like, forcing him to drop and sweep out his hook swords at their ankles.

“Oof.”

“Lazzy!” It was Shane who leaped to Lazzy's rescue, totally reacting faster than he could and, like, throwing herself out of the shade onto the 'Varian's chest. Her fur immediately started to smoke but his arms went up, like, automatically to catch her and her weight bore him down to the ground. “Shane!” His head cracked against the shattered remains of the ice wall he'd crashed through. As Shane darted back under her tree, blood seeped from the open gash at the back of his skull and, like, his surprised grunt drew the attention of Kiel's opponents, who couldn't help but glance toward their comrade.

Kiel totally took the opportunity to, like, launch his sword and use the hook at the end to grab the hilt of the Apalos' knife, whipping it out of her hands and up over their heads. It embedded in one of the snowy banks Lazzy had been wielding and the Apalos' head whipped around, her mouth an 'O' of surprise. A second later, her wing swept out and smacked him right across the chops, knocking him sideways and forcing him to spin so he could regain his footing. “Wah!”

[Lazuli]

“I'm a-all right!” Lazuli struggled to regain her footing as she awkwardly pushed herself off the ground, the world just a blur of motion around her. Byron had jumped out from behind Lazuli's collar just in time before her weight fell on him, but like Shane he had the problem of sizzling in the sun. With a graceful, smoking leap, he sprang back into his original cat form and bounced once on the fallen Rutilus's face, surprising him so he could not get up. Then the shadowkin joined Shane under the shadow of the tree, giving the other 'kin a grateful nudge for helping his Chosen.

By then Lazuli had managed to clear her head again, and the first thing she saw was Kiel attempting to fend off the Apalos. Mighty and beautiful those wings were, Lazuli knew that like all features in nature the grandest, most elegant things could be deadly. She wanted this battle to stop. “Watch out!” While the Apalos had his eyes on Kiel, she Called upon the snow on the ground and re-channeled the energy of the water molecules to form pure, solid ice. A difficult feat as solid ice tended to grow further in feel from her natural element. Nonetheless, the ice spread quickly as though an invisible frosty serpent was shooting forth beneath their feet. She was careful to keep it away from Kiel, aiming instead to freeze the Apalos in her tracks, literally.

[Nero]

Nero turned to the female Therian with half a gape before he said, “Well, I'm running out of time, aren't I?!” and he would have thrown the same question at her had the Dracovarian he was pinning not pushed him back and with a yelp, Nero fell on his spine and then suddenly, a knife pierced through his wrist, five daggers tearing through his skin and there was suddenly a bolt of lightning that surged through his bloodstream by his left arm and then he was roaring -- loud enough to maybe shake the very foundations of a mountain of snow and then fire -- oh Goddess, glorious fire -- kissed his throbbing wrist and burst through his hand, as if to cover it with its warm veil, and then suddenly, he wasn't shouting anymore, and someone else was doing that for him.

The weight was lifted and he gasped relief as he pulled himself up and clutched his shaking wrist close to his chest. Goddess damn all the Viridis that littered Elysia, they were nothing but trouble! He heaved a breath as he saw that his hand was still whole and his arm was still attached to himself, and he could smell the sweet perfume of burning flesh as he grunted and brought himself up to his feet.

The Viridis was wailing even after he'd quenched the flames by the snow but everything fell quiet and his eyes grew as Nero loomed over him.

“Wanna try again?” he said darkly as he lifted his right hand and set it aflame.

That was when a burst of...something erupted from his side and he turned to see the snow taking shapes after the command of...someone, someone familiar, actually. But he could not have drawn anything else by simple gaze when he heard the snow shift below him and he turned in time to see the Viridis rising to catch his free hand. He must have cursed, Nero always cursed, but soon enough, fire roared from the heart of the Dracovarian as he threw it to him and he stepped back in delayed shock as the poor man shrieked and writhed in pain, his dangerous spell quickly crawling through his clothes.

Nero snarled under his breath and turning to the one who brought about the avalanche, hissed hatefully. Nyads. What a stupid race!

Back to the Therian, amidst the Viridis' pleas for mercy, he asked, “Come on! What else do you need to do?” The sooner this senseless battle finished, the faster he'd be able to find his father!

[Maaike]

Maaike wished sometimes that she'd inherited her mother's abilities rather than her clan's, but she was also quite proud to be Therian so she didn't often dwell on it. Times like this, however, watching the obvious Nereid blast the Viridis until the smell of burnt flesh and barbeque filled the air (damn it, now she was hungry) made her want more than just Finnbar on her side.

“Damn it.” Why hadn't she thought to use Finnbar? Clearly the Nereid had more of his wits about him while his nervous system was violated than she had. She'd fallen apart like a whimpering fool. Then again, she comforted herself, Nymph powers were instinctual by the time they were that strong, whereas activating Finnbar's flame-thrower required a certain level of intelligence that she just hadn't found while she was writing on the floor.

Now on her feet, Maaike stepped closer to the Nereid in case he had to be dragged away from the Viridis. Part of her wanted to see the vlareon suffering, but being burned alive was a nasty way to go and she wasn't going to let this guy turn sadist in the middle of a fight. When he was distracted by Lazuli's ice wall, Maaike took the chance to look over the Viridis to make sure he was still alive. Steaming well and crawling toward the nearest unmelted snow drift to alleviate some of the pain, but alive nonetheless. He was out for the count and deserved it.

Pivoting to scan the camp, Maaike let her shoulders slump. “Looks like it's under control.” Ardiccioni's and Faust's groups had succumbed. Most were moaning and groaning on the floor, others unconscious. Pulling the collar of her jacket higher up around her neck, Maaike peered at the Nereid. “So about this guy you're looking for...”