[Jericho]

OOC: Thread continued directly from here.

Jericho was seated on the compacted dirt with his back against a jagged wall. The land was so dry, he could feel the rock and dirt crumbling under his weight, and his mythril armour was streaked with red. Damned if he was getting up, though.

Even in the shade, his eyes had drifted shut. He was exhausted and woozy, but daren't withdraw completely into his own mind. With the brave's tracks obliterated by the quake and heavy winds, his telepathy was the only way they'd find him — short of stumbling across him by sheer chance, at least — so he had to be on the look-out.

“Rusty, what under Hel are you prodding at, man?” Even with his eyes closed, Jericho could follow the Therian's movements. Despite his bulk, he was like a curious child. Despite his own exhaustion, he had remained on his feet pacing the confines of the only really shaded spot they had managed to find. At Jericho's question, the man jumped. Jeri could feel his gaze, startled and rebellious, even without opening his own eyes.

"I dunno," he said, his weary voice overlaid by curiosity. "It's the same rusty sort of colour as the rock but it feels like moss and it's moving."

Jericho bolted upright. “Say what?”

[Ionia]

Prolonged exposure to the sun had left Nia sluggish and cranky, and she had been among the first of the vanguard to settle under the shade of the rocky wall. Leaving the others to determine the next steps, she deposited her backpack on the ground and used it as a pillow. She shut her eyes and opted to let the others do the arguing. Nia agreed with Kiel's reasoning and no longer had the patience to deal with Lysistrata. The apali acted as if she owned the lot of them—criticizing their first battle with the malaki, and barking orders this way and that. While the military had taught Nia to obey her superiors quickly, she'd sooner eat a giant beetle before recognizing the apali as her captain.

Relishing the shade, Nia remained motionless even as she felt Raph reach into her backpack to give up their empty canteens. As the water party left and the djinn stood to talk with Lysistrata about recording landmarks and potential hiding spots of the malaki, Nia tucked her head under an extended wing. In this wasteland's heat, she'd much rather sleep in the shade than walk under the boiling Hel (if that thing in the sky was even Hel). With the wasteland's weather, it made sense to travel from dusk to dawn and sleep at noon, and she'd mentioned it soon after their arrival. Lysistrata had dismissed the idea immediately. The blond anyeli's exact words to Nia were: “Of course you would say that.” Damn Apali.

Jericho's sudden outburst wrenched Nia from her near-slumber, and she cracked one eye open to glare at the two Elysians who mused over moss. From Nia's spot, the rock they were staring at was simply a rock. But as Rusty prodded it with a fingers, the thing rippled. “taroch dung!” Sitting into a crouch, she stared groggily at the thing that had moved, hoping that her eyes had deceived her. The ripple had spanned an area the size of a taroch, but once it settled, it looked like a rock again. “Don't touch it,” she grumbled as Rusty peered closer at the thing. If they were lucky, it was nothing and she could go back to sleep.

[Jericho]

Jericho had to agree with the grumpy Skotados. They had been sheltering here for a few minutes; if the thing was going to attack, it would have attacked them already. He had no energy to be curious. “Leave the moss-thing alone, Rusty.” The burly Therian grumbled but obeyed, moving to sit beside him with his knees bent and his arms splayed around his calves so his back wouldn't touch the rock. “What are you, scared of a plant? Don't be ridiculous.”

Over the next few minutes, Jericho nodded off. He couldn't help himself. The oversized cat began to purr when Rusty stroked her soft fur and the rhythmic rumble had soon invaded his mind. He kept flinching back to consciousness at thoughts of what would happen to his home should the Malaki reach his people, but Jericho had only so much stamina. He could care less about the other Elysians as long as he could make a profit. It was only that the Malaki seemed completely devoid of any financial ambition that had brought him this far.

He lurched awake a short time later when Shane's purring turned into a growl. He couldn't have been asleep more than a few minutes, and he yanked open his teeth to snap at the she-cat. He swallowed the words when he realised why she was snarling at him: The rust-coloured moss had creeped around and begun to crawl across the shoulders of his mythril armour. Paler filiments were reaching out like the growth of a fungus around his neck and up to his chin. Beside him, Rusty's head was already wrapped in a similar coccoon. “Naga spit!” Everyone was taking the chance to get some shut-eye. They might have woken up already trapped in the stuff.

“Wake up!” He kicked his legs frantically and tried to pull away from the rock wall. Though he could feel the rock itself crumbling under his armour, the filiments were meshed together tightly enough to make a strong cocooning material that refused to let up. He smacked Rusty across the face but the Therian's head just drooped to one side. Was he dead already? No, his chest moved, but his breathing was too shallow. The cocoon around his head was suffocating him. “Wake up and help me, damn you!”

[Official NPC]

Misha hadn't said a word since the battle with the Malaki. He wasn't a killer. He had spent his whole life carefully navigating the fine lines between the Sylvan Creed and the life of adventure he loved. He truly and deeply believed in the pacifism Sylvan culture was based on, and had always struggled with the Balance when it came to culling even the simplest of life forms. Yet, seeing that poor Nymph's body, realising that his people had not only been massacred but eaten...

He gleefully sought justice and vengeance. He hadn't cared a whit that he was endangering his own life or the lives of others. He had shoved his burning rage into the nearest spark and let it run wild. And then, when it was all over and he could realise what he had done, the fury and grief turned to ash in his mouth. It felt like he hadn't blinked at all since they entered the portal. Guilt stretched thin across his lips: Elysia was in danger because of him. His part-time lover, his friends, people he didn't even know were all in danger because of him. They were probably going to die — because of him.

Wake up!

He hadn't meant to fall asleep. He didn't think he could, actually. The numbness kept his eyes glued wide open despite the grit in the wind and the heat prickling at the back of his neck, so when he heard Jericho's urgent call, it took him a while to realise his eyelids were sealed shut. His limbs twitched, and then he was peering at the handsome 'Varian. What under Hel was he thinking, wearing a scarf in this weather? Mind you, the idiot still hadn't taken off his armour. He had to be sweltering in this heat!

Help me, damn you! Gaze flicking to Rusty as Jericho twitched in the long-suffering enforcer's direction, Misha frowned. The Therian's head was covered and his chest wasn't moving.

Sitting bolt-upright, Misha turned to scramble onto his knees, but fell flat on his face. He glanced back at his legs to realise they were covered in the same material, trapped together in a cocoon that was slowly creeping up from his ankles to his hips. “Heyyyyy, not on the first date.” He clawed at it but it wouldn't break, so he rubbed it between his fingers. It wasn't sticky, but it otherwise had the same type of consistency as a kumo web, or perhaps a layer of fungus.

Lying back so he could reach the pocket in his leggings, Misha yanked out his lighter and toughed the flame to the edge of the cocoon experimentally. It immediately started to burn so he tugged at the flame, keeping it away from his own flesh and directing it across the dry cocoon until he could get free.

[Ionia]

Aided by the hushed murmurs of Raph and Lysistrata's voices, Nia drifted off to slumber-land once they all decided to leave the moss alone. The zanaryan and the apalos would be sufficient to keep watch, and anyone else who didn't want some hard-earned sleep was a fool. So when she suddenly heard the loud growl from that damned cat of Kiel's, she rose furiously to toss something. As she moved, she felt something tug uncomfortably at her wings, and her eyes widened when she saw the moss that had grown over it. If Jericho's yells didn't wake the rest of their group, that was soon remedied by Nia's string of anyeli curses.

Forcefully rolling herself from the wall, she yelped as clumps of feathers went loose with the moss. Wings smarting, she scraped violenty at the fungus that had also crawled down a good deal of her side. Even though she'd partially separated from the wall of moss, a thick web of it still clung to her right arm, hip, and wings. It bound her arm to her side, and no deal of movement would break it. “Damn damn damn!” She'd been an absolute idiot to dismiss the plant, and Rusty. Oh Rusty...

Even with his employer screaming and hitting his face, the bulky therian lay motionless on the ground. The blasted moss had swamped the therian's face first and was spreading steadily. The filaments of her own assailant also continued to wrap steadily up her wrist and toward her elbow. As a burst of flame erupted in her peripheral vision, Nia lunged desperately for her dagger on the ground. As she kicked tugged repeatedly at the sheath, the moss crawled steadily over her shoulder and touched the base of her collarbone. “Neme take this--” the mythril dagger came loose, and upon first strike, the metal bounced off of the tough fiber. However, the moss broke loose after Nia sawed repeatedly at it.

“What the Hel?” Raph arrived to her side, and just in time, for as the moss continued to envelop her wings, the zanaryan cut her loose with the weighty swing of a sword.

And with that, she broke free. Immediately, the moss stopped spreading but the remains still clung to her body. She'd never felt more vulnerable as she stumbled toward Rusty with only one free arm and her wings webbed together. “Move,” she panted as she angled her dagger toward the therian's head. Neme help us, can he still breathe? The metal hit just two inches over the therians head, and though she managed to break him loose, the fungus still clung to the cloth at his legs and spread toward her as if it also detected her presence.

“Get out of my way,” was Lysistrata's only warning, and Nia barely backed away before a hot blast of light hit the moss over Rusty's arm.

[Jericho]

The heat had an immediate effect: The fungus withdrew so quickly - even from nearby Jericho - that Rusty flopped to the side. His face was purple, his lips blue. As Jericho shrugged out of the cocoon and scrambled to his feet to get as far away from the stuff as possible, Shane mewled and nudged at the Therian's chin, then batted his cheek with a paw.

He didn't move.

“Get up, you lard-arsed bum.” Jericho poked the bearded man's calf with the toe of his boot. The impact jerked Rusty's body but he still didn't react. “Look, this is dreadfully inconvenient, man. Do you think I want to listen to Ninian's incessant complaints if he gets back to find you dead? Get up, I said!” His kick this time was harder, insistent, and still the Therian refused to get up.

Burning off the last remnants of the cocoon from his own legs, Nimisha moved in closer to do the same for Rusty, but Lysistrata placed one hand on his slender shoulder and used the other to feel for Rusty's pulse. When she shook her head, the Sidhe's lower lip trembled and he covered his mouth. “No way. You big, hairy jerk. How could you...?” Jericho suddenly found his arms full of Nymph, but he was slow to close his hold around the Nereid's waist, still frowning at his enforcer over Misha's shoulder.

How was this possible? How could the oaf be dead? They had only been sleeping for fifteen minutes, at most!

Taking the lighter from Misha's limp hand, Jericho offered it to Raphael. The Zanaryan could use the air to spread the flame faster and farther. “Burn it. Burn it all.”