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Tyval fell, too; luckily, the paladin muttered the prayer, "Float", before hitting the ground. To his great dismay, it was unheard - and by the time he muttered the same prayer again, it was too late to avoid some of the strength of the impact.

His fall had been... painful. He had seen a bomb close to him, but he had his shield - which was immediately imbued with holy energy by his wielder's deity, via a prayer more successful than the prayer for flotation Tyval would mutter later on. Part of the energy of the explosion had been repelled by the shield - the rest of the energy was however enough to burn his skin and some flesh underneath the armor. The parts most damaged were his legs and feet. Those were also the parts that hit the ground first.

He would spend the next ten seconds muttering "Heal" over and over again, as his body slowly became less roasted, and less broken. That was when he noticed he was surrounded by wounded allies. Foolishly dropping his mace and shield, he ran over to the closest person, as his hands started glowing...

The now-human woman rolled onto her face as the man moved her off of him. She didn't bother to turn her head, and she was fine with that. Face squished into the ground and breathing weren't the top things on her mind at the moment. Her only focus was the ground..and how hard yet comfortable the ground could be sometimes. Especially if minimal movement was involved. Perhaps now at least the paladin would be less frightened by her.

"This is BS! Nerf traps!" Sam let go of the rope and tossed her lamp away as the blade sliced in to it. She flipped around and ground her boots in to the wall as she fell, trying to slow her descent. As she neared the bottom, she leaped off, then tucked and rolled as she hit the ground. The rope dislodged from its trans-dimensional anchor when damaged, and the two pieces fell to the bottom a few seconds later. She suffered some bruising during the roll due to the rough and rocky ground, but otherwise avoided serious injury.

She bent to pick up one section of the rope. "Ruined. Great." She tied the two pieces together and stowed them in her satchel. Although the rope's enchantment had been destroyed, if she could find or make a grapple at some point, it might still come in handy. She went to retrieve her lamp from where it had landed some distance away, which flared back to life when she picked it up. She moved along the perimeter of their new surroundings with it, running a hand along the wall and muttering to herself about how underpowered the Spot skill is.

Does healing magic work on vampires? Tyval had no idea. In fact, he didn't even know he was healing Mink - she was facing down, and besides, the paladin was pretty sure the explosions had affected his eyes somewhat, as he couldn't see very well.

"Lay on Hands." The angel's now glowing hands were laid upon her back, where even Tyval could see her burns.

(When she's human she is no longer vampiric- just human. She only has the ability to shift into one of her other forms. just fyi.)

Even as Tyval began to heal her, she knew she had been damaged enough for some scarring to remain. She grimaced into the ground at his touch, but almost immediately the pain slowly faded. Rolling her head to the side, she quietly muttered a thank you to the man. Supposing it was time to move, she sat up, looking around. Mink brushed dirt from her now throbbing face, realizing she had exhausted her shifting energy and was now stuck as a human for the duration of their adventure. She sighed and got up. This was going to be interesting.

The Ranger spared a glance toward Mink, but it was still too dark to make out her features. His eye sight had fully returned but the lighting of the hole in which they had heedlessly thrown themselves in was poor. He smoothed his clothes in what one might call and uncomfortable fashion and tried again to see where they might be. If anything made Dadj uncomfortable, it was enclosed spaces in which he could not see an exit. His companions---if they could see him--- might count themselves special for witnessing a rare moment of panic strike the Ranger.

He began to pace and touch the walls, looking for a way in which to escape or at least procede to the next enclosure; the Mayor was not to found in this one and Dadj wanted to hurt him. Badly.

The extremely demonic voice of Alphanus blasted through the caves and caverns that made up his current...'lair'. It was powerful enough to shake the very earth around them all.

"It would seem you have made it to my...shall I say 'lair' for this time! But you will have to defeat who brought you down here, who happens to be my current right-hand man. However, before even that, you'll need to find us in this massive maze of subterranean tunnels. I will assure you I have prepared the most depraved obstacles to lie in your way. Good luck, you'll need that, and MUCH more!"

And the underground network truly is massive. It is about 6 miles from there to the Mayor, whose real name is Betanos (obviously, since he Alphanus's right-hand man).

Erin watched with wide eyes, a bit of light emanating from the fire coating her wounds, as Dadj came blindly nearer and nearer to her. Might as well just introduce herself. She stood up, but at that moment, Alphanus's voice boomed into their little room. The floor shook and Erin stumbled, almost falling into Dadj. She managed to catch herself by painfully digging her fingernails into the wall, her fire covered wounds more painful than ever. After the creepy intercom message ended, she stood, panting, clinging to the wall, then brushed herself off and retreated to the corner. Maybe the introducing herself thing wasn't such a good idea. Who knew what they would think? A small girl with wavy red hair that was singed short and fire covering her upper left arm, her cheek, and several spots along her legs who had Beej following them invisible? They'd think she was a spy for the evil mayor. Best to stay unnoticed.

Dadj could feel warmth and the slight moisture of breath near him. However, he was sidetracked immediately by the deafening sound of Alphanus. While the abyssal creature was speaking the Ranger was moving his head to get a read on the direction of the voice. It was impossible. The sound was coming at all angles at once.

He forgot about the weird sensation of being exhaled upon and continued his search for a way out of this area. It paid off as he found a crevice big enough to fit his body through. He slipped between the rock walls without a word. He was not sure if anyone had been watching or was even aware of their surroundings at all. After walking enough paces to deem this pathway was not a dead end he retraced his steps.

Slipping into view momentarily the Ranger spoke gravely. “This way.” And disappeared.

Mink squinted in the mostly dark cavern - Curse these weak human eyes - attempting to locate everyone. Before she could get completely adjusted, however, the voice boomed all around and her head snapped up, startled. Maze, tunnels..sounded fun. Deadly fun. By now the voice had quieted and her vision had adapted well enough to see her comrades. As Dadj exited through the hole after pointing it out, Mink walked swiftly after him without a second glance around.

Sam cursed under her breath at the voice, then moved to stand near the exit that Dadj had located, her lamp glowing and her sword - fortunately, not glowing at the moment - drawn.

"Oh good, the invulnerable ranger and magical shapeshifting immortal dragon wizard have separated themselves from the group, I'm sure that's not exactly what this Alphanus thing wants at all. Great. Well, let's get moving. We're better off staying behind those two in case we run in to more crap like this."

While looking around, she thought she saw her sword flicker for a moment, but when she examined it more closely, nothing appeared out of the ordinary. She shrugged, assuming she had just caught the reflection of the lamp's brightest point for a moment.

(In reality the sword is responding to Erin, but just barely, and the lamp's light makes it essentially undetectable.)

Behind Sam, and keeping a very socially unacceptable distance from her (think mere inches), a very burnt and bruised Paladin spent the little mana he had left in benedictions. Said distance halved when he heard her talk of Alphanuses and invulnerable rangers and dragons - without immediately realizing the latter two were Mink and Dadj. Who where on his side. Kinda.

Alright. Imbue Shield, Imbue Armor, Divine Health - you never know, Protection from evil, Bless. That'd be all. I'm pretty sure I forgot something, but... naah. Tis probably me again. Aaaand I'm almost out of mana, anyways.

This Paladin did not need a lamp, he had his natural glow and his imbued ma- wait a minute, where was his mace? He had grabbed his shield before scurrying over to Samantha's side, but he had probably forgotten his mace somewhere. Lack of bright lights in the vicinity probably meant that either the weapon's holiness had faded, or that there was something very evil suppressing it. With a sigh, he unsheathed his sword. His last bit of mana was spent Holy Forging it instead. (Tyval loses one weapon per RP, at least.)

"S-so, what do we do now? And what's an Alphanus?"

(I love her invisibleness. Yay for the lamp and Dadj's ignorance! ...And I just realized what a fail my last post was. That's what happens when you reply with an iPhone....)

Erin decided not to question her seeming invisibility. Fire was covering part of her body and her hair was red enough to...never mind. She fought the urge to laugh at Tyval's question, but a giggle escaped her lips nevertheless. Oh well, they probably would fail, once again, to notice her. Maybe it was one of those unknown half-dragon powers she possessed, to hide in plain sight...no, the only ones she knew she had were invisibility and wound-preserving with fire, which was starting to fade now, the injuries beginning to hurt again. "ow," she whispered. Erin cursed under her breath and gritted her teeth against the pain as Malice followed her when she followed Dadj and the others, staying in the exterior of the group.

(I feel like being a dick right now, so I'm going to take away Erin's invisibility, for the lulz.)

Alphanus decided to ruin Erin's 'invisibility'. A shaft of light came down from the hole and shone exactly where Erin was, and, humorously, a giant red flashing arrow floated right above her head.

Dadj twitched at the flash of demonic power and he turned on the balls of his feet. Those behind him probably bumped into him since he stopped so suddenly, but he didn't notice. All he could see was the less than subtle hint of a stowaway of sorts. He hand his hands on both of his blades in moments and with two short strides, one of them met Erin's throat.

"Who are you?" The Ranger's honey eyes glinted with a hardness unlike them.

(I love you, GrandFinale. I'm cracking up. ...Oh, by the way...DAMN.)
Oh, crap. She was not prepared for this. She attempted to back up, but then she felt the cold tip of the blade touch her neck. Erin's palms began to sweat with nervousness. The fire covering her wounds went out from her distractedness. She wondered if she should speak. Malith squealed and hid behind Erin, his adorable face peeking out from behind her shaking legs. Dadj seemed ten feet tall to her. All the time, she was aware of the blade at her throat.

"I-I'm Erin," she whispered.

"Where do you hail from? Why are you here?" The man had advanced upon her, pushing her backwards toward the nearest wall so she would be trapped. He was not fond of spies that were not in cahoots with him. "Answer me, woman!" Dadj growled when she did not answer fast enough. His short blade made better friends with her skin.

As she hit the wall, Erin began to get angry. She winced as the blade pressed harder to her throat, but she rolled her eyes anyway. "Calm down, I'm not a spy for anyone," she snapped, then cleared her head. "Look. If I wanted to kill you guys I would have lopped your heads off while I was invisible. I've been following you guys as a member of your little posse. A journey seemed nice, and I thought I might come in handy sometime. Does that answer you well enough?" Erin attempted to push the blade away from her throat. It was getting uncomfortable.

Malith looked up at Dadj, whimpering, and cowered against the girl. Erin's wounds started to bleed again--she'd have to try at least to somehow heal them. The fire didn't heal; it preserved and took away pain. It coated her injuries again and she sighed with relief. At least they wouldn't get any worse.

He was not put off by her words or by the fact that she just ignited herself in areas. "No, that does not answer me well at all, woman. You could be lying your fool tongue off." He took a long time to look into Erin's eyes. Malith was apparently forgotten by the Ranger for he spared it no attention. Erin's struggling against the blade did not dissuade him from holding it there.

"Paladin." He turned then, the blade relaxing just a hair, but not enough to free her. "Do you not have a spell with which to loosen her tongue? Or to speak her intent?"

She growled, but was internally grateful that the blade had relaxed a bit. Her neck was hurting. "How can I prove it to you!? I don't want to seem like a spy to you!" Her gray eyes looked irritated and slightly worried. Dadj was irritating her beyond belief, but he had a good point. She could be a spy. He couldn't trust her that easily. Erin sighed in defeat, suddenly wishing her red hair hadn't been charred short. Blah.

Maybe the paladin would have more kindness. She looked toward him, panicked and completely aware of the short blade about to slice her neck open.