The Changer's Rocks

[Leni]

Dying was only a problem if it caused them to lose. They didn't lose. But maybe it would be nice to be dead for awhile, all senses burned away -- Leni had her ashes scattered once. When she was new. When she thought dying was an escape route to be explored. Took a good long while, but she'd come back together. Diosus had personally punished her for her cheek, and she'd ensured she hadn't gotten punished like that since.

Leni stayed out of the melee, watching them who were hers rush in. Except Endra, who had gotten distracted. Her crossbow was already primed, and it was a simple matter to aim and release a bolt toward the hulking shape that had crept up behind him. Not enough to kill the thing, but enough to distract it. Leni didn't want Endra hurt; distractions were no good for Endra. What wasn't good for any one of them could only hamper them as a whole.

Kori had rushed in, eager and ready. Leni let him, hanging back to watch; she'd never been much for hand to hand or blade work when it came to serious fights. Brawling was better for that sort of thing. She tilted her head and studied the rising action, watching to see how the nasties reacted to the sudden violence. They were fast, moving in a coordinated way that told Leni they weren't accidentally put together.

The smaller ones stayed tight, but moved in such a way as to not hamper each other. Two of them had moved to intercept Kori's plunge, playing at a living shield to protect the bigger beast-thing. Two more moved to cover the one Fayane had attacked, but Wulf had injured one of those, and its attention shifted accordingly.

Magic sizzled and hissed as it breathed into life. It tasted of Tzalzochitl, of steam and exotic heat. It was in their blood, in their eyes and deeper in them. They were magic, alien to Pal Tahrenor and reeking of their Changer. Leni didn't recognize the stink. A new player? Was that what they'd been called for?

She wasn't done yet reloading her crossbow, and the sweat was already prickling all over her skin. Extra moisture she'd hurt to lose, but it wouldn't render her useless just yet; Sam would need the exertions more. The skin around her eyes tightened as she gave it to Sam. "Fuck," she said, as Kori began that powerful descent, and a bladed limb slid in slow motion towards Fayane's unprotected stomach. "Fuck," she said, knowing Wulf could only choose one of the targets, and she wouldn't be able to make a move in time. Another of them moved from behind the large guy, and headed for where Endra had been. The one Wulf had shot but not disabled charged for him.

Then Sam was there.

Leni grinned and reached for Memphestus' power, pulling it in thick and heavy. The scar tissue that puckered her ruined nipple throbbed with pain, ignorable for the moment. She had old blood bonds with her crew -- needed renewal there, she felt -- strong enough to share out her bond with the wily old daimon. Strength for Kori, speed for Endra, and greater lung capacity to Sam. The power made her stagger, and as she wrestled with it she had nothing for Wulf.

Yet.

[Sam the Sea Monster]

This group was focused, trained, skilled at what they were doing. Unlike some of the other encounters that they had faced, this one was going to require all of them to work together. While Kori and Fay charged in to fight the group face on, Wulf and Leni did their part to pick away at the creatures from a safe distance. Endra was up to who knows what and it was Sam's job to act as the distraction.

While the others focused on reducing the size of the group, Sam found himself a spot out in the open but at a safe enough distance that he could run should things turn ugly. He pulled a wooden flute from his pocket and began to play. At first his song was quiet, calm, slow and rhythmic but it didn't stay that way for long. In no time his song picked up a quicker tempo, it rose in volume and notes took on a violent tone. It was the sea during a terrible storm, it was waves crashing against a cliff, it was ships being brought under by massive tidal waves.

His whole body swayed and moved with the music as he lost himself within his inner song. The rocks, the dry landscape, it faded away in this moment. His heart beat in rhythm to this song. He was song and nothing more. Nothing mattered beyond the song.

It didn't take long for these creatures to notice him, than again who wouldn't notice the man calling a lot of attention to himself by making a lot of noise and moving erratically as if he were about to collapse of heat stroke. Not only did they turn to stare at him, but many of the smaller ones started to stagger off in his direction as if they too were trapped within the music.

[KoriStronghammer]

Kori violently shook his head, Sam reaching even through his blood hazed mind. In anger, he buried one axe deep in a lizard mans head. The split melon sound it made was music to his ears, and the spray of blood, fluids, and grey matter that covered his arm and left side of his face was like a stimulate drug, driving him to further reaches of anger and bloodlust. Reaching for another lizard and grabbing its tail, he drug it back to him, taking the sword slash across his face with no emotion, it didn't even register except for the smell of fresh blood. He hacked and hacked into the torso and neck of the lizard, its shrill screams of pain lighting through his blood like fire. He left his axe buried in the rib cage of the creature, its mangled body a testament to his love of slaughter.

He tilted his head back, roaring his challenge to the sky. And then he felt the thump in the ground. Turning, he saw the giant walk towards him. Lifting his hand to his face, Kori sampled the blood of his fallen foes. He reached over his shoulder and grabbed the claymore, seven feet of cold, sharp, and unforgiving steel. Charging, he prepared to swing, dodging a slow and ponderous blow from a fist that would other wise kill him, smashing him flat.

"I'll EAT YOUR FUCKING HEART!!!!!" He roared as he swung the sword deep into the things gut, and grunted in satisfaction as he was rewarded in a shower of blood and intestines. It surprised the hell out of him when the creature grabbed him off the ground and began to lift him to its open mouth. Kori yelled in anger and lifted the claymore. What a way to go!

[Fayane]

With Sam distracting her targets Fay quickly shifted to human and sliced off limbs, punctured vital organs and even beheaded one particularly open target. She was about to move to another when she heard Kori's enraged roar. Looking up (waaaay up) she saw the thing's giant maw opening up while Kori was being lowered down. I think not.

Fay ran to the massive creature and leaped, half fox again, and bit the closest patch of sensitive skin she could find, her claws digging into more patches and shredding anything within reach.

Sufficiently distracted and pained, the 15-foot behemoth dropped Kori and moved, instead to grab Fay. Down she dropped - narrowly avoiding its clawed hand, and dodged to the side to avoid its foot. Snarling and spitting at it she lunged, intent on keeping its attention should Kori be actually badly hurt.

[Wulf]

Wulf snarled in anger and barely resisted the urge to let his arrow fly into the back of the new additions head. Kori lay on the ground dazed, and was actually at more risk of death now than he was before. All the creature had to do now was step on him trying to kill her and he'd be done. Wulfs anger only grew as he realized that the Claymore was still stuck in the creatures hand, so now the Northman was weaponless as well. That was bad, as Kori had personal beliefs that he had to die with a weapon in his hand. Wulf hoped he at least had a dagger on him, or something else hidden up his sleeves.

Wulf tried to squash his anger and slowly breathed. He felt the Voice come to him. The Voice was something that had started happening recently, after he had been drafted into the Changers War here. It was the same voice he had heard everytime he had seen or been spoken to by Diosus, and it filtered into his mind now.

Aim for the middle eye. Shoot Wulf. Or your service to me will be unmade, in the most painful of ways.

Wulf inhaled and nocked an arrow, and loosed the string as he exhaled. The arrow flew straight and true, entering the creatures third eye a millimeter left of the pupil, and the creature screamed in agony and rage as it threw its hands to its face, desperately clawing at its face and eye. It yanked the arrow out, and for some reason that only magic could explain, the eyeball came out with it. The smell of the humid tropical rain forests intensified.

Wulf punched the air in a short celebration of personal victory. He then noticed with almost surgical detachment that one of the lizards had stabbed him in the solar plexus. It hurt, a lot. Wulf drew his dagger and stabbed into the creatures eye, twisting and jerking up sharply, penetrating the brain and breaking the top of his skull away under the now torn and stretched skin. Wulf fell to his knees. The blade protruded from his back at least 7 inches, and it fucking hurt. He tried to focus and continue to provide cover fire for his unit.

[Fayane]

With the monster now partially blinded and in high amounts of pain, it came to no surprise to Fay that he began to stomp about like a child throwing a tantrum. Fay swore, although she knew this had been of Diosus's will, otherwise Wulf would not have shot the creature in such a vital area with Kori left prone.

She dodged around the creatures feet as she slid down by Kori's side. Grabbing a chunk of armor in her jaws she dragged the Nothernman far enough out of harm's way she'd feel better - but no so much so he was out of battle. Releasing him and turning she spotted Wulf, blade sticking out of his back. She roared his name before whirling back into battle, hoping that one of their allies was proficient in what Wulf needed.

She scaled the 15-foot creature, claws digging, as she sought to reach its neck. She paused by its hand, spotting Kori's blade. Groaning, knowing it was her fault that the blade was here and not in the beserker's hand, Fay leaped, claws digging into skin as she sought to rip the blade free. Movement alerted the shifter that the monster had noticed her, was going to flatten her, and in one desperate move she ripped the blade free and threw it to the ground even as she was flattened between what felt like a boulder and a mountain.

[Rorgue]

Almost like a blow to the head, Endra felt his senses knocked from him as he sank through the dry earth beneath the battlefield. Everything below ground was soaked in the thick, overpowering stench of an unfamiliar magic that dug into Endra's being, coating his mind in a way that left him feeling sticky, uncertain, and all but completely lost. He could scarcely feel the thump and rumble of giant footsteps from above, vibrations shaking him and sending him deeper down.

Slowly, as he adjusted to the taste, the feeling of drowning began to ease off and, eventually remembering where he was, Endra metaphorically shook himself and forced his way back upwards, towards the surface. He could feel something above him. As his awareness brushed against open air, Endra pushed hard on the ground beneath what he hoped was an enemy, shifting the earth just enough to trip the creature up.

Calling his body back, Endra dropped onto his hands and feet just five metres to the left of the creature. He was still for a moment, waves of nausea rolling over him now that he had a body to feel them with, but knew he couldn't remain so. With a deep breath, he jumped to his feet and looked across in time to see an arrow catch the lizard-bird in the side. The thing was stunned, its mind too caught up in Sam's music to attack just yet, but that would not last long.

Glancing around, Endra noted the injured behemoth, Stronghammer lying dangerously close to its feet. Sam was out in the open, swaying about and making a fool of himself, and Wulf...

Endra swung around, spied the half-elf and grinned. Perfect. Wulf was aiming at one of the things nearing Sam and, as he let the arrow fly, it took only a few quick steps for Endra to intercept. He threw himself directly into the arrow's path.

Or so he had thought. Now he realized he'd misjudged it, stepped too far to one side, and the arrow passed straight by him, just out of reach. "Fuck," he growled, still grinning, both frustrated and amused. It wasn't really a problem. He'd just have to catch the ne-- Crack.

Endra let out a pained scream as something grabbed his outstretched arm and twisted it back sharply, in a direction it was definitely not meant to go. Before he had a chance to react, he was hit in the side with what felt like a tree trunk, and the pain was too great, too wide, for Endra to even begin contemplating the damage done. He wailed more as the creature -- from the look of it, the same one he'd tripped earlier -- lifted him off the ground, shrieking at him as he tried his hardest to stay awake, stay aware. All the years they'd been doing this and still he hadn't learned to stay focused.

Stay focused, his head screamed at him, but with his arm almost torn off, Endra couldn't quite concentrate. Certainly not well enough to possess something as complex as living tissue, and there was no way he was going to try being a gas again after the last time. All he needed was something solid, something... like the arrow still sticking out of the bird-lizard's side?

With his good arm, Endra reached out and hooked fingers around the wooden shaft, biting into his lip hard enough to draw blood as he focused on ignoring the monster's foreign magic long enough to disappear, with great, overwhelming relief, into the wood.

[Leni]

The Winged Big Monstrosity from another Changer's army grew angry, and the magic that pricked Leni's skin burst. Middle eye or no middle eye, it was not done.

It breathed out, sticky and wet, and Sam's spellsong was broken. WBM's wings fluttered up, and its simian head reared back. It spoke an intelligent few words that meant absolutely nothing to Leni, but they had to mean something to its brethren, because all of them retreated. Retreated fast. Leni frowned, noting that Wulf had sustained some type of damage, and bade his water to stay inside him. She gave all of what spilled to Sam, picking her own targets and missing half the time. The crossbow took so fucking long to reset, and though it gave her more power than she could normally draw on her own with any kind of bow, it also meant she had to make her shots count. Out of five bolts? She hit with two. Bad odds.

Leni was nervous. Nervous meant distracted and that meant. . .obviously that meant she was buggering the rest of her team. Well, cept maybe for Endra, off doing his own hoodoo thing. She was still only human, made to live after death or not. Her body still reacted to exhaustion and strain -- or even dehydration, come to that -- and her mind could only cope with so much. Kori laying flat out napping was only so much. Leni flipped her sweaty, flopping hair out of her eyes. Shoulda given the newbie to Kori, 'stead of Sam. Hadn't counted on so many enemies, much less a team to oppose their own. Shoulda -- shit.

The WBM was irate. Its magic pushed out, and tumbled Fayane and Kori fifteen feet away, allowing a space for which its remaining cohorts, five of them, now, as dead was dead to any magical regeneration shit, could form up, spears out. They repaired. Endra was still in that fucking arrow, she thought, and Changers knew what might happen to him if he stayed, because something was happening and it was fucking bad.

How many breaths since Endra had gone vapor-quick? She was breathing fast; five breaths. Five breaths for them to establish discipline and fuck her people over like ragdolls in the storm of a kid's tantrum. Snotty, spoiled rotten little --

"Fucking -- back! Get back! Fucking girl! Stronghammer! KORI!"

The new girl was smashed up bad, and Leni needed her body. But Fayane was, or had been, sensed as being less of a threat now than the great warrior, and as the lizard things lifted their spears up she could feel the net on them. A pulsing great potential that sang viper sweet into her ears. It spelled out four letters as her legs bunched and she sprang forward past Wulf, in and in because they couldn't fucking lose couldn't fucking

Trap.

lose.

The monster's spears were glowing, and another eye had bubbled out of the WBM like tar from the gaping socket Stronghammer had plucked the first one. Some rainbow sick haze twisted the air above the toothy snout-jawed WBM, and at once it shot forward and enveloped Kori. Leni was screaming, too slow and too useless. She reached with her magics to pull the water from them, the safety of her own body could go to the daimon's planes, but their own magic spat forth water like a great gushing spring. She was useless. She was screaming. Kori's body jerked like he was seizing, and she thought she might have seen him struggling good man but she couldn't tell past the haze in her eyes.

Leni couldn't make it to him. She reached Fayane's body instead, and slid to a stop over her. Fayane was theirs now, and Leni would make do what she could. She spun a cocoon of her own blood, sweat, and all the evaporating moisture in the air, and cradled Fayane in it; a protective measure. She couldn't save Stronghammer, whatever they were doing to him. That wouldn't be answered by her, because between one gasping spittle flecked scream and the next he disappeared. The WBM disappeared with him.

They were screwed over in eleven fucking breaths.

Fuck.

[KoriStronghammer]

Kori screamed in pain as the haze enveloped him. MY FUCKING GODS. IT BURNS!

He tried to stand, to fight, to do anything, but nothing doing. He knew that Fayane would spoil there dynamic. They should have made her hang back, not fight, guard the archers, guard Sam, something. Now, he was burning. He watched the skin on his hands start to crackle and peel away from the muscles, and it began traveling up his arms. He saw Leni get to Fayane, and couldn't blame her priorities. Fay could be protected, he couldn't be got to, and there was no telling what the haze would do to another. He felt the scream bubble up in his throat and rip through the air, and then it all changed. He was somewhere else, with the daemon. He wasn't with his war band, and he could tell he was in an entirely different area of the world, just by the ground. It wasn't cracked or dust, it was a tough plains grass with water that he could see in small streams and creeks. But the sky... the sky was the same.

He looked at his hands, and watched as the skin began to slowly turn the same color as the rest of his body. He knew it would start to regrow, but it would be painful. It always was. He remembered this one time he had to grow back his entire left bicep.... NO! Focus!

He looked around for the creature. It watched him from a crouched position, the middle eye on its head weeping viscous green fluid which Kori could only suspected was it's version of blood. But why bring him? Why not Sam or Leni? Hell, why not Endra? He was a competent killer, but he wasn't the best, or the most powerful. Leni knew the score, she wouldn't come after him unless Diosus commanded her to. Wulf might come, but Kori had seen him take that sword. He would be out of commission for a little while while everything healed up. The monster pulled the Claymore out of it's massive paw and threw it on the ground at the beserkers feet. Slowly standing, Kori grabbed the worn leather grip. He lifted the sword and rolled his shoulders to loosen them. This thing would die. Then he would find his way back.

"Sssssssssstop right there Sssssssssstronghammer." A creature walked from behind the daemon, and Kori looked upon it. It was obviously the mastermind behind the trap. But who, or what, was it?

[Vexako]

Footsteps interrupted Ko's repose. He lifted his head, he could do that now, but didn't keep it up. He didn't mind the pain, but too much activity was wear and tear on a still healing wound, and he'd rather be in the action than out of it. Fucking Endra.

Ko lifted his head again and caught sight of Saterre, which was expected. The words on his lips died a quick death when he saw who accompanied Saterre. That was not expected. Despite the chance of reinjuring the near healed wound, Ko rolled up to his knees with one hand on his neck and the other on his cutlass. He bared his teeth in some pretense of happiness to see the sonuvabitch.

Diosus' men were generally human. When they weren't human, when they were definitely something else without a name, they bore the twisted shapes that Diosus favored. Following Saterre were things that -- while not human -- did not bear any resemblence to Diosus' fancy pants creations. No, these were something else. Something that tasted like. . .Tzalzochitl.

"Fucking traitor," Ko said, and drew his cutlass. Leni'd always said he should pick a new weapon, but he liked the cutlass. It got the job done. It weren't as powerful or precise as other weapons, but it was his. A last reminder of better days.

Saterre, for his part looking fat and healthy, didn't reply to Ko. Bastard didn't even look at him. Saterre's eyes looked past Ko to the rocks that jutted upwards; a sign of Diosus' virility perhaps. Quiet and still, the traitorous dog lifted a hand, and power rose at his beck and call. Ko'd gotten better at sensing it over the years, though he still couldn't work it, and he knew what Saterre was about before the rocks shook and started to crumble. Ko had no chance to warn the others. All he could do was lift his cutlass, charge for Saterre, and be cut down like a pig to slaughter.

Yeah, good times being a Changer's bitch.

[Fayane]

She was on the ground, there was pain. Screaming - her's or someone else's? Kori's roar she could pick out, though it was one of agony. Then, the pain subsided, things were popping back in place. Why...? Fay opened her eyes to nothing but blood and Leni hovering over her. Fay blinked, she thought Leni had no use for her. But she was, this dried up woman, protecting her. Fay's eyes softened slightly before hardening. She would not let her down.

Pushing the woman gently to the side, she broke the barrier of blood, sweat and rain. She rose from it, the liquids staining her hair. She looked down, hesitantly then back up to the remaining monsters.

"I don't know why you did that, but thanks. Do me another favor? Stay back and keep the others back. I don't want to hurt them."

One thing had happened when she had avenged her parents death. A blood lust had awoken. She wasn't sure how it came to be, though she suspected it was from the many deaths from that day. It was like her assassin's mindset - she could activate it... though she would only "leave" that state of mind once either she or her enemies were dead.

Silently she stalked forward to the remaining monsters, allowing her mind to pick out friends from foes. Sam, still playing his flute, Leni behind her, Ko over there... never mind that. Foes, concentrate on the foes. She picked out their varying heartbeats, locked onto them and secured them in her mind.

Diosus... you'd better make sure I don't kill the rest of your pets. With that prayer sent Fay lost herself, licking the blood dripping down her face. Heartbeats, they must end. She flashed, slicing, they retaliated but there was no pain where their blows hit. Death screams surrounded her even as her blades bit, and other painful bits bit her.

[Rorgue]

Now Endra could see, the entire scene was chaos. How they had fallen so quickly, before he'd even had a chance to play, Endra could not comprehend, not now with everyone screaming and writhing and that sticky-wet-hot magic that was growing and leaking through the arrow's form, through Endra, through everything, drowning out the sound, the feeling of movement...

Silence. Sudden silence.

Darkness, as Endra knew he must still be without his body, but... where was his body? He reached for it, but he couldn't seem to... what was that? ...find it, in this mess. Most likely he just couldn't reach the astral plane with all this Changer's magic all over him. It wasn't the first time that'd happened, after all, and... AAARRGGH. Pain seared hot and sharp through Endra, far worse than those fucking broken bones, worse than most anything, except... wait, who's there? ...except what a Changer could do, as he knew too well.

But he was lost to pain then, and someone had his mind in their grasp and they were tugging and tugging at the strings, digging in deep to find whatever it was they were looking for, if they were indeed looking and not just fucking around. There was nothing Endra could do, though.

Nothing... except wait.

[Leni]

"Endra!" Leni shrieked, because she was fucking spent and what else could she do? She was coated with fluid, drying bits of Fayane's blood and the sweat that poured from her due to her own magic.

Fayane was fighting. But she was not fighting alone, one on one. The things she fought, though they were not men, were canny in their own space and sense of intelligence. They were used to fighting as a group, and shorn of Sam's magical shackles and the supressing fire they were free to focus tightly, fully on Fayane.

Fayane whirled, her blades flicker quick, but they moved in reaction to those blades. Oh, maybe they could not keep up with her berserker rush, but they could watch each other's backs. The result was a frenzy of movement that Leni, with adrenaline spent, could not rightly follow; the combatants would be using their physical senses beyond eyesight to act and react.

The sound of metal hitting metal became alive, a beast in its own right: hissing and spitting and barking staccato notes. It was shadowed by the explosion of breath, and the slide and shuffle of moving feet. And within danced the whirling colors dampened only by movement, of Fayane's clothing and the creatures' skin, and the bright splash of blood.

A body fell, but the lot of them were not so easily defeated. Leni's crew might belong to a Changer, but they in turn belonged to one -- had been kept in the same fucking living death as all of the cosseted soldiers in the war. And though they bled for it, so did Fayane.

A shock of displaced air boomed, and suddenly they and their bodies were gone. Gone, as if they'd merely been toying with Diosus' crew. As if Leni and the rest had been found wanting.

For a moment, there was absolutely nothing. Leni's mind retreated into a buzzing absence of reality as her mind refused to cope with the rapid chain of events. Minutes before, things had been fine. Great, even. They had been awful, but the usual sort of awful in the bloody monotony of the Second Changer's War. Presently, the shitty situation had redefined awful into a whole new category that only rivaled the moment Leni had realized the exact meaning of living dead. There was a word for that. Damned.

She gritted her teeth. Not fucking worth it. Not fucking worth it, and Kori was flat out fucking gone. Somewhere she couldn't follow. Couldn't help. She bent her head low, able to see Endra's outstretched body clearly without the dazzling movement of the fighters to block him. There was no blood on him, but there was blood aplenty on Wulf, and she fought to her knees. "Back to the rocks," she forced the words between cracked lips. She slammed her palm into the ground once before using it as leverage to push herself up, locking down the desperate helplessness that clawed so close to the surface.

"Sam, get Endra. Wulf, you best get up on your own fucking feet. Girl -- Fayane?"

[Vexako]

"I have the other." Ko's body was dropped near to Kori's, though Ko had been damaged enough to be dead, again. So much damage in so short a time ensured that he would remain in such a state for a good long while, but no one seemed put out by it. His laconic smiles and breezy jokes had been stilled.

Saterre gave a crisp bow to the daimon and its keeper.

"Stronghammer, how unsurprising to see you here. Ever overconfident, your little crew," Saterre laughed, his tone mocking. "Votan, a pleasure again."

The creature was a man so old he did not rightly resemble humanity. He was so deep a black that his skin did not resemble skin so much as carved marble, and his eyes were the deep ivory of the aged. What clothing he wore was heavily embroidered and embellished upon with gold, though most of what covered him appeared to be delicately wrought jewelry. At his hips were bundled two small finger drums, worn in a fashion to indicate hard use -- unlike the rest of his garb.

The creature, Votan, smiled back at Saterre, revealing that there were no teeth left in his mouth. His features, were one to look closely, held an almost reptillian cast to them.

"Diosssusss?"
"Suspects nothing. His prized soldiers will be unable to reach him for the next day or two. Indeed, so long as Hunaphu twists one of the less civilized astral planes open near the rocks, I fear it may be days before they might reach their Changer."
"Then we may take our time with thessse."

Saterre nodded curtly, satisfaction easing his face into a boyish exuberance. Control was the currency bartered among Changers and their underlings, and where Diosus had failed to bestow much upon him, M'kunamai of Tzalzochitl had offered so much more. Saterre's face softened further at the thought, before resolution descended.

Kori and Ko were the least likely to be tempted by foreign Changer demands or lures. So it was that they were to be in for a less kind fate. They were to be taken before the Xmulzeca, the bee caste, to become unwilling hosts to Queen Larva and be slowly twisted and turned to the use of M'kunamai. All they needed was a sennight, and they would have their perfect, unassuming spies.

[Fayane]

Blood, all there was was blood. Dead, only one, death... gone. It just disappeared. Where were the heartbeats? Fay spun, listening, hearing only weak but fast heartbeats. Just allies... Fay clawed herself out of her blood lust, feeling more and more pain with each level she escaped. Finally she pulled herself out and fought back a scream. She was covered, more or less, head to tow in cuts, slashes, wounds.

She heard Leni yell for her, wanted to ignore it and just curl up and lick her wounds, but she staggered towards her, managing a hoarse yell.

"I'm alive, Leni... what is it you require?" The last bit was an afterthought. The woman had pulled so much off for the small group - was their leader. Fay continued to stagger her way towards Leni, taking off her cloak and ripping it into bandage-sized patches as she moved.

"They're not clean, but they'll stem the blood flow for now." She grunted when she reached the woman, promptly slumbing and wrapping a bandage around her thigh, yanking out... whatever the hell that was... in the process.