Unsteady Ground [IC]

[That_One_Guy]

Garian watched the Angel and then Looked down at the woman, "Within reason, hm?" He said to himself and then picked up the Woman by the collar and started to drag her towards a vacant area.

[TheDaughterOfHades14]

Claire wipes the blade and re-pockets it. She follows Garian. "So what are we going to do with her? I guess we can't torture or kill her, because we'd be as bad as she is." Claire says.

[That_One_Guy]

Garian nods, "Yeah, we're just going to talk to her, no hurting her, no killing her, nothing....she may be useful." He told her, "Got anything to tie her with?"

[TheDaughterOfHades14]

"Tie her? Uh no, want me to go find something?" Claire asks. She sighs and starts to walk away.

(I know the wounds are healed, but is the clothing re-sealed as well? Or is the shirt just sliced at the stomach?)

[Icaelus]

Vivienne fought to keep herself steady as the room visibly rocked, nearly upsetting the chalice of Soul Essence in the process.
"Whoa!"
Her hand grasped the chalice just as it nearly tipped over, just managed to keep it upright.
"While you're still friendly, dog-boy?"
Her misty eyes narrowed as she pulled out the chalice of Soul Essence from the barrier.
She tapped on the white metal with a finger, the clear sound of metal ringing throughout the room.
"I've got the chalice..and I don't exactly see a way out unless we go through..whatever the hell is coming up here. "
A heady cinnamon scent wafted over from his area, seeming to mess up her senses and cloud her mind in general.
"Ugh. Stop that, whatever that is."
She steps over and pushes the chalice into the demon's hands haphazardly, not caring if it spilled or anything.
Honestly, she just wanted to be out of here as soon as possible.

[MelissaB]

With a grin Salyandra steps forward but sighs at seeing the iron hinges. "Hm more difficult than I thought." She looks throughout the room for keys to their cages if that fails she would strike at the wood with her sword attempting to cut a gap big enough to drag one of the priests towards.

[napsii]

Garian + Claire -

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

The girl's head rolls about. She's barely conscious and her eyes flicker as if she's dreaming, but remains totally slack. The Angel's spell must have KO'ed her pretty damn good.

You drag her behind an empty, unwatched space behind fairly large cart near the edge of the camp. It seems like everyone is so busy that they don't even bother to check out what's going on.

In a nearby barrel, a small coil of frayed rope juts out, normally used for hoisting up flags, banners and other decorations when the nomads set up their miniature circus in towns.

You catch a glimpse of the Angel beginning to collect dropped weapons off the ground and deposit them into a large pile in the center of the village. Wicked looking swords, axes, spears, daggers, maces, shields, arrows and other tools of death are neatly stacked in a growing pile.

Salyndra -

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Looks like the guards ran off with the keys. Chances are they dropped it somewhere but seeing the colossal dragons start to rip apart the buildings in the interior of the camp simply by stepping on them with their massive claws, you figure it's hopeless to go find them and instead begin to break open the cage with your sword. The frame is strong, but succumbs after a few heavy blows and you manage to grab one of the unconscious prisoners out into your grasp. Seems like they're good as dead...

Your warrior sense alerts you to something bad. Very bad. A pricking crawls up your spine and looking over your shoulder you see the tail of the gargantuan white dragon rushing low across the ground as if to slam into you as it turns around to face a bandit who had been throwing knives at its face. As the tail hits numerous stands and small out buildings, they explode in a cloud of dust, wood and metal and chances are it's going to explode you too if it hits. Probably gonna take out the tops of the cages too. Which might be convenient.

Salyndra - 300/300 HP (gonna get smoked if she don't do something)
Angelic Dragon - ???/??? HP (might be about to kill you. by accident of course)
Demonic Dragon - ???/??? HP (just swallowed a thousand pound ox whole in one bite. yikes.)

Vivienne -

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

"Yeah, whooooooaaaa." the shapeshifter demon mocked your surprise, near rolling his eyes. Seems he was getting impatient.

He looks at you curiously when you mention "stopping that", but when another crash comes down on the ceiling (seems like the roof is about to cave in!) he decides he'd rather get onto business and rejects holding the chalice. The liquid soul essence inside swishes noiselessly, but despite all the crashing and smashing doesn't ever seem to come close to spilling.

"Uh uh, I've got a faster idea." he says, pushing the chalice back into your hands. Before you can do much to object he picks you up in his arms and dashes with surprising speed out of the room, nearly tripping and causing you both to crack your heads open as he leaps down the stairs in the midst of another crash. A lantern that had been hanging from the ceiling wings his head with a loud and comical "thunk" but he barely seems to notice and is about to turn into the escape tunnel when with a massive crash, a wall of dirt caves in on the entrance and he slides to a stop.

He grimaces and spins back around, running back up the stairs (and with another thunk as the lantern hits him a second time) flying through the room where the chalice was and leaping at the door to the surface with a flying kick.

The sun hits your eyes as you find yourself on the surface, smack dab near the center of the fortress, out of a tiny building behind a regal looking hut where the chief presumably sat.

Torches have tipped over and set fire to large swathes of the camp, spewing up smoke, and many buildings have been wrecked by the two colossal fucking dragons that look like they're at least a hundred feet tall! The horned black dragon who according to the demon is "Nilgalos" finishes swallowing an ox in one bite and looks with its eerie red eyes down at you, smoke puffing from its nostrils.

It growls.

Jered v. Razajin -

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

With Skylia (aka bitch angel) seemingly out of commission as well as the Demon Commander, looks like this battle is up to you two! Jered sees as the smoke begins to clear (they were fairly weak bombs, it seems) that the village's defenses have been breached, but perhaps there's still hope to salvage the fight if he can regroup with Skylia.

The more pressing issue, of course, is Razajin, who is flying at him for a heavy blow and sort of connects. Jered's disorienting intercept breaks the flow of his attack and he's barely able to do much more than crash into him clumsily, knocking them both to the ground with their heads but inches away from each other. Ironically, Razajin's attack almost backfires as one of his "punch daggers" actually pierces his own side as he rolls to a stop on the ground (40 damage). No bleeding or severe damage, but it's still a pain. Fortunately, both their weapons remain in their hands and so it seems to really be a matter of who can get up first.

Jered - 116/450 HP (a bit dazed by the impact)
Razajin - 360/400 HP (a bit dazed by the impact)
Skylia + Demon Commander - ???/??? HP (still can't see 'em!)

[TheDaughterOfHades14]

Claire smiles. "Never mind! Find some rope!" she says as runs over to the barrel, grabs the rope, and quickly runs back. She hands the rope over to Garian. "Here you go. "

[Reaver]

Razajin grimaces as he gets up. Muttering curses on how he almost killed himself, but he looks up and notices the piece of turd is as dazed as him so he sucks it up and gets up. He switches out his two punch dagger for his family heirloom curved dagger, he readies hiself before dashing in for another tackle while trying to telepathiclly contact his ninja imps. "listen you guys need to help me out because really im feeling a little too lazy to be fighting punks so you guys need to get him with the paralizing posion, dip your knives in posion then when i get close swarm him and at least one of you needs to stab him and throw a couple more smoke bombs."

[Icaelus]

"Huh?"
The puzzled Viv held the chalice as the demon deigned not to hold it, instead pushing it back to her.
The demon mentioned something about an idea..a faster one.
She turned round to question him again..and was promptly scooped up into his arms like a cat.
"Hey! Put me down!"
Vivienne pushed at the demon's torso, which she was extremely uncomfortably near to. The heady cinnamon scent was even stronger from here and she soon found her mind blurred once again, only offering token resistance now.
The demon ran with her down the stairs and her clouded mind barely registered a dull thunk as the lantern scored a headshot on the demon.
She giggled dizzily as a wall of dirt collapsed onto the entrance, forcing the demon to turn back into another headshot from the lantern.
Then just like that they burst out into the sunlight.
"Ugh."
Viv groaned loudly as she pushed herself off the demon, rolling off him onto the floor.
Her gray eyes opened and she found a huge black dragon staring at her with some death glare from hell. Nilgalos. She couldn't help but notice the bits of ox still left in its teeth.
"Straight out of the pan and into the fire.."
She groaned. More or less she had a snowball's chance in hell to escape the dragon...and that was probably considering the assistance of the lantern-concussed dogboy over yonder.
Viv glanced up at Nilgalos as it growled at her. Growl here meaning either toothpick or dessert. Probably the former, though.
"Um. Yeah. Nice dragon?"
She tried the uh...cordial approach. Might as well go out being polite or something like that.

[jayjaycaps]

Flam brings the wagon to a halt. The twins, starring at the dragon, both take a collective gulp. Flam turns his head and opens his mouth to say something, still not taking his eyes off of the dragon. Flim's knees are shaking, but his face still exudes his confidence he often displays. Anyone can see how fake it is however, with the three possibly starring death in the face.

The two just stand there, gawking at the dragon, both unclear of what to do.

[Zender_Solarheart]

Jered's senses took their sweet time, but now they're back at 100%, even though his body's got 67% at best right now. He can't detect Razajin's telepathy, but he knows an assassin isn't stupid enough to just charge in without a backup plan...wait, what's that smell? Jered's keen nose picks up the stench of demonic flesh in the area...still alive, but different from the commander. Ah, that must be ol' Raz's backup. Well, Mr. Alkaid hasn't lived this long on wits alone.

(Okay, Stabby McPuss...let's see what you can do 1-on-1...)

Though weakened from battle, Jered doesn't simply get up without any defense. Instead, he uses his right foot to kick his body into a counter-clockwise turn, while pushing himself upwards with his right hand, as the blade in his left takes a swipe at Razajin as he closes in, discouraging continuation of the mad dash. The strike itself has no magical enhancement, but it kicks up a little more dirt, which may just be enough if it gets in Raz's eyes.

Once the swing has run its course, Jered uses a small amount of electro-magnetic force to propel his body to its feet, and raise his sword in defense. However, he also clenches his right hand into a fist, for two reasons. First off, it provides a little extra defense, as the gauntlet on that hand is reinforced enough to safely grab a dagger blade, if he knows where to grip it. Second, it stings like a bitch when he punches someone with it, so whatever cavalry Raz called in has two metallic objects to steer clear of.

[That_One_Guy]

Garian smiled, "Good, very good." he said and tied her up tightly, making sure there was no way out of it.Seeing as they were both warriors on opposite sides practically, he knew that she may have been caught once or twice before and know her way around a knot,so he had to make sure it was specially made. If it was her first time being caught, then she is in for a surprise.

[TheDaughterOfHades14]

Claire stretches and looks at Garian. "So what now? What do you have planned for her?" she asks.

[That_One_Guy]

Garian looked over at Claire and then back at the woman he tied up before ripping a piece of cloth off his shirt near the waist-line and wrapping it around the woman's mouth tightly to keep her from yelling just in case there were still pockets of the demons around, waiting. "We're just going to ask her a few questions, after all, she may be important to us later.

[TheDaughterOfHades14]

Claire nods. She walks up next to Garian. "How is she going to respond with a rag in her mouth?" she asks.

[MelissaB]

Salyandra seeing this path of destruction decides it's best to get out of the bloody way as fast as possible and jumps and rolls for cover away from the path of the including tail letting out a scream of panic as she does.

[napsii]

Garian + Claire -

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

The young warrior girl doesn't give but a spot of resistance as you tie her up, her metal gauntlets clacking to the ground. Those things would deliver a nasty punch if she hit you in the face with 'em.

She groans and rolls about on the ground, having been hit hard by the Angel's spell. Eventually her eyes flit open though and she looks at you two, noticing she's been gagged. She offers a growl that's a mix of confused and angry, and tries to kick at Garian's shins with her boots. Seems you went and pissed her off real nice, but that was to be expected.

Flim + Flam -

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

The Frost Dragon, which is about the size of a small house as it is only an adolescent, circles your wagon and licks at the tarp covering your cargo with interest, close enough to you three to make you almost shiver as the air gets cold.

"Err... he can taste whatever's in your stuff..." Talkea explains quietly, noting that the beast is definitely a boy. Dragons don't have exceptionally strong sense of smell but their tongues can pick up even the faintest of tastes from a long distance away.

Shoving its nose underneath the tarp, the dragon uses one of its talons to literally lift one of the crates directly out of the wagon breaking it to pieces and causing the bottles to fall to the ground in a little pile. Several spill and begin to leak onto the road, which it begins to drink up like it was a drunkard.

"Sorry, I dunno how to kill dragons with only a bow..." Talkea apologizes in a whisper.

Salyndra -

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

The beast's tail parades over where you were just standing like a... well, like an enraged beast in its own right. Its reach is too wide and far for you to roll completely out of the way, but you do manage to plaster yourself to the ground and allow it to sweep over you, which obliterates the entire top half of the cages (revealing the Soul Essence rich prisoners inside) and messes up the hell out of your hair on account of the rushing wind.

You notice the black dragon seem to pause and dote on two newcomers. A wolf-eared demon and a young looking girl who is holding a white chalice. Even from this distance, you can feel that the chalice reeks of Soul Essence! Perhaps because of its presence, however, the black dragon does not eat them or try and incinerate them with its breath but rather... crouches down like some sort of pet as if to allow them a high climb to the base of its neck?

Well, in any case the white dragon seems quite focused on this situation rather than you, which is lucky.

Vivienne -

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

You didn't really expect what you said to sway the dragon at all, but the demon, who now stands directly behind you with his arms confidently on your sides dangerously close to your chest (though through the mild haze of that weird scent you can't really complain about it) looks on as if he expects what happens next.

The red-eyed Nilgalos looks between you two and sticks its tongue out towards the chalice you hold, causing the fine, semi transparent blue mist radiating from it to flock to its tongue which it tastes like it was wine.

After what seems to be a moment of thought (and the white dragon Talphalos looking on motionlessly to see what's going on) it buckles its legs and lowers its neck to ground level adjacent to you, providing you a clear path up its massive body onto the area of smooth scales at the base of its neck in a gap between the line of monstrous red spines that run across it from head to tail.

"I knew it. This is our ticket out of here. C'mon, Dragon Queen, let's get on." the demon rushes you and guides you over to the dragon, climbing up its mountain of a body and taking a surprisingly comfortable seat. Before you can argue much with him he's already forcibly seated you down in front of him (with once again his hands pretty much on your chest).

You feel a massive consciousness brush against your mind as well, and you tighten your grip on the chalice.

"Well, give her a command!" the demon jostles you, obviously wanting to go. In addition, it seems Nilgalos is a girl?

Jered v. Razajin -

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Razajin's telepathic contact is somewhat hazy, but the first of the imps manages to reply a second later:

Uh, big boss says he wants 'em alive, so no stabbin' he says! But we can use the poison, yeah. Just give us some space! he says back to you. The trio of imps, who are visible hiding behind a spot of tall grass about twenty yards behind Jered, begin to apply a bit of poison to their knives. It will take a little bit, though, as they need to judge exactly how much they will have to use based on Jered's size and strength (1 turn to ready!)

Razajin's head on tackle isn't successful on account of Jered's rapid interception however. The tiger man springs to his feet fast enough covered by his whipping dirt in Razajin's face (no damage, but semi blinds him and halts his attack) to be able to block any follow up attacks from the front.

Just as the tiger man raises his sword, however he feels a sudden burst of energy and well being rush through him, and his body begins to crackle with blue energy. He feels wired with strength! Like he could rip a guy's spine out with his bare hands. (Jered +200 HP, +++ATK)

Warrior! Stop the attackers...! he hears Skylia in his head, although she sounds like she's in a... struggle.

At that moment, the smoke clears fully and it's revealed why. The Demon Commander has recovered and has hand wrapped around the neck of the young Angel, hoisting her up in the air as she struggles for breath. A deathly red glow courses across his arm, and it's made clear he's doing something to her with his magic.

His sword is in his other hand, and he's lingering on it like he's about to impale her. He looks at Razajin and motions for him to attack Jered.

Jered - 316/450 HP (overcharged with a Divine power enchantment!)
Razajin - 360/400 HP (should really do something!)
Skylia - 205/700 HP (being siphoned of Soul Essence, -40 HP per turn)
Demon Commander - 440/1500 HP (draining Soul Essence, +40 HP per turn)

[Icaelus]

Vivienne simply blinked as Nilgalos lowered its head, a sign for both her and the demon..to get on?
"Okay, wow. I don't suppose it was my charming personality that did that..."
She gave the white chalice a little shake, swirling the Soul Essence inside. Definitely the chalice, no questions asked.
The demon spoke, addressing her jokingly as..Dragon Queen?
"Hey, what do you mean by Drag- whoa!"
Her sentence was cut short as she was pulled around by the demon, seating her down in front of him. With his hands..touching where he shouldn't.
Viv slapped his hands away, wriggling a bit further away from the demon.
She turned around, glaring at him, though her little show of anger was a bit spoiled by the blush that matched her hot-pink hair.
"Watch where you grab, dogboy."
She growled, an arm now protectively covering her..yeah, if you could call those small things breasts.
Dizziness rocked her slightly as something brushed against her mind..a huge consciousness of some sort. Nilgalos?
A push on her shoulder brought her back to her senses. Seems like Dogboy was anxious to get going.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I haven't exactly taken any flying classes for dragons.."
Viv retorted, turning away from the demon. So..maybe just a verbal command?
"Um. Okay. Nilgalos, fly?"

[jayjaycaps]

Flam charges his hands with shadow flames, making them as big as possible to scare the dragon. Now that the cargo is on the line, the two seem less frightening! Both of them try to shoo the dragon away with their hands, Flam using the flames. "Eh! That's not yours! Get outta here, dragon! Go on, get!"