Forums » Fantasy Roleplay » Bloodied Shards IC (CLOSED!)

She hums as she pets her softly. "Well I'll keep on petting you." She then scratches her cheeks a little. "Well, if you need anything, just ask since you have helped me." She smiles as she listens. Her cheeks burn hot. She didnt know why. She wasnt embarrassed nor was she liking anyone really. Maybe a sickness? But wouldnt her healing be doing anything? She didnt know, she just petted Raven more.

Victi sighs as she's perched over Lisa, briefly relaxing while she feels the first more clear signs of her brain getting fuzzy.... Until Lisa lashes out at her.

More mana surges along Victi's nerves to let her jump off in time and back off further as Lisa also staggers.

"Fun, two of us at the edge of the woods about to pass out," she mutters to herself as Lisa falls over and her own thoughts continue losing sharpness

She watches Lisa stand and fall again. At the same time as the chimera begins asking what Victi did, the whine of the kitsune's Shriker started to reach her gradually dozing brain. Took the bike long enough, darn it.

"I saved your life," Victi said, voice slurring slightly, "Brought you with me so you'd stay not-dead. Not sure your boss will like you still breathing though. heheheheh. Don't go running back to them, they'll put a hole is your face easy once you're outside.

Her Shriker pulls up at that point, and she gingerly moves to sit down on it as the front compartment slides open. "Herewe go. Here's the good stuff," she says loopily as she withdraws a fresh vial of nano and jams it against her neck. In her sleepy state induced by the the drugged tea, she asks Lisa, "Heeeyyy, want some? It'll make you feel beeetter."

She shook another vial, giggling slightly, not in the least self concious about looking silly right then.

Lisa's hands grasp at tree bark as the whir of Victi's Shriker grows louder, and louder...until the bike zooms past her and slows to a stop next to Victi. She shrieks, pressing her back against the tree and pulling her dagger on the sleek metal beast. When nothing happens to her, she places her hand over her heart and with a long, high-pitched whine she slides down to sit at the base of the trunk.

She watches Victi inject herself with a vial of...something, then pull out another vial and offer it to her with a slurred promise and a laugh. Recognizing the symptoms of someone who'd been hit with a serious dose of anesthesia, she laughs back, relieved her "poison" seems to be working, and shakes her head.

"No t-thank you. I just need...g-give me a minute." Or two, or three. However long it takes Victi to slip into unconsciousness.

She sits there silently, watching and waiting. Struggling to process Victi's comments implying that what all just happened was an attempt on her life by the Magistrate. She reflexively denies it at first, but the more she considers it, the more it makes sense, and the more the hot, indignant, sting of betrayal tugs at her chest. He was never particularly on her side to begin with, she could figure as much; Lisa was just a means to an end, the end being "prevent Victi from getting what she wanted." It makes sense that he doesn't care about her safety.

But to offer his aid and then strike her down the moment she risks becoming a liability...realizing that hurts, and even if that incident had nothing to do with him, the idea that he could so easily pull such a face-heel turn like that scares her more than her encounter Victi at the Library's front desk. It frightens her enough that she'd gladly turn around and firmly bury the notion in the blind faith that it was a ruse on Victi's part to manipulate her.

Unfortunately, she was never the sort of person to put blind faith into much of anything.

Victi rests, sitting/leaning on her bike as the poison and nanotech fight in her body, watching Lisa recover. After another minute or so, she feels essentially clear headed again as the nano removes the substance and provides light stimulation to compensate for its effects.

"Okay, that's better," she says much more clearly and coherently. She tilts her head back and forth a couple times to relax her neck, then straightens up and stretches.

"So, what was that, anyway? Not a neurotoxin, my spells would have kicked in harder, but that stuff hit like battering ram!" she asks curiously, "The nanites took a while to clear it, too. I told you this stuff makes you feel better."

She walks over to Lisa before leaning in, a smug smirk on her long fuzzy face, her eyes just as full of overconfident pride, and asking, "Or did you hope I'd just fall over and die? D'you know how many people have tried to poison me? Like, a bunch. Anyway, should we have a chat about your mysterious benefactor?"

Lisa watches in abject horror as whatever Victi shot herself with reverses the effect of the anesthetic. As the vixen stands and approaches her with a cruel smile, she shrinks further against the tree, somehow managing to look as though she were being absorbed into the bark as she raises her hands defensively. "N-no! It-it was an anesthetic, a-a-a-all it should have done was put you to-y-you know how a-an-anesthetics work, right?"

She flinches and raises her arm, putting a barrier between her neck and Victi as if she expects a mysterious vial to be pressed against her neck whether she asks for it or not. Antidote or rejuvenating potion or death in a bottle, Lisa balks at the idea of getting a shot of anything the vixen has to offer her. The fear of Victi unleashing any and all form of harm on her to get revenge for the attempted poisoning fills her mind with blind terror until mercifully, the subject changes.

She lowers her arm, brow furrowed. "My...mysterious benefactor?" She knows who Victi's talking about, but even while faced with the possibility he tried to kill her, Lisa's reluctant to give up the magistrate's identity. Magistrate Kar....no, Kal...what was his name? By this point, most of the events leading up to now are incoherent and fuzzy around the edges, most the exceptions being moments of peak stress. Like the destruction of her cabin, her encounter with Lady Thalia, and obviously, everything between meeting Victi at the library up to now.

The crowd was very chaotic so Liliath was happy that she hold Lisa arm. Until Lisa let go and Liliath looked with confusion, but she couldn't really look what had happend since she would have being ran over by the crowd. So She simple followed the crowd, at some point she had managed to walk away from the crowd and simply looked around for LIsa. "Lisa!" She yelled, no awnser. "Lisa , Victi!" And so the child screamt for at least ten minutes

A slight smile began to show on Alastor's face, as his hands continued to flip one of his new blades over playfully. Ten shards, eh? An easy number teh keep track of. Already know of five. Stepping forward, he decided to take the chance to speak. "So from all o' this, sounds like the plan still remains unchanged. Keep the shards safe, stay on the move, watch out fer the crazy hunter that's chasin' us. Do yeh want us teh keep an eye out fer this missing shard, or would yeh prefer it to stay undiscovered?"

"I would not bother looking for the final shard," Kylarion says, politely shaking his head, "We cannot even detect it yet, at least not since the last report I recieved. Something is actively concealing it with an impressive level of sophistication. I am almost certain it is not on this continent, however. It is likely safe from her for now."

He nods to Alastor before continuing, "I agree. As I said initially, though the situation has changed it has not done so in a way directly impacting you so far. Staying the course is still valid."

"Anaesthetic?" Victi asks Lisa with, surprisingly, a broad grin, "No wonder that almost worked! I have a bypass in place for those!" She laughs briefly before saying, "Not sure if that was lucky or smart on your part, but nice job."

She' in a surprisingly good mood, and it's shamelessly obvious on her fluffy face. She puts the second vial away and shuts the compartment while the chimera mulls over whatever thoughts she's having.

"So, okay, honestly I'm not super interested in who it is right now so much as what they are. I just need a species, and maybe a title if they ever mentioned one. If we're lucky I'll have an idea if the kiddos are safe. I'm not completely heartless," Victi says in some semblance of answer. It's true, she mostly hopes that this benefactor is from a species she knows, and ideally that they'd have enough honour not to execute children.

Raven looks up at Jules and her cherry-red cheeks. Is she embarrassed? Flustered? Crushing on the orc guy? OK, probably not that last idea, but the thought makes her giggle. Her tail twitches a little and in a surge of mischief, she paws the demon's and lunges forward, nipping playfully at her fingers.

"He looked like you," she answers immediately, sitting straight up with a wide, pleading stare. Please tell me that your kind generally don't go after children.

"And he was a Magistrate." That, and the fact his name started with a "K" sound, is all she remembers as far as names go.

She sits there in silence, then her eyes narrow, her lips pull into a tight, slightly quivering frown. "If they're not safe- even if you say they are; I can't take your word for it -please let me go back for them." She pulls herself to her feet, leaning on the tree for support. Her body shakes, but she pushes herself off the tree after a moment of deliberation and stumbles before she gathers enough constitution to stand. She sways slightly on her feet like a drunkard after polishing off their one-too-many pint.

She jumps a bit. "Woah! Hey there! My fingers are not food." She giggles as she pulls her fingers away. She then moves her other hand for her to pounce on.

The truth of why her cheeks were so red is because she has been holding in her demon form for a very long time but even she has never had this happen so she didnt know.

"If he's kitsune, they're fine," Victi replies, waving a hand in lack of concern, "Especially if he's got that kind of position of authority. Ancestors know he'd have a rough time legally if he ordered a child dead, assuming his people would even be willing to carry that out. It would all get found out somehow."

Lisa's request to go back to them is met with a derisive snort before Victi says, "Yeah, you'd be real helpful to them with your head blown off. Think they'll give up just because you left the city? I can guarantee they'll start shooting again if you go back in, and might even be working on finding you now.... though being with me might make them a bit nervous for a while."

"Look, this isn't just a skilled bowman or crossbowman with a bit of magic to stop their hands from trembling as they hold the string, or even with a well-enchanted bow," she explains with a degree of sincere seriousness she usually doesn't show, her concern for making sure she gets the information Lisa has showing through, possibly presenting it as concern for the young woman herself, "They've got weapons you can't even think of yet, with no moving parts or combustion sources, but that can still split a skull from a few kilometres away. Precision machined barrels and slugs, advanced optics letting them actually aim properly, and tech and magic to help adjust for wind and drop over distance... I've worked with and against these kinds of snipers before. We might actually still be within range of them while standing here."

"I'm honestly sorry to have to say this, but they seem capable enough that I think they might be safer without you right now."

Adriannu heard Lisa screamed out no as she ran to jump onto a nearby by roof, but completely ignored her as to her it just seemed as yet another instance of the Chimera treating her like a kid. She needed to see exactly what was going on and the best way to do that was from above. From her vantage point on the roof, she quickly scanned her surroundings. While doing so, she spotted Victi and Lisa together for a split second before they both...just disappeared. At this, the child unleashed a nasty stream of expletives she had overheard over the last two years that would make even a sailor blush before jumping back down onto the ground and heading to Liliath. With the Chimera gone, she was the only one left who could protect the kid which was a duty she begrudgingly accepted.

Once she made it to the screaming kid, the Cathera promptly attempted to backhand her, but not too hard as the idea was to snap her out of her screaming panic in the fastest way possible. "Lisa is gone, details later." With that she pointed to the wall of a building that wasn't on fire, preferably one that was made of something like brick or stone so it couldn't catch on fire. "Get over there and get your back aginist it. I'll keep you safe, but it will be much easier to do so if I don't have to watch your back. If you can use your shard on these monsters, then do it. If not keep quiet and regardless stay behind me."

With that, ideally Liliath headed to the wall on her own, but if need be, Adriannu would start trying to push her to the wall, making it clear that she wasn't asking her to do it. Assuming they made it to the wall, the Cathera would get in front of the girl and unsheathe her new daggers. It looked like it was time to see just how well they tore through flesh and any goblins or any other potential threat that came too close would become her test subjects.

Liliath still was screaming and crying like a maniac until Adriannu showed up "Gone!" Liliath yelled "I can't use my shard now, I need water for it." She explained as she huried over to the wall. "Adri will Lisa come back soon?" She asked scared

Kuro was still on the rooftops, looking at the people go into the stone building. Which was a good choice. Stone is hard and to burn. However, one girl was just screaming her head off. Which gained his attention, but then again...it's fire. People will lose things faster than they expected, so really wasn't his problem. His job was to help people get away from the fire- not help them find people. However, he decided to watch. Just to make sure she doesn't do something stupid.But then she saw another grab her and carry into an empty house, he decide to travel to said rooftop.Just to make sure that nothing else goes in.

Ren hovered outside the entrance to the main cavern where the rest of the group waited, listening to Drake apparently threatening the others and recalling what information Naida had passed on to her. At this point, she just wanted to go back to the days where no one even knew about her home besides Naida, which seemed like weeks ago. Had it really only been two days? She sighed. Her best option, she realized, would probably be to pretend she hadn't heard anything, at least for now; maybe she could relieve the tension for a little bit.

"Okay," she sighed, bracing herself as walking through the entrance to see Isabella whisper something to Drake. "Okay, food's here!" She hoped her excitement didn't sound too fake, but she was so tired of people. She walked over to a fire pit at the side of the room, quickly lighting it with her powers. She took a seat on a cushion around the fire. Naida got up, grabbing Geoff's hand to try to drag him along with her; she took a seat on the opposite side of the fire as Ren. Ren looked over to Drake and patted the empty cushion next to her. Assuming Isabella, Drake and Geoff would gather around, she passed around the basket filled with dried meats, vegetables and fruits, along with several pieces of peppermint candy.

The first stone building Adriannu and Liliath find is Talmarune's messenger bird roost. It's a two story building with a tall steeple that the birds take off from and land in. Most of the birds used are a variation on familiars, animals from magically endowed bloodlines with the capacity for higher thought. For major cities, these were important as fast, safe couriers which could be trusted with sensitive documents, letters of credit, important ordinances, and other things that were urgent and important, but not worth the expense of a mage opening a portal or teleporting them, and which could not just be sent as a magical missive.

Inside the door was, appropriately, a moderately large waiting area of roughly ten meters deep by fifteen wide. There weren't many people in here, most had either fled the scene in general or were helping manage the fire in some capacity, but there were a few mothers with small children who had been out shopping, as well as an elderly man who was presumably too frail to help safely. A counter/desk was tended by one of the birds' handlers, who seemed torn between manning his post and going out to help with the situation outside.

Adriannu got Liliath into the building which turned out to be Talmarune's messenger bird roost. Honestly what what she was expecting, but it would do. During this, Liliath turned her that she couldn't use her shard because she didn't have any water. Well in that case, she wasn't going to be of any use dealing with the goblins, but maybe she could be useful in another way. Pointing at the people managing the fire, she said. "See if they have any water, since if they keep birds here, they need to have something for them to drink. If they have something, then use your shard to help with the fires. I'll be outside making sure that no goblins can make it inside, so whatever you do, stay inside here. I don't know when Lisa will be back so for right now, you have to listen to me."

Now hopefully the girl would follow her instructions and would be safely tucked away where she wouldn't have to worry about her. Adriannu quickly exited the roost and closed the door behind her. Standing in front of it, the Cathera eased into a fighting stance, prepared to fight with everything she had to defend the door from the goblin attackers. Her daggers with gleaming with the light from the flames and her golden eyes were blazing with killing intent.

"Alright then, but they birds won't have anything to drink." Liliath shrugged and at first had decided to do what was told, however before Liliath started searching for water. She noticed the birds and watched them with excitment and decided not to do her task "It's much more fun to look at birds than steal their water."