The Castle [02] (Remba, but don't let it stop you)

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Bambi will not give up or burn herself out...

Bambi is force to retreat to the self sanctuary and mindwall.   She knows how to ground and center and reach to the Fae magic, this will decide this battle and maybe the war....

Bambi sits with her back against her tree, her Fae self in her mind...
   She matches her breathing to her tree,  feeling her roots drawing strength from the earth magic and warm/fire magic from the sun. She is one with her tree.   Yet She feels the rotten that is spider. 

PBH first grows new leafs and limbs and roots and pushing fae fire and magic up the her limbs of her mind to healing all wounds or damage of her mind and the spider's mind.  The fae life fire burns and plays across her body, bathing the library in a green glowing light.   It burns what will not healing...

PBH

[Boog]

Jeremiah began to stir, slowly coming to.
Trust the spiders. You don't know the others. All of them, either creatures like the bastard who cursed you or adventurors who don't take the threat seriously, and go after them for kicks. Trust the spiders...
"Zwuh... huh?" Jeremiah got to his feet laboriously. That chill Mel had been throwing around hurt his head but really, what did he expect? Who said that You thought it. Trust the spiders. His head felt... strange. Familier too, like something he hadn't had to deal with in a long time, but strange. He was more worried about the number that the cold had done on him though; his head wasn't the extent of the pain. He could feel his joints creaking like that of an old man.
"My everything hurts... What did she do to me?" Course. You feel terrible. Who but the ice dragon can make you feel this crappy?

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel peeked around Cog at Sebastian, a wave of chill preceding her. She stepped around and away from the prone frog, trying not to chill him any more than was necessary. "Mind controlling spiders," she confirmed. "We've already seen more than enough to control everyone here."  She looked back towards the hall, "Considering Bambi and Gina didn't follow I would guess they were taken. The rest of the party are somewhere in the house and I guess we must presume they are controlled as well. Sorry about the room temperature, but they don't seem to like being cold."

[Stygian]

Again, a snarl came from the bat, drawn out into a sort of hiss as he closed his mouth again. So there were more of them...
   He stomped the arachnid on the floor out, squishing it properly, though he had killed it as soon as it dared attatch itself to his neck. Then he passed Mel, walking out into the corridor.
   "Great. Just bloody great," he swore under his breath. She couldn't just run away. No, she had to find some way to ruin their stay even when not there...
   "Where are the others?" he asked, looking back at the small group with eyes that were turned normal by the low illumination in the corridor. "We need to bring everyone together. Then, if these things don't like cold, we'll give them just that..." he growled forth, focusing his eyes on Mel just a bit.

[Cogidubnus]

 Cog backed out of the doorway to get out of Sebatian's way, his eyes wide behind shaded lenses. He was amazed at Sebastian's apparent display of iron willpower. To simply...pick the spider off his back. Incredible. Well, that, or he simply didn't work the same way the other's did. Either way, it appeared there were now two immune to the arachnid's effects.
He spoke to Jeremiah. "Mel didn't do anything to you, sir. You were infected - the spider knocked you out when we got suspicious, and ran away. We brought you with us." he said, suddenly coughing. "I...may have dropped you. Probably why you feel a little sore." He grabbed Jeremiah's arm and helped him up. "As long as you stay a little distance from Mel, you should be okay. The cold keeps the spiders' at bay."
Satisfied that Jeremiah seemed to be in one piece, he walked into the hall, nodding at Sebastian's statement. He took a deep breath, drinking in the smells of the place, and walked past Stygian and descended the stairs.
"Gar is this way. He's the only one who hasn't showered yet, I think." He called back to them.

[Stygian]

The bat followed Cogidubnus while looking down into the floor, muttering and scowling at nothing in particular. He turned toward Mel for a second before descending the stairs.
   "Hey, dragon! Come along! And bring the frog, whether he wants it or not!" he grawled in an uncustomarily rough way, then beginning to descend. He would need her understanding, or rather feeling for ice magic, if they were to plummet the whole building until the walls frosted.
   The central staircase was large, and the circular stairs winded downward in a rather comfortable fashion, but not one that made it any quicker to descend. From the bottom at least Sebastian and Cogidubnus could hear faint sounds of voices, carried down a corridor from further away. It wouldn't be hard to find the others at least... But Stygian still felt as if he should be working some other way. Tracking down and removing these spiders one by one was a simple way, but too slow and not thorough. He had never seen something like them before, and who knew what they could do, or what they might do with a host? What if they fled? What if they went outside? What if they merged with them or laid eggs or some other freaky shit? He had seen worse things happen. And he also felt as if he should have something else at hand too.
   Keeping on muttering, the bat slipped out an etui of slim cigars, flipped a silver lighter he had acquired from somewhere, and lit up, soon trailing musty smoke.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel grabbed a decorative throw off a nearby sofa and dropped it around Jeremiah's shoulders. "I'm sorry that the cold is making you so miserable, but it's better than being a spider zombie, isn't it? Hopefully Sebastian has a plan to get rid of them once and for all then you can sit in front of a roaring fire and get warm again." She smiled apologetically and gestured the frog out of the door ahead of her.

[Boog]

"Mrf," was the closest to a responce Jeremiah gave as he clutched the makeshift blanket closer and did as he was told. He hated the cold.

Meanwhile, deep within the catacombs that the curse had carved out in the frog's mind, Personae went this way and that. There were plans to be made, if things were going in this direction. The spider's implanted thoughts roamed, tweaking and pulling at what was there...

[Cogidubnus]

 Even though Sebastian had rather rudely lit a cigar behind him, making it that much more difficult to smell anything but the burning tobacco leaves, Cog managed to follow the smell of Gar and the others relatively easily. As he stepped down from the stairs and headed toward the hallways past the library, he absently reached for the sword at his waist. He grabbed air, and stumbled as he walked. Looking down, he realized he had completely forgotten to reclaim his gear.
He cursed rather loudly, regaining his stride and running a hand through his silver hair. He desperately hoped that Gar and the others were not indeed infected. Taking on Aisha and Keaton without his weapons...

Turning another corner, he found himself staring at Gar, Aisha, and Keaton, all who seemed to be in a sort of deadlock, with Gar in the middle. Gar seemed distressed, and the various lumps in Aisha's sleeves, and the look he was giving Keaton gave Cog some clues as to what was going on. Cog exhaled, and got ready to start throwing force-waves around. He wasn't incredibly worried, as Sebastian and Mel seemed suited to this kind of work, but he knew both of his fellow adventurers to be no pushover, and Aisha's blade would be especially effective against the bat.
He stood, centering himself, and waited.

[Stygian]

Boorishly, Sebastian descended the last part of the stairs, following the wolf down the hallway and then positioned himself next to Cogidubnus. He glanced over the three others and made roughly the same conclusion as the wolf, then took his cigar between his fingers and tapped it slightly to ash it off. Calmly, he placed it back into his mouth and pulled, and then lazily breathed smoke between his lips. His gaze was purely irritated.
   Then, unexpectedly, Cog felt something quite uncomfortable upon his mind. He recognized it, in a way; it was like that feeling he had gotten when he first encountered Sebastian in the ballroom. It was like a crawling under his skin, over and into his back and up his spine. Like a shiver, amplified quite a few times over and mixed with some venomous, seething sensation in a rather horrid manner. And then he heard a voice. A familiar one.
   "Cog... I want you to create static in this hallway. A lot of it," it said, writhing through his head. "If these things connect right to the central nervous system they will probably be sensitive to it."
   Slowly, the bat pulled on his cigar again. Acrid smoke rolled between his teeth.

[Aisha deCabre]

"Dammit, Keaton, I'm okay!  Let me up!"  Aisha growled loudly before Gareeku could answer the jackal, her muscles bunching up again.  She was truly losing a bit of patience, having nothing to do but lie on the floor and think while being held captive by the wing-tentacles.  This was more her emotion than that of the spider controlling her, yet with a few deep breaths she was back to being deceptively calm again.  "You wanna not treat me like a psychopath?  I get angry sometimes.  It doesn't mean I would hurt my good friends."  The statement was said with a good air of sincerity as she rolled her eyes up to look at Gareeku.  The words were sincere, at least.

If I could just reach my sword...

It was about then that her ears swiveled, having caught footsteps coming from the stairwell nearby.  She turned to glimpse at those that had come, Cogi and Sebastian, standing with looks that read concerned and annoyed respectively.  Her eyes narrowed instantly...she knew even from having not seen it herself that they were not taken.  And strongly knew it of the bat, especially.

Now there seemed to be a little more panic in her eyes, moreso than Gareeku had seen before, but it vanished again in the throes of anger.  Now she was just wanting to have full use of her hands and feet again.  "Can someone PLEASE tell these idiots that I'm fine?" the panthress growled.

[Cogidubnus]

 Cog jumped at the Sebastian's sudden intrusion, but nodded as the bat went on. "Yes. Probably a good idea." he said, feeling a bit foolish for forgetting his newfound arcane abilities.
He set his feet roughly parallel, and lifting on hand in a halting gesture, began to chant low and softly, the hairs on the back of his neck suddenly rising, as did some loose hairs around his head. Tiny, iridescent sparks jumped from his hand, and the air around him became charged with static. It felt...fuzzy, somehow.
He kept his free hand clenched with the promise of a wave, and let himself roll along with the chant of power, calmly reciting the eldritch syllables with precise intonation. With luck, they would perhaps see who was who, and who was merely a spider.

[Stygian]

The air fizzed and cracked with static charge, sending tingles over the skin and through the fur of all present. And while it did not affect those unclaimed by the spiders, the little arthropods' sensitivity to the electromagnetic disturbance that was suddenly spreading all around made their senses go haywire on them, something neither they nor their hosts knew how to cope with. They couldn't communicate, couldn't react right, didn't understand what was happening... and so, they freaked out, taking their hosts with them.
   Anger and confusion flooded Keaton's and Aisha's minds. They couldn't understand it, or grasp or control it. It was just there, and telling them that they were going to get hurt, that Cogidubnus and Sebastian were going to hurt them badly and that they had to take Gar and get away from there immediately.

   Sebastian himself sensed the shifting, and saw the girls' faces and behavior changing. He took a long pull, walking past Cogidubnus, and then threw his half-smoked cigar to the floor, at the same time as his claws blackened and extended. His face harsh and angered, he closed on the three people before him.

[Gareeku]

Noticing the arrival of the others before he could say anything, Gareeku thought that explaining the situation would be sensible.
"Aisha and Keaton aren't acting their usual selves." the wolf explained, though he was keeping an eye on both the pantheress and the jackal succubus as he spoke. "A few minutes ago I confronted Aisha about it, who denied of anything being wrong. I then ripped off her sleeve to find this weird looking spider on her arm, which was when she, as well as the spider, attacked me. Keaton then came in, but she hasn't been acting herself either. I don't know what the hell is going on."

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel turned the corner to arrive behind Cog and Sebastian just in time to see Aisha and Keaton turn panicky, their movements strangely uncoordinated. She could feel the electricity sparking around Cog and deduced that the girls had both been taken over and that a second weakness had been found. She worked at lowering the temperature in the hallway, trying as best she could to keep the focus in front of her, towards the afflicted, and away from the shivering frog slightly behind her.

[Boog]

The shivering frog was backing up a bit from Mel anyway, despite her attempts at controlling the effect of her spell, and simply kept his eyes on Gareeku. Trust the spiders...

[Aisha deCabre]

"...Damn..." Aisha cursed, seeing that there was little that she could do that would convince them of anything.  More people were gathering around the spectacle that was herself, Keaton, and Gareeku.  They all knew who was taken...there was no more hiding.  There came more panic, more anger, more confusion.  Why am I so afraid of my allies?  What's going on?

The electric tingle rushing through the air and their bodies only made the panic worsen.  It couldn't hurt her, but something was strongly arguing that it could.  Even if the sensitivity belonged to the spider, it seemed to extend to her own nerves, an illusion of pain.  Slowly, a part of her was going insane.  Crying out to make it stop.  And yet Cogi didn't let up, and Sebastian was coming closer.  Gareeku was still out of reach.

Then there was the dragon...the room becoming colder...so much colder...

"Let...me...GO!" Aisha snarled with urgency.  She knew that Keaton, most likely feeling the same effects, would not have stayed there for much longer herself.  Aisha's eyes were wide, and though one couldn't tell from their natural color, bloodshot.  I'm...we're...going to die...

[Sunblink]

Feigning hesitancy in releasing Aisha to evade any further suspicion from Gareeku, Keaton cursed her circumstances as people approached, flocking to them like agitated moths to a flame. Trying to keep her rising anxiety to a minimum, Keaton kept Aisha anchored to the ground with her wing-tentacles, staring at the enraged expression of the gradually advancing Stygian. This was not good. Damn it, she should've released Aisha sooner, then she wouldn't have garnered such scrutiny!

Keaton tried her best to appear as indignant as possible at their apprehensive expressions, but otherwise without any defensive arguments. Coldness was beginning to saturate the frigid temperature of the room with Mel's arrival, and the stinging, electrical feeling stabbing at Keaton's mind was not helping. The jackal's pupils pinpricked, branches of bloody vines spidering through the whites of her eyes as the message started to seep in: they were going to get hurt.

They were all going to be stopped. They were all going to--no, no, NO. She could prevent it. She just had to release Aisha and get Gareeku out of the room as swiftly as possible.

Upon Aisha's urgent command, Keaton did just what she had shouted, her tentacles unraveling from her wrists and ankles in a simultaneous, serpentine motion. With Aisha released, Keaton started to stagger back, an almost insane look that appeared truly hideous seeping into her eyes.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel saw that Keaton was trying to escape down the hall while Sebastian closed on the other two. She didn't want to hurt the girl but couldn't let her, and her spider, get away. She aimed a heavy blast of ice at Keaton's feet, hoping it would both trip her up and weigh her down. The floor was coated with the ice that missed the cubi, making it slick and hard to maneuver.

[Aisha deCabre]

As soon as she was released, Aisha's body had an intense and urgent surge of energy flow through to her muscles.  "Finally," she growled, a tone that was low, dangerous, and bordering insane, while only watching Keaton back off through the corner of her eyesight.  The panthress flexed her claws, not bothering to pull her torn sleeve back up to her shoulder.

She left Gareeku to Keaton, partially so that perhaps what had been started could be finished...and also partially for the reason that she wanted him away from the fight.  Her crimson eyes seemed to flash, either by the light or by their own accord, it was hard to tell...the light from her tail ring was ever brighter.  The cold in the room, the tingling current...it was driving her--moreover the thing that had become her--to madness.

The cold could be combatted a little though.  With a devilish smirk that seemed out-of-place even on her dark features, the panthress drew the holy sword from her belt, ignoring the familiar sting in her palm as the blade came alive in a blaze along the shining edge.  "Don't stop us..."

At this point in her mind, rage and confusion became one emotion.  It was madness to face the bat and wolf as the opposition.  And yet the urge was compelling.  It was perfectly synchronized for her own love of the fight...she had to fight, or at least be the distraction...and not be simply subdued...by the COLD!

Aisha stared them down with the merciless expression of a bounty hunter...just as if she were staring at a demon.  Her pupils were reduced almost to demented pinpricks.  And then she lunged.

[Sunblink]

Unfortunately for Keaton, the moment the jackal made any indication of escape or some form of aggressive movement, Mel fired off a powerful blast of ice at her feet, catching her off-guard entirely. In her panic, Keaton hadn't anticipated any attacks, having only been focused on snatching up Gareeku and fleeing to a safe and fairly undetermined location deep within the castle.

Which was probably too much to ask for, as five seconds after those words slithered through her mind, Keaton's body jerked and she went flying briefly, landing in a crumpled heap on the ground. Dizziness flared in Keaton's mind as she twitched for a moment, eyes rolling woozily. The first of her body to straighten were her wings, and instinctually Keaton tried to move her legs, but registered no movement from them whatsoever. Startled, brown eyes shot in the direction of her feet, only to find them cemented together in thick, crystalline layers of ice manacles.

She was trapped like an animal. Keaton's eyes snapped from her feet, to Mel, to her feet, to Stygian, to her feet, to Cogidubnus, to her feet, to Jeremiah, to her feet--again and again, pupils shrinking down as animalistic dread and fear welled up in the nauseatingly churning pit of her stomach. White light erupted from Keaton's eyes in alabaster waves, the shadows formed around her body thickening, transforming from a viscous, slick body, then convulsing between sharpness and its former, lifeless state. It seemed to represent the erratic state of Keaton's visible emotions, all of which had leaked through her once nearly impenetrable, almost artistic air of deceit.

Aisha was approaching them, brandishing the sword and hissing angrily, but still, Keaton found herself bestially frightened of the others, and the terrible, terrible, terrible cold, oh god the cold the fucking cold her head hurt it was hard to think...

"Get BACK!"

Then the light burst from Keaton's eyes anew as the shadows surrounding her retracted, then practically exploded into a series of towering spires, tearing right through the ground. The ice shackling Keaton's ankles splintered as an involuntary ripple passed through the atramentous pillars, allowing for the jackal to kick off her frosty binds and scramble off of the ground, frantically manipulating the shadows emerged from the earth. Having been newly reacquainted with her darkness-oriented powers after a long hiatus, she was probably rusty at this, not to mention her shock didn't help matters much...

But her first orders were to attack. The spikes jutting from the ground wavered, then stretched, darting in towards Keaton and orbiting her protectively. Using her hands for orchestration, Keaton made a broad, sweeping motion with her arm, each tentacle individually shooting out towards the first and most threatening target, sparking with red-purple wreaths of energy: Stygian. Having made her first move, Keaton sprinted away, detaching herself from the shadows. Blackness enveloped Keaton's body, forming a palpable shell over her body, oozing through the yellow and utterly caking her in melanoid ink, leaving only the Jyraneth clan marking flashing on her hip and her eyes with any trace of light in them.

With her defense up, Keaton outstretched her arm, a wing-tentacle crowned with a clawed hand whipping out to sweep up Gareeku. She would leave Aisha to deal with the group, having left that attack to hopefully dispatch the bat. Then she would convert Gareeku...

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Cogidubnus]

 Cog restrained himself from cursing, continuing to chant, and simply slipped into a low stance as Aisha flew at them. Still keeping his one hand in front of him, he clenched his other hand into a fist, and not even growling gathered as much force into his hand as he could before throwing it at her.
The wave distorted the air for a moment, displacing the air before it slammed into her, halting Aisha's progress and throwing her back into the far wall with a thud. He grimaced as she hit, and hoped that he hadn't hurt her permanently - he'd had little choice, however, as that sword was far too dangerous if she got close.
He did curse as Keaton began to throw darkness at them, his chant faltering for a moment - the spell faded for only a split second before returning again, Cog quickly resuming the chant after his momentary slip. He backed away from the tentacles - he had no charms, and he doubted he could do much, if anything, against that kind of dark, arcane magic.

[Stygian]

The ice blast that Mel had fired zipped past Stygian's shoulder, effectively knocking Keaton to the floor and allowing him to get closer. He was only walking, trying to think of how best to deal with the situation. Keaton was probably the one with the most options for fighting, being a cubi and thus probably having a good deal of magic and abilities in her arsenal. She was also the only one who could really grab Gar and carry him along effectively. But Aisha, indisputably having the greater firepower in her holy sword, was really a problem if she was going to flank her. Even if he could get behind them, they were still a bit away, and he'd risk getting cut immediately.
   Then, Keaton performed some sort of dark magic or such and Stygian nearly stopped. Blackness erupted, and smashed the jackal free, allowing her to regain mobility. And she immediately attacked, once she could. Darkness struck at Stygian, ripping into him in the form of spiked dark tentacles.
   There was one problem though. Stygian retained the speed that was signature to an angel. And he knew and could feel darkness very well. And so, when the darkness ripped into him, it really ripped into him. The black spikes vanished in under his shirt as he spread it, and the ones that struck him in the chest just pierced it, and then slipped right into him, black lines spreading for just a second and the skin then closing behind them as if nothing had happened. For a second he stood like that, and then he looked up at Keaton as she ran. He half snarled, half grinned, and his skin and fur started grayening in tune with his eyes and teeth blackening.
   Then, in an explosion much like the one that Keaton had caused, darkness tore itself out of the bat's skin and clothes in the form of barbed tentacles, tendrils, ripping claws, maws and hands, spreading out and rushing after her in a huge shroud. Eyes hinted amid the horridity, gleaming and focusing on her as they caught up with her in a short second.

   Keaton froze. Her muscles tensed and she was still trying to run. But she just couldn't! It felt as if something had snagged her, as if something had slipped around and entwined her whole body, like iron wreathed around her limbs, keeping her from moving more than just squirming about.
   Then she noticed. She couldn't feel her darkness anymore. The cloak of it that should envelop her body was not responding. But it was still there. She could see it on her outstretched hand, how it...
   The darkness writhed, and then it twisted. And the jackal could see how it actually turned into that entwining thing, some sort of barbed tentacle, like darkness condensed and turned organic and hard-skinned, with little sharp formations in it, feeling coarse like sharkskin on her fur. In its grip, she fell forward, feeling her legs wrapped up as if a huge, odd centipede had just decided to curl around them, and she felt weight on her back as her wings were held fast. She could feel more movement there, and could see the dark, crawling things that slithered along the floor, like leathery, glossy blackness sporting claws and sharp segments.
   Then, something moved into view next to her head. A face, humanoid but just barely, with sharp, pointed teeth set in an elongated jaw and skin that looked just as flowing and yet still leathery as the rest of the formless creature. And Stygian's glowing eyes staring intensely at her out of it.
   "Bad choice, little girl!" he growled.
   The spider on her neck was abruptly crushed, and she could feel it die.

   When Keaton was assuredly free, Stygian released her, his crawling form rolling off her and slithering across the floor over to the wall, where he reassumed shape, his skin re-forming over the crawling darkness and his black clothes pulling back on and mending themselves magically. He looked down at the jackal seriously, and then over at Aisha by the other wall, watching her.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

"Jeremiah, step back," whispered Mel as she began lowering the temperature in the hallway even more. While they were dealing with the possession of their comrades there could be other spiders nearby or secreted on them. She remembered Cog having the one he tried to possess her with up his sleeve. She drove the cold lower and lower hoping to immobilize any lurking and ready to strike out at the unpossessed. She just hoped she didn't overshoot the cold tolerance of her friends at the same time.

[Aisha deCabre]

Needless to say, Cogi's blast had caught the panthress by surprise.  Before she could swing her sword, the flaming whiplash only partially formed in the midst of the ever-plunging cold, Aisha had been swept from her feet and flung towards the wall.  In a flash, the panthress used her reflexes to minimize the damage she took...instead of having her back hit the surface, she hit her right side with a loud grunt, dropping the sword in the process.

As she fell to the floor, she landed shakily on her feet, and then to her knees.  The panther's teeth were grinding together in frustration and pain, but more mental than physical.  The mental pain was that shared from the spider...the physical came only from the wall and herself.  Both came together in a concoction that would have been too much for the huntress to bear, were she not trained to withstand pain.

So hard to move... she snarled.  The drop in temperature was even starting to affect her as a shiver ran through her body, only withstood by the cape covering her body.  She...no, the spider...she...they felt as if on the edge of death.  Her hand reached to grip the handle of the sword again.  Fire...to counter ice...

In the time that it took to do that, Keaton was already subdued.  She could feel it, an acquired sense, the death of a comrade...though it wasn't really a death, she thought it so.  Her eyes flared with something that looked much like vengeance...turned up a few notches, and they were looking at almost inner demonic rage.  No more confusion...just giving in to the emotions...

With a hissing roar from herself, Aisha watched the blade shine in a great blaze once more.  She faced the bat as he looked back.  The gaze he gave scared her.  But the threshold was crossed.  The sword was swung in a criss-cross fashion through the air, arcing toward Sebastian, Mel, Cogi...whomever was still standing in opposition.  And it kept on like that, flames whipping across the room, until she could no longer take the cold...just stop the cold...and she kept guard with the blade over her head, close to the ebbing warmth.

As she tried to reach back for sanity, the spider was clinging to the last of its own life...

[Stygian]

The flaming lash tore against the bat, sending waves of fire down the corridor against him and the others. A sweep caught his arm, and tore it off and asunder in a rip of black blood and a snarl from his side. But fortunately Aisha's back was against a wall and in a corridor that had no windows. Stygian made his move quickly, and with a roar he leapt forward, dodging a second sweep as he let out his darkness again, splitting up into crawling and lashing black and making his way up behind the panthress. He hoped that Mel and Cog had the presence of mind to fight the flames back, because he could not.
   The darkness snared Aisha's feet even before Stygian had broken up completely, and felled her to the floor. Then came a segmented hand, forming out of flowing darkness, and grabbed her arm, twisting it nearly to the point of dislocating her shoulder. The beast snarled over her shoulder, restraining her harshly. And then came the sensation of claws into her back, piercing both the spider on her before it could retreat and ripping her skin some.
   Aisha heard a scream. She feared that it might be her own. Then, the world dimmed and she blacked out.

   Again, Sebastian's, or Stygian's, darkness crawled back and into him, and he returned to normal, only one arm short. The one he had gotten torn off lay crumpling into an ashen pile over on the floor, and he clutched at the blackish stump that he had left. Another snarl, and crawling tentacles and insect-like pieces of blackness ripped out of it, slowly taking the form of an elbow, an underarm, a large, wickedly clawed hand... He looked at it a bit, before it shaped back to normal and covered itself with skin and fur yet again. Slowly, he clenched his fist. Then, he looked down on Aisha.
   Spiders fell out of her clothing, a threesome of them, moving sluggishly from the chill, and Stygian stepped on the closest one. A snap with his finger and a quick incantation circle incinerated the other two.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

When the fire lashed out Mel gave a frightened squeak and ducked back behind the turn in the corridor. A lash of fire flew past her nose, making her squeak again.

[Cogidubnus]

 Eyes widening at the waves of flames heading for himself and Mel, Cog immediately stopped chanting and took a step back. He had bigger things to worry about than keeping the spell going.
He glanced at her, wondering if she had some way of blocking such an attack. Sebastian took some damage, losing an arm, but his sudden flowing and disappearance into darkness allowed him to avoid the fire, but Cog and Mel were left to defend themselves. Cog thought quickly, and stepped in front of the dragon.
There was no way that he could sustain any sort of barrier, but he could create individual waves quickly, and stack them one atop another. Gritting his teeth, he sucked in a breath of air and threw his fist forward again, a less powerful wave of force flowing out from it, stopping the fire like the glass screens of a fireplace. As soon as it stopped, however, the wave dissipated, but Cog threw forward another to meet the fire, and then yet another, each one of Aisha's crisscrossed strokes meeting another wall by Cog.
He kept this up for as long as he had to, dropping to his knees as the last wave came and went, landing on the carpet with a dull thud. Cog was still for a moment, panting heavily - when he recovered some of his breath, he crawled up against the wall and leaned against it, still catching his breath. Throwing that much force around was like running a few miles, all put into a few moments. Doable, certainly, but exhausting.
He absently hoped that Sebastian had gotten the damn spiders. They were really beginning to piss him off.

[Stygian]

With a snap to undo the last spider that had fallen out of Keaton's clothing and a step past the unconscious cubi, Sebastian walked back to Cogidubnus, Jeremiah and Mel, eyeing them in turn.
   "Good job. Thanks," he said, not quite easily and with a bit of a look at Mel, but still. Then, he walked past them and back against the stairs. It seemed that he was intent on going back to his room again, or something similar.
   "There will probably be more of them, but I know you can take care of it, dragon," he called back to them, walking briskly. He expected her to as well. This was helping, but that was all. If he couldn't find some more rest he felt as if he was going to go insane. It wasn't even evening yet!

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel moved towards the battle area, rubbing her scorched nose. Then Sebastian walked right past them with an order to take care of everything else themselves. She scowled at him "What do you mean, take care of it? They could be anywhere and it's your mansion. And what about that creature who left these little presents?" she argued as she checked on the fallen. Cog was closest but his immediate problem seemed to be exhaustion. Next she knelt beside Aisha and heal the gouges on the back of her neck and checked for damage from the cold. "Is anyone else hurt?" she asked of the others.