Difference between revisions of "Shadow Rising/Chapter 4"

Latest revision as of 05:46, 22 May 2013

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Sacramento itself blurs by, it's hard to make things out in the weird tangible darkness, and with the shadow clouds on their heels the bright spot that is the mansion really is a welcoming change. There are no lights inside, but there seems to be some sort of otherworldly glow. A wrought iron fence and ivy cover the unkempt grounds.

Sparhawk stands off to the side of the approach to the mansion, on the lawn, being watchful of all the people in the group, making sure no one falls behind. Like a mother hen, more literal than the metaphor used to be.

Cilan passes by Sparhawk, entering the grounds, and moving towards the front door.

Apostasy having locked the gate securely, Apo follows the others up towards the mansion's door.

Sori looks around, still looking frazzled, but obviously rather more aware after the flight. "I'm... Not real sure what to do, but this place seems antithetical to the shadows. Let’s go in. At least we can rest."

Narg follows behind Cilan her pistol drawn just in case

Loki does not appear interested at looking around at this time, instead busy with his robot, trying to get an accurate reading of the shadow, and the area around them. He remembers that what the recordings show, and that what he saw are two different things, and the shadow that had chased them was the primary deviation. He is currently looking for primarily visuals, audio, and anything else after that, trying to see if he can see, or hear what the thing was, and if possible, isolate it from any interference that may be present.

Grantok stays towards the centre of the little pack, keeping an even pace with the others. After taking a few moments to scan the grounds, she turns to Apostasy as they all head for the front of the mansion. "Nice little place you brought us too. Any clue why here or where to go from here?"

"Let’s go, quickly. If this really is respite, then perhaps we can find something to fight the shadow." REDACTED says, while trying to keep herself together.

"Yeah." Sori glances back, and flinches a bit; it doesn't seem to be due to the shadow, however.

A shrug is the only response Apo gives Grantok as she walks up to the door, pushing the key into the lock and opening it. "Let's see if there's anything useful in here." she says, as she pushes the door open.

The insides are dark, but the main entrance is packed, little glass cases line the passageway of the foyer, almost strewn about as if the place hadn't expected guests. There are plenty of covered candles and lanterns strewn about, along with tons of antiques. It's almost at the level of an art museum.

Sparhawk keeps hir wings half-spread until passing through the door at the end of the group, no useful words or encouragement beyond the silent light of the dragony scales. Shi pauses to watch how the glass cases refract hir light, wings rustling.

Sori stays in contact with REDACTED as they follow Spar and Apo inside.

Narg steps into the darkness and pulls the flashlight out of her backpack and flipping it on before swinging it around the room slowly

The darkness in the house is quite normal, not like the rest. Light penetrates deeper in, the hallways have bookshelves on either side, making the passageway into the rooms in the back claustrophobic, the books are everywhere, and ancient.

Sori digs out a pair of flashlights as well, handing one to REDACTED. "With luck some of these are in English."

A pathetic attempt at a whistle leaves the lynx's lips as she gets a good look around the foyer. Mildly intrigued by the number of odds and ends about, Grantok peruses here and there. "Looks like no scavengers have been here at all. That's a rarity. Could mean any number of things."

Her night vision more than good enough to see in here, Apo strolls along one of the bookshelves, examining the titles as she goes.

Sori starts scanning titles as well, using the flashlight despite night vision.

The texts range scattered in dates, many of the texts seem to be hand bound, and hand written or typed. They seem somewhat organized by dates, and periods, or topics. Thousands of years of American history in particular. Titles are extremely obscure.

Narg nods her head "I don't think any scav would be able to get to this stuff anyways" looking for any book of interest "Lot's of history books here...."

Sori says, "Wow. Damn, I wanna haul all this home with us." She starts looking for histories of the local Native tribes.

REDACTED walks up to some of the glass covered objects, peering inside at arrowheads, carvings etched on stones, and other assorted artefacts.

Grantok takes a moment to consider Narg's words with a slightly different intent than was meant. She looks about for any obvious security systems or alarms that they may have already tripped.

Apostasy starts to wander around, looking for anything else of interest on the bookshelves or in the glass cases as she passes by.

Nothing, the house is surprisingly low tech, but Grantok notices around every window and door there are strange runes carved into the wood panelling.

"This place would be low-priority to scavengers, other than the kitchen," Sori says. "You can't eat a book. You can, however, burn them. And I am so glad that never happened."

Sorien searches for Native American stuff, focusing on tribes she recognizes from the area, it leads her to one of the side rooms, probably designed originally as a dining room. Bookcases line every wall, and the old dining table is covered with books and objects strewn about.

Narg continues walking around and looking for something that may look like a journal.

Sori follows her nose to the books on the table, and also tries to pick up any scents in the room.

Loki's robot is parsing data. So far the recordings don't seem to recognize the shadow, rather pictures around look like it's bright and sunny out in the town. However the moving shadows definitely register as interference, the systems simply shutting down trying to process what's in the fields. Not much can be garnered from it, other than the technology simply doesn't recognize or see magic.

Sparhawk cringes at the mention of burning books, then takes a second look at the entranceway. "Hey...why are there so many fiery light sources in here? It's not what I would choose." Shi looks around for evidence of the house being at all electrified for a bit.

With nothing else to do, Cilan glances through the books alongside the rest of those searching through the house, though most of her searching is half-assed, an antsy look pressing at the soldiers face.

Narg seems to almost be called upstairs, the creaky staircase echoing through, they make their way to a small study, which unusually has a bed in it. By the bed is an open green leather journal, it appears to be in mid progress, covering studies in recent years.

Loki huffs at the results, and has his robot resume its normal mode after giving it instructions to note what it CANNOT scan, or any interference, and have it notify him. He turns to the others and follows after them, eyeing the runes, and the books. He frowns a moment, and he starts cracking open books, and trying to see if he can match any to said runes. He also searches for things pertaining to magic, religion, stories, and many other various topics. His robot begins scanning the titles of the books, and runes, trying to catalogue as much as it can.

Apostasy stops by the window, and begins to examine the runes carved into the frame when she notices them.

Narg picks the leather bound book up. She sits on the bed, flipping it open and starting to read.

Apostasy sees complex runes, ancient in fact, something she's never come across before. Detailed and intricate. They seem to serve a warding purpose.

Grantok gets a slightly closer look at some of the runes around each of the possible entrances. Figuring something must be keeping the unwanteds out, she attempts to decipher them.

Sorien smells mustiness, along with book dust, and the rank odour of someone who spent a lot of time working, and not a lot of time showering. It seems actually somewhat recent, possibly less than a month old.

Sori starts looking through the writings on the table. "Someone was here as recently as a month ago, guys," She calls.

Sparhawk does not find any hint of elecritical systems, the place's rare empty walls shows no power outlets, and no overhead lamps. The kitchen, if it can be called that is little more than a iron wood stove and counterspace.

Having not found anything of interest, Cilan throws one of the books she had skimmed through down the hallway in rage, pulling out one of the knives sheathed behind her hip soon after, and turns to one of the windows, looking out into the darkness, and while grumbling darkly as she drags the drawn blade across the window sill, carving nothing in particular into the wood.

Apostasy whistles softly as she examines the runes. "Wow... these things are... complex. And they clearly work damn well, since even the shadows outside aren't able to get in." She tries to catch Spar's attention. "Hey, Spar! Think you could replicate these warding symbols?"

Narg reads through the journal, although it's difficult to follow the man (definitely a man's handwriting) in the way he speaks. He's hurried and rushed, talking about research, studies. Flipping quickly through the chapters shows it goes back about 3 years, and covers past P-day.

Narg giggles "oh ho seems like I should get this to Loki he may be able to pull more out of it" she closes up the book and walks out of the room with it in paw and walking down the steps carefully to deliver it to Loki.

Sparhawk trots on over to Apo, ears all perked. "Y'mean copy them in a book or something? Or carve 'em into some wood somewhere else?" The taur sits in front of the doorway, arms still folded and enwrapped in bridle, tracing the runes with hir eyes.

Spar recognizes some Native American significance in the carvings, but they seem ancient even by their standards. They -could- be replicated, as a whole, but it seems as if even a small sliver of the system would break apart of changed or altered.

Apostasy shrugs. "Well, they seem to do a damn good job of keeping out unwanted attention. If you were able to copy 'em down onto notepaper or something, and then carve them into a doorframe back in Fairhaven, think they'd still work?"

Grantok glances over in Spar's and Apo's direction. "Runes are just about everywhere. All the possible entrances to this place. Dunno if that has any significance."

Cilan continues staring out into the darkness, her breathing seems to have only gotten more heavy, rife with searing hatred for something outside, though she does not move from the sill, her blade still carving idly into the wooden frame.

"They're warding runes. I'm guessing they're why nobody broke in here." Apo says, looking over to Grantok.

Narg is now on the first floor "Hey Loki this here stuff in this book seems to have a bunch of notes and research in it, figured you might be able to garner somthin’ from it, Spar maybe you could as well"

Sparhawk traces the line to where it passes behind a display case. Then an ear flicks to Cilan's window. "No, these are way too complex and...fragile. Please get Cil to stop breaking chunks of the wood, because it will probably break something runic," shi murmurs to Apo.

"Doesn't explain why we were able to just walk in. Unless maybe it has some correlation with the key you found from before." Grantok shrugs towards Apo. "Means that we're dealing with more than I can really help with. Just know that the gobbledy-gook is beyond me without some reference materials to help translate."

Apostasy nods and moves over to Cil. She gently places a restraining hand on her arm. "Hey, sis? Could you stop, please? Spar says the runes are delicate, and we don't want to screw them up."

Sorien is busy looking through the open books. One of the easiest books she finds is in English, and has a written tail of the shadow and coyote, very similar to the one she has had translated before. In fact this one has annotation on it. Another shows a similar story, with more detail. Others aren't in English.

Loki's robot is busy cataloguing all the various books in the main room, this section seems to be on a mixture of south American and central American tribes, cultures, mythology.

Narg sighs, she'll return to Loki later and moves off towards Sparhawk "Hey Spar would you mind looking through this here journal, maybe you can garner something from it"

Sori pauses for a moment, fighting a surge of grief before she continues. "He.. He was looking into the tale of Shadow and Coyote. He knew, I think. It’s something." She starts trying to determine where the books may have come from on the shelves, to find more information on the subject.

Cilan pulls the blade from the sill and nearly takes a swipe at Apostasy as she touches her, but stops her arm inches away from actually injuring her, "Fine." is said as her grip on the blade only tightens as she returns it to the sheathe, again the soldier returning to her pacing and grumbling, looking out the windows that she passes.

With a somewhat reassured view of the guards placed to protect the location, Grantok visually sifts through the antiques housed in the place, trying to spot anything of value or significant importance to why they could have been led here.

Apostasy starts at the abortive attack from Cil. "Whoah, sis, what the hell? What's wrong with you? Don't tell me it's the injury, you've been hurt worse before."

Loki does not seem to notice that Narg has approached him, still quite absorbed in skimming through all the books as he does so, largely oblivious outside his current actions. He jumps as Narg starts speaking next to him, then eyes the book, a stack with similar runes under his arm. He frowns a little as Narg begins walking away, then scratches his head. "Well.. I can take a look at the books... although..." he trails off, Narg already on her way to Sparhawk. He stands there, a small sigh escaping him, the dragon now seemingly perplexed at what to do. The journal did seem interesting.

Sparhawk is distracted from burning the runes into hir memory by Narg's approach. "Journal, you say? Hm..." Shi accepts the book and flips to the end, then the last written page, looking for the most recent entry to compare it to Sorien's statement that someone was here within a month ago.

Cilan answers coldly over her shoulder, "It’s nothing."

Sorien sees holes along two rows of books, specifically on the local tribes, the Chinook and the Maidu, oral tales and other histories. The books are thick, and few are in English.

Grantok's eye catches on some of the glassed objects. There are many, but there are some old wooden coins that seem strangely out of place. She also catches some of the warding runes carved into them. There's also a -really big tooth- in one of the cases that seems strange.

Sori takes one or two of the English ones down, and starts scanning through them as well- she checks the helving as well for something concealed, like notes or other writings.

Apostasy is visibly hurt by Cil's words and actions, her ears flattening and her tail drooping as she turns and moves to look into the glass cases.

Loki tilts his head, overhearing Sparhawk. "May I take a look at that after you are done looking through it Sparhawk?" he asks, then looking over to Apostasy and Cilan, a small frown forming on his face with a look of concern. He sets the books under his arm aside and hobbles over towards the two. He shuffles in place a moment, not really sure how to take this situation. He thinks some more, and finally speaks. "Cilan... the shadow.. preys on things bothering people.. and becomes stronger from it... if.. something is bothering you... it would be nice if you spoke about it... if not to all of us... or even me... well... at least Apostasy or one other person then..." he sighs, forcing a smile, trying his best to be comforting.

Sparhawk flips forward, and sees that the journal stops about a month and a half before, something muddled about success, and it does mention the city itself having gone dark.

Grantok pauses and crouches down to take a closer look at the coins, noting the similar protective runes. She examines the case that they are in looking for wards or other guards in place to keep her from simply removing them.

Sparhawk stares at a page blankly for a moment while fiddling with hir radio, sorting the fancy device to cast only to Apostasy. "She was shot by an avatar of sadness and despair. It's not nothing," comes a whispering voice. Then shi flips around trying to determine the nature of the journal's success.

There are no runes protecting the objects, rather the house itself is the only protection provided to the precious objects.

Apostasy nods morosely at Spar's message, and then moves back towards Cil, again placing a hand on her good shoulder in a comforting gesture. "Sis, come on, talk to me. I'm here for you. Just tell me what's up."

Narg looks at the same page in the book trying to determine what said success was.

Cilan breathes a slow sigh, and turns to Apostasy, "Nothing.. just, just I’m pissed off about everything that’s been going on.. knowing I can’t do sweet fuck all right now.."

Going back, the research he was working on talks about something to do with the darkness he describes outside the mansion. Further back talks about a coming darkness. There are small runes covering all over the page that seem almost like practice scribbles in combining different types of runic systems.

Grantok extracts the coins from the case and, after ensuring that it similarly lacks further protections, removes the tooth as well. She turns back towards the others with the items displayed in her paws. "Interesting little runic relics here. Look similar to the runes on the borders of the doors and windows. Any idea what they might be?"

Narg hmmmms "Those runes look awfully familiar" she glance back at the runes on the window sill.

Apostasy squeezes Cil's shoulder gently. "It's alright, sis, I can understand how you feel. Just... don't close up on yourself, ok? Talk to me."

Sparhawk looks up from the journal at Grantok's question. "Runes! Definitely runes. Hey--" The taur hops up and trots over to Grantok and looks at the tooth, as well as the case it was in, checking for quantity of dust accumulation. "I think I'da liked this guy, he had long-term projects like I do."

In a time when the tribe was one people, they faced a great danger. Midnight Shadow whispered into brother's ear, and he stole and killed from the people. Each night Midnight Shadow would whisper into another ear and turn another from the people. The people knew that Midnight Shadow needed to be stopped, and asked Quiet Whisper, the strongest of them to put an end to it. Quiet Whisper knew of no man who could stop Midnight Shadow, and instead sought out Coyote. He asked Coyote how to end the whispers, and Coyote did not know, so he told Quiet Whisper to seek the Great Mother Moon. Coyote followed Quiet Whisper and listened on.

Great Mother Moon told Quiet Whisper to trick Midnight Shadow into sleeping, for once sleeping they will never wake again, this she promised him. Coyote heard this, and his stomach panged with hunger. Coyote confronted Midnight Shadow, and challenged him. Coyote first challenged Midnight Shadow to wrestle, hoping to hold him till he fell to sleep, but Midnight Shadow was far too strong and laughed at Coyote. Next Coyote tried to give Midnight Shadow a gift of a mushroom that would put him to sleep. Midnight Shadow ate it in one bite and laughed heartily. Coyote then decided to tell a story to Midnight Shadow, incredibly long it went on for many moons, and yet sleep did not come for Midnight Shadow. Coyote fell asleep, and Midnight Shadow laughed.

Quiet Whisper looked on and saw the pride of the beast and decided to feed it with pleasant words and flattery. In its place of power, Midnight Shadow could not fear such a little enemy, and listened to Quiet Whisper, letting him live to speak more. Growing pleased, Midnight Shadow boasted of his power, that one whisper he could make anyone do his bidding. Quiet Whisper suggested that if he were truly mighty, that he would be able to get them to do his bidding while sleeping. This angered Midnight Shadow, and he decided to prove Quiet Whisper wrong. That evening Midnight Shadow went to sleep instead of whispering, and in the morning he did not wake. Coyote was not pleased, for he was still hungry, and ate Midnight Shadow in one gulp. Coyote's stomach grew sick, for he had taken something that was not his to take. He sought Great Mother Moon and asked what he should do. She told Coyote that he had done wrong, and now Midnight Shadow would wake again. She told him to hide Midnight Shadow and bury him where the sun would not touch. (an addition not transcribed but part of the original tale.) Shadow without sun, she tells Coyote cannot exist, and as long as he remains untouched by its glow the beast shall slumber. Great Mother Moon also tells Coyote that he must give up a part of himself in exchange. Coyote did as he was told and buried the Midnight Shadow deep in the Throne, along with a coin, some of his blood, and a tooth he claimed his own. Coyote smiled and his grin was flawless.

Sori is poring over the varied books, taking out a small notepad and writing down page numbers and paragraph cites for differences.

Cilan turns her back on Apostasy again and adds, "Mm.." as she again goes back to pacing, her gaze again moving outside the windows, and back into the shadows.

Apostasy sighs softly and goes back to examining the arrowheads and other things in the glass cases.

Loki sighs, nodding in response to Cilan and Apostasy's conversation, the dragon largely ignored. "What... Apo said." he says, sighing a little and going back to examining the books, not much else to do as the others have the journal.

Sori calls, "Spar, I think I have something here!"

"I would have guess that "he", if it is a he, was simply a collector of artefacts that has some basis to all this arcane nonsense about." Grantok simply shrugs and offers some of the coins to Sparhawk. "Any clue what these ones do exactly? Something on their own or just a template for the barriers at the entrances."

Sparhawk presses the journal into Grantok's hands, saying as shi moves to obey Sorien's summons, "Get Loki to look into this, he's all research-y and might do good cross-referencing." Books, everywhere books! Shi attends to the ones Sori's got.

Narg smiles at Spar's giddiness then moves over next to Loki and sits down to rest her foot paws for a bit.

When Spar reaches her, Sori points to the books she's working through. "Look at this- its different from the versions we'd found before. It says that Shadow has to be surrounded by light. The sun, specifically though I dunno if it has to be that, and there are artifacts we need."

"There's mention.... Here," Sori points, "To Yellowstone as well."

Grantok hap-hazardly holds onto all of the objects as more are thrust into her paws. After a little bobbling, she slips the tooth and remaining coins into her pack. As she walks over to the bird-brained professor, she pages through the journal, reading up on what she can so as to assist.

Sparhawk presses the journal into Grantok's hands, saying as shi moves to obey Sorien's summons, "Get Loki to look into this, he's all research-y and might do good cross-referencing." Books, everywhere books! Shi attends to the ones Sori's got.

Narg smiles at Spar's giddiness then moves over next to Loki and sits down to rest her foot paws for a bit.

Sparhawk murmurs, "I feel validated..." Shi also turns hir head upside-down to read the page Sorien's pointing at. "Specific artefacts, or things that are the right shape for a story? And...I do hope the building's wards aren't powered by the things in the cases.

Sori nods. "Naah, wards don't work like that, usually. It’s a pattern that surrounds from all I've seen."

The sound of a spoon hitting glass causes most in the foyer to raise their ears. Cilan feels strange again, and looks down, her injured shoulder is now streaming blood. The bullet was high calibre, she recognizes instantly, as it tore straight through and into Apostasy in front of her. Hitting lower on Apo, near her left breast. The window behind has a small hole in it, the pane strangely unshattered by the bullet beyond the impact hole.

Narg drops completely to the ground now. "Shit, what was that?"

Apo gasps, eyes going wide, as the bullet goes through her. She slumps to the floor bonelessly, a soft thud heard as she hits the ground.

"What was that?" Sori asks from the other room.

Narg crawls over to Apo and begins trying to staunch the flow of blood. "We got wounded!"

Cilan crys out in pain, as she presses her back against one of the walls near the window, and quickly grips the rapidly bleeding wound once more, "FUCK!" is called out in anger.

The word "wounded" gets Sori's attention totally. She immediately heads for the living room, not knowing what exactly has happened. "I'm coming!"

Grantok pupils dilate as hears the shattering of glass and the slump of bodies to the floor. She moves quickly up against a wall and crouches down, before looking around to find exactly what happened.

Loki jumps at the bullet and the splatter of blood, quickly turning his attention to Apostasy and Cilan, eyes growing wide. He rushes forward, quickly moving Cilan to the side, away from the window, and then works on pulling Apostasy away as well, then hurries to determine the severity of the winged wolf's wound.

Narg's pure white fur on her paw on Apo's chest is now completely blood red. She redraws her pistol and stays on the ground

Sparhawk skitters on out to the room of shouting, shifting automatically to run along among the lamps of the ceiling. Seeing many people attending to injuries, shi says firmly, "Loki, ask your robot what it sees of these injuries. Also...hm, someone is shooting for the Hero Spot."

Narg Is only staunching the blood flow not really attending to it.

Cilan pulls her bloodied hand from her bleeding shoulder wound to the handgun resting in its holster, and pulls it out, and with that she leaves her cover, and fires out of the window, and into the shadow, triangulating her shots to wherever the sound had come from.

REDACTED is on her feet at the sound, her human senses aren’t' much use though. She tries to look through a different window to see where the bullet came from.

Narg can only barely detect a weak, irregular heartbeat from Apo.

Sori blinks at the scene, and immediately heads to Apo. "Not again. Not fucking again!" she says, then once again uses her healing abilities.

Grantok is practically spitting as her blood boils, locating the object of the attack. "Pick off the ones who can fire back and present the largest obstacle. One by one. Hit and run tactics."

Narg growls "Shit, shit, shit Apo's pulse is weak anyone with any medical skill at all get over here!"

Loki's robot seems to have already reacted to the stuff, trying to analyze the trajectory of the bullet, and what is out the window. It seems to heed Sparhawk on its own, giving Cilan and Apostasy a scan.

A small cry can be heard by those with sensitive ears as Cilan fires, Cil feels a rush of triumph at the sound. However it's soon taken away as her hand feels sharp pain, the gun flying out of her hand as a return bullet pierces her wrist.

The stream of nanites Sori sends into Apo start to correct the damage, her heartbeat growing stronger and the bleeding slowing as the wound closes. However, she remains unconscious and unresponsive.

Narg sighs as Apo is stabilized "Thank god."

Grantok sidles along the wall in a semi-crouched stance, moving alongside a window and peeks out it for a brief second, trying to ascertain the condition of the wall of shadow around the grounds.

"Good... Good... I have her stable. Cil, get over here so I can fix you up too." Sori glances around. "People, Stay the hell away from the windows!"

Cilan grins at the whimper, though it quickly changes to a cringe of pain and another cry of pain, again the soldier presses her back against the wall, to the side of the window she had shot out of, looking down to her rapidly bleeding, and heavily trembling wrist, she breathes out another pained, and angry, "FUCK!"

Loki quickly pulls Cilan away, and then examines her wrist, trying his best to heal the soldier. Others seem to have a good handle on Apostasy. He nods to Sparhawk, then looks to his robot, a little surprised. He instructs it to relay orders if it can, and attempt to block any bullets, and perhaps try to get an idea of armaments, and likely alert all present if any explosive are brought to bear.

Apostasy's eyes snap open as she screams loudly all of a sudden, apparently a delayed reaction to being shot.

Sori puts a hand on Apo. "Ssh. You're okay. I got you, sweetie."

"Loki, get Cil down over here." Sori waits, not wanting to get herself in line with a window.

Cilan grimaces at the cries coming from her sister, and using the arm with the shoulder wounds, she grips at the dropped handgun, and points it to Apostasy, pulling the trigger to offer only the click of an emptied clip.

Narg rolls off Apo and looks at Apo's life blood on her hand "hmmm I'll try not to lick at my hand for a while"

Loki's eyes widen in surprise as Cilan tries to fire at Apostasy, hastily trying to divert the gun despite such. He does his best to bring the soldier over to Sorien, trying his best to heal the solider. "Why did you do that?" he demands, rather than asking, quite firm.

Sorien covers Apo with her body, pulling her healing into herself to survive the shot!

Narg draws a bead on Cilan "Cilan drop that fuckin gun now!" her finger is hovering over the trigger.

Apostasy huffs as Sori lies on top of her, forcing the air out of her lungs, not having seen Cil's actions.

Sparhawk blinks in mid-skitter down the wall as shi hangs above Cilan, who has done something very odd. The dragony bird hops down into the open space near the window, wings spreading a little...and flicking the mirror of the solar dragon's karmic justice wall between hir and the window a second later. Shi murmurs something about cala and death.

REDACTED charges forward to try to tackle Cilan, seeing the action.

Grantok sits crouched on a separate area of the room, watching as the group piles back and forth amongst each other, some holding back Cilan, others shielding Apostasy. The situation doesn't quite click in her head as it occurs, but her eyes wide as ever catch every movement, her ears every sound. She's quite petrified by what she is seeing.

Cilan quickly pushes herself away from the wall as she notices REDACTED's charge, the soldier then attempts to counter REDACTED's charge with a snapkick, though her movements are sluggish, definitely unable to stand much of a fight.

Loki charges himself between Cilan and REDACTED, trying to prevent them from harming each other.

Another bullet strikes off of Sparhawk and embeds in the wall as it's reflected.

REDACTED tackles Cilan, the kick landing in her stomach but not stopping the woman, who pushes Cilan to the ground, and pins her. Her eyes flash green, "Get out of her!." she screams.

Narg glances her eyes at the embedded bullet before returning to Cilan and REDACTED.

"Divide and sow the seeds of chaos from within. Blind with anger, confusion runs rampant." Grantok slowly starts to snap out of the shock, mumbling words to no one in particular under her breath. The ricocheting bullet catches the forefront of her attention. "We really need to move to a more secure location than this foyer."

Narg nods her head "Did anyone run into a basement?

Cilan offers nothing but a shout of searing anger towards REDACTED's demand, the soldier doing her best to writhe out of the woman's grip and continue the fight once more.

The bullet lodged in the wall is a slightly deformed .454 Casull round, Loki's robot will note.

Sori lets Apo up. "Sorry, sweetie. Stay below the window level." She crawls over to REDACTED and Cil. taking Cil's weapons one by one. "Keep her down, love. I'll heal her when we get her bound."

Sparhawk hrmphs and meanders into the shade of a non-windowed space. "Someone is taking my metaphors rather more literally than intended," shi murmurs as the mirror momentarily reflects the attacker's face to the side facing the window. Shi skitters to the Apopile and whispers slightly more audibly, "You need to go love the hell out of Cil now. Apply sap liberally!"

Narg just sits on the floor not really able to do jack squat to help, at least not as far as she can tell.

Apostasy rolls slowly onto her stomach with a groan, and crawls over towards Cil. She grabs the struggling woman’s head between her hands and kisses her forcefully on the lips. When she parts, she says "Cil... sis... please. Stop. Stop this. You're stronger than it is. Don't let it control you. Don't leave me alone."

Grantok finally realizes that she could be useful in the situation to detain Cilan. She bolts towards the struggle."Let me get a clear look at her face, her eyes specifically, REDACTED." With that said her expression stiffens to a strong stare.

Loki scowls, people firing at each other, people fighting. He sighs, trying to find the journal and safely tuck it away if they have to suddenly abandon the building in another running spree again. He tries his best to keep people from attacking each other as best he can otherwise.

Apostasy moves aside to let Grantok do whatever it is she intends, but maintains contact with Cil, stroking her cheek gently and whispering "Please... don't leave me, Cil..."

Sori gets all of the weapons away from Cil, then gets herself clear. "Loki, is that robot bulletproof? If so, park 'em in front of the window!"

Cilan offers an almost dark grin, as the hand that had not been shot moves to one of the grenades resting on her belt before Sorien can take them away, the pin is soon tugged, and the grenade primed.

Sparhawk murmurs, "Nothing is Feroxproof," as shi skitters on back to the room Sorien called hir into before the shooting started, intending on collecting the book that allegedly mentioned a way of defeating the Shadow that didn't involve eating it and dying.

REDACTED is pulling herself off at Gran's suggestion, giving Cilan the freedom. The noise of the pin being pulled causes her to stiffen however. Loki nods, looking over to Sorien. "Quite bulletproof." he nods, the robot already moving in front of the window. It seems to linger for a split second, but seems to have plans of its own as a cannon emerges from its arm and begins returning fire in to the street, likely trying to fend off the attacker if still there.

Apostasy snaps a hand out, grabbing the grenade and preventing the firing pin from being released.

Loki's robot is blocking the view and the sound of firing echoes in with no return.

Sori just gets the rest of the grenades away; Falling on white phosphorus is NOT a great career move.

Narg crawls back over to her position away from the group.

Loki's Robot ceases its firing, and seems to stare out in to the streets. It halts its firing, and then seems to stand by, as if waiting for something. A few clanks can be heard as internal parts reconfigure.

The ghostly image of a small, smiling boy very suddenly walks around the corner and into the room. He tilts his head to one side and looks at Apostasy, extending his hand very obviously for the grenade. A disembodied, child-like giggle echoes in the room.

Narg eyes up the boy still not trusting of such apparitions.

Sori blinks... Then sniffs the air.

Apostasy holds the grenade out, spoon still tightly gripped to prevent the fuse lighting, handing the primed weapon to the ghostly child.

Narg covers her head expecting an explosion as the boy is ethereal.

The boy grins a bit wider and grabs onto the grenade with both hands, apparently focusing intently upon keeping the spoon tight to the grenade in a way that only children can focus. He looks up with a wide, self-appreciating grin and then turns and scampers out of the room.

"I... He doesn't have a scent. Nothing." She digs in her bag, then takes out a roll of medical tape. "Apo, REDACTED... Bind her with this."

Gran's gaze doesn't really seem to effect Cilan, but Cilan looking upon Gran's face seems to finally snap out of her anger. What the wounding of her sister was not able to do.

Sparhawk is shovelling books into hir bags in the other room, whatever ones were on top and open to interesting-looking pages. Regrettably out of line-of-sight of the weirdest thing to happen all day!

Cilan's breathing seems lighter, the soldier's gaze again seems to focus, though quickly a look of shock hits her, the fact that she nearly killed her sister, and shortly after, everyone around her, "God.. wh.. what.." is all that she can sputter out after gaining her senses back.

Apostasy wordlessly enfolds Cil in a tight hug, nuzzling her neck.

Sori stands up, then starts looking at the varied artefacts in the room. Her hands are shaking just a touch as she looks for something in specific. Several things, actually.

Loki takes a deep breath, then rises to his feet, looking at Cilan and those around her. He sighs a moment, and then looses a relieved sigh. "Sparhawk... may I take a look at that Journal please?" he says, then looking towards Cilan, edging closer, but not wanting to crowd. HE waits for the journal, and seems rather agitated.

Narg goes to stand next to Loki once more so that she can see what he makes out of the journal when he gets it.

Cilan does nothing aside from rest limply, Apostasy can note her trembling like a leaf even in her soft hold.

Sparhawk shouts from the other room, "I didn't have it last! I think...Grantok has it." There are many flopping-book-covers noises from over there, and some inexplicable single-paper-sheet noises.

Sori asks, "Did anyone find a tooth or a coin here?

Narg nods "Grantok found a tooth and coins with runes on them!"

Grantok's demeanour lightens taking note of the changes to the situation. Breathing a momentary sigh of relief, she moves to a clear patch of the wall out of direct line of sight of the tampered window. She looks over in the direction of the two sisters and smiles. Her ears perk at the shouts of a Spar. "Journal, tooth, and coins are all over here!"

Sori nods, "May I see them?"

Apostasy keeps hugging the shaking human, nuzzling her and licking her face, trying to comfort her.

Narg goes to grab the journal for Loki and bring it back to him.

Grantok hands the journal to Narg, then rifles through her things to pull out the wooden coins and tooth to show Sori. "Found these in one of the cases. Find anything out about them?"

Loki takes the Journal from Narg, and quickly begins examining its contents, paging through as much as he can, trying to decipher what is going on.

"Yes. Apparently, Shadow was bound using a tooth from Coyote, though I think he cheated, his blood, and a coin... But I'm not so certain they'd be displayed so obviously if they're here. I'm gonna search around after I look 'em over."

The scent of smoke begins to waft into the room.

Narg sniffs at the air "Oh shit I smell smoke"

Sori sniffs. "What the... Fire?"

Apostasy lilts, "Looks like our safe zone is about to go up in flames. Grab everything we can that might be of use.""

Sori heads for where the smell is coming!

Grantok doesn't let Sori go alone. She stays right on her heels.

The smoke is coming in through the window itself, it begins to stream in thicker around Loki's robot.

Narg hadn't found anything of importance other than the journal and follows Sori and Grantok pulling Loki along with her.

Sori says, "Get water. They may be trying to burn us out!

Apostasy lilts, "Sori, we'll have to leave eventually! Grab the stuff we need and let's go now!"

"That would require finding where the flames themselves are." Grantok growls a little. "My guess would be outside, where we'd be sitting ducks. No. We need to find out if there's another way out of here."

Sori goes upstairs to look out of a higher, still-warded window to see where the fire is.

Sparhawk the sensory adept sniffs at the air and leaves the remainder of the bookpile on the floor and skitters out to the lobby again, raising hir eyebrows at the smoky tentacles. Hastily shi says, "What a useful robot you are, defending your master! Kindly step away from the window so we can examine your reports on the people injured by the unknown phenomena?"

Loki rises to his feet, stowing the journal for later. The dragon pulled along by Grantok and the others, leaving the Robot in the room with Sparhawk. It turns, and seems to regard the taur for a moment before it steps away, clomping along after Loki.

Grantok searches the ground level for lower levels, basements, or other such less obvious exits from the building.

Sori looks through the upstairs room, carefully eyeing her way through, looking around. She feels really drained, and doesn't seem to spot any fire through any of the windows themselves, nor see actual smoke coming from anywhere even by the window.

Sori shakes the sensation off, rubbing her head. She looks again out the window, not seeing any sign of the fire at all. Shaking her head, she takes a look around the room, quickly looking for any concealed places for artefacts and/or books.

Apostasy stays with Cil, still comforting the distraught woman.

Sparhawk shrugs and follows the robot, then starts skittering through the house at reasonably high speed checking out every room. Where there are windows shi pauses for a quantity of seconds before entering the room, birdlike in stillness and then hasty action, intending to get an overview of the layout of the place.

Sorien inspects one of the rooms no one bothered to look in. It's actually the -only- room in the house without bookcases. It's empty, save a stripped down bed, and a few cabinets. Sorien looks through the cabinets and finds a revolver. It's not anything modern by any sense. Behind it, are fragments of metal, not really clear what they are.

The smoke is getting thicker, tangible in fact.

Sori looks at the fragments, and takes the gun- she unloads it into her bag, and dumps it in after. She gathers the fragments, and checks for any concealed panels.

Narg hmmms at the thickening of smoke "It may not be safe in here much longer.

REDACTED looks around, trying to memorize the shapes of the wardings. A weapon to use against her enemy.

Grantok passes Spar in her own hasty search. "Any luck on a way out of here? Back exits? Concealed passages?"

Sori heads down to the... Then stops. She looks for an attic hatch or door.

Loki shifts around a bit, and takes another peek inside the journal, trying again to see if he can find anything useful. Magic wards, passages for the house, etc.

The house itself has a basement, many windows, all warded, single door. No one has explored the basement to see if there's a stormdoor.

Sparhawk meets Grantok in front of the basement door. "Just one exit thus far. Whatcha say I go down first, all glowy and obvious, with you following behind? If there's a giant spider I can probably diplomaticize it."

Cilan blinks suddenly, coming to her senses, and looks around again, turning to where she smells the smoke, probably what broke her out of her fear induced vegetative state.

Narg stops following Grantok and waits for Sparhawk to go down into the basement

Sorien stumbles upon an area of the upstairs that -should- have a room, but no door is obvious. She begins to pull book cases away from the walls.

Apostasy noses Cil. "You feeling better now, sis? Want me to take care of your injuries?"

"I suppose. Though I can't say I expect spiders at a time like this." Grantok nods decisively. "I've got your back covered."

Narg nods "as do I"

Sori actually giggles, this being the ultimate for a exploration-junkie. Who can resist secret hideouts?

Loki finds the journal relatively strange, the man appears very coherent early on, although he recognizes the tendencies of obsession from his own. But his obsession deepens, and his coherence leaves. He -annotates- his own journal.

Cilan shakes her head in answer to Apostasy, "No.. no healing.. if.. if I lose my mind again, I don’t want to be in peak health.. I.. I might do something very bad if that happens again.. just." she says offering the arm with the wrist wound, "Help me stand.."

Loki frowns, continuing to read the journal, truing to discern his thoughts, goals, and what he was planning. He searches for hidden codes and other such things, trying his best to decipher anything that may be of use against the shadow.

Apostasy nods sadly, and helps Cil to her feet. "If that's what you really want, sis. Now let's get away from this "smoke" stuff."

Sparhawk opens the basement door, supplying the squeak if the hinges themselves don't oblige, then pads happily down into the dark that flees before hir. And bumps hir bulging saddlebags against the doorframe, making hir pause to hand them back to Grantok. "Delicious books, making my gear look fat!"

The smoke is now substantial and begins to solidify, -sticking- to the books on the edges of the room, almost crystallizing.

Loki is only able to determine the guy went truly crazy. He saw things that weren't there, talked to himself, and has conversations with himself with his annotation, criticizing his own commentary.

Apostasy moves closer to the smoke, and unleashes a small blast of fire from her hand, curious as to the effect it will have.

Narg eyes up the smoke warily.

Cilan nods, grimacing as she is picked up, and quickly makes her way away from the smoke.

Apo's fire seems to bounce off the crystallizing pieces of what clearly are shadow, not seeming to affect them. The crystals begin to spread into the books like veins, consuming them. All over the room now the crystals are spreading, consuming the library.

Grantok visibly winces, not enjoying the idea of being reduced to a pack mule carrying loads of books. Hefting them one over another, she trudges down slowly behind the taur, doing her best to keep her footing. "I am not well designed for carrying Spar loads of gear under any circumstances."

Narg looks very sad at the books being destroyed "All that knowledge nooo" but follows after Grantok.

Loki sighs, and stows the book, frowning. He continues to look through the building, a small sigh escaping him. He frowns, moving to save any books he can before the crystals can consume them.

Spar and Gran find the basement cluttered with discarted artefacts and books. Duplicates of stuff found above, or things deemed by the owner to not be worthy. It's not a large basement, much, much smaller than the house above, but there -is- a storm door. It's also warded and runed.

Apostasy draws her sword, and strikes at the crystal, seeing her fire do nothing.

Sorien spends a while looking at the walls, not seeing any cracks or obvious places to enter, but she's sure that there is a room, so she keeps at it. She is so consumed by searching though she doesn't notice as the smoke begins crystallizing upstairs as well.

"I had intended you to leave them at the top," says Sparhawk with a somewhat worried glance at what translates into Tiberium veins inside hir internet-polluted mind. "Give 'em back now, because it's about vacating time." Shi pads to the storm door, examining it for weirdness. Runes don't count at this point.

The moment Apo's sword touches the crystallized shadow, she feels the blade grow cold. The tip embeds in, and she feels the blade being tugged out of her hands.

Narg looks around the basement in awe of the books and artefacts, she looks up towards the storm door "I hope it isn't blocked off"

Apostasy snarls and wraps both hands around the grip of the sword, trying to pull it free with all her might.

Apostasy tears the blade out, managing to free it. What looks like black blood coats the tip, and it begins to drip, before it evaporates into smoke in the air.

Apostasy sheaths the sword again, and moves quickly away from the crystallising essence of shadow. "People! We need to get the hell out of here now!!"

The storm door itself is barred shut from the inside, but it's kind of feeble and should have easily been able to be opened, the warding clearly doing it's job. Fully intact but the scrawl is more hastily carved, like it was forgotten initially.

REDACTED heads up after her mate, not liking that she's been off on her own so long.

Grantok sets the taur's sacks down at the base of the stairs, with a bit of a huff. "Well now they're down here so there's less travel involved. Besides, I have less body mass to clog that one stairwell with making it at least a little more manoeuvrable." She turns and heads back up the basement stairs, shouting as she does. "Back exit through the basement. Way out this way!

Sori keeps looking, but she's gonna give up on subtle and move to ultraviolence in a moment.

As REDACTED reaches upstairs, Sorien has finally managed to pry open a panel to the sealed room. It's almost disappointing after all the work to see nothing of value inside, the room stripped bare. However there are stairs up into the attic.

Sparhawk strokes hir fingers over the surface of the door's runes, murmuring something about a camera...then is visibly struck by an idea. "Spectrograph!" shi shouts for some reason, and whips out a digital camera attached to a complex device that shi carefully detaches and re-stows before snapping a whole bunch of shots of the hasty runes.

Apostasy hurries Cil over to the basement, leaving her with Gran, before heading upstairs after REDACTED and Sori, to pass on the news and get them to leave.

Sori glances back as REDACTED walks in. "Get with the others; I'll be fine-gonna check this out and be out as soon as I can!"

Cilan makes her way to the basement as ordered, her movement assisted quite a bit with Apostasy guiding her, "Th.. thanks.."

Loki perks up, then looks towards the upstairs, and then to the downstairs. He frowns, his robot wandering back in, probably scanning more of the house. The dragon fidgets, and cannot seem to decide which way to go. Two are upstairs, and the rest are downstairs.

Apostasy reaches the top of the stairs and calls out. "Sori! REDACTED! We really, really need to leave! There's black shadowy crystal stuff taking over the house, we really don't want to be here anymore! There's an exit in the basement!" As she calls out, she hunts around the upper floor, trying to find the errant pair.

REDACTED shakes her head, "My love, we don't have long left. I'm not leaving you alone. At the very least I will come with you."

Sori is heading into the attic. "Okay, but our exit may end up bein' kinda spectacular!

Grantok takes over as Cilan's shoulder to lean on and aids her in proceeding down into the basement, taking the steps at her pace. "Not too much further now." She feels a bit awkward leaving silence on the trek and adds, "Sorry about before. I'm glad that you came to when you did."

Sori shouts back to Apo. "We'll be okay. Get with the others!"

Narg is sitting quietly observing the artefacts and books waiting for everyone to get here.

Loki frowns, and ends up choosing the basement to escape with the others, his robot following close behind, but not before it attempts to scan the crystal. He begins looking around the basement, trying to see if he can spot anything of interest as he wanders around, trying to find the others.

REDACTED follows Sorien upstairs. The stairs are creaky and haven't been used in ages, and REDACTED shivers at what she sees. The body of a man, huddled inside a circular ring of warding. He's been passed away for a while, but for some reason what should be the stench of a dead body does not penetrate.

"Poor guy. I guess... He got trapped by his own fear as much as the shadow." Sori looks around the room, realizing that anything she's gonna do better be damn fast.

Cilan replies to Grantok with a slow, nod and, "Y-yeah.." her tone sombre, and guilty about what she had done.

Narg turns to Sparhawk "Hey Spar what is a spectrograph exactly?"

Apostasy frowns unhappily, but goes down to the rest anyway. When she gets to the storm doors, she looks at the others. "So, we gonna try the doors?"

Narg shakes her head "If I were Ferox I would have barricaded the doors, but I don't think we should try until we get everyone down here.”

Sparhawk is busily humming All You Need Is Love while trying to figure out the macro close-focus setting on the camera when Narg asks the question. "Tell ya later." Then to Cilan shi says, "I'm glad you're here, Cil. Might I recommend picking up a smoke grenade for next trip, in case we're on the losing end of another sniper duel?" Then shi counts heads. "Where's everyone else?"

Grantok leaves it at that, realizing that it would not be best to talk any further of it. Emotions along those lines brought about the situation that they are in. She instead turns to Narg and Loki. "Look around and see if you can find any wooden coins or large teeth down here. Coins should have runes on them."

Narg thinks a moment "I think they are still upstairs."

Loki looks over to Apostasy, then to the others, tilting his head. "A spectrograph is something... used to photograph ghosts and such?... Or am I mistaken?" he asks, looking around the room. He wanders over to the door and sighs, shifting a bit. "Well... we could try the door... although... perhaps we could open it creatively here.. just in case it is trapped." he murmurs.

REDACTED says, "Love, if he were dead normally, he'd smell, and have decayed, wouldn't he?" She walks closer to the body, and looks through the man's clothing for pockets, stuff he'd carry with him to defend himself. Removes some more runed items, stuff he made trying to keep the shadows away that really served no purpose. But then she spots something, something very familiar and she gasps. Obsidian, etched all over the place so it reflects in patterns that cause light to dance.

Loki looks over to Grantok. "Coins and teeth? Why?" he inquires, furrowing his brow, but does indeed start looking for coins, teeth, and anything odd.

Cilan says, "No.. I suggest we not open it.. look at the wards, its probably stopping something from entering.."

Sori says, "Get that. Then lets get the hell out."

Apostasy looks at Cil. "We've no other exit. That crystal shit owns upstairs by now."

Narg nods "I figured as much" she begins searching for said artefacts like Grantok mentioned.

Loki frowns. "Yes.. that is likely true... but also... are we simply going to sit and waste away here? Or are we going to fight for our lives and not give them up so easily?"

REDACTED tries to grab the body, the realizes leaving it in a warded circle is probably a mercy. The attic itself has many other objects, but without time to look they must flee. There's another set of stairs up to a widow's walk on the top of the building.

"Something that Sorien was looking for earlier. Found a few upstairs but seeing as there are more down here, best to double check and make sure that those aren't just copies and the real ones are in storage." Grantok shakes her head. "That will be our way out when we are ready. Prepare in the mean time."

“ Right. That's our way out of we're cut off. Let’s go." Sori starts back down the stairs.

Sparhawk looks to Loki. "Tell you later, too." Then shi looks at the storm door again. "Unless this house is stranger than it has a right to be, that will be to the back yard. And what it is keeping out is the shadow, the smoke and the crystals, so we should go out in a hurry when we do." Shi prepares by winding the harness around hir left upper arm, imagining it as a glowing shield while making sure that hand's free to move.

The black crystals have expanded, the hallway downstairs impassable at this point.

"Shit. Back up, sweetie. We gotta go out the hard way." Sori takes out her radio. "Spar- We're cut off, taking an alternate route. Get out as you guys can and we'll meet you!"

"Roger," comes Spar's voice back through the radio. Shi shouts, "Out-going time, O heroes!" while preparing to unbar the storm doors and rush outward with great force.

Narg perks her ears at Spars order "You heard Spar let’s get outa here"

Narg rushes out behind Spar.

Loki smiles. "Well.. lets not delay then Sparhawk... time is valuable." he says, stretching himself out. "Lets get this done.. but first..." he trails off, wandering over to Cilan. "Are you still rather hurt? Or... are you fine?"

Cilan gives a dismissive wave to Loki with the arm with the injured wrist and says, "Ill live.."

Back up the stairs, and up to the widow's walk Sori and and REDACTED go. "Okay. This is going to suck," Sori says. "I'll open the door, then change; I'll get a grip on you, but HOLD ON TIGHT. I'll fly us the hell away, but I'm pretty much expecting to take a bullet in the process. I'll protect you as best as I can, love."

Loki sighs, and then grabs the wrist, focusing intently, trying to heal the damage, the characteristic light of reconstruction encompassing the wrist. "I do hope you do Cilan... despite what you think... you have much to live for... and many would miss you."

Grantok readies herself for a scrap once the doors fling open. She peeks back over her shoulder at the staircase momentarily and awaits the charge.

Cilan pulls her hand back before Loki can do too much healing, "I said I don’t need healing.. if I lose my mind again, I don’t want to be in peak condition.. I nearly killed us while injured.. imagine what Ill be like otherwise."

A grenade rolls up near the group as they're running, and sets off, Spar takes a brunt of the blast, helping to block others from taking damage.

REDACTED looks at her mate and nods, sadly, offering herself up.

Apostasy rolls to the side, ears ringing from the grenade blast. Trusting others to take care of the wounded, she looks about for the source of the grenade.

Grantok moves to shoulder and reinforce Sparhawk as the blast goes off, taking a bit of the damage as well. "Keep moving. We need to get somewhere with a little more cover."

Sori opens the hatch, and shifts- the coyote being replaced by a wyvern! She gets a hold of REDACTED with her tail, and vaults into the air.

Narg acks at the blast Sparhawk takes most of the blast dropping flat to the ground to avoid any pressure blast, looking around for anything to pin point, before getting back up too her knees ready to dash alongside Grantok and Spar.

Loki sighs, frowning in response to Cilan. "Cil.. I think that you can fight it off. I think you should believe in yourself some more." he nods, covering himself with a wing as the grenade goes off, growling. He stays near the others, poised and ready to defend, his robot rushing to his side.

Sparhawk is the juggernaut, bitch! Trained for this by having actual grenades fired (by Apostasy) at the target shi was biting neck-deep! Never needed just one sense to move anyway, wavering with the shockwave but letting the armour of skin, barding and vest take most of it and leave the blood behind.

Sorien shivers violently as she feels something -else- important leave her mind. It distracts her long enough that she doesn't even notice until she feels a tightness in her chest. And REDACTED sag in her arms. She struggles to keep aloft as she feels her strength sapping.

Cilan jumps back, and tucks into a roll, trying to avoid the grenade blast, though as she returns to her feet, she voices another cry of pain, the roll probably having agitated either the shoulder, or wrist wound.

Narg shifts to her feet pistol at the ready waiting for Spar and Grantok to keep going.

Sori struggles and heals herself, then REDACTED, knowing she can't heal her mate but trying anyway. She spots Fer, and lets herself fall at the top of her arc, limp but still guided to get the house between her and Ferox!

Ferox' follow up shot goes high, missing Sorien and REDACTED. She grimaces and swears and shouts at the top of her lungs. "You, it's your fault he's abandoning me!"

Grantok takes a moment, her small body mostly covered by the taur, and gets a good perception of the area, eyes and ears scanning for a prime location to move next.

Sorien's nanites just burn up as she tries to heal REDACTED. Lighting the two up in the sky almost like a beacon.

Sori doesn't answer, levelling out and using every bit of terrain as defence against further shots. "Please say something, anything sweetie. Please!"

Narg looks at the voice her ears pricking and looking at the direction of the shout "Was that Ferox?"

Ferox falls down on her knees. She holds her hands along her head, the shadow around her fading like a cloud. She seems in agony over something.

Loki seems to settle down, then looks towards the voice, then sky. He frowns for a moment, then spreading his wings wide. He seems to almost rush off towards the sound for a moment, before stopping, and turning to Cilan. He fidgets. "Do you... want some help Cil?.. could carry you..." he offers.

The flash of light attracts Apo's attention, and she looks up, seeing the struggling wyvern. She launches herself into the air immediately, flying towards it as fast as she can to render assistance, assuming it's Sori and REDACTED.

"Yes!" shouts Sparhawk about twice as loud as necessary. Then even louder, "He came for you, Ferox! Not for a moment were you forgotten!" Being a grenade-deafened birdtaur makes for some big lungs and abused syrinxes.

REDACTED hangs limp, blood spattering into the wind as she's carried. Her clothes are drenched with blood very shortly.

Narg watches as Apo fly's off "Oi are we gonna get some cover? or are we gonna head towards Ferox?"

Sori quickly lands, shifting and starting first aid as fast as possible. She is chanting a mantra of 'nononononononono...' as she does.

"Get to cover now. While she's distracted." Grantok points in a direction to the most optimal cover, and then proceeds in a completely different direction. "Just don't follow me. GO!"

Narg barks "Got it Grantok!" and heads towards the cover Grantok picked quickly and dives behind it.

Sorien works fast, packing the wound and doing anything she can with non-nanite healing.

Apostasy lands next to Sori and REDACTED, and quickly adds her own magic to the bid to heal the injured woman.

REDACTED' wound is right on her heart, speaking true to Ferox's uncanny accuracy. Her lifeblood flowing the entire time in the air, her skin palid. Sorien's nanite healing just responds with heat and light, and there's little a physical medkit can do.

Sori keeps working, trying everything she knows, whether she knows it will work or not. She continues the muttered mantra throughout.

Ferox appears to be... crying.

Sparhawk's trail of blood turns to a spatter of cast-off goo as hir scaly skin goes transparent [skin color], galumphing over for the cover Narg is occupying to let the self-repair programs do their enthusiastic dance and push out (or devour) the foreign shrapnel.

Narg gazes out over the field from her cover to eye at Ferox, ready to duck back down in a moment’s notice however.

Loki sighs, and turns away, eventually leaping in to the air to catch up with Apostasy and reach REDACTED and Sorien. His robot following its creator as best it can on the ground, sliding along rather than running.

Tears stream from Apo's eyes as she pushes her magic harder. Both herself and REDACTED are partially obscured by the light, visible only as a pair of shadows. Onlookers will be able to see Apo wilting, before her wings appear to drop clean off her back. The light doesn't fade, if anything, it only grows brighter, temporarily blinding any onlookers. When their vision is restored, REDACTED appears to be healed... but Apo is slumped motionless on the ground beside her, her wings lying on the grass separate from her body. Even that doesn't last long, as she's engulfed by silver fire. When it fades, all that remains is ash.

REDACTED gasps in pain and surprise as her soul is forced back into her body. She shivers violently and screams out "No!" as she watches Apo die.

Narg happened to see the flash of light as it ended and looks at Apo as she disappears "Oh m..my god......... Apostasy is gone"

Sori stares in shock at the act, unable to do anything. She starts to reach for what was once Apo... Then hugs REDACTED to her tight, crying.

Sori, still holding REDACTED says, "Oh god... Are... Are you alright? What did she do? No..."

Sparhawk peeks over cover and applies the Deity's Light Categorization Device to Apo's final ashing, mashing the shutter button rather harder than necessary. "I have NO IDEA what the rules are here," shi hollers, "We are in the land of Isn'ts and Is'es, and I cannot even keep my vow to Taggart!" The tone is anger, dealing with events by smashing into them head-on.

Navigating a side alley or three, Grantok moves into a closer position to approach Ferox than a blank run in the middle of the street. One of the coins in her hand, tooth in the other, and her stunning glare at the ready, she approaches from Ferox's side and moves in to attack, aiming to drive the tooth into Ferox's heart. Her stern voice only, adds the smallest sympathies. "Time for you to join your mate in the beyond."

REDACTED is shivering and crying, barely coherent, although her physical wound is completely healed she feels as if her heart has been torn out. Yet another person she loves taken from her.

Narg curses her ineffectuality and watches as Grantok attacks Ferox and shakes her head and mutters "I don't think it's gonna work Grantok"

Sori gently lifts REDACTED and carries her to where Spar is. She doesn't at the moment know what else to do.

REDACTED screams out into the air, at the top of her lungs.

Ferox blinks her crimson eyes a few times, staring at the road for a moment as voices call out to her. Almost in a daze, she raises her head, catears flickering above her human-like face to regard Loki, while hardly seeming to pay attention to Grantok. She seems lost and confused, stripped bare for the world around her. Grantok is speeding toward her target, tooth aimed for Ferox's heart when there is a flash of ghostly light and a middle-aged man appears in her path. He frowns gently, sadly, shaking his head while his hand reaches up to stop Grantok in mid-spring. She isn't thrown backward, as one might expect, in fact, it's quite a gentle rebuke, stopping her mid-air and then gently letting her fall onto her behind. Ferox looks about to respond to Loki before the ghostly image does it's stuff, turning to stare at it with small horror and then anger and frustration.

Narg drops her muzzle open "Holy Shit...... did I see what I thought I saw or am I seeing things"

Sorien stops dead when she sees the ghost.

Loki sighs as Grantok is rebuked, but then continues towards Ferox. He slows his place when he gets closer. He offers a hand to Ferox. "Ferox... Who was that..? And... you seem mad... care to speak about why?... perhaps... If not... care to just talk? I have... no interest in fighting..."

Grantok stares wide-eyed with disbelief at the appearance of the spectre, let alone the fact that it halted her from stopping what she had intended. Her nerves oddly calm at the peaceful halting, only managing to look a little slack jawed. She only can manage to sit there, dumbfounded, unsure of what to make of this turn of events.

Sparhawk photo photo photo click, filling up a couple gigabytes of sturdy flash memory. Some of the spectrographs are bound to be blurry from the continued shouting that only gets slightly quieter as hir ears recover, "You're dead, and you still stand there offering nothing but denial! Could you be /ANY/ more cryptic and useless?!"

Sparhawk is probably counterproductive at that point.

Sori manages to get out, "You're dead..."

Narg looks at Sparhawk with confusion "What are you talkin about Spar?"

Narg continues staring at the spectre of the man she doesn't know.

The image of the man slowly fades, as if he was also a photograph... an image burned on everyone's retinas that slowly disappears into the shadow around. Ferox is startled by Loki's continued hasslings and very suddenly pulls a pistol up from the ground, and without looking at him, fires at the poor man's head. There are literally, inches between the muzzle of the heavy caliber Mateba Model 6 Hunter Autorevolver... but Loki is again, gently rebuked to the side by a different spectre, another small boy, only recognizable by anyone who's seen Taggart's sketches of him. The bullet wizzes inches by Loki's head, as he falls over into a soft heap. Ferox looks less than pleased.

Narg continues watching dumbfounded and in awe of the supernatural things occurring in the distance.

Sori gently sets REDACTED down. "Fer... Stop," she says quietly. She looks almost like she's sleepwalking.

Sparhawk pauses a moment to look at the ghost instead of just expressing anger. "Er. I guess that's just a scrap of Taggart. Someone he ate once. It's complicated, and explanations make Taggart explode. So." Shi rubs at hir neck, even with the throat inside devoid of structure it hurts from the shouting.

Sori digs something out of her shoulder bag, still looking half-not there.

Loki blinks as he is nudged to the side. "Thank you." he murmurs, peering at the small boy, then looks back to Ferox. "You know... shooting things... does not often truly solve them..." he mumbles, scratching his head. "And... as Sorien says... Please.. stop... this bloodshed is senseless... and shall only bring more pain." he says, offering a smile, hand still offered to the marksman.

REDACTED falls to her knees when Sori puts her down, she's just too distraught right now to even care about anything else.

Narg nods "Ah ok" and then barks loudly "Loki your crazy stop talking to her!"

Ferox seems to become more agitated by Loki's insistence at peace, an odd purr-growl in her throat as she stands up and brings both of her pistols to bear on him. "You've got five seconds... and MAYBE I won't shoot you anyways." Her crimson eyes are still full of tears, her teeth gritted together as she stares at Loki, trying her best to keep them from straying to the child-ghost. Said spectre turns and just gives a child-like smile to the shadow swallowed person, disembodied giggle as he steps forward and wraps ghostly arms around her leg. The spectre vanishes at that point, leaving Ferox caught between glancing at the spot at her leg and Loki, whom her pistols are still pointed at.

The gunshot aimed at Loki manages to pull Grantok a little back to her senses, though not much. She only manages to let slip a "Why?" from her stunned position. Other than that she remains still, fear and self-preservation overriding any inclination to move or even think of being hostile at this point.

Sori moves a step closer, then looks at the page she's taken out. "Lyri, we searched, and waited for you, and would have waited til the end of time, if our neighbors didn't force us to leave without you. If you find this, please find us. We love you."

Sori holds the page out for Fer, not moving closer.

Sparhawk slumps down under the granite boulder’s cover to focus on digesting metal shrapnel. Gooey eyes closing is formality, leaving the remaining focus on the nanite world of hir mutation-afflicted friends, with the ghosts and demons of the one shi swore not to aid until asked invisible.

Loki spreads his arms as if to hug. "You.. know... if your saying that you will shoot me regardless... then I shall stay here, still offering to help." he says with a sad smile. "You know... everybody has pain... and sometimes.. it cannot be easily remedied..." he trails off, cocking an ear as Sorien speaks, and his smile brightens a tad. "You know.. sometimes... you are reminded on how things are not... completely bad..." he trails off, brow furrowing slightly, likely not knowing how to phrase what he means.

One of the pistols trained on Loki swings quickly to point at Sorien, warning against further stepping. Ferox's voice growls out, "No! You're lying! You'd do anything to beat me, now!" She doesn't seem so sure of that, as she says it, but Loki's words seem to come forth unresolved anger. "Not so bad!? Do you KNOW what it's like to serve It!? To be left to fight it on your own!? By someone who said he would protect you until the end!? DO YOU!?" She is shouting by the end, tears streaming again from her cheeks.

Narg pats Sparhawks goo body and continues to watch the scene unfolding ready to help should it be necessary.

Sorien softly churrs, "No. I don't. But I've seen what it does. You know me Fer. I don't lie. And I have REDACTED. Tag is yours. He misses you terribly."

Ferox turns her attention to Sorien, "Taggart's dead! His brain is gone! -I- did it! It should have been enough for It, but no... It wants more!" She seems to lose focus, energies and thoughts and stress attacking her at once while her pistols slacken. "Fuck!" She realizes she's slipping and very suddenly, her wings unfurl and she leaps up into the air, flapping a few times to hover aloft above them. "Devil's Tower... final showdown. Bring your friends." A mocking smile with fanged cat-teeth flash in the gloom of the shadow world before she turns and takes off.

Loki sighs, lowering his arms. "No.. I do not... But I think I can imagine what it may be like... I could offer a counter point to such... Saying that you could likely not understand the pain that I feel..." he murmurs, crouching to lower himself to Ferox's level. "Still... Taggart was struck with some other problems... and from what I hear... and perhaps think.... he was devastated by your loss... probably shattered to his core... probably pained him to not be able to do such... to try to help you but to be unable to... do you know what that is like?... To watch something you wish to prevent with your entire being happen before your eyes?" he manages to say, looking to the sky with a frown as ferox leaves.

A parting shot is fired, catching Loki in the shoulder.

Sori watches her fly off, a look of confusion on her face. "Tag's dead? I... I don't remember that. Why don't I remember?" She drops to her knees and hugs herself with a sob.

Narg digs into her backpack now that Ferox has departed and pulls out an empty whisky bottle and moves over to Apo's ashes.

Sparhawk slorps on out from behind the rock, solidifying--and turning away from the ashpile with a quick toss of a standard-issue nanite vial at the back of Narg's head. "It's better when they're transparent," is all the explanation shi gives, and goes over to give Sorien a giant hug.

REDACTED pulls herself up, hearing her mate's pain, and moves close to comfort her, needing the contact herself.

Grantok clutches the tooth and coin in her claws, reeling a little from Ferox's take off right next to her. Her eyes trace and watch Ferox as she flies off, parting shot at Loki and all. Once she finally fades from sight, Grantok exhales, realizing that she most likely hadn't for what felt like an eternity.

Loki sighs, not noticing the wound to his shoulder. He sighs, and rises to his feet, rather sombre, oblivious to the wound of his shoulder. He walks over to Sorien, and places a hand on her shoulder. "Sorien... he was shot in the head... but... well, some of us came back from the jaws of seeming death before.. try not to break... I am sure he is still around somehow. After all, we have been seeing ghosts... I am sure.." he mumbles, wincing, finally noticing the wound. "Odd... pain... feels... surreal..."

Narg is hit in the back of the head "Oh thanks spar!"

"S-someone... Get Apo. What's left. Oh god..." And she sobs, something she doesn't do. She clings to REDACTED, and looks more lost than she's ever been.

Narg picks up the vial and moves over towards Apo's ashes leaving the whiskey bottle behind.

Grantok looks over at Sorien with a look of mixed emotions of confusion and nerves shot. "What are you talking about? What happened to Apo?"

Narg begins to scoop Apo's ashes into the vial at least all that she can get that is and corks the top of the vial backup and putting it in her backpack.

Sori tries to speak, barely managing. "She... She died to save REDACTED."

Narg sighs "Got her, Apo's ashes, Sori.... I'm sorry"

Sori shudders. "Not... Not now. Please hold her for now?"

Sparhawk hugs Sori and REDACTED tightly. "I know some things. Right now is hugging time, but later I will tell you many things."

While everyone is talking, there's a shuddering noise, the mansion itself begins to crumble, it's very structure collapsing in on itself.

Sori hugs back, now unwilling to let go of the two people remaining of those closest to her, aside from Kay.

Narg nods and moves to a respectful distance away from Sori and REDACTED.

Click here to continue to Chapter 5.