.hack//DIVERGENCE Main

[Senna]

Senna sensed she wasn’t actually getting all that much accomplished, but as always, there was the adrenaline rush of being in the thick of things. She’d finished her last swing and hopped back onto another of the little floating islands when something overhead caught her attention. Someone was doing something up at the ceiling, though from the distance and the backlighting, she couldn’t tell for sure who it was.

The curiosity and novelty of the moment – what were they DOING up there? – distracted Senna from seeing the beast’s final moments with more than the corner of her eye. She could feel it though – it was a weird sensation, with the heat rising from below and a blast of frigid air from above. It drew her attention back with its roar though as the final blows were struck and the gigantic tower of a neck began to fall toward the ground level. For a moment, its progress was just noted with wide eyes. The sight was a bit awe-inspiring in its own right. And then, as almost an afterthought, she realized that being out here on the islands when that thing splashed down might NOT be the best of ideas.

Scanning the surroundings, Senna began to make a quick if unsteady line for the edge. She wasn’t close enough though, she realized fairly swiftly. Instead of continuing the race, she crouched on the next sizeable floe and stabbed her spear into it, bracing against it with one foot, the other planted to one side

The neck hit. The magma puckered down, then rose up… in a listless wave, not small by any means, but not what she’d been expecting. The island rode over it like an innertube at a beach. Senna watched it wash further away, the allowed herself a small sigh of relief.

There was no warning for what came next, as the lava simply bowed inexplicably upward, as though releasing some immense bubbles. But as those bubbles broke, it was not air or gas but the missing two heads which had apparently decided to come up and join the fun. These broke the surface with a heavy wave, eliciting a surprised shriek from the Long Arm, who actually resorted to hopping up on the tines of her weapon momentarily, clinging with her hands on the haft to try to keep her out of the wash of magma that flowed thinly over top of the floe.

“Oh… my.. god... this… THING…” she raged as she hopped down, taking a slight HP penalty as her soft shoes landed in a cooling puddle of the stuff. Moving with renewed vigor, she scampered to the edge of the lava, not even stopping when she reached real land, nor when she received a Flashmail. It wasn’t until she felt like she was far enough away that she wouldn’t do something stupid that she stopped, turned and read the Flashmail. Well, simple enough. Items though. She was NOT going to just let this thing sit there and mock them with its one-hit-one-damage crap.

Prepping a Health Drink by slipping it out of one sleeve, she glared at one of the creature’s heads as though she could cause it damage with her irritation alone, then whispered, “Rue Rom.”

While it wasn’t anywhere near as flashy or damage-inducing as Rayo’s contribution, Senna was currently subscribing to the every little bit helps theory of casting.

ooc:

Flare Hydra Full
HP 738 / 1500

[Lord Canti]

(The Flare Hydra's first head was nothing, really. It was hard and it was high-level and its fire was strong enough to kill him, but...to the whole team, this wasn't such a bad beast. It wasn't nearly as challenging as being a bunch of low-level players against a very deadly boss. These new friends of his... They were at least tougher, stronger. Canti's involvement in this first head of the hydra waned as his mind began to drift. He wasn't sure why that was, actually. Something... Something came unhooked, you could say. He didn't feel like he was here anymore. The first thing that came to mind was that he might've been dreaming this whole thing, or that he was dreaming now. Damn existential philosophy. He read a bit about it when he'd first heard about the nature of The World, and now look at him. Questioning what is and what isn't... But Canti was thinking about that spider-like abomination, where teamwork had really been pressed. Only he, Dien, and Zhao were to be counted on there. He'd felt it, then. That monster had nearly killed them. It really did. And so too did the Demon of Fear. And Suraisu. What was it, then, that made Canti drift...?)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(The red haze closed all around him. It wasn't like before, with just shadows and impressions of being. No... The World faded into a red haze of static and nothingness, at least to him. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong and she could feel it. The fox stepped lively from the battle and entered the fugue that Canti was standing in. In the real and proper World, Canti was just basically standing there, looking frozen on the spot. Not literal freezing and not the freeze of fear. It seemed more like...being lethargic. That too had the fox worried as she crept closer into his head. The red haze was the result of their connection, a very distant and dubious thing that didn't work right half the time. Regardless, it was there. She spoke to him in a voice used to get through to people in a trance, which was what this seemed to be like. This was the best way to get through to his psychosis.)

"Canti... Canti... What are you doing? Why are you just standing there?"

Canti: I don't know... I don't know what I'm doing...

"What do you mean? You're in the middle of battle."

Canti: That's not important... None of this makes any difference..."

"No difference? Don't be silly. You're inside The World. Your life is on the line."

Canti: My life has no meaning. All I do is act and react. I'm no more alive here than I ever was. None of this matters...

(The fox looked into those black pits that he called eyes and saw void. Not just the usual blackness, but an empty void where his soul should be. Something put out the fire, that great indominatable spirit of his that always burned like a dragon's pulse. Did he falter in the face of a superior fire-beast? No, that wasn't it... He faltered in the wake of his own being, caught in the realization of being less than nothing. He would have zero fighting ability so long as he remained like this.)

"This is absurd... These people are your friends, and you have to help them as they help you."

Canti: Then why do I still feel alone?

"That's...a difficult one."

Canti: Still... They are the only people I can count on. Dien, Zan, Senna, you, and everyone else.

"Well, I'm flattered that you think so highly of me. Now, go get 'em, already. You're getting left behind."

(The fox had circled around in back and kicked him in the ass to get him moving.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(The hydra's first head was already dead. It draped itself out of the lake from the middle, making a half-bridge for the players to get closer to the other heads from. The bastard was already taking damage from multiple attacks, thanks especially to the now-freed Nall and Nighthand. Excellent... Canti had almost tripped forward, suddenly, as if someone had pushed him. He looked back at empty space and smirked. That's what he needed... A kick in the ass to get him started. Go figure. Well, until one of these guys had an actual plan that involved him, though, he was best to standing back and casting a spell or three at the hydra-thing in order to whittle it down. Juk Rom passed twice, knocking into the beast's full form now. It was no bother, really. This creature wasn't viral or hacked or anything. It was just a beast. They'd take it down, no sweat.)

OOC:

Flare Hydra Full
HP: 698/1500

[Zan]

Zan, healed and skill points restored thanks to Rayo and Senna, rose from his downed position with defiance etched into the strength of his expression. The sudden, unintentional change from Garou to human should have been something unsurprising to the lycanthrope by now, but it never really got any easier. It left him light-headed and more drained than he would have otherwise been, perfect pickings for the duel-headed creature that loomed dozens of feet above him. Rayo, as if reading his mind, had recently joined in their attempts against the Flare Hydra and it was because of that and the various other components of their teamwork that their foe's HP was falling at the rate that it was. Sadly enough, for Zan, it just wasn't enough. If they all kept this up, even at the remotely impressive pace that they had mustered, they'd be too burnt out to last too efficiently in the next room and even more lacking in whatever challenges were laid out on the road to the Hub. That alone wasn't necessarily frustrating (it was to be expected when dealing with anything related to the Elites). What was galling him with such fervor, with such God damn zeal, was that he knew he had the power to end the creature right then and there (if draining it of its HP really was the solution, and hopefully it was).

Such knowledge didn't come from any facts he had gone through or any observations of his wavering abilities. No, it came from an Instinct unknown to his Wolf, an Instinct that lay in a part of him he thought inaccessible and dead. It was the Raven whispering to him, a bird caged by the illness of the Plures Vultus Mortis. It was then, without reason or without trail, a metaphysical, metaphorical discussion took place in the plain of his own mind, eyes closing and opening to the sight of a dulled room crafted of rotting wood, dusty antiques of art and opened maps to the labyrinth of his psyche, and open shutters that let in the light of day. Peering at this light, Zan could not pierce it, couldn't make for a world outside. The light set a grey ambiance, contrary to logic, inside this sanctum of thought. A quick glance to his left brought eyes upon a broken mirror, a mirror set in front of a chipping doorway that led into the world mapped out around him. What he saw in the mirror, what he viewed as his inner self, wasn't the twitchy, unsure stare of Conner. Rather...it was Zan's hardened glance that stared fractured back at him. The mirror showed him sitting against the wall, a position he wasn't even aware he was occupying. A rattled motion drew his eyes from any further inspection of himself or the musty, age-old furniture around him and to the line of iron bars that made up the wall opposite the one that allowed his recline.

Eyes shrinking to slits, Zan leaned forward, vainly attempting to make sense of the stir of shadow and passing obsidian feather than paced relatively unseen behind that cage. Before the Heavy Blade could open his mouth, before he could question why he found himself in this place or what exactly 'this place' was (though he knew in his heart of hearts where he now dwelled), words were stolen from his throat. It was as if the English language suddenly scorned him, silence demanded by the essence of the Raven. A flash of realization and he remembered the Flare Hydra, remembered where he should be and what he should be doing, remembered that the Raven was somehow the answer. Zan hadn't been brought there, brought within himself, to simply negotiate the Raven's release. Being there, being near it, he knew he'd able to call it forth. What he didn't know, what it told him with beady silver eyes alone was the cost of such a granted wish and what being was delivering this information. The Raven was no mere personification of his Corvid, but a cocktail of data that swam with bits of himself, the Raven, and the PVM in turn. It was incomplete, faulty, and unfinished in a way Zan couldn't comprehend. In this place of Self the Raven was no mere reflection of a aerial version of his mind, but a thing of individual thought.

This Raven, this collection of looping and viral data let him know that the decision he was about to make was going to kill away the Gatekeeper of the Many Faced Death, that which had kept the bugged PVM from completely assimilating with his Twilight and making him like the First Wolf. The First was a Beast of no humanity, a Beast that knew only hunger and madness and rage. Shifting into Corvid, pushing through the error that had warded him off before, would grant the secondary virus too much strength and with that it would not only overwhelm the Gatekeeper but finally assimilate with his Twilight. The entity before him let him know it would be a slow merging, that the First's inherited sickness and creeping madness would edge up on him slowly. If they pushed through this field quick enough, if he got help quick enough, it might not be the end for him as well. The Heavy Blade would have hesitated, would have wondered if a quick defeat of the room's boss would be worth it (if the juice would be the worth the squeeze, as they say) when the Gatekeeper dismissed these worries. There were two reasons he needed to do this, it told him. One, if the group kept wearing themselves down they'd never be up for what lay ahead and, two, the Gatekeeper knew its sands were almost at the bottom of the hourglass. It wanted to go out with a bang. It wanted triumph. It wanted victory.

A subtle nod and Zan found himself standing back in the Vak room, blinking away the remnants of the odd hallucination (was it really just that...?). Whatever truth may have swam in the fatigue-induced "vision" was enough for him, was real for him. The fear that had kept him from releasing the Raven was now gone. All he could envision then was progress and advancement. It didn't matter that his illness would be amplified. It didn't matter that, should he not find the proper way to deal with it, that he'd be eaten away and lost completely to the bestial, primal mind that he had been fighting since his infection's onset. All that mattered now that he was going to bring down the Flare Hydra. All that mattered now was that he'd slake the thirst of a possibly-ficticious Gatekeeper and unleash power he had denied to himself. Zan would bathe himself in the creature's quelled spark and smile, knowing full well the black tide that would be on its way. Swallowing hard, throat suddenly dry as he coaxed the Raven to life, Zan watched as the word ERROR began to etch itself along the contours of his data. The pain came and, though it filled and gnawed at him, he did not scream. Rather than fleeing from it as he had done before, the lycanthrope swelled the power of the Raven into the metaphorical balloon and waited for it to pop.

And, not surprisingly, that is exactly what happened. The dreaded word stopped its persistent reminders and vanished completely, replaced then with a crawl underneath his flesh. Sluggish clumps of the PVM squirmed through his veins, slithered around in his innards. Even then he knew he could turn back, that he could stop this, but Zan simply couldn't muster the courage to be a coward (as odd and contradictory as such may seem). No, the lycanthrope pressed on, finally allowing that contained scream to rip from his throat and fuel the fire of transformation that had begun. The changes were small and hardly as dramatic as the Garou, but each strand of black and feather-like hair that replaced his others was just as painful. Such pain was distinct, like needles exploding from your bones, but did not compare to the feel of the dark feathers that began to appear on his arms. Rather than the simple representative tattoos that he had gotten himself used to, actual feathers began to line his forearm to form vestigial wings. Unlike the grace that he was almost sure would have accompanied such a change before, this one came forced and violent, blood making the feathers slick and greased. The hollowing of his bones, unlike previous experiences, was an experience akin to someone breaking you open and sucking your marrow dry. And yet...for a reason he could no longer recall...he kept at it.

A second and a breath later and he was left only sore and, sadly, unhealing. The throb of the pain's intensity was, for the most part, gone. Thankful for that small gift, Zan willed his eyes to fill in with blue, to reach into the Rue Echo and find even a partial rune that would allow his powers their necessary loft. Not surprisingly, however, such was hard to find in a room completely devoted to the opposite element that he sought. Luckily for him, however, the threads that made up any part of the game (this one included) had blank elemental slates within them. They were both every element and none and at all and, with this knowledge, Zan culled Rue's rune from a spot on the ground before him. A slam of his palm into the rune and a shout of "Amp Ruem!" and his veins flooded with ice and a sheen of blue. Contrary to biological law, he lived on, eyes shutting off the Rue Echo to view the world as it was. If anyone was tossing curious glances at his behavior, he was unaware, too involved in the fatal series of blows he was about to unleash. It would end. He would end it, if not for the lives of his comrades then for the life of a thing that only existed in his mind. The Gatekeeper would have its day at the office.

"OrRue Rom!" The first spell, fueled to a level three with the SP cost of its predecessor, battered at the twin existences of his foes and brought painful music from their mouths.

The ice that formed was magnificent, art made into a tornado of sheer magical oppression. It didn't matter that the Flare Hydra had its sights almost instantaneously aimed on him. All of his Skill Points would be emptied before he drew a dying breath, of that he'd make sure. Laughing at the high of it, Zan called himself to flight (seeing as he could do so with only tattoos of feathers in the past, even bloodied versions of the real things seemed to make due) and avoided the conversion of flame that crushed down where he had once stood. If the Flare Hydra could show surprise, Zan would have bet money that that was exactly what their eyes gave him. Was the little mouse flying? Had the little mouse really caused that much pain on his own? Avoiding the gout of duel flames that attempted to snuff him out, the Heavy Blade rose higher and called the spell for a second time, that much more damage being wrenched away from its precious health bar. After the second spell, however, he found the insistent attacks becoming that much more difficult to evade. If he was going to, in the end, let six more of the same things bring down the Hydra, he needed to get a lot more creative. And quick.

Grunting at a rain of fire that fell from the sky, back catching one or two of the orbs, a third OrRue Rom found its mark and brought that symphony of agony to the air once again. Something about the thing's pain was entertaining him to a sociopathic degree. Had the Gatekeeper been wrong? Was the madness of the First befalling him so soon? Shaking off the possibility, knowing that things would be a lot worse than simple sadistic thoughts if it were true, he watched it momentarily survey the others. It seemed to be weighing if pursuing Zan was such an ideal path or if taking out his comrades first would make him more easily disposed of. The Heavy Blade would have been flattered in any other situation, but the fact that it was all in consideration of his doom really took the umph out of it. Distracted as it was, Zan saw no reason not to let a fourth OrRue Rom go, gigantic crags of ice ripping into and colliding against the beasts of flame and fire (redundancy incarnate). Anger was given sound at the success of the spell, Zan's airborne form zipping away from another of the power-rippling spells. Thought his hit points weren't affected, the heat was close enough to make him worry...if only a little. Okay, a lot. He was going to burn by the time this was all over. Shit.

With only so much of its precious bar left, with only so much keeping it alive and fighting back, the Hydra seemed to grow that much more desperate. The people around him, his companions, ceased to be in need of punishment quite as much as the bloody-feathered Freedom Fighter above. Zan knew that that was bullshit, that there were plenty of people down there much more intimidating and worthy of the attention then himself, but it didn't matter. What did matter was that Zan was only four spells away from granting the Flare Hydra oblivion and, somehow, it sensed it. Or did it? Was this simply self-preservation without any real thought of what the lycanthrope could bring about? Shrugging at the thoughts, Zan fired off another OrRue Rom and let it take away the focus of the Hydra for another few moments. Each fleshy, wet thud of ice against skin was satisfying to the lycanthrope, sadism painting his curled lips. Before the monster could even recover from the last one, Zan whispered forth a sixth copy of the spell and reclined in the air. Ah, this really was f...un. Ow. Gloating had made him the perfect target for the Kruz spell, his hitpoints remaining at a little less than a third of his maximum. It was bad, sure, but he was still better off than his foe. That little slip up had taken away anymore space he had once had to fool around (if any had existed in the first place).

Zan fought back with a seventh OrRue Rom and smiled at the steep droop of life. It only held onto a prized few hit points then, such seen in the bludgeoned waver of its twin necks. Narrowly dodged streams of fire let him know they weren't quite down for the count yet. That was okay, really, Zan didn't feel like the end had made its way to this room. No, there needed to be one last signal, one last exclamation on the dragonlings, the dragons, and the 'mother' that rose in their ashes. Rather than do the smart think and finish the Hydra off, Zan simply hovered about several stories in the air, eager for that click. The Flare Hydra, oddly enough, gave him no attack, not as one would expect from a monster in the throes of death. It almost seemed to calculate him as he did it, each waiting for the other to act in an eerily human fashion. Then again, the lycanthrope could have easily perceived this all as dragged out when it could have (more realistically) have come down like a house of cards all in the blink of an eye. Floating back down to the ground below, Zan felt (but didn't see) the signal he had been waiting for and let go the last of his arsenal. Watching the Hydra die, watching it end, the lycanthrope was fully aware of but didn't care to pay heed to the Vulcan Ch that bared down upon him. Smiling, euphorically happy that the room was (God, he hoped) over, arms crossed over his chest once more, his death seemed so small.

---------------------------------
OOC:

Flare Hydra Heads
0000/1500 HP

I realize eight spells is a freaking lot for one post, but I was given express permission by Nighthand for the simple reason that we all want this room (and this quest) over with. I didn't cheat seeing as I have the power to do what I did (in the course of two posts, not one) and made up for the spamfest with a post that is almost double the length of my normal deal. So if you still have issues with the post, please get over it.

It's not worth the headache, eh?

[Nighthand]

It seemed like Nighthand had barely had the time to land and recover before the Hydra pair were defeated. He had little more than regained his footing before Zan had formed himself into his Raven form, and while something about it didn't seem quite right, it certainly was the boost in power that he needed. Nighthand didn't even have the time to analyze the monster and find out it's weakness, let alone ask anyone what to do to hurt the beast. For all that he had pulled the Nightblade out, he didn't have much time to use it.

Rather than banishing the blade, however, he held it out and ready. This couldn't be all, could it?

He was right enough, at least in a sense. Rarely was there a boss that didn't have some kind of final blow. Most of the hackers seemed to like having some sort of trick to killing their monsters, and even if there wasn't, there was often some bad thing that happened when the monster itself was killed. This case was no exception. When the final bit of damage was dealt to the still-reeling heads of the monster, they took it upon themselves to enact the final bit of 'justice' that they could for their death. Zan was annihilated in the fury of an airborne Vulcan Ch, but that wasn't all. The beast still had SP left, after all.

The targets for the final bursts were somewhat predictable. Phoenix and Rayo, closest together out of everyone else, had dealt a significant amount of damage themselves, to the previous head and to this one. They, then, were the targets of a flurry of spells. RaVak Don, a massive ball of molten rock, formed in the air and fell with horrible speed onto the pair. A second and a third followed, and the fury was finished up with OrVak Rom, the level three tornado version of the spell. If there was anything left of the pair after that onslaught, it would be ashes and ghosts.

Zan's charred body hit the ground and burst into it's own fragments of charcoal, the ghost forming where it had landed. As if to add insult to injury, as the heads swayed and fell, they seemed to target him for just a little bit more. One after the other, they fell, landing where his ghost was. Despite his ethereal presence, it couldn't be pleasant to have a gigantic mass like that fall on you. He didn't have the time to react, though, before the hydra's heads were gone. All three of them simply crumbled into dust and data, leaving a void in the center of the lava pool as big as a house. The molten rock swept to fill the void, collapsing into itself and shooting up into a fountain, spectacular but ultimately harmless.

They're growing.
Yes... Their power increases. Hopefully they won't disappear, like so many others have. This war could go on forever.
They won't. They have to keep going, don't they? No... I know better than that. I just hope we can take out more of the elites before they disappear and we have to raise another generation.
Kuja and Jett.... Only six more, and whoever their master is.
Well gee, when you put it like that, it seems like not much at all.

Still, the power was impressive. Nighthand had been sorely tempted to grab a spell and boost it in his own way, but his power was too unpredictable. Maybe it was time to try to get that fixed. Raine and Sheena might be able to do something, couldn't they? Something to ask them, anyways.

The Nightblade balanced over his shoulder, the whip curled around his forearm, Nighthand once more approached the dragon head statue. Or rather would have, had the ground not suddenly started shaking. It was like an earthquake, the whole room shaking. Rubble tumbled from the walls, but none of the holes unsealed. Instead, the dragon statue did much as everyone had expected it to do from the beginning of the room. It came to life.

Well, sort of. It came mostly to life, in the sense that the statue was not animate. It was still a statue though, and not a monster. It didn't make a move to attack them, despite the readiness of the party to fight back. It rose up, revealing more than just the creature's head. There was a full body of stone, complete with claws and wings. The beast stretched and displayed its wings, then went down on all fours. The neck bent from side to side, like a human cracking their spine, and then bowed low. A long, snake-like tongue of stone stretched out to the heavyblade, uncurling to reveal the match-like symbol that they had come to the room to gather.

Nighthand took the symbol, and all movement of the dragon ceased. It was, once more, a statue. The expected blast of reddish energy, the remnants of the power from the room and hallway, exited. Artifact in hand, the bladesmage strode purposely towards the exit. The rest would follow, he knew.

Nall was later in the uptake. He had maintenance of the party to take care of, at least. No sense in letting his stock of items go to waste, the group had proved itself more than capable of taking care of itself without him. He cast his resurrects on anyone who needed one.

”One more room to go, guys... This place is almost over.” Nall said. His face was clouded, though. He had seen something, as the first head was defeated. Something that was unnatural, not part of this level's script, was waiting for them in the next room.

Elsewhere, the figure stirred. It fingered the tile in it's hand, tracing over the lettering, the only sign of any life in it's body. A body made of rock and dust, given life by powers beyond the ken of normal players. The figure, humanoid enough, human enough, stayed in it's shadow. They would be here soon enough.

Nighthand waited for the rest of the group to arrive before he placed the key to the next room. No telling what it would do to them if he placed it early... the room was sealed off once it's key was placed, after all. Once the group was gathered in the central room, he placed the key. Nothing outward was different in the closing of the room... except, of course, that there was only one pathway remaining.

Wanting it all to be over with, and knowing that the hardest challenge yet would be just ahead, Nighthand strode off into the final hallway. The warning pulses of the runes were assuaged by the quick presence of the rest of the party, hot on his heels. They, too, wanted this over as much as he did.

Halfway down the hallway and a muted roar came to their ears. Water? Of course... Probably a waterfall, no doubt. In a large river, from the sound of it. The air felt absolutely frigid after the last room, though no doubt a balm to some. Nall was outright shivering. Nighthand wrapped his cloak a bit more around himself.

Once they emerged into daylight, though, it was made plain that the temperature was from the difference from the last room, rather than the theme of the room. What appeared before them was the shore of a river. The broad and rapid water flowed past them in amounts to make the mighty Mac Anu green with envy. It disappeared in a hole in the wall, just to the right of where they emerged on the shore. The river stretched at an angle away from them, a short distance away ending in the waterfall they had heard.

The rest of the room wasn't much to look at. While it was like the Juk room, in that there appeared to be a sky and clouds and even the sun, there was no illusion of endless space. The wall they emerged from stretched only a short distance before it curved at a right angle, turning from smooth stone into jagged rocks. They were in half of a deep vertical crater, a hole punched into the ground. The rocks were too wet, too steep to climb, at least not easily. Maybe had they had the help of Reinier's earth-based powers, but he wasn't here anymore, so they would have to make do. The rest of the area, the “floor” of the crater, was a forest. Not even a particularly dense forest. They could see the cliff all the way around. There wasn't much hope for escape from the pit.

Before the party could decide what to do, the choice was made for them. A figure stepped out from among the trees, walking slowly towards them.

The figure was very out of place in the forested air. Nall's red flags went off in his head; this was the unnatural presence he had felt in this room. He drew his blade, and Nighthand already held his at the ready, though how much good it would do was another story.

The figure was entirely human-looking, save for a few details. There were no claws, no wings, no tail. He, for it looked entirely male, was dressed somewhat formally. Black shoes shined to reflect the sun jutted from the bottom of creased dress slacks. A black overcoat, like a tuxedo, lay over an odd shirt. The shirt itself was visible only at the cuffs and collar of the figure, where it spiked out in deep purple-black segments of cloth, almost resembling leaves. The black of the overcoat was unmarred save for one section, where the breast pocket was; it was covered over with a strange angular silver symbol. The figure's hands were covered by black form-fitting gloves.

The only thing that kept this figure from being entirely human was the head. It was completely bald, no hair on either the top nor the face. There were no ears, merely small bulges where ears may have once been. Following the faceless theme, there were no eyes. The entire head was black as obsidian, and just as reflective. It was not faceted or scratched, as a carving may have been. Instead, it was like a mask, pulled over the entire head. The only exception to the pure black theme was a ribbon around the crown of the head, yellow with a black line in the center. It held a medallion, a pentagon marked with a five-pointed star, crafted of silver. The medallion hung in the center of the figure's forehead, where mystics imagined the third eye to be.

”Do not be alarmed. I do not come to harm you.”

The voice plainly came from the figure, but it made no move that would have made the noise. It moved no mouth and breathed no air, the sound simply formed.

"Oh, I'm so sure. Who...what are you?" Zan asked, body tensing with the preparations for a fight. The question was on all of their minds, no doubt. He wasn't alone in speaking. "...huh." Dien said at the same moment, pondering. "I'm guessing you're not Marionette, then?"

“I am not. I am merely a the Guardian. Here, I am messenger.” The black figure, the Guardian, held out a small white tile, no larger than a playing card.

Not hesitating, Zan reached out and grabbed the tile before anyone else could stop him. ”Well, Guardian, what is this?” he asked.

”It is a key, one of three, to finding what you seek. Not here, but through the rings. My master awaits. My master bids you complete your task.” The Guardian half-turned, raising the arm that had held the Tile. Fingers splayed, pointed at the waterfall, an unseen power moved where none could feel. The flow of the water abruptly divided, as though a glass barrier had been put in the way. Beyond was revealed a small stone path from the shore, and a cave leading into the cliff face. “The token you want is there.”

"In there...?" Dien asked, motioning to the cave, "another key is inside, or just the icon of this room?" Again, he and Zan spoke nearly at the same time. Zan was growing tired already of this Guardian's semblance to his master's encrypted words. "Thank you, but...key to what? What does this open?" A thought. "Is this something for the Hub?"

The Guardian seemed unphased by the questions, it's voice no different than it had been before. ”The Icon of Water rests inside. The Key is one of three. Use it to find my master. Look upon the key.”

Etched on the ivory surface of the tile was a meaningless string of characters.

sTgshasdeh dafwhhfofdrradf yumuokdrucwe aasdcvrythhe ladocreohtkasdgirnashtga faovrr iasgs Hgaodpaegdfauasdlga

Snarling in frustration, eyes scanning over the gibberish, Zan looked back to the Guardian but kept both his tone and his actions contained. It would be fruitless to be poorly diplomatic in front of one of Marionette's minions. "What the hell does this mean? Why do we have to jump through your hoops? Why, oh why, can't you just tell us what this is and move this along? We're exhausted."

Dien, too spoke up. "...hang on, Zan, let me see. As a hacker, I just might be able to make more sense of it than you." But apparently not. The blademaster took the key and glanced at its surface, only pulling his head back and cocking it to one side in confusion. "Nope, I guess not." With one hand he offered it back to Zan.

Nighthand took this chance to speak up, as he had been watching the whole show. ”It's probably a game. You know the hackers don't want to make it easy on us. This is for their entertainment.” Through all this, the guardian said nothing. It seemed as still as a statue, holding the water at bay with a force none of them could see.

"Oh no, not another freakin' puzzle..." Dien groaned.

"So Marionette really is a part of them? He's a hacker?" Returning his gaze to the Guardian, he repeating himself. "Is Marionette working with the Elites? Or is he just a hacker who likes to see us dance for him?"

”My master works for himself. Of his intentions, it is him you must ask. Gather your item and progress; he awaits your presence.”

”How do we know we can trust you?” Nighthand asked, but the Guardian had no answer for him. Of course, there could be no answer that would satisfy them enough. Offer of a reason to trust him would be taken as a lie, anyways.

"Maybe a little help?" Dien suggested afterward. Nighthand gave the blademaster a look. ”He has told us where the icon is, as well as opened the door to it for us. We might as well follow his suggestion and get on with it.”

Knowing that conversing any further with the Guardian lacked a point, Zan simply indulged himself in a simple shake of his head and moved on to the cave, hoping to claim the mentioned item. Nighthand and Nall joined him in his walk. Whether the rest of the group stayed behind or followed, was up to them.

Inside the cave was a short walk to a simple altar of ice. Resting on the ice itself was the item they had been looking for, and taking it seemed to cause no change in the surroundings. Still, given that they would have had to have passed a racing waterfall to get it, let alone the clues to where to find it, it seemed like whatever challenge had been in this room had been removed.

The group emerged from the cave with the icon, and the guardian lowered his hand. The waterfall returned to normal.

”It was there, alright. Now what do we do? This room is over.” Nighthand stood, waiting for the group to decide. After all, they had a minion of Marionette there before them, the possibilities were more than just “move on”.

-------ooc:

you can talk to Guardian if you want, I'll post it's answers.

This is Guardian, though he doesn't have the cane with him.

[Senna]

Things seemed to be going... well, if not well than at least smoothly. They were using more time and energy than they should be given that the creature wasn’t all that difficult to deal with. Senna was keenly feeling the need to get to a store and restock. Spell after spell whittled away at the thing. And then...

Well, she’d known things were odd on this field, and she’d even known things were odd with these players. In addition to the information Nall had presented her with at the outset, that they were stuck here though some mechanism that she still couldn’t wrap her mind around (not that she’d had much time to think on it) and that they had some unusual abilities. Of everyone in the group, Zan seemed to exhibit this the most, or at least in the most physically obvious way, though Nall’s how-in-the-heck-did-he-know-that ability was running a close second, and of course, there was that black-out spell from before. But what she saw now - all thought of fighting, or even keeping an eye on the continuing health of people and keeping herself moving fell away like leaves from a dying plant as she watched the most incredible (in the most literal sense of the word) display she’d yet seen. He was flying, casting again and again, high-level spells that were not only battering at the enemy but were changing the very feel and flow of the room.

Internal and external views of oneself were often at odds within anyone. It wasn’t something Senna thought about a lot, but Amber - Hyanae - had said it once, that she didn’t think anyone could know anyone, not even their own selves. The lucky ones, she said, were those who accepted that dichotomy, or those who managed to have their view of themselves sync up more often than most with the outward expressions. Senna had said her friend was thinking too much about something which, if she was correct, she could not change.

Now, however, she was momentarily an example of exactly what Hyanae had been talking about. The place had become a war zone, and the wise thing to do would be to get further back, to keep out of range until whatever was driving Zan spent itself and either he or the hydra fell - for she felt sure those were the only two possible outcomes of this. She wasn’t running though, and the only betrayal of what she was thinking about were a whiteness in the lines of her hands where her fingers gripped savagely at her spear and an unnatural-feeling wideness of her eyes. There was, oddly, not fear in her thoughts, though from her stance, from the strain in her hands and her arms, one might have thought so. And usually there WAS fear - she wouldn’t admit as much, not in this company or any other. She was supposed to be an unflappable person. That was who she’d chosen to be here. It was just rarely the truth of the matter. But now... now there was no fear, only a cold dread and certainty, blue and piercing as the ice of the spells that kept coming, one after another.

Zan’s assault finally ended, though it was not one but both of the combatants which fell. The spectacle wasn’t over yet, though, for in its last few seconds the hydra managed a counterattack which painted the room in red light, like insubstantial blood. The sudden rush of wind from a flurry of fire spells to one side shoved at her hard enough to force a step to avoid being blown over. She was still staring, blinking so rarely it seemed her muscles had forgotten to do so. The monster fell, causing the heavy magma to geyser into the air in a final spectacular moment, then it fell back and everything went still.


And she kept staring. She didn’t even notice until it had already happened that someone else had taken care of resurrecting the several members of their group who had been taken out in that final assault. She missed the dragon statue finally giving up its prize. When the rest of them moved out, heading back toward the central area, her own pace was methodical, even a little zombie-ish. She stumbled a couple times over her own feet, but while her eyes were open and taking things in, they were just... well, glazing was the best term. She was seeing things, but not registering them.

Her resolve - or maybe just her self-control - was a sand castle on the beach. Little waves had been eating at it, growing bigger in each room, with each demonstration of what was going on and what it would take them to survive it all. She’d thought the worst of it would have been in the central room before they ventured into the dragon lair, when she’d decided to pull out at the end of this as an unneeded part of the group. But no, that had just been a crumbling of the front face. Zan’s display had been the final wave. It was all gone, any thought that this was something she could take an equal part in. She was fundamentally different from the rest of them. She’d thought it was just their shared experience that forged them into a group and left her feeling awkward and outside, but she got it now. It wasn’t point of view or experience, but makeup, fundamental existence.

She’d read a book once where a group of fighters had enhanced abilities or superhuman strength. There were a pair of normal people in the group as well, and those two had a conversation at one point about how it felt to know that no matter what you did and how hard you worked, you could physically never measure up to those others. There was more to the conversation, but it was that part that stuck to her mind.

They probably all had something they could do, some ability which gave them an edge. Canti had said something about the riders in the Ani room not doing him as much damage. The one who’d spoken to her outside the Vak room had been performing some attacks she couldn’t begin to figure out. Some of them had cast that strange spell which had blanketed the whole room in darkness and caused the ground to sprout spears like grass. She’d felt before she shouldn’t be here, but now she understood it, deeply and with ingrained certainty. And they’d tried to warn her. She just hadn’t been able to grasp, until now, the truth behind their warnings.

Normal people didn’t belong fighting with superhumans. It was like Joe Schmoe deciding to lend Superman a hand.

Senna trailed along at the back of the group, trying to force her mind to stop thinking about things she could not control, but it was like the proverbial elephant - the more she tried not to think about it, the more it settled over her mind. As they entered the far-cooler next room, she resolved to keep out of the way. She would help where she could, if she could, but her number one priority was to stay out of the way.

The last of the elemental rooms provided a bit of scenic relief after the crazy interior of the Vak room, with its red lights and magma. When a strange figure stepped out of the trees and confronted the group, Senna didn’t even find herself reacting to it. She only studied it, knuckles still white on her Ichigou. And since she could not truly determine a sex from it, this creature, like Marionette, was rendered in the neutral in her mind. She watched and listened as it discoursed with Zan and Dien. They were given something, a key the Guardian called it, which both looked at but neither seemed to understand. From the motion of their eyes across the surface, she took it to have either writing or pictures on it. Nighthand and Dien’s comments only served to cement that thought, and finally she had something new to think about which was good. Self-pity was a poor meal taken mostly by the weak, and it left a sickly, sour feeling in her stomach and mouth.

The Guardian’s ability to part the waterfall had been interesting, but as Senna glanced around, she could see no sign of the rings the Guardian mentioned. So then, through the last door? Would the other keys be through that door as well?

Nall, Nighthand and Zan had taken the path revealed behind the waterfall, but she elected not to. She was curious about something. The messages had evidently seemed indecipherable to Zan and Dien, but there had to be something to it, right? She considered, and at last spoke up. She was going on the assumption of some kind of message being on the key. If that was wrong, she would look foolish, but looking foolish wasn’t as big a problem as getting in the way. She was willing to take the chance to satisfy her curiosity and kiill time while they were out of sight.

“The note,” she tried to say, but it caught somewhat in her throat and all that came out was “Note.” She coughed once, then continued, thankfully without further incident. “Message or a Rosetta stone?” She was speaking either to the Guardian or to some member of their group who’d seen it and might have a guess. She wasn’t feeling incredibly picky at the moment, as long as it kept her thoughts moving.

[Rayo]

With the Flare Hydra still kicking, the wave master had been prepared to utilize another SP recovery item from his inventory. After watching both Senna and Canti get involved in slapping extra damage on it, the conclusion that the mage was fixed with was that only four of the players present could deal significant damage. Physicals did nil damage unless they bothered to set it up beforehand with ice based magic, and plenty of the party couldn’t actively utilize level three or even level two spells or their equivalents. That analysis included Nall, who usually held himself in reserve or fulfilled an alternative objective while the party busied themselves with the local monster. Nighthand was also capable of using higher level spells, but just how many worthwhile ones he was holding was another question entirely.

That left Zan, someone whose participation left Rayo in enough awe that he just waited to see where it all ended. Masses of ice, one after another seemed affixed to the lava demon’s coordinates, blasting away with more water magic than one would normally expect. Surrounded by what resembled icy spears that littered the ground and the heavy frost in the air, the Flare Hydra altogether appeared finished.

The final blow from Vulcan’s enhanced form seemed natural, but it was expected that the boss creature for the room would at least be able to muster a last final attack. Zan died, but it should have been enough to end the Hydra’s capacity to move and finish it off. Half true at least, as the pair of heads wasted no time in fully utilizing their dual casting capacity. Before Vulcan Ch’s time had expired, a familiar circle design decorated the place where his own feet rested, completely drawing the healer’s attention from the Rip Maen he was about to speak. His SP was still rather low from the multiple rounds of summoning, so that energy would need to be committed to healing. Nor was it just his own, as the nearby blademaster must have not had a chance to flee from the incoming assault. Yet even if that guy found a way to slow down the raining comets, there wasn’t any chance that the black mage was moving an inch from anything other than the force of the spell’s detonation. This was how Rayo wanted the battle to end; the group’s success didn’t end up ruining his plan after all.

Plans were formulated from a logical standpoint for the magician, use whatever tricks to come out on top over the enemies that were there at the time and be somewhat prepared for what would follow. If there was a flaw in gathering in upper level magic, it was the utter ignorance of the pain factor that plagued the party. He’d been a sport, the mage had somehow managed to not utter a single sigh or word of complaint about the horrid temperature this room maintained. Forget that near the beginning the pesky dragon hatchling had literally set him aflame with their natural breath, or that their successors pegged him with Vak Rom only minutes later. A level three spell related to fire while in the room meant to resemble Hell, that pushed Rayo over the edge.

‘Take off the cloak, it made it too warm anyway.’

‘Cast water spells, they hurt less than the burning.’

‘Heal yourself so you can live through that the spell about to come from the sparkling ruby light beneath you.’

‘Phoenix is dying too or dead, right? Heal both of you.”

‘You’re about to die anyway, raise Zan to spite the murdering pyro turning you to a crisp.’

Unfortunately, too much thought and too much fire resulted in poor choices. The La Repth did go off, but that degree of HP restoration wasn’t enough to change the outcome of the pyre that enveloped the pair directly after the healing took place. Without the necessary time to spam another group targeting enchantment, it worked less well than Ol Repth would have, ending in a total of three deaths for them.

The ghost phase didn’t last long, as Nall ended up resurrecting the wizard as well as the others who had fallen in a timely fashion. Not from the long arm, but since the enemy was defeated Rayo didn’t mind the change in assigned duties. The wave manipulator ignored the item pick up process and instead felt it was time to check up on his rewards for not dodging out of the way of anything. RaVak Don and OrVak Rom both had smothered the mage, but only the first was now his. At least for the time being, the last spectacular gifts gained from a reflect battle were gone by the time Rayo had returned to the hideout. The drop spell was added to his spell list without any issue, but the magic that had killed him was nowhere on it. Death really didn’t allow for the data to be copied, did it?

Nevertheless, RaVak Don was his and would be available for when it would be required. Refocusing his attention of the main task of disabling the hub, the player followed everyone else along back into the main connecting room and then on their way to last element’s den. The new room was more to his liking, colder than a sauna and filled with greenery. All in all, perhaps Rue won out over Vak by the charm and grace that it seemed to give off. It was a shame that Rayo had missed out on entering the Rai section earlier on; the mage had been busy enjoying endless paths of darkness, hadn’t he?

The party was greeted by a strange being, one like a human but so different than them. Whatever, form didn’t matter in this place., Unlike the real world, this strange appearance wouldn’t have taken more than some fancy character editing. Yet, both the riddle and conveniently placed medallion indicated that this was a smarter entity than what they had all just faced. Whether or not the messenger remained as one or became their opponent in battle, any sort of exchange with it either verbal or physical required more caution than before.

While some of the group’s strongest advanced to clear the room, the wizard readied himself to cast his newly acquired fire ability if the well dressed thing threatened them. Even if the sorcerer found himself disarmed or bound, Rayo was confident his casting of that particular series of spells wouldn’t be stopped. Studying message with only partial concentration, the patterns of letters didn’t readily reveal to him any answers. First letter of each string or last, italics, upper case, lower case, bold, or something relating to the slashes, nothing made sense. Maybe it was necessary to rearrange the strings to words, but the only one that automatically resembled one, ‘favor’, had one too many of the letter ‘r’. Shaking his head, the caster made a visible shrug while gesturing to the puzzle.

Noting Nighthand‘s question, the mage expressed his view on what would make the most sense.

<The Party

We should finish the hub here before worrying about this Marionette. After that, we should either tie up one of the other two remaining hub fields or go find out more about what Marionette wants. If we do go to a field, I’d rather not revisit the first one I got to explore. I don’t want to go somewhere Marionette will know where to find us…just in case it actually took him the time it took us to clear several obstacles before we were being tracked. An ally would be nice, but if it’s a trap…

We might want to limit certain comments to flashmail. If Marionette doesn’t already know about the final area, I’d prefer to not divulge such information needlessly. Also, Nall? Could you ask Raine or Sheena to do a check on us and it? If Marionette found us here it might not be too much to assume that our return home wouldn’t also be followed.

Personally, I just want to finish what we came to do and then go pay Marionette a visit. Sooner or later we’ll probably run into him/her anyway.

Rayo>

ooc: Blue: OrVak Don

[Phoenix512]

Phoenix was about ready to attack the Flare Hydra with some Rai Rom attacks when a black-feathered raven Zan pelted the monster with high level Rue spells. It was the first time for the blademaster to see Zan in a different form than a werewolf. He began to wonder what the true nature of Zan’s power was and how he could get so powerful in such of a short of time but this wonder would have to wait as he was caught in a barrage of third level Vak spells from the dying Hydra. There was no way for him to survive the attacks and no doubt that Rayo met the same fate that he did.

Phoenix did not remain in ghost form for long as Nall managed to resurrect him from the dead. His guardian bird flew back to her master and transformed back into a necklace as the group left the Vak room. After Nighthand placed the key from the Vak room into the rock along with the other keys that they collected, the group proceeded into the final room which was the Rue room. The Rue room was not covered in ice as the name would suggest but with water instead. It was much better than the fiery pit of hell that Phoenix hated as he was scorched to death twice in there. He could not stand the heat of that room and was enjoying the cooler temperature of the Rue room.

The master of gravity noticed a shadowy figure emerging from the forest tree and introduced itself as a Guardian of Marionette. The shroud figure gave Zan a tile which was some key in finding its master and pointed the way towards the final key. Zan in disgust of the guardian decided to head towards the waterfall which Nall and Nighthand soon follow. Phoenix decided to stay behind and collect some thoughts of the current situation.

Zan can be a very powerful ally for us but at the same time, it seems that his powers could go out of control and kill us one day. He has grown so much in a short period of time while I feel so powerless recently. I just have been rather useless lately with the bosses having some way to make my gravity powers useless. Without strong magic as well, I’m just a souped-up blademaster running around with a match. I feel that there are more to my powers but I don’t know how even to attain them. Only Shinto could be able to tell me more about my powers…

Phoenix had stop his thoughts as Senna spoke out about the tile being a message or Rosetta stone. He managed to get a glance of the tile which was a jumble of letters in different types of styles. He spoke to Senna, “It is a message but I think it will only make sense once we have the other two keys. There’s no way to figure the message right now with just one of them. Now Guardian, I doubt you would tell us where the other two keys are directly but can you give us a hint?”

Right after that, Phoenix got a flashmail from Rayo who wanted to finish the hub before dealing more with Marionette which he agreed with him. Marionette must have some great skills in watching if he/she/whatever could track us down along with being able to figure out the group’s powers. Not even the Elites know about our new members’ abilities. Hell, I don’t know much about them or their extent of them. I don’t think he could tangle with an Elite if he has a guardian protecting him. Wait a second…

Suddenly Phoenix had a light bulb go off in his head and immediately sent off a Flashmail to the party.

To: Everyone
From: Phoenix

I agreed with Rayo about finishing the hub before dealing more with Marionette. I think that it has helped us before in the past. I mean way back in the past. I really think that the pets that some of us got came from him. If it has been watching and studying us all this time, then it should be somewhat reasonable that it has try to help us in the past indirectly. I think that the recent attack of Mac Anu must have made him to reveal itself to us now. There’s my two cents about it. Let’s finish with the original mission and worry about Marionette later. I rather not discuss more about it here away from prying eyes.

End Flashmail

Phoenix waited for the others to make a decision and began to think some more. Shinto if you’re listening to me right now, please help me. Help me to unlock my powers. I need you right now.

[Dien]

“You know you want it,” said the voice, and Dien stirred, opening his eyes to try and discern just who was talking to him. Female: very definitely female, but that was all he could make out, her form silhouetted against some brighter light, “stop fighting it so hard.”

“Who…” he began, reaching his hand out towards her shadow, “who are you?”

“Oh Dien, I’m hurt,” she said, bending over so he could see her face, “you really don’t remember me?”

“N-no,” he said, sitting up slowly, still very groggy, “I think I’d remember someone like you.” She scoffed, standing upright again.

“…so you don’t remember any of it,” she said, turning away to face the light behind her, “it’s sad, but it seems I do have my work cut out for me after all.”

“Your…work? Wait, what the hell is going on?” Dien asked, his vision not having cleared in the slightest from his first glance at her.

“All in time,” she said with a smile, facing him once more, “for now, you just need to open your mind.” Open my…mind? It didn’t make sense. None of it made any sense. He felt himself begin to grow heavy and slowly let his body fall to one side, landing where it had began. Eyes slowly sealed, burning the image of a woman’s silhouette against his cornea until sleep took him again.
__________

He’d dozed off? One glance told him that Zan was wreaking havoc on the monster in his Raven form…wait, what? That was broken, wasn’t it? If so, then Zan was wreaking just as much havoc on his own body as on the beast’s. He winced, but just as soon as he’d started watching, the “battle” was over. One blaze of glory, and the beast’s heads fell completely, and after a short dance by the statue in the room’s midst it gave the room’s item, keystone—ok, call it an icon—to Nighthand.

One room remained before the central column would open, and their passage into that room was just as seamless as the rest had been. He was surprised by the room’s semblance to the juk room; save for the river, it was almost as though they were cut of the same cloth. The river: what was it about the flowing water and its cascading fall from the top of the wall across the field? Something was setting him off about this river, setting him to worry. It was illogical, and yet Dien couldn’t help but be terrified by its very presence. A shudder, and he closed his eyes, forcing himself to get over it. It was just water after all, right?

Then the Guardian appeared. After a short exchange, Dien was left to think. His mind abandoned the puzzle; he’d had enough puzzles recently to be dealing with yet another one. No, he traced thoughts of this new arrival and of Marionette. Intricate theories were built and torn down as everyone else proceeded about solving the riddle on the tablet or running off to get this room’s icon. In the end, though, his thoughts were interrupted by the single tone that denoted the arrival of a new flashmail. Before he could read through it fully, though, another tone chimed in Phoenix’s flashmail. Both were read in order, before Dien closed his eyes and sent a response:

From: Dien
To: Party
Subject: Re: Rayo’s Message
Actually, Rayo, if Marionette’s influence is as extensive as I fear, not even our flashmails are safe. I’ve been acting under the impression that it knows even our thoughts – why I think that way is very much involved with how he knows things about certain people (Canti especially) that they haven’t told a living soul. For now, I’d assume conversation is just as safe (or unsafe) as flashmail.

Phoenix: I’d actually assume that, since this mailer dæmon chooses to communicate primarily through flashmails, we may have to face it before we can get close to the hub (it would follow suit: having to fight something big before getting to the room’s icon, having to then fight a big boss before getting to the field’s icon). In any case, I do agree that if it is possible we should avoid confrontation with this character.

Also, it would appear that Marionette has sent us a messenger in the form of a much-less-cryptic masked man. It might be good to ask him to play the interpreter for Marionette’s messages, although can’t say whether or not to trust him for a stone’s throw. Ah whatever, here ends flashmail.

__________
OOC: Sorry it's so short, but there's really not a whole lot to post about without Guardian conversation...

[Hijinx]

Zan had a bird form, something Hijinx had not been aware of. This left new and interesting questions for her, ones that demanded immediate thought. Most pressing was whether or not she would need to get a bird cage now, and if so, how much bird seed a human would eat. Fortunately for her, the spell barrage gave her enough time to ponder those issues while Urbosh slowly lowered her to the ground. However, no sooner than the fist fighter had her footing, alarms went off in her head. Something was very wrong. She gave her brain a subconscious prod to see if it would tell her what, but the answer was too slow to form. For now, all Hijinx could do was shrug it off while the problem analyzed, something she wasn't particularly happy with.

Her brooding was once again short lived, however, as the death of the guardian led them into the next room. No sooner had they arrived than a servant of the mysterious Marionette appeared before them; her attention turned fully to it instantly. After pulling a Moses and parting the river, he waitied while a few of the others collected the last piece and bickered over the meaning of the tile it had given them. In the meantime, she studied the creature. He had, afterall, told them what they needed to know already. Cocking her head to the right, she calmly walked up to the Guardian and peered at him. He didn't seem very threatening, regardless of the obvious tension he induced in Nall, so she indulged herself. To start, she leaned in and looked him right in the missing eyes. After concluding that they were simply indents in the facial surface, the emblem was offered a moments notice before she began to wonder slowly around him. Snickering a little, she poked and prodded all the way, even stopping once to knock on his head. Her conclusion was that he was definately a statue, though there was another question on her mind...

Coming around to his left, she leaned on his shoulder, her elbow supporting her while she examined the nails on the other hand and grinned. There were no serious questions left for her to ask, so it seemed like a reasonable thing to inquire about.

"So you have no eyes, are you missing anything else?"

Maybe it wasn't the best question to ask, but she was curious, and there wasn't much else to do besides asking the guardian personal questions since it had already answered the major one.

[Nighthand]

Oblivious to the prodding of the fist fighter, the Guardian first answered the hesitant question posed by Senna.

"The note is a Message, one not clear, but whole."

Only then did the statue-like creature turn it's head, looking without eyes at Hijinx.

"This body is as you see it."

[Zan]

Zan pondered over the tablet with the thought span of some...creature with a small thought span, mind too focused on other things. The Gatekeeper had told them there'd be consequences for calling upon the Raven for the last time, but he had yet to see such things come to fruition. Maybe he had escaped the predicted wrath? Maybe he had wriggled out of the fate that had been warned of him? Praying for that to be true, he decided it was time to stop his little daydreams and participate in the group once more. There was something about the arrangement of the gibberish that had called to him almost instantly, that had spoken an answer to the back of his head and the lost area of his thoughts. If he could only put enough of himself into than maybe he could get the answer out of his head and across his tongue. Rolling the tile around in his hand, thumb scraping along what was written over its surface, the fog slowly began to clear away. Laughing at how long it had taken, he turned to the group and the Guardian in turn.

"It says, inbetween random lettering and styles it sems, 'The word you are looking for is Hopeful.' I don't know how that helps us, but there you go Guardian." That's all he could really do, then.

With that out of the way, the lycanthrope focused back on whatever consequences he was supposed to reap. Rather than just get it over with, he was stuck with waiting for the virus to set it, for even his strong metabolism and immunity system to be taken by it. It was an agonizing wait indeed, but what else could he do? Zan just continued to hope that it wouldn't hinder his progression through this quest anymore than its weaker, previous onslaught had. During these considerations he'd find his eyes on Dien, head tilting as to exactly why. An internal suggestion, the inward Instinct he carried told him Dien was familiar. Well, yea, they were good friends. Isn't that what it was? No, he didn't know how he knew, but no. Dien possessed something in him, in his data that was calling out to one of the two of his viruses. Shaking his head of the odd fascination, Zan put that off (like so many other things) for a later time. Mid-mission was always a horrible time to try and figure out personal enigmas. That's what the Hideout was for, right?

----------------------------------
OOC: Ha, I beat everyone for shortness. But no, sorry about that. I just, you know, didn't really have much to post about. If it wasn't before work I could write a regular post, but it happens.

Either way, I figure I just needed to supply the solution. Didn't require too heavy a post.

[Lord Canti]

(He wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen it himself. Canti had known that there was something up with Zan, something wrong with him that had to do with his World-self in the game. He'd been advised to talk to Dien about it and made note of this in referrence to Marionette, letting them all in on his problem to a degree. They didn't know everything, but Canti guessed it had to be bad. That was why the Twin Blade was rather surprised by the fact that Zan had gone into his raven-form to handle the hydra, even though it was causing him terrible pain. It was almost tangible... You could see the iron will against the oppressive agony as he destroyed the beast with his attacks, earning them their ticket out of here. The guy had died, taking that win, but he was revived...much to his relief. Guys like Zan were too good to be slammed out for keeps. It just wasn't right. In any case, the room was finished. Nighthand was closest to the statue when it reacted, pulling itself out of the ground as a full dragon of stone and 'handing' over the fire symbol.)

"One more room to go, guys... This place is almost over."

Canti: Finally...

(The Twin Blade felt like he'd been fighting forever, that he was no longer human and just a monster that feds off the data of that which he kills, as if he were no more to The World than one of it's own enemy creatures. It was a raw and disturbing feeling. Was there any actual hope for them? This all felt like being at war. The body takes over on all the impulses, leaving the mind to absorb wave after wave of whatever may come. Once they were all out, Nighthand put up the fifth symbol and was rewarded with the closing of another room. This gave Canti an eerie feeling. Here they were, with one room out of six left. What'd that remind him of? Well...oddly enough...Doctor Who. The part of the series involving the Key to Time, which was made of six segments. On the sixth and final part of that plot arc - it was actually the only one Canti had seen - there was a Shadow looking after the sixth piece, representing evil at its worst. Let's just say that even the dark and fiery Twin Blade can get the shudders every now and again. Plus, it didn't help that the last room was the Rue area, another likely weakness, though unexplored. As they wandered through the rune hallway, Canti's thoughts were alight with a sense of foreboding. Senna in particular would probably know why, though the others would probably catch on as well.)

Canti: I really don't wanna be here. Ice and water and whatever else... The lightning room was bad enough, and now I've gotta go here too? I'm still too weak to tough it out like the others. I'm not like them, not yet. This is gonna really suck...

(And he was right, at least at first. In comparison to the other room, Canti may as well have been breathing nitrogen. His body didn't want to move. Or rather, it didn't want to function properly, as he seemed to shudder uncontrollably, trying to level off and regain his warmth. This place had a river like a wilderness, but it was so damn cold... Even in Canti's black pits, you could almost see the panic. If they got in a fight here, he would be at an extreme disadvantage. If would take all of his willpower to remain an effective fighter. As the fire room had strengthened him, this one oppressed him. And then...there was that black feeling. Something was off here, and it was that man...)

Canti: Who in the...?

(A complete unknown, a wild card in the deck. Strolling towards them, quite calmly, was a man in black who wore a mask. For some reason, the man's attire put Canti on edge. Maybe it was the mask...since it kept making him think of Egypt, of the underworld god, Osiris. Or perhaps it was the arrangement of the spiky protrusions from his suit. Could that be the business-end of a demon body? Nah... One thing that did have the Twin Blade confused was the symbol on his chest. What did that mean? He spoke first.)

"Do not be alarmed. I do not come to harm you."

Canti: Right...

(You could easily understand how much trust that Canti or anyone in the room would have of the sudden appearance of a black stranger. Hell, Nighthand was about ready to attack him even before he spoke, as was Nall. But the stranger did not attack, and instead...conversation ensued. The Twin Blade waited for the rest of the group to handle all the right questions. They were better at this than him anyway. Communication was, as always, never really Canti's strong suit. So, as they established this 'Guardian' as a messenger from the Marionette guy, he handed over a funny-looking white tile...which nobody knew what it was.)

"It is a key, one of three, to finding what you seek. Not here, but through the rings. My master awaits. My master bids you complete your task."

(His master sure liked to have his pets well-trained. Geez... So, it was a key, one of three that had nothing to do with the current room and elemental symbols. Huh... That was weird. Dien double-checked on this as the man explained there was another key in the cave nearby. It was the water thingy that awaited them there, or so the guy said. Errr... Wait a minute! Did this guy just blow the whole area for them? That was...pretty swift. The only thing was...did that make him more trustworthy...or less? Hard to say... Zan looked at the tile, seeing an inscription, and then spoke to the guy again.)

"What the hell does this mean? Why do we have to jump through your hoops? Why, oh why, can't you just tell us what this is and move this along? We're exhausted."

"...hang on, Zan, let me see. As a hacker, I just might be able to make more sense of it than you."

(There was a pause from him, and then...)

"Nope, I guess not."

(Canti almost facevaulted in reaction.)

"It's probably a game. You know the hackers don't want to make it easy on us. This is for their entertainment."

(It seemed as though they had another puzzler on their hands. Canti stole a look at the tile as it was handed back to Zan. Strange writing, that. Looked like a total crapload...and Dien was right to groan about it. Enough was enough, though this one made Canti blink a few times. Huh. Something about that thing... Anyway, the Guardian assured them that his master worked for nobody, which meant no hackers and especially no Elites. This...made Canti edgey. Trust was part of the game and Canti kept finding himself...not trusting this guy. Of course, as they went to go find the last symbol, it was easy pickins. This left them with how to deal with their present situation. Pursue Marionette or continue on? Alot of the concensus seemed to lean towards hitting the Hub as planned. No biggie. Canti shrugged this one off as he looked at the masked fellow. This guy was gonna be on their path, regardless of the choices they make. Canti began to think on the tiles thing. A whole bunch of different fonts... Mostly a real jumble, but some of them looked like words... Oh, wait a minute. Now he got it...)

"It says, in between random lettering and styles it seems, 'The word you are looking for is Hopeful.' I don't know how that helps us, but there you go, Guardian."

Canti: That's exactly what I was thinking. And I think it's probably the three-word setup. Three keys to travel by rings? Yeah, that's teleporting.

(It was kind of obvious once you put the theme of three keys and rings together with a specific word. This Marionette guy liked his teasers too much. But Canti, not satisfied yet, decided to address the Guardian directly.)

Canti: Tell me, Guardian... Where is 'The Blades'? I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. I'm guessing he's not hacker-chow, am I right?

[Nighthand]

Well, wasn't this a more laid back atmosphere for a challenge... Not that there was any challenge left. This puppet of Marionette's seemed to have taken all the work out of it. If there had even been any monsters in this room beforehand, there weren't now.

Nighthand stopped paying attention to the clue, the puzzle, or the talking going on once it was rather clear that the others had it under control. Nall had the same idea. This Guardian was so calm, so collected, it couldn't be a natural messenger. There was more to this player, this character, this creature than any of them except maybe Nall could see. Nall, who was on edge and staring at the guardian as warily as he could without outright spying.

Zan seemed to have figured out the clue, and that was, apparently, what the Guardian was waiting for. While the figure didn't seem to move, something about him changed. Rather than helpfully respond to Canti's question, having been asked after Zan had made apparent their conclusion about the clue, the Guardian ignored it. Instead, it made a hand sign that would be familiar to everyone; it put it's hands together as though in prayer or reverence.

Drawing it's hands apart, An object appeared between them. It was rather like a magician's trick, pulling a wand out of his sleeve, but in this case it was something rather larger. The cane that appeared was really more like a scepter, not long enough to actually reach the ground when the top was held. It was perfectly smooth, a tapered cylinder. The 'head' of the scepter deformed, scallop-like threads around the top six inches, culminating in a more hexagonal knob-shape.

Zan, perhaps, would find the biggest threat out of this action, for the Scepter was more than just a decoration. While the Guardian made no move to attack with it, or anything rather than hold it in it's center, Zan could tell what it was. The Scepter was, if not made out of, at least coated in pure silver. While it posed no direct threat to him in his human form, the wolf-like instincts and the beast within him recognized the threat implied. Marionette didn't just watch them, it knew how to deal with them if it needed to.

Thankfully, at least for Zan, and probably for the rest of them, the Guardian was making no move to attack. It held the Scepter in one hand near it's middle for an instant, before swinging it with a flourish in front of him. A flourish and... a bow?

”One of three. We will meet again.” Came the ephemeral voice from nowhere. The Guardian straightened, spinning the Scepter adeptly between a few fingers. Abruptly, it stopped the motion, the silver stick held perfectly vertical. Without another word, without another sound, the Guardian was.... gone. Simply gone. No chaos rings for a gate out, no fade away, no sound where air rushed to fill a gap. Simply no longer there.

Only then would Nall relax, and only after he did, would Nighthand. The Nightblade once more balanced on his shoulder, Nall's SWORD put away, the pair could find not other reason to stay in the room.

It didn't take long to reach the central pillar with the whole group. Things were different from before, though. For one, the expected column of energy, the beam lancing from the Rue room into the center pillar, wasn't there. It wasn't until they placed the final artifact into the elemental crest, that the beam of energy struck the pillar and the Rue room closed.

Slowly, with a creak like a stereotypical haunted house, the door opened. Or rather... fell. No longer held by anything, the door simply creaked backwards, falling. It made no sound when it hit the ground... Nor did it actually hit anything. It simply kept falling into a black abyss.

The room took this moment to erupt into a horrible rumbling. Before any of the rest of them could decide to leave, the central column began to collapse. The stone crumbled, the stairs leading upwards fell. Everything that used to be there, was there no longer. Slowly, the rumbling died down, but the room was changed. There was no longer a hole in the ceiling where the spiral staircase had been, nor were there any doors to the six elemental rooms. All that was left was a gaping hole in the floor, from which a rush of wind emerged.

This tore it. What good was a doorway for the hackers that they had to reconstruct behind them? They had to have had another way in, one that the freedom fighters simply didn't know about. Not that it mattered now... Now they just had to continue. Nall was the closest to the hole, and he peered down into it's depths.

”Well... It's safe, anyways. It doesn't look like it, but this wind will hold us up enough as we fall that the impact at the bottom won't kill us.” It wouldn't be pleasant, but it was what they had to do.

Nall, making sure the rest actually understood that this gaping hole in the ground was safe, took the initiative and jumped. For an instant, it seemed like he was suspended in the middle of the hole, before gravity took hold and he fell.

Nighthand rolled his eyes and shrugged, following. The sensation was... odd. The wind wasn't strong enough to hold them up, not by a long shot. It would have to be insanely powerful for that to happen. Rather, it was like there was some kind of force embedded in the wind. It felt less like falling through the air than it did like sinking, albeit quickly, in water.

The only source of light, aside from the hole above, was the occasional ring of torches. How they got there, who lit them, none of it mattered. It just made the fall down this central column seem all the longer. Every few seconds or so a ring of torches would pass, until twenty or so had done so. Then, the force holding him up seemed to stop.

Nighthand was about to spread his wings, to catch himself and slow his fall, but he landed before he could. The force let him go a mere six or so feet from the ground; the fall was no worse than jumping out of the lower branches of a tree. Nall was up and moving already, and Nighthand joined him hastily as the rest of the party arrived.

In front of them was a tunnel lit by the occasional torch, with a much brighter light coming from the end. Once the group had managed to get back together, they made their way down the tunnel into the room.

What they saw before them was probably one of the most unique rooms any of them had seen in The World. Nighthand, at least, couldn't think of another like it. The walls rose high, to a ceiling that was far too high above to see. Torches ringed the outside at random intervals and heights, offering some small bit if light. The floor was also a source of light; at random placements, sometimes right next to each other and sometimes dozens of feet apart, were a myriad of fire pits. Each had a bonfire raging inside it, giving off both heat and light.

All of this served to illuminate the two major features of the room. The first was the door at the opposite side of the room as them. Made of heavy stone and painted with tribal markings, it was decorated with feathers, bones, sticks, and anything else one would expect from a primal village. This, judging by the pulsing hum coming from behind it, was the entrance to the Hub.

The other feature of the room was, apparently, their obstacle. The entire room was filled with a jungle-gym of criss-crossing bars. The maze-like qualities of it boggled the mind. Some were made of metal, some of wood, some of stone, and some of what appeared to be bone. They connected to each other at random angles, some to the walls, some merely to each other. None of them touched the floor, though some were bare inches above it. Here and there, Nighthand thought he could see some that weren't even connected to anything, simply floating solidly in mid-air. They weren't so close together as to make progress impossible; no, in some cases there was more than enough space to easily walk between them. There was nothing more than an inconvenience about the whole system, and it seemed like there was nothing to stop them from simply walking to the Hub.

Of course, that was exactly why it couldn't be as it seemed. There had to be something more to this all, and indeed, there was.

The whole room began to echo with the beat of drums. Slow at first, then increasing in tempo, rhythm, and frenzy. Exactly the kind of music one would expect from this kind of tribal setting. The drumbeats came from nowhere, the players unseen. Once the music reached a certain level of pace and hectic fervor, it seemed to reach a temporary climax. In that single beat of silence, a figure appeared, high up in the jungle of criss-crossing rods.

The music returned, and the figure fell, twisting through holes in the bars like nothing. At a pulse of the music, an arm reached out, and the figure began an intricate dance through the bars; up, down, side to side, displaying an impressive mobility through the maze.

A Flashmail chose this moment to arrive, to each and all of them.

Flashmail!
To: The Party
From: Marionette
RE: finalE
whaT yoU seE beforE yoU iS primaL. defeaT hiM anD thE huB iS yourS.

It was perhaps the most clear of all the messages the puppetmaster had sent them. What kind of hacker guardian was this, who played with the power of the elites as though it didn't matter?

The question was driven out of Nighthand's head as the figure took this moment to land before them. He was dressed much like the Guardian had been, superficially. Black shoes, anyways. The rest of the outfit was a one-piece leotard with an open front, from waist to neck, with only a single tie across the chest to keep it from falling off. The sleeves and legs were all one piece. The entire thing was made of black fabric, including gloves. Wrapping around the legs and rising up the front of the outfit was a pair of chinese dragons in green and red.

Topping off the mysterious appearance of the second of Marionette's minions, was an odd mask. This one had eyes, though they were covered with purple lenses. Whether to see better, or to not see at all, he didn't know. The mask was white and covered all but the figure's mouth, ears, and chin, as well as the back of the neck, where a long braided ponytail of hair fell from. This braid was wrapped in a coil around the man's neck. The mask itself, aside from the purpled eyeholes, had black markings on it. They looked vaguely asian, but Nighthand didn't know enough to identify what they were from.

There were only two other items of note a bout the figure; the first was a single earring hanging from the man's right ear. The other was the sword he carried; red handled with a blue pair of tassels, the blade was as long as a person's arm, but otherwise normal looking.

Other than an impressive display of agility in the maze of bars, there seemed to be little difference between this character and a slightly modified blademaster. This “Primal” didn't seem too much of a challenge at all. It stood, watching them for a moment, and then leaped upwards. Moments later, the figure was once more dancing among the bars with an agility that seemed impossible with a sword in one hand and shoes on both feet. It appeared up to them to make the first move.

Nighthand looked to Nall, awaiting his usual bio of the opponent, but the man's puzzled face revealed something must be wrong.

”I... Can't tell anything. All it's stats, all it's data is constantly in flux. There's something keeping me from the exact details. Sorry guys.”

Something jamming Nall's eyes? This didn't bode well.

---------ooc:
Marionette's Primal Boss
HP: Unknown
Skills: Unknown
Attributes: Unknown
Details: Unknown

Other than this impressive agility, what can be said? Nall knows nothing more than anyone else can see. He also won't be much help in this room; he's far too clumsy to chase the figure through the bars.

As for the rest of us, we seem to be more agile than we give ourselves credit for. Navigating the bars while the music is going is, relatively, easy. It's hard to fall off them just standing, and it seems easier than it should be to catch them. Granted, Primal still has more skill than we do navigating them, but it's not impossible for the rest of us.

The music, however, pulses in and out. It never stays gone for more than a second or two, but that's all it takes to miss a jump or stumble...

Reference pic:

[Rayo]

With the puzzle seemingly solved, the wave master waited for Marionette’s assistant, or quite likely puppet given the name, to reveal to them the path or offer up another question. Instead, the well dressed being disappeared from sight, seemingly gone altogether. Sure, a fancy wand had been revealed and two more challenges were hinted at, but no immediate progress would be made towards their mysterious pen pal. That Marionette, s/he hadn’t left them with any possible way to complete the puzzle. Given that there were three parts to it, Canti’s suggestion didn’t seem out of place. Hopeful was the sort of word that would fit for keywords…would the next two clues also fit in that nicely? The server may or may not matter, but the party could be stuck trying every root town as an exit if it wasn’t neatly provided. Even Yamiyo was a possibility… not a very pleasant thought.

One trial was complete however. As the sixth link in the chain that had stalled the team ceased to be, the mage couldn’t help but feel no accomplishment in it. Six different rooms had blockaded Reinier’s half, but in the end how had he assisted? Rayo wasn’t even present for the first four, and the last one lacked anything in it naturally provided. As far as Marionette went, Zan and Canti made much more progress on actually making sense of the map that was slowly being revealed to them. He’d wasted too much time on a failed mission, not doing enough effective work.

Not wanting to be useless, the wizard jumped in immediately after Nall took the leap. The ride down was relatively slow, probably because of the length of the cylinder as well as the wind’s magical effect that attempted to push his body up even as it was descending. Slightly annoyed by the erratic lighting on the long journey downwards, Rayo gripped the orb in the palm of his hand and pulled it from his pocket. The magician had only meant to provide a bit more light for his eyes, but since the last time he had checked it out, the sphere had changed. Dare he say it, evolved even. The faint blue that shone from the very center as just a tiny speck was much more. The ball’s gold was gradually being replaced the cooler color, mirroring some sort of internal change maybe? There was a mage from an old style of gaming a classmate had referred to once. Auth hadn’t touched any game that had utilized the system, but the boy clearly remembered it being called a “Blue Mage.” He’d forgotten about it until recently, being reminded by the orb that had appeared alongside the host of strange abilities, or rather a single ability that manifested itself in many. Blue Mages were supposed to learn whatever an enemy used against them, not at all too different from what had been happening to the lightning mage. Any of the spells that were hitting him that didn’t vaporize the wave master seemed to be retained, at least temporarily. However, the power seemed fixated to the location of the spell’s birth; it couldn’t exist on a different field if current testing proved anything. Whether or not it truly was related to the source of the new magic, the orb had at least helped a name be determined for it, Blue Magic.

His wonderful naming success was accented by the thud his landing caused. The wind stopped deterring his rapid descent and being able to see the ground before hitting it didn’t mean one could do anything about it. Propping himself up with his elbows, a quick look around revealed no enemies, at least on this part of the path.

The room the entire team approached seemed to make any movement much more cumbersome than before; dodging through a playground was worst than avoiding lava pits. Those wouldn’t pose too much of a problem for the wavemaster unless he actually was forced to try to flee from something, staying in one place and casting wasn’t the worst case scenario. In either event, the boss creature pranced across the room, bounding off from one spot to the next without a care. A slight pause revealed a resemblance to the messenger from Marionette, but the only extra information provided was a name, rather useless unless that was a keyword too.

Given the speed this ‘Primal’ was moving, no doubt it’d be out of a spell’s blast radius before it landed. A summon might be good enough, just because of how wide an area it covered, but that was costly to cast too much of. If some of the others could halt it’s unpredictable movements and corner it however…

Rayo picked his pursuit team even as he activated a Speed Charm on himself simply in order to gain easier access to the Ap Do spell. Phoenix, whose mastery over gravity might be useful for easing his handling of the terrain or slowing down primal was the first one targeted by an Ap Do. Hijinx was the next one smacked with the speed enhancement spell; the girl always seemed to be hanging out at weird angles anyway and wouldn’t have to worry about weapons being caught by a bar while swinging. Senna and Zan were the other pair to be targeted by the Ap Do spell. Senna was a decently speedy class and would have a rather good thrusting reach. Zan was capable of being quite an animal, pun intended, and probably could rip the thing to shreds if it was within reach.

<Phoenix, Hijinx, Senna, Zan

I think you might be the best ones to actually beat this thing at the bouncing around game. If you work together, you could probably corner it, or at least force it into some sort of trap. Good luck.

Rayo>

ooc:

Blue: Ap Do

[Senna]

Puzzle solved, group moving on. Senna was only listening with half an ear, as the saying goes, to the proceedings. With the puzzle picked apart, the only interesting thing left in the room, to her, was leaving it. She made sure to offer her thanks to the player who had offered her an answer to her own question, a couple words of gratitude. It was, she noted with some surprise, the same who’d spoken to her outside the Vak room. Well, it wasn’t exactly a huge group now, was it? And truth be told, she also wasn’t the friendliest of people to approach sometimes. Hadn’t even Amber said so, in her roundabout and oh-so-kind way?

Everyone has their prickliness, she’d said. It had proven true again and again, in Liss’s estimation. Even Amber, who always seemed cheerful, had her moments when she could lash out like an injured animal, heedless of what damage she might cause with words or actions. Senna hadn’t done much lashing out in this group, which she supposed was a good thing. From the look of them, nearly any one could take care of such outbursts without undue problems. So she resolved to keep things that way. Parting on bad terms would just feel wrong. So thinking, she kept back until the rest were satisfied with what they’d accomplished here, then followed them out.

She paced along with the group and watched with some interest as the placement of the last bit of the picture caused a grand shift in the general makeup of this place. In simpler terms, the world shook and then the pillar collapsed and left the central room with a massive, yawning pit in the center of the floor.

Senna felt her hands shake a little and clamped them both down as hard as she could on her weapon, which she in turn ground against the floor of the room to keep any telltale tremor from showing. It wasn’t the way the room had changed. If anything, that had been entertaining. But now there was only one way out. That way out was a pit. Judging by the sound it had made as it changed, the pit had to be fairly deep. Maybe very deep. Maybe endless. Who knew in this screwed-up field? She didn’t mind being in the same room as it, but every time she tried to urge her legs to carry her a little closer to its edge, they balked at the idea. In fact, they actually set about thwarting her – the one hesitant step she managed was backward, away from the chasm that exhaled a continuous light hissing sound as some wind current ran up from its depths.

Nall, who was closest, had peered into the mouth of the field, then commented to the rest of them that it was safe enough that the fall shouldn’t kill them. Very reassuring. And if whatever they were set to face was waiting at the bottom with another lake of fire, or a forest of spears or a gang of creatures such as the dragonlings…

Well, no time to worry about that apparently. Nall hopped in and shortly thereafter Nighthand and Rayo followed suit. Senna hung back, letting others go ahead as she tried to nerve herself up for it. For all she knew, the fall was a mere ten feet, or perhaps nothing. It could just be a black portal, which would deposit them safely at their destination. With the technology of this game, it could be any of a million things, and only one of them was a long fall, right?

“No reason to hesitate,” she forced out cheerfully. A few steps forward and she could sort of see into the pit. There were glows down there. Yup. A pit alright. Great.

All things considered, it was lucky that the pit was so dark. While her imagination could run rampant with thoughts of never-ending darkness (ha!) she could also force it the other way – that the fall would not be that bad. If she could tell how deep it was, she might well have frozen up there. As it was, she realized how near she’d come to it – to just standing like a statue a few feet back with the wind from the pit brushing at her hair and letting the group leave without her.

As it was, after a few false starts and hesitations, she managed to force herself to take a few running steps and jump. And it was worse than she’d imagined. Always when she started to fall, there was a moment of profound relief that managed, however briefly, to overpower any fear. It was that clear understanding – now the worst has happened and I am falling, so things have to get better. Fear, after all, is more about anticipation than experience. So the slowed fall they were experiencing just prolonged everything. While she was certainly falling, there was this continuing sensation that at any moment, that buoyancy she was feeling as the wind rushed up against her would drop away and she would be truly plummeting. However, there was nothing to do but close her eyes and grip her spear tightly, hearing the long sleeves of her shirt fluttering like the wings of agitated birds.

Then it happened – the rush of wind stopped. She made a sound in her throat, a small sound which might have blossomed into a full-out scream if the drop had been more than six feet. It cut off abruptly as she landed and sat down heavily on impact, rapping herself smartly across the knees with her weapon as she did so. It turned into a short, agitated exhalation between clenched teeth, then she opened her eyes and got to her feet.

As she got her bearings, she was aware of the drums, which had already begun by the time she landed. As she stepped a bit closer to the rest of the group, she could see they were looking at something. At first she couldn’t make it out, as the bars cris-crossed in her vision, messing with her eyes. But then there was a movement, and a moment later, the clear form of a humanoid dancing on the bars. It moved seamlessly with the music, its every movement like a dance to her eyes.

I could just sit and watch this thing, she thought with a bit of a sense of wonder, the forboding about the long drop melting away. For a moment she did – until the sound of an arriving Flashmail pulled her from her daze with a more immediate concern. Oh yeah. They were trying to defeat this place, weren’t they?

As she looked up from the message, she found the thing had landed in front of them and the first thing she noticed was the costume. It looked… odd. A space from navel to throat was almost completely unobstructed, as though inviting attack to those spots. There was only a tie crossing that expanse of skin, and Senna felt an absurd curiosity as to what would happen if that were to get cut. What were the physics in this place? Would that uniform stay in place or would it fall back, as it physically should from the look of things.

Of course, if it did fall back, there was a whole other question, but she didn’t have much urge to get that one answered.

Shaking that thought out of her head, Senna studied the room – dropping out of her awe and into “serious mode” – and discovered a more basic question in need of answering. How did she expect to clamber through the jungle gym lugging a six-foot weapon? And the answer she came up with was simple though arrived at with a great deal of hesitation. She wasn’t. A moment later, her hands were free of any weapon. UP in the bars was where the fight seemed to be heading, and perched there, she would have better luck making a reaction with magic than weapon. The spear’s length meant its use would have to be more calculated than she was used to, so for now, the ability to move unfettered surpassed any gain from having a weapon on hand. Now for a quick application of…

Or someone beat her to it. The familiar sensation of the world slowing overtook her, and a moment later a Flashmail suggested who it might have been from. It also suggested a general plan of attack which made perfect sense. Even if it didn’t work in itself, maybe it would free up the others to try more unconventional methods of attack.

She cast a glance around, figuring out where the other three were – for the moment anyway. She instead went to one of the nearest reachable horizontal bars and did a quick pull-up to perch on it with one foot and both hands, the thigh of the trailing leg pressed against the side of the bar for balance. “Like a jungle gym,” she commented to no one in particular before pushing herself up to another of the myriad of supports. She wasn’t moving too fast yet. Well, relatively not fast at any rate. The opponent wasn’t attacking yet, so she figured there had to be something else, and it would likely materialize when they were up in Primal’s domain. While she was on the second perch, the music faded out for a second. It was odd. Disconcerting. Strange how one could get used to a sound so that its lack felt weird.

Trying to shake off that feeling as well, she moved once more, still being deliberate as the rest formed up. If the dungeon held true to form, this should be the hardest place so far. But she swore, if Primal proved to be some pain-in-the-ass enemy with too-weird surprise attacks, she was going to catch him, whatever it took, and string him up to one of these bars by his queue.