1st adventure: the Fey one

Mihai squints - "Whose blood is it on those blades?"

OOC:

Her smiles accentuates.

The rest of the group is horrified at the sight of blood. The Oracle takes out a piece of paper, and as she is reading it, she calmly says;

"I had to clean up after you, of course. You speak too much. Reveal too much."

For Steve:

Flame erupts in Steve's mind, which shortly after erupts in his hand and he holds it near the journal. The journal is against his own chest just for clarity's sake. "How about I burn it and you, bitch!"

Konrad yells, "Wait Steve, no!"

"Bad idea," she states. "You see, I took some precautions. Llyold!"

Her shout is then followed by thunder. Another man comes out from between the trees that surround the path. In his right hand is a dagger, and with the other, he is holding a little girl who is quietly crying.

Fedler freezes.

"Now, can we talk?"

Mihai glares at Lloyd. His hand gripping his sword's handle as if to crush it. - "Lloyd." - he growls - "That little girl is all that's standing between you and the most agonizing death you could ever imagine."

This is not the same man that's been accompanying you all this time.

ooc:

"I dunno, can we? We can do all sorts of things besides talk." Konrad bluffs as hard as he can. I don't know no girl. What's she mean to anybody here? Certainly not to me, but...well, to the other people, she's precious.

"Mihai," says Llyold. "It's just business."

"Fedler..." cries out the little girl, a dagger to her throat.

The hunter is petrified, near panic.

The Oracle calmly answers Konrad. "You can also give my property back to me."

Mihai's glare straight into Lloyd's skull illustrates just what he'll make his business if he so much as scratches Yen.

Zeiss of Dreamkeeper wrote:"Mihai," says Llyold. "It's just business."

"Fedler..." cries out the little girl, a dagger to her throat.

The hunter is petrified, near panic.

The Oracle calmly answers Konrad. "You can also give my property back to me."

"Careful, Steve." Konrad says this more to warn him than to reprimand.

And the dance continues. "You expect an awful lot from people you intend to eliminate either way. If you really want every last one of us silenced anyway, why bring the girl? Send one of your servants to take the book. Let her go, and we give it to him. And then this can get ugly."

skills:

She looks at Steve with no expression. After she finished listening to Konrad, she says,

"That sounds reasonable. But I also want my specimen."

She is looking at Breeze.

"It surely wouldn't let its friend suffer in its place, right?"

The fairy is holding back tears.

Rain has started to fall, gently.

Shocked, Konrad looks at Steve like a deer in the road. "You wot?"

She tilts her head, still smiling. Then, both her and her Aspect answer at the same time.

"No."

The rains is evaporating before it can even reach the Aspect. They both continue to talk.

"Only one side is going to survive this encounter. But you can still save this girl. Give me the journal, and the specimen. If you destroy my property, I will take this girl's life. Simple as that."

For Mihai:

"Lloyd..." - Mihai starts - "I know you well enough to know you're not scared of the hell that awaits you at my sword if you harm that girl." - he keeps on staring at him - "But can you ever look Malik in the eye again if you do this? Will you really put this on the Boss's name?"

"The loss of this journal would be unfortunate..." continues the duo. "But we have time to make up for that loss. All the time in the world."

Mihai speaks next, and uncertainty appears in Lloyd' eyes. Marie and the Aspect notice it.

"Do not falter. We made an arrangement."

"A bluff. You wouldn't have gone through all this trouble if it was that easy. A novice could feel the power in this book. You aren't fooling anyone."

Zeiss, I'm trying to keep her attention on me. Deception I guess?

What is your game, Mihai? They know each other. Konrad makes note of this. On the inside, however, he starts to grin. Nothing gives him more satisfaction than the tantalizing potential success for manipulation.

Raising his voice, he asks, "Fedler?" He gives her enough time to respond, if she can. "Do you love your daughter, Yen? Do you want her to live? Tell Lloyd. Tell him how much you want to see her alive tomorrow."

He speaks so gently to her now, like coaxing responses from a cat sitting in the rain begging to come in.

Skills:

Mihai cuts her off - "You don't know a thing about us. You and your kind, i've seen before. Didn't have that rack, but you're really all the same." - Lloyd should know who it is i'm talking about  - "You cling to what power you have like it's a toy, and use it to stomp down on the little people like you're tearing wings off a fly. I didn't know Vydorn, but reading his words i knew what you were right there and then. But we're different. Whatever your arrangement, the Whisperers don't stoop down to serve vermin like you."

zeiss:

To Steve, Marie and her Aspect respond, a little irritated. "Do not pretend to understand the importance of our task. The difficult matters not. Only time matters."

They both listen to Mihai, and she doesn't seem to recognize the name Vydorn. Now, only the Aspect answers, still irritated.

"We do not care for your petty concerns."

But once it is interrupted by Konrad, it falls dead silent. Fedler licks her dry lips, then says with a weak voice,

"Just... just giver her back."

She doesn't seem capable of saying anything else. The rain is now pouring, and thunder is crackling above you. Yen is crying, and sobbing, quietly. And then, for one second, Lloyd takes the dagger off the little girl's throat.

This is when Breeze points her finger, and just like before, uses magic. The dagger flies away from Lloyd's hand.

"Now!" yells the fairy.

Yens falls forwards towards the ground.

The battle for the book

Lloyd threw the kid and aided our heroes, who quickly destroyed the enemies - Konrad employing the remaining Fire spell coin to do so - save for the true threat, the oracle's Aspect. It fought on after its summoner's death, speaking - with clear intelligence and feeling - what sound like half-taunts, stating imperatives about the futility of the group and their deserving death. It roasted anyone who came near - Fredrick, Lloyd, one or two thieves and militia men. Braving the flames, Konrad and Mihai were burned severely, collapsing from the suffering and the heat. As rain falls, the fires burn and evaporate water. As the conflagrations of its assault die down, the "Aspect"(for how could it be continued to be called such after its summoner dies?) violently grabs Fedler, burning her face in attempt to kill her, when suddenly whip-like tendrils burst forth from Yen to attack, focusing on the Aspect. Steve is the one who gives the last attack in the battle, causing the Aspect to disappear in what is not death, but a clear retreat, parting with "We will meet again." The Breeze, the magical marvel, outdoes herself in bringing the heroes back from the brink of the grave. After Steve explains very knowledgeably what needs to be done, Saemon valorously pushes himself further past his limit to suppress her newly manifested Curse in half a minute, falling dangerously prone to the risk of joining her in sharing her condition. Velstar arrives in time, and applies the Curse-suppressing woven shackles to Yen after taking a full minute to convince the distraught Fedler to part with her for but a moment, and doing the same with a spare for the unconscious chief of the Waterglass militia.

With the journal and surviving thieves in tow, having gotten what they came for, they wordlessly depart for the town of Waterglass as the forest continues to burn behind them.

To be continued in a new thread

I can't quite do it right now, but if no one mind there's some RP i'd like to do before we leave the Fort.

EDIT: Now i can.

Mihai wakes up from his slumber. He tries to get up quickly, like he's done a hundred times, but finds his body unusually sore. It takes a minute for his memory to come rushing back, culminating in his word exploding into fire right before he'd lost consciousness.

He struggles to his feet and scans his surroundings, dragging himself to check on each one's condition. After learning what happened, he can't bring himself to approach Yen and Fedler.

ooc: