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She kneels next to Victi and digs into her satchel. Painkillers. She laser-focuses on that word best she can, trying not to think about the dragon, or the fire, or that emaciated eyeless thing, or Adam’s screams...all the blood.

Well, she tried.

Doesn’t help that “painkillers” must be one of the medicines unique to this place. She pulls out some of the opaque white vials, the ones with small shiny labels that are, at present, a pain to read. Between the several terrifying distractions around her and her own lesser injuries, it takes a little too long to find the right container.

It takes even longer to open the vial. She eventually figures out that she needs to align an arrow on the lid to another arrow on the bottle’s short neck. Through all of this, her hands are sweating and shaking. She fumbles with the container and spills a bunch of pills into her palm then passes them to Victi. Lisa doesn’t know the right dosage for this kind of medicine, but she sincerely hopes that Victi does.

Leaving Victi to the pills, she pulls out more first-aid: soothing balms to further “kill” the pain and prevent infection, bandages, etc. She does all of this silently; her throat is so dry that she knows whatever she tries to say will come out like a frog’s croak.

Victi tosses back two of the pills, and returns the rest to the bottle, hoping that they used rational dosage standards, or at the very worst she was underdosing.

"Lisa," she says, reaching across slowly, keeping her arm in Lisa's sight to gently touch her arm, "You're doing a good job. Just stay focused on the actions. If you can, try talking out or at least mouthing what your steps are. Needing to think about those steps in verbal form will help you concentrate."

The feline nodded at Raven's words, his silence only meant contemplation. The chilling scream he heard earlier may have originated from where he stood, and that thought gave him anxiousness. The empty hallway behind the doorframe in front of him may be the welcoming darkness that would embrace him before his doom and he doesn't know how to proceed. Bronze really want to run right now— it doesn't look like its worth it.

The humanoid glanced at the she-cat for reassurance only to notice her own nervousness as she stares at him. Something in there must be truly frightening. "Raven, right?" He whispered, surprised as his voice slightly trembled. "You should probably stay here. I'll take a quick peek inside and sneak out."

The mere suggestion that she shouldn’t or- God forbid - can’t go inside is enough to draw Raven back into the present moment. She scoff and stands, flashing Bronze a cocky grin. “Nah, we can go in together. I can handle whatever’s in there.” If she is honest with herself, she can’t. If they walk into another water-based trap, meet Vincent, or find Lisa dead...she can’t let herself to think about such horrible scenarios.

“Come on.” And don’t think I can’t tell you’re as scared as I am. She takes a few slow, quiet steps forward.

Lisa flinches at Victi’s gentle touch, much less afraid of Victi hurting her than she is of Victi further hurting herself. “Hold still,” she mouths, following the fox’s advice. As she takes Victi’s hand, she continues. “Rubbing...rubbing a salve on your arm. To further help pain and stop infection.” And as she works, she continues this way. She eventually finds her voice, but it is hoarse from screaming. She continues casting paranoid glances toward Niskali. Doesn’t matter what Victi says about him; she can’t yet bring herself to trust a dragon not to lash out in rage or decide someone here would make a good meal. Where...where did he get that leg, anyways? She’s afraid to ask and part of her doesn’t want to know.

"There we go," She encourages tentatively, "and thanks. Also, hopefully means that if something happens to you I'll remember what at least some of your kit does if we need to patch you up, sound good? Keep teaching me. And someone get her some water, too."

A minute or so in, she looks at the dragon and says, "break the door in the room that's on fire, and maybe there will be enough burning still for you to roast that." Lisa seems to be afraid of the Pentatheic, which is honestly fair if she hadn't met one before. Getting him out of sight and hopefully out of mind seemed like a good idea for the moment.

The warrior shrugged at the suggestion, and went off to do so. He suspected it was more to do with the young healer's paranoia than his, or even the sorceress's own, nutritional needs, but went to do so anyway. A shame, really, that healer seemed like a charming and sweet young woman with whome he felt interesting conversation may be had. Perhaps later.

He entered the evidence room, which was.... mostly producing embers now, but still hot enough, closed the door behind himself, seized the bloodied chunk of concrete, and brought it down hard upon the door, letting the latch brace it to be broken more easily, as per the vixen's instructions. It would take a few strikes at least, but most likely time well spent.

"There, hopefully one less distraction for you. He'll go cook his..... leg for a while, and be out of the way. Something about him seems to be setting you on edge, so hopefully that helps. Speaking of which," she mused curiously, "What is it about him that freaks you that much?"

As much as he wanted to take the lead, he knew that he can't since he don't know the way inside. He took note on every action that the she-cat took and speculated that there's something inside that she hated and is probably frightened off to the point where she don't want to go near it. The only question that he wanted answered now is 'what is it?'

"After you." Bronze watched stalk forward and followed suit, ignoring his own '15 paces forward' condition. If something bad happens, he felt obligated on the black cat's safety. He cannot determine why, but he felt some sort of kinship towards his 'ancestor'.

He broke his own rule. Good. Maybe he almost trusts me. She peers into the doorway.

The inside is just as terrible as what’s outside. More dark blood stains, the door lying dented on the ground kicked off its hinges. The only person in her line of sight is Helynah, whose back is turned to them. I could totally ambush her- no, focus.

The source of the pattering that left her frozen in terror minutes ago turns out to be harmless, if annoying, water sprinkling from mechanical devices on the ceiling. As she watches, they sputter and die, maybe running out of water. Now she can clearly hear snippets of conversation around the corner.

Victi she recognizes immediately. She’s talking to at least two people, Raven thinks.

There’s footsteps- heavy footsteps, and Raven silently slinks inside, pressing herself against the wall and carefully approaching the corner. Curiosity swallows all that’s left of her fear. She also seems to have forgotten about Bronze, now more interested in whoever those footsteps belong to. Something about the claws scraping against a hard floor makes her think dragon. She’d love to see a dragon.

Helynah shrugs and starts looking for water, figuring she might as well make herself useful.

She finds a backpack, probably one belonging to this group, and finds a transparent bottle that crinkles under the pressure of her grip. It’s filled with a liquid that she thinks is water (the label says so) but when she tests it herself, it tastes suspiciously...sterile. She pulls a face.

“Well,” she holds the bottle out to Lisa and Victi. “This claims to be water.”

Victi sniffs in its general direction, then blinks a couple times while thinking.

"Yeah, it is. Smells pretty heavily treated and purified, though, but not distilled.... weird. At a guess, meant to be very safe at the cost of tasting weird," she says, hoping that she sounds reassuring, "All your's, Lisa."

Lisa eyes the water with suspicion, but shrugs and takes the bottle in her nervous hands.

She takes a sip. It doesn’t taste terrible, but the water’s strangeness makes her instinctively not want to swallow it. She holds it in her mouth for a moment before forcing it down, then nods her thanks to Helynah and sets the bottle aside.

Although Niskali has left her line of sight, she still seems very on edge. At least now she can properly speak.

“I’ve...” she finds that she can’t quite put into words why Niskali scares her so much. “He’s a dragon.” She wraps one arm around her torso, absentmindedly tracing the bumps of an old scar, not visible beneath her clothes, with her finger.

"He's a pentatheic," Victi corrects, "And a warpriest of the goddess Cryu-Dzien at that, based on the robe. I've never met him before, at least that I remember or care about, and I know nothing else about him. Those two facts, his species and his position, are enough to tell me that he's on our side all the way. They've got this whole thing about protecting the innocent and stuff, too. If he comes to talk to you, try not to freeze up, or, if you do, come find me. I work for the same goddess, so I might have ways of helping out."

For the most part, Victi's explanation confuses Lisa. She pauses, leaning forward to grab bandages, and tries to make sense of the alien terms the fox had just thrown at her. Pentatheic. Warpriest. Cryu-Dzien. Working for a goddess. None of it manages to calm Lisa more than it leaves her bewildered and more stressed than before. Her whole body trembles; tears well in her eyes. She bites her lip, remembering she'd earlier teased that boy, Adam, for crying so much.

And Adam's dead.

Tears that have little to do with her fear stream freely down her cheeks. Lisa drops the bandages and buries her face in her hands, sobbing.

Jaw hanging low, the feline wayfarer divulged himself to the scents of those who inhabits the room where creatures rest, recognizing Helynah's and Victi as well as her unsavory wounds and burns masked by a stronger, pungent scent that is quite alike with poultices only more concentrated. That made Bronze slightly flinch, his ears picking up the voices that fills him with mixed emotions of relief and awkwardness.

Rapier still out, sliding it back to its scabbard would only create noise, and he wanted to make the she-cat to make the first move while they are still in the dark and out of sight. He eavesdropped long enough. The Caracal flexed a finger and slid a claw out, tapping the ground beside Raven to catch her attention.

"Lisa?" Victi watches the chimera's emotional state suddenly collapse over the course of a few seconds. Her first thought is a brief annoyance that her healer isn't keeping on the job, then the second an amusement at how silly this all was. And then.... a third feeling: guilt for the first two.

This girl had tried to help, and honestly did a good job despite limited tools and alien resources. She'd been through way too much, and probably wasn't used to this. Heck, Victi was used to playing the monster to a certain extent, but probably nobody else here was that desensitized! They probably didn't get the same kind of thrill she did from surviving things like this. They wouldn't blow themselves up to buy time. That Victi had was probably almost as disturbing as finding out that you.... you.... had a doppelganger or something!

Aw crud.

She closes her eyes for a moment, and did the one thing she could do, and the thing she was pretty sure she actually needed and wanted to do at this point: She reached out, turning herself to be kneeling and facing Lisa, resting a hand on each of the girl's shoulders for a few seconds, hoping for eye contact. Then, she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around the sobbing form, partially prying Lisa's face and hands apart to bring said face to her slightly-blackened fluffy shoulder. "Lisa," she said, voice barely above a whisper, "I can't promise things will work out. What I can do is thank you for doing what you can to help make them work out. I can't say that you'll be safe by staying with me, but know that I'll do what I need to help make sure that as many of us as possible survive." It was a little cheesy, but.... well, it was true, at least. Hopefully counted for something.

She continued to hold on to Lisa, still-healing eyes closed for now. Hugging her.... hurt, honestly, there were some burns to the skin under her insulating fur that she hadn't accounted for earlier, mostly on her forearms. She didn't stop, though. She wasn't going to stop until Lisa asked her to or something tried to murder them. Even with that second one, she'd probably tell it to shut up, sit down, and let them finish having their moment first. Because darn it, she kinda needed this, too.

Based on what she has seen from the fox, Lisa half expects to be slapped or at least chastised for letting herself fall apart. When Victi gently rests her hands on her shoulders, her head jolts up with a startled gasp. Her eyes, bleary and red, lock on Victi’s. She braces to be further humiliated.

She doesn’t expect the hug.

She lets Victi pull her forward with nothing more than a confused squeak between sobs. As the fox whispers into her ear, her thoughts are racing. This is weird. Why? I guess I could use a hug. Yeah, this is okay. I think? She laughs, relieved and a more than a little hysterical, as she cautiously returns the embrace. Her fingertips brush burns hidden under the Victi’s once-ivory coat.

“H...hey, let me finish bandaging you,” she orders through a hoarse whisper choked by sniffles and quiet sobs. I must be impossible to understand.

The cat tears her eyes away from Lisa and Victi with a jolt of her head. She blinks. Her ears twitch. What? Oh, right.

She’d been watching the scene unfold with mixed feelings of relief, worry, awkwardness, and shame. She can't personally comfort her girl now, not after ditching Little and reappearing with some mysterious stranger in tow. Besides, she needs to scout out that room down the hall. She tells herself that she needs to make sure everyone is safe, but really, Raven can’t resist the need to satisfy her curiosity.

So said stranger will have to take the initiative and speak to the others alone. She flicks her tail toward Victi.There she is; go say hello. Her eyes drift toward his rapier. He might not want to, but Bronze should consider putting the weapon away. She suggests this by standing on her hind legs and miming sliding the blade into its sheath. She can only pull this act for a moment before falling forward into a low crouch.

Hopefully, he’ll get the idea. She once again turns her attention toward the evidence room and whatever lurks inside.

Liliath sighed where was the cat now? She then noticed Seo who acted weirder then usual . "Stay away from em creep!"she yelled. Seo did not , Seo crazy was holding a knife . Seo was so annoyed with the kid that she simply wanted her to die. So she stabbed Liliath twice . Liliath screamed of pain , she knew she wouldn't survive this. Liliath knew what to do , crawling or running away. So Liliath did she stood up with her last power and tried to run . She tried to find raven , but she couldn't see raven..