Re: Intense Struggle Season 2! (Round 3: Castle Suterrea)
08-06-2011, 06:24 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.
Immediately, Karen and Lloyd started searching. They looked under tables, behind tapestries, anywhere a frightened little girl could hide, throwing things aside and generally making a mess of the room and doing their best to avoid focusing on the dead things. It worked... mostly.
While they rushed around, Marcus just stood. He stared down at his boot and the puddle of translucent goo that had once been a shapeshifter. The thing had dissolved when it died, and he'd gotten a front-row seat to watching Sarika's face melting away into a puddle of nothing.
He'd seen death before, of course, and caused it a good chunk of the time. Most of the time, though, it hadn't been quite so... intense, maybe. A lot of it was business at the time, with no personal attachments to get in the way, and when it hadn't, it'd been his friends getting killed around him while he survived. Having to face a barrage of remembered faces, shooting friends and relatives and people he'd failed, all with a haze of bloodlust blurring the line between necessary and not... it left him aching, and not just physically.
Lloyd, on the other hand, was just aching physically. Elves weren't exactly built to be thrown into things, let alone things made of stone, and he'd never made a habit of getting himself into situations that lead to it. He was much more the "plant an item and watch things unfold" sort, and when that didn't work out, he usually went with a plan that involved running and/or hiding.
Karen was mostly just occupied with finding Lillian. She'd been through combat plenty of times, and while the situation may have been a bit unusual, as far as brawls went, it hadn't been anything massively special. It was over, she was alive, and her concern had turned to the little girl who really shouldn't have been there to see all of it.
After a few minutes of searching, though, neither she nor Lloyd had turned up any sign of her, and Marcus was getting tired of them rushing around, searching for someone who just wasn't there. "Look," he eventually said, "it's obvious she's not here. Can't either of you just use magic or something and track her down that way?"
"I'd need some way to target the spell at her," Karen replied, fairly exasperated by the search as well, "and since she's not here and I can't exactly add her to my friends list right now, that's not really feasible."
"Same for me, basically," Lloyd added, "I'd need something of hers to base the spell on- an item I could use to form a connection."
"Great, perfect. Glad you're both here to help."
"Hey, at least we're trying! What about you, how do you propose we find her?"
Marcus snorted. "Well, for starters, you could just look around."
"What do you think we've been doing?!"
"Please. You've been checking for Lillian, but you've been ignoring everything that isn't her. Things like the smear of blood where Sarika was dragged out of here, or maybe the missing puddle of corpse?"
"Missing what?"
Marcus gave him a glare. "One of the things we were fighting is gone, and I'm guessing Lillian and Sarika went with it. Find it, find them."
Lloyd and Karen had to admit that he had a point, but before they could respond, the sound of an explosion echoed down the hall outside the door.
-
The three of them rounded the corner a fair ways away and found Sarika giggling to herself a few meters away from the smoking corpse of what had once been a lion-sized spider of some kind. Reudic floated two or three meters away, apparently apathetic as usual.
"The creature ran this way from the far end of the hall," the rosebush explained. "Evidently it encountered a trap in the floor."
Lloyd snorted, and Marcus might've found it funny as well had he been in a better mood. Karen was more concerned with Sarika's injuries.
"Are you okay?", she asked the bird-woman. The response was inaudible behind the assorted giggles, so she just went with a check-up the old-fashioned way. It didn't take her long to find the talisman.
"Lillian," she breathed, her mind whirling through possibilities. Fractions of a second later, though, before anyone else could even respond to the discovery, one possibility locked itself in place and anger flared through her body. She slammed the already-injured prophet against the wall, shaking the pendant in her face. "Where is she?! What happened to her?!"
Marcus and Lloyd rushed forward, each grabbing an arm and hauling her back. "Whoa, whoa," Marcus said, "look at her. She look like she's in any state to do something to her, even if she wanted to?"
"Marcus is right," Lloyd agreed. "Look, you're worried, I get that. How about you give the pendant to me-" he took hold of the talisman dangling from the bracelet she held clutched in her hand- "and I'll use it to get a tracking spell going."
It took a bit of coaxing and convincing, but Karen eventually calmed down enough to hand it over. Marcus kept one hand on her shoulder, and Lloyd started to work some magic.
Immediately, Karen and Lloyd started searching. They looked under tables, behind tapestries, anywhere a frightened little girl could hide, throwing things aside and generally making a mess of the room and doing their best to avoid focusing on the dead things. It worked... mostly.
While they rushed around, Marcus just stood. He stared down at his boot and the puddle of translucent goo that had once been a shapeshifter. The thing had dissolved when it died, and he'd gotten a front-row seat to watching Sarika's face melting away into a puddle of nothing.
He'd seen death before, of course, and caused it a good chunk of the time. Most of the time, though, it hadn't been quite so... intense, maybe. A lot of it was business at the time, with no personal attachments to get in the way, and when it hadn't, it'd been his friends getting killed around him while he survived. Having to face a barrage of remembered faces, shooting friends and relatives and people he'd failed, all with a haze of bloodlust blurring the line between necessary and not... it left him aching, and not just physically.
Lloyd, on the other hand, was just aching physically. Elves weren't exactly built to be thrown into things, let alone things made of stone, and he'd never made a habit of getting himself into situations that lead to it. He was much more the "plant an item and watch things unfold" sort, and when that didn't work out, he usually went with a plan that involved running and/or hiding.
Karen was mostly just occupied with finding Lillian. She'd been through combat plenty of times, and while the situation may have been a bit unusual, as far as brawls went, it hadn't been anything massively special. It was over, she was alive, and her concern had turned to the little girl who really shouldn't have been there to see all of it.
After a few minutes of searching, though, neither she nor Lloyd had turned up any sign of her, and Marcus was getting tired of them rushing around, searching for someone who just wasn't there. "Look," he eventually said, "it's obvious she's not here. Can't either of you just use magic or something and track her down that way?"
"I'd need some way to target the spell at her," Karen replied, fairly exasperated by the search as well, "and since she's not here and I can't exactly add her to my friends list right now, that's not really feasible."
"Same for me, basically," Lloyd added, "I'd need something of hers to base the spell on- an item I could use to form a connection."
"Great, perfect. Glad you're both here to help."
"Hey, at least we're trying! What about you, how do you propose we find her?"
Marcus snorted. "Well, for starters, you could just look around."
"What do you think we've been doing?!"
"Please. You've been checking for Lillian, but you've been ignoring everything that isn't her. Things like the smear of blood where Sarika was dragged out of here, or maybe the missing puddle of corpse?"
"Missing what?"
Marcus gave him a glare. "One of the things we were fighting is gone, and I'm guessing Lillian and Sarika went with it. Find it, find them."
Lloyd and Karen had to admit that he had a point, but before they could respond, the sound of an explosion echoed down the hall outside the door.
-
The three of them rounded the corner a fair ways away and found Sarika giggling to herself a few meters away from the smoking corpse of what had once been a lion-sized spider of some kind. Reudic floated two or three meters away, apparently apathetic as usual.
"The creature ran this way from the far end of the hall," the rosebush explained. "Evidently it encountered a trap in the floor."
Lloyd snorted, and Marcus might've found it funny as well had he been in a better mood. Karen was more concerned with Sarika's injuries.
"Are you okay?", she asked the bird-woman. The response was inaudible behind the assorted giggles, so she just went with a check-up the old-fashioned way. It didn't take her long to find the talisman.
"Lillian," she breathed, her mind whirling through possibilities. Fractions of a second later, though, before anyone else could even respond to the discovery, one possibility locked itself in place and anger flared through her body. She slammed the already-injured prophet against the wall, shaking the pendant in her face. "Where is she?! What happened to her?!"
Marcus and Lloyd rushed forward, each grabbing an arm and hauling her back. "Whoa, whoa," Marcus said, "look at her. She look like she's in any state to do something to her, even if she wanted to?"
"Marcus is right," Lloyd agreed. "Look, you're worried, I get that. How about you give the pendant to me-" he took hold of the talisman dangling from the bracelet she held clutched in her hand- "and I'll use it to get a tracking spell going."
It took a bit of coaxing and convincing, but Karen eventually calmed down enough to hand it over. Marcus kept one hand on her shoulder, and Lloyd started to work some magic.