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Lisa’s futile grappling with Seeker ends when the door flies open and a shadow fills the doorway, then spreads, encompassing part of the lobby. Broad shoulders, big leather wings, a tail...and a blood spattered mask and a hunk of mutilated flesh in its long, sharp claws.

She’d scream again if not for the fact that her throat is tightening as frightened tears threat to spill down her cheeks.

If he’d invaded while she was somewhere near relaxed, she might’ve forced herself to swallow her terror and hold still.

But all she can think about is staying alive, and right now staying alive means staying the hell away from whatever monsters find their way through that door, including dragons. No, especially dragons.

She half-turns to scramble out the door. No. It’ll see me. It’ll chase me and I can’t outrun it. Her grip tightens around her dagger, her hand is clammy with sweat and she can’t stop shaking.

I need to hide. I need to hide now. She crawls to and curls up underneath the nearest office desk, trying to be the smallest version of Lisa she can be. If she could still shapeshift, that would be small enough to go totally unnoticed. That...isn’t the case right now. Struggling to control her breathing, she shifts into a crouch with her weapon arm ready to stab the beast if it sticks its nose in her hiding spot.

“What. are you doing?” Helynah whispers harshly. Kicking down the door and shouting at the top of his lungs...? Sure, that might frighten away whatever abomination is wreaking havoc inside, but it’ll also terrify whoever’s in need of saving.

Zafnir’s done similar acts, although, granted, never with that kind of zeal. Why is that the friendly dragons tend to forget that they’re, well, dragons?

"Making my presence known to those who ought to be aware of it," he replies, clearly oblivious to the idea that the innocent would somehow fear a warrior of the pentatheon. The guilty, of course, would fear such a symbol of justice and strength, but, like the glittering starships of the Silver Goddess, though intimidating, he and his kind radiated hope.

Goddess, he’s somehow worse than Zafnir. She pinches the bridge of her nose and groans. “Idiot.”

Shoving past his bulk, she enters the room and coldly assesses the damage. Blood here, blood there. Ugh, the metallic odor is everywhere along with the acrid scent of smoke.

And like she suspects, whoever was in here minutes ago has made themselves scarce.

She proceeds cautiously, leaning on her trident as she walks. The repeated thump of the pole against the hard floor makes a steady, ominous rhythm. Her appearance, she realizes, might also startle the survivors, but at least she isn’t seven feet tall and shouting at everything.

She turns down a short hallway to greet the source of the smoke. There’s Victi, looking a lot worse for wear than she did when they last met. Behind Victi, fire flickers and smoke pours out of the doorway. At this moment, a high bell chimes somewhere and through mechanics that Helynah can’t begin to describe, water sprinkles from the ceiling. She tosses her hood over her head to protect herself and to also hide a quickly souring expression.

"Oh, good," Victi says, standing up, having sat down leaning against the wall while she waited for something to happen, "A friendly face. I kinda had to blow up that room before I suffocated, so its on fire now....." She paused for a moment, getting herself used to thinking again, "Wait. Okay, no, now we get to play the 'how likely is it that you're actually the shapeshifter' game. So, how about I--" She had started to take a step towards Helyna before she caught sight of the large white-robed warrior behind her.

Huh, Ice. Well, that was even better.

She let her lips curl into one of those slightly unsettling smiles, "Hey, Warpriest! Storm 1:136:12. NOW, and then you're telling me exactly how long you've been keeping an eye on her," she demanded, something amused in her voice

Unseen behind his mask, Niskali blinked a few times. Storm 1:136:12? Asking him to quote scripture would help verify his identity, but why a verse on....

Of course. With her sense of humour....

"Storm 1:136, of the books of the functions of reality, this is the book of the guided lightning. Section 12, on the comparison of potentials: 'And as an object is subjected to a force has its acceleration defined by its mass, so too does voltage define current by the resistance of the body.' Of course you asked for that one in particular, Silverfur. And I have seen her fight valiantly against the shapeshifter. You may be assured of our identities"

Oh, of course. They’re facing a shapeshifter who can regenerate impossibly fast and turn into anyone it sees, as evidenced by what happened during their fight. Victi’s suspicion is perfectly fair and as the vixen steps menacingly toward her, she sighs and braces to be restrained and/or interrogated.

When the dragon catches her eye, she changes her direction and shoots him an order that has Helynah raising an eyebrow. Niskali recites something in return and she assumes that means he’s in the clear. Hopefully, she will be too thanks to his vouching for her.

"Good, yeah, that's good," she replies, relaxing a little, "Could you two give me a hand? I.... turns out that setting yourself on fire without protective magic really sucks. I think Lisa still has the med-kit. She seems to spook easy. Warpriest, no calling for her or I swear to our mutual employer that if that girl runs off I will use you to demonstrate both parts of that verse," Victi says, again, far more comfortably than anyone in her state should be when threatening a massive warrior wrapped in robes and body armour.

The scary thing is that he seems to listen to her.

He actually seems to.... maybe flinch a little at that prospect, before replying, keeping his voice at a reasonable volume for once, "Very well, sorceress," and moving to support her, making walking less uncomfortable for her tender paws.

Helynah isn’t sure whether to be amused or unsettled by the power dynamic she sees. Niskali, a valiant Draconic warrior, seems frightened of this fox woman. Furthermore they seem to be familiar with one another’s identities, although they don’t seem to know each other personally. Interesting.

With Niskali formally banned from any and all shouting (a good call) she begins searching. She looks around quietly, looking for signs of where the Chimeran woman might be before trying to coax her out.

On one more positive note, she doesn’t yet find any bodies. On a less positive note, she finds way too much blood. Someone has to have died here, and the prospect of finding that body makes her stomach churn.

“Dragon,” she says, “do you have a name I can call you by?” She crouches in front of a desk and peers under it, a desk much too close for Lisa’s comfort.

Between the thankfully fading, but still annoying, din in her ears and the clamor of the sprinklers, Lisa can’t hear their conversation all that well.

But she definitely hears her name and a clear threat from Victi. Then the human woman who’d entered with the dragon starts wandering the room. Not meandering around, but searching.

Are they looking for me? As Helynah draws nearer, she braces herself to run.

"Of course. I am Warpriest Atsiun. Niskali Atsiun," he replies, "A warpriest of Her Eminence Cryu-Dzien, goddess of Ice, Death, Law, and the Fleets to my people. I don't recall, had you mentioned your name? My apologies if you had. I have difficulty remembering names at times, especially in combat," he admits, slightly embarrassed.

Victi sighs, and says in the general direction of the room, "Lisa, if you could come help me deal with some burns on my a lot of places, that would be great. The trident lady and white-robed warrior guy are friendly, and probably our front line for the next bit. I can smell your fear over the blood, by the way."

Seriously girl. Yeah, pentatheic warpriests are large, deadly warriors strong enough to bust through walls and with centuries of combat training, but..... nope, nevermind, nothing reassuring about that.

“That is quite a title.” And as a matter of fact, she hasn’t yet introduced herself. “Helynah.” She turns to Niskali with her free hand resting on her chest. She briefly wonders if she’s supposed to avert her eyes or bow to him; his title suggests that he’s of a noble rank.

Actually, she has already called him an idiot, so what’s the point of being polite or formal now?

Lisa doesn't believe Victi's promise that these two are friendly even for a second, but the call to action convinces her to crawl out from under the desk, shaking and casting paranoid glances toward Niskali. Helynah kneels to help her up, but Lisa flinches away from her hand and stands alone.

"I-I-yes. Let me take a look." The vixen looks terrible, but she can help with that.

"It's honestly less bad than it looks, most of it is just burnt fur. A shower and a brushing would be great, but not important. Hands and feet got the pads all blistered off, so that sucks, my nose feels like its still on fire, and my ear, finger, and toe tips are also probably slightly burnt, beyond the obvious damage to the claws. They feel like it at least," she listed off. Then she paused for a moment before adding, "Painkillers would be fantastic right about now."

"Bronze. Bronze Nyx." He was about to nod his head when he realized that he's talking to someone he still doubts. The feline backtracked to the alleyway and picked the colorful shooter up. Something about the texture of the thing confuses him. It's completely foreign considering he didn't know what plastic is. He held it with his right paw and followed Raven shortly, his eyes darting around the place.

"Tell me, Raven. Are you a... pardon me for this, a pet?" Bronze inquired with a sheepish grin, unsure if it was rude to ask someone who he believes his ancestor. He never had an interest in history.

Raven’s fur bristles enough to express she finds the question insulting, and her answer comes with bared teeth. “No, I’m not a-“ she pauses, forces herself to relax and returns his smile. “I’m a good deal better than a pet.”

As they draw near the building, Raven notices a few unsettling changes in the ambiance. It’s dead quiet. When she fled she’d heard battle cries alongside screams, but whatever or whoever was fighting had gone. Blood spatters darken sections of the pavement. And even from thier distance, her sharp eyes see that the door has been kicked down.

She stops walking and sits. Her face is blank, unreadable, as she tries to decide how exactly to approach the building.

The victor is unclear, if there was any at all. She pricks up her ears and listens. Beyond some annoying patter, she thinks she catches some voices from inside, but without getting closer, everything is unclear.

“Hey, how good are you at being stealthy?”

Ah, crap. The humanoid flinched when he noticed Raven bristle and bared her teeth, completely stopping in his tracks. Although uncertain as to what she meant, she's pretty sure now that she was what Victi meant in the first place. The Caracal followed closely, recognizing the metallic tang of blood that he noticed to be splattered around.

Bronze hated this ghastly sight. Not only was he accustomed to this kind of chaos and wreckage, it also makes him quite paranoid. For all he know the enemy might be behind the rubble. The feline equipped his rapier, when Raven asked him a question. "Well, you've led me to a battlefield. I am sneaky but I don't like what you're suggesting."

“Yep,” she nods. She hears metal scrape against leather or fabric as Bronze draws his sword. She turns to him and whispers. “And I have no idea who survived or what’s in there, but it’s the last place I saw Victi.”

She stands and lowers herself to a crouch. “Follow my lead.” Her belly nearly brushes the ground as she stalks toward the entrance. A slow sinking feeling accompanies her every step of the way, but she hides it with a few excited-looking tail twitches and an eager smile.

She recognizes the pattering sound as sprinkling water, like rain drumming against the floor and furnishings of an enclosed space. She shivers, remembering the cold dark water lapping at her paws, rising and threatening to pull her under a liquid grave in that disgusting musty basement. How long ago was that, a day? She’s only been here a single day?

The memory and the following revelation is enough to make her stop halfway to her target, suddenly reluctant to take another step closer. A growing part of her really doesn’t want to find out what’s past that doorway.

So she lies on the ground and turns and stares at Bronze, very neutrally cat-like. Her facial expression is totally unreadable. However, an observant individual might note that her hackles are slowly rising and her little body is trembling.