The Castle [03] (Remba, but don't let it stop you)

[Sunblink]

Lifting a finger to silently signal for Stygian to wait, Keaton walked over to the other end of the room and retrieved a footrest from the nearby armchair, dragging it over and perching herself on it. Attentively, she quirked her ears and furrowed her brow, staring with grim seriousness over the rim of her glasses to gaze directly into Stygian's eyes. She tried not to act nonchalant and temperamental to his situation, like she did to just about everything else, and instead reacted with startling sincerity.

"You said you needed darkness. I can provide it," she stated simply, abandoning her bitchery for compassion. For demonstration, she lifted her hand and focused briefly, allowing the faintest wisp of violet flame to circulate in her palm, trails of somersaulting steam dancing from the wavering tongue of fire. "I've done my share of bad shit... more than I can recall," she shrugged dismissively. "It really takes a lot to phase me. So I don't care what you've done. If you let me, I'll fix your injury."

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Stygian]

The bat just sighed and lifted his hand. Choosing not to seize the flame, he simply let her pass it over the wound. It would heal him either way.
   'I think I know a few things for starters... But I really am sorry. Just out and still I manage to bother people this much...' he said sadly. 'I should calm down a bit. All this damn bother...' Slowly, he moved a hand to his chest. It met only hard muscle, but that wasn't what he felt. He swallowed, warm pain shooting up his side as the injury regenerated, dark flesh closing and veins of black receding. It took perhaps a minute before there was only skin and pale fur again where the wound had been. Once it was done, Stygian exhaled deeply.
   'Thank you,' he said, fixing his ebon eyes on Keaton's. 'Good to have someone who appreciates darkness around, sometimes.' His smile was slight, and still carried traces of bitterness. But it also had a bit of warmth. And it was earnest. Quickly, he cast a look toward the bedside table, and then the pillows. He wouldn't be able to go back to sleep.
   'I know that I shouldn't feel sorry, but what I fought with him over down there really was true. And I don't like... I mean, I like your company. But I scarcely know what to do, nor what to say. And I know that being as I am, I am hardly the best company,' he said, staring into the floor. 'It isn't the first time I've hurt someone. Not just hurt, but like that.'

[Sunblink]

With Stygian's silent command, Keaton reached over to the chiropteran's bloodstained side, gently pressing the very tip of her finger against one of the tattered flaps of flesh. Purple energy twined and twisted in writhing, electrified bands, weaving through the skin and saturating the tainted blood. When she was certain that enough dark energy had flowed into Stygian's blood, she removed her hand, allowing the flame to extinguish with a quiet burst of vibrant violet light and a floating cloud of scarlet smog.

After that task was completed, Keaton leaned back and listened, resting her head in her hands as she thought about how to respond. "If you feel like you bother some people, what if you made more of an effort to try and, y'know, not to?" Keaton knew that probably sounded stupid, but hey, she was improvising. That came with risks. In between words, Keaton kept a clever eye on Stygian's wound, monitoring its regeneration.

It was finished. Dusting her hands off, Keaton snapped her fingers for flourish, setting off a split-second ignition of black light between her fingertips. "Magic fingers," she said proudly, then returned the grin with a slight amount of triumph that she had, finally, done something truly useful during her time in the Castle. This vanished, however, when Stygian continued to speak, ushering in the return of Thoughtful and Sympathetic Keaton.

"I don't know, you've been pretty helpful. I mean, you saved my life back when I came into the castle. I still owe you for that one," Keaton noted. "We all owe you for leading us through the castle, and I guess we haven't entirely done our part." She folded her arms behind her head. "Just a gal's perspective though.

"Do you want to be alone for a while?" she tilted her head. "Now that the wound's repaired and whatnot?"

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Stygian]

The bat sighed again, his shoulders slumping as he looked into the floor. He sat still thinking for a while.
   'You're right, but that's just a few things. And you're not indebted to me. I was the cause of the mess anyway. As for the other... well... I am trying, but I couldn't well help the wolf without doing as I did,' he said, and then snorted. 'Bet he loathes me by now. And then the others...' That brought on a quick, bitter little chuckle.
   The offer to leave him alone inadvertently brought on a little twinge of pain, but Stygian kept still and composed. He slowly shook his head, and smiled jadedly.
   'No, I think...' he began. Then, he looked up. Slowly, he rose to his feet and walked over to a heavy chair, throwing his shirt away. Discarding his pants similarly disregardfully, he grabbed the clothes from the evening before, laid over the arm of the chair, and quickly put them on, save the jacket which he just threw over his shoulder. Finally, he went over and took out an umbrella from beside the wardrobe.
   'I think I'll go for a walk,' he said, a warmer and more inviting smile directed toward Keaton now, and then he casually opened the door and slipped out.

[Sunblink]

"Well," Keaton was quick to respond, curling each of her fingers toward her palm individually. "It's not every day I get my life saved by someone, really. I don't really care if you were the cause of the mess..."

A noncommittal shrug rocked her shoulders as they tilted upright, rolling her shoulder-blades together. She reached up, scratching behind the joint of her head-wing, which flapped repeatedly before it folded inward, steadily disappearing from sight as it sunk into her head, disappearing behind the bangs of her windblown and disheveled hair and vanishing altogether once it completed its assimilation with her body. The opposite head-wing repeated this process. Rubbing at the nape of her neck, Keaton continued:

"As for the others, I can't speak for them. They're probably wondering what the fuck just happened."

When Stygian walked over to the opposite chair and removed his pants, Keaton averted her eyes respectfully, avoiding a number of smartass remarks that could've been used at the moment. By the time she glanced back he was already changed into a new pair of clothing and sporting an umbrella. Going for a walk? Well, that was certainly better than isolating himself with a considerably damaging injury, and the smile he sent her way was surprisingly encouraging. Inviting, perhaps. He exited the room, leaving Keaton alone.

The jackal glanced down and rummaged through her pocket, her hand quickly surfacing with her beloved marble. Iridescent colors merged and twined together endlessly, moving in a softly churning loop as one hue changed to another. Tossing the marble in the air and catching it, Keaton set the marble back in its pocket and left the room as well, feeling oddly satisfied.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Bambi shocked to her core by the darkness that is Stygian... Having her magial lifelines cut by the darkness closing, Left her shaken. 

When Stygian reappears with Cog and Keaton, She sees only the bat appear in front of her and her balls of light come fly out behind him and return to her. She stood blinking one minute the Bat is front of her, the next moment, she see the library, and what mess it is in as Gina grabbing her fur. 

Bambi follows Gina with her eyes and then looks at the others with sad eyes.   She closes her eyes for a secound and a magical force flowings from the fairy which causes all the wood for the stairs, upper level floor and the bookshelves repairing and righting themselves.  The Stygian magical circle and everything inside it were not touch. In fact, the bright green light went around the runes and left it alone. The books and papers are still all over the place, but the damage to library is gone. and then the feline fae is gone running after the ferret angel. 

PBH

[Cogidubnus]

 Cog raised his eyes to the carvings and engravings, regarding each with a careful eye. Ironic twists on old stories lined the walls, oftentimes harsher, or simply different than he remembered the old tales being - some images he did not recognize at all, although the theme throughout remained constant. The keeping of divine balance, of mighty angels subduing and binding the darkness. Cog shook his head, finding the images distasteful. They reminded him of most of the paladin types he had met: bright, just, and very cold.
Cog looked at himself again, and sighed. He need to 'un-bend' himself, as it were, unless he really wanted to spend the rest of his life this way. It might take his mind off things, anyway. He stood, brushing his soaked hair away from his eyes, and retrieved his things. His hat felt heavy on his wet head.
As he left, he took one last look at the chapel, and at the Angel of Death staring down at all of them. The scythe seemed to veritably gleam with malice as it stared down at the congregation, the promise of ultimate death. Cog's face darkened. 
He raised his hand, his index finger curling over his thumb, as though he was about to flick something away. He flicked the finger over his thumb, sending forth a tiny wave of force. Azrael seemed to bend for just a moment, the air distorted by the wave, and then shattered, falling away from the round window. The sound of broken glass echoed throughout the quiet chapel.
"Amor est vitae essentia, mendacium. Vita mutatur, non tollitur." Cog murmured, turning and heading for the library.

[Stygian]

Some time passed yet again, as they cleaned and worked. Alone, though he had half expected and wanted Keaton to come along, Stygian walked through the heavy rain, smiling a bit at Keaton's reaction before. It didn't matter whether he would be drenched. It was much too easy to fix that. And even though he disliked the rain, for many reasons, there were certain times when it was nevertheless something ineffably right about it and the feeling that it invoked. Right then, at least, it did.

- -

Almost hatefully, the dark left eye of Azrael glared as Cog left the chapel from half a face. The scene was left incomplete and inexplicable, like some outro from a movie. The wolf's steps echoed silently through the still halls.
   The library was as it had been left. Except not. Some burn marks still on the floor, the rest of the place was tidy enough, save the glyph on the floor and some of the mess on the table. It was a place to start new things at.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

With the library back to rights Mel was bored. She should have been busy scanning books and gaining knowledge, but she still felt a little out of sorts from her misadventure the day before. For a while she wandered the stacks, hoping a book would catch her interest but eventually she ended up back in the central part of the room. The bored dragon noticed a small, stoppered vial on the floor and bent to pick it up before someone stepped on it. She was going to set it back on the table but her attention was caught by the glyph on the floor. She stood staring at it for a long time. This wasn't a form of magic that had been taught when she was in school and she was still trying to figure it out. She bent closer, trying to get a good look at the flaking material that had formerly been chalk when she lost her grip on the vial she had picked off the floor.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

The Fae cat runs or fly after the ferret angel as she continued down the halls and up the stairs, never seemly enough to catch up but never losing sight of the white ferret.  they run to an unknown tower to top room that looks cross the lake and the valley and to the town, the storm still rages off and on outside the windows and doors to a lookout balcony rings around the tower.  

A crack of lightening and a Boom thundering, Bambi finds the white ferret looking out through the rain to the few lights of the town.  "Gina, It is okay, we need ...mmm. *sigh*  What comes, Gina, can you tell?   The Wolf and the Bat set something in motion, they know not in their feud. but I think I feel something...  What is it, Gina, or Is it something hurting you?" asks Bambi, as she come up to the ferret.   Bam hugs the girl from behind and watches the rain with her, waiting for her and comforting the guardian, who has had no comfort.

PBH

[Stygian]

The symbol was indeed quite strange. More sharp-edged and sort of cruel in design, it was unlike anything that Mel had seen before. She recognized some of the designs of it, like the torquero and metamorphis patterns. But the way they were intertwined wasn't sensible. The lines were incomplete in several places, and in some it defied how the magic would behave. It didn't make any apparent sense.
   Then she dropped the vial, and obviously wished she hadn't. The little glass container hit the floor with a slight crack. There was a brief surge of magic, the symbol glowed slightly as two parts of it were connected, and then the vial turned into a raven with a fine wristwatch in its beak, just as Cogidubnus entered. The bird eyed them both irately. There was a burst of chill wind, and it flew up, passing low enough that its talons touched Cog's ears before it flew out, dropping the timepiece and leaving the still slightly glowing symbol behind.

- -

The ferret shuddered slightly in the cold, her face transfixed in bitter sadness.
   'I don't know. It's evil,' she said. 'It has nothing to do with... with that down there. This is older.' Her eyes on the town, she kept still and silent a while. 'It's here.'

[Angel]

Ketefe watched with intrigue and more than a little unease as Mel accidentally dropped a silver vial on it. The vial turned into... a raven? Holding a watch... Ketefe pinched herself once, but no, she wasn't just dreaming. The raven flew out with a gust of cold air, dropping the watch and leaving one confused room and a glowing symbol.

Ketefe arched an eyebrow at the symbol, part of her wanting to touch it and see what happened, but the rest of her knowing not to touch anything glowing black.

"Soooo.... anyone know how to get rid of it? Rynkura? Mel? Cog?" she asked, moving her eyes over the individuals she mentioned.

[Boog]

Jeremiah had still been reading and researching when the glass hit the ground. He thought he might have something, a description of something close to the specters...
That part of the book was scorched.
He sighed and looked up at the raven making a break for it. Well, at least this time the random crap came with an expensive looking watch.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

IT be here   Where?" asks Bambi as she tension up and hugging the ferret more.  She breaks from the ferret and turns to start running back to library to warn the others, but stops and turns back to Gina.

"Gina, you are not alone anymore, we will help but we need to know what we can do to help you.  Should we alert Stygian?" asks a worrying Bam 


PBH

[Cogidubnus]

 Cog's ear flicked as the bird flew over it, his face sour. He paid the bird no mind, merely stopping in his tracks, sighing, and bending over to pick up the watch, and flipping it over once or twice.
"A watch. Mm." Cog regarded the thing disinterestedly, and letting it dangle in his hand he walked towards Mel, and the strange circle that Sebastian had drawn. He'd somehow used it to transform him. It was likely it could change him back.
If he could make sense of the damn thing.
Ignoring the elephant in the room, Cog instead turned to regard Mel and raised his eyebrow. "Perhaps you know what it is?"
Cog indicated the circle with his head, his arms crossed.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

With the surge of magic Mel jumped backwards, ending up falling and landing on her tail. She could observe that the contents of the vial somehow connected two broken parts of the design before the bird appeared and flew off. She was just standing and dusting herself off when Cog asked her if she understood the magic of the glyph. "Not completely. I understand the theories behind it, and recognize some of the symbols, but they are used in a way that I just can't make heads or tails out of." She glanced to the table Sebastian had been working at. "I wonder if his notes are clearer?"

[Aisha deCabre]

The cleaning work continued onward through that part of the day, while the storm outside showed little sign of stopping anytime soon.  Sometimes the thunder would cease and rain would replace the sound, pounding away just as loudly at the windows...and sometimes the reverse would happen, accompanied always by flashes of light passing through the sky.

Aisha put the books back on the shelves in no particular order...while many of their covers had been burned from the fiasco that the titles now only beloned to obscurity, at least the pages of the ones she had been holding were still whole.  Whoever was the librarian would have such a fit, the panthress thought with a smirk.

Rynkura meanwhile had finished her section of the destruction and payed minimal attention to the others as they investigated the glyph left behind by Sebastian.  The dragon in particular looked enticed by curiosity at the symbolic runes.  The tigress however was cautious.  While she understood it was created to cause little harm, nothing was more dangerous than playing on the edge of a precipice of knowledge too deep to cross.

She was about to say so, in fact, when suddenly Mel had dropped the vial she was holding into the circle, causing a brilliant flash to briefly illuminate the room.  It caught the corner of Aisha's eye, and Rynkura's full attention.  They stood to watch the raven that replaced the flash, as it immediately winged from the room through the door and dropped the watch it had been carrying in its wake.  Then the eyes of the two felids fell on Cogi, the both of them waving a quick greeting at his appearance.

"The heck was that?" Aisha muttered, her eyes following after the bird.  Rynkura's eyes narrowed as she laid eyes again on the etched glyph, an ethereal glow coming from it after the interesting display.

"You could check the notes," the tigress answered Mel as she approached, "But that could have been more dangerous than it was.  Unless you really know what you are doing, I suggest perhaps that trying anything else can wait for a moment, if it is not urgent.  Sad to say that not even I have touched on this sort of thing," the tigress sighed, unknowing of how to help.

The panther's eyes rolled, unseen by her mentor, at listening to the whole thing.  I wondered when she'd start sounding like a teacher again.  While the others were occupied, Aisha put another few books back on a ruined shelf and hummed.  "I might as well go after that bird, see if I can't open a window for it or something."  It'll give me an excuse to explore the place a little more...

Rynkura however seemed to echo her thoughts.  "Child, I understand that disaster followed the last one of you to go exploring."

There was a pause, considering her words and also just how deep her caution still was.  But Aisha found it rather easy to shrug off at that moment.  "I'm just going to look," she reassured, heading for the door.

[Stygian]

What was rather unfortunate was that not only were there no notes about that sort of circle or magic in the contents on the table. There was nothing written by Stygian or a Sebastian something at all. And the only thing that came close was a theoretical on the principles and workings of the 'darker side' by a J.S. Scheiner.
   So Aisha walked out, leaving the others with the strange symbol, and not very much for a lead. She heard the caw of the raven from before somewhere down the hall as she did. It seemed unusually dark for a bit, but only briefly. It wasn't enough to really warrant attention, but for a short moment her tail ring flickered, and she felt the unmistakable prickle of eyes watching her.

- -

Gina spun around and looked at Bambi with eyes wide.
   'No!' she exclaimed sharply. 'If he doesn't know yet, he shouldn't know! We have to make sure the others are safe, somehow...' There seemed to be more to that statement than just what she said. She was obviously afraid of the bat, but even beyond that...
   'Let's... let's try and think of something...' she said slowly, walking toward Bam.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

"Okay, we can fly to the library where most are..." says Bambi and she wings down the stairs to the library's floor level   Here at the foot of the stairs, Bambi thinks she see a black crow or a black bird something down the hallway, but it hard to see it    PBH looks to Gina to see if she see it.  Bambi starts to ask her, but changes her mind and she has them quickly running toward the library and Aisha

Bambi sees a troubled Aisha looking to the end of hall. "Aisha?"  The Fae turns a  worried look at the watching dark. "Ah MEEL!"

PBH

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel nodded her head in agreement with the tigress. "You're right, I can't figure out enough of it to know what is going on." She bowed slightly to Cog. "We'll have to find a different way to remove your curse unless Sebastian chooses to return soon." Then the dragon turned back to the design on the floor. "My accident shows that this shouldn't be left unattended. I think we should fence it off until it can be deactivated." She created a wall of magic, much like the one she used to put out the fire earlier. She began carefully wrapping it around the perimeter of the magic circle, staying well away from the actual glyph. The spell was moving very smoothly and gently until a shout of her name startled Mel.

[Sunblink]

Looking slightly triumphant as she closed the door to Stygian's room behind her, Keaton ambled casually back to the library, confidence clear in her gait. For her, she had finally accomplished something in the Castle after being nothing but a detriment and a tool for various malignant forces, and positively nothing could go wrong for her at that moment in time, not even a single iota. Considering her volatile temperament, however, the happy-high she was currently riding on could've been extinguished with the slightest accident.

Keaton entered the library simultaneous to the moment an enormous, brilliant flash set the room afire, forcing her to shield her eyes with her forearm from the intense glow. Without realizing it, Keaton uttered a curse under her breath, waiting with eyes shut for the light to die down so she could safely remove her arm. The rushing of black-feathered wings alerted her to the sudden presence--and departure--of the raven where the archaic circle was once scrawled, as well as the death of the incandescent light. Shakily lowering her arm, Keaton entered the library, looking around with a slight expression of confusion on her face.

"Fuck," she said, barely acknowledging Cogidubnus's presence as Aisha left the room. "Th'hell happened here?"

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Stygian]

The slip-up was all that was needed. A shield or ward might have held off any detrimental effects the symbol might have created, but adding more magic to it, when it was already tampered with, was not a good decision. A part of Mel's wall slid into the symbol, and a flare of darkness burst out from it. The next second the dragon was suspended above it, rotating oddly in the air, dark... shapes, crawling all over her. Distantly, she felt the movements of the things, like huge centipedes clawing their way over and under her skin. This was far from the worst of it though.
   To anyone unprepared for and unadapted to the dark energies of the underworld, call it Hell or Tartaros or whatever one might like, interacting with it is sure to have some sort of effect, and most often not a beneficial such. To directly link to the power of the Dark, to try and do anything with it without strict control, would be like playing with radioactive, contagious materials wearing nothing but a sweatshirt. And Mel was given a much more exact and vivid demonstration of this comparison. Her eyes blackened over as she was rocked with twitching and contorted in the air. Terrible, horrid images and sensations passed through her mind to fast to handle, while things were touching and looking at her mind, some of them curious, others half-insane with sadness or rage. And trapped as she were, she had already completely lost control, unable to do so much as move a finger against what was happening.

[Boog]

"Holy crap, MEL!" Now there was an obvious reason to yell. With Styg and Cog the results were more humorous than dangerous (after all, with most of those here either scared of him, preoccupied or quite possibly capable of being understanding of an act of war, Cog was the only person there was for tall pale and creepy to decently bicker with. He was really the safest one in the castle), but this did not look funny. In the manner of concerned but not particularly useful individuals everywhere he did his best to get to the one in trouble as soon as possible, and once he got there planted himself at a spot no closer nor further than five feet away and panicked.

[Sunblink]

Not getting any immediate response as to what had occurred in her absence, Keaton resigned with a sigh and looked around the room for an available seat, or at least something to provide some form of amusement. Unknown to her, Mel was still tinkering with the seal she had barely acknowledged, although the dragon's studying of it attracted her attention. Something about it wasn't right... it seemed distinctly dark in origin upon further, distant examination. Tampering with it likely wasn't going to be a smart idea, as lord knew how it would react to direct probing.

A sudden voice startling Mel seemed to trigger it. There was a sudden burst of darkness, forcing Keaton back with a startled cry, and then Mel was whisked into the air, spinning about on her own axis. Keaton's pupils contracted down to little, brown dots before they flared dangerously upon seeing the wildly crawling shadows--shapes--she wasn't sure what to classify them--skittering all over Mel's spasming form.

Instinctually, Keaton's eyes snapped down from Mel's body, then to what had started the catastrophe: the symbol. Messing with it would possibly put her in the same predicament, but it was worth trying. Without wasting any time, Keaton sprinted towards the ring, dropping to her knees beside the periphery of the bloodied perimeter. Brown eyes darted frantically in their sockets as she scanned over the ring, searching for the way to stop it--all it needed was a little modification, something to rearrange the ordering of the symbol so to sever its connection to Mel and stop its rampage.

Even then it was rather foreign to her. Most of it was luck of the draw and guessing as Keaton smeared, swiped, and erased, reorganizing and redesigning. With a punctuating sweep of her finger Keaton smudged the line of one emblem over another, pressing her finger to the very corner of the ring and concentrating. If all went correctly, this would work...

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Stygian]

For a second, Mel froze, and then the dark, arthropod-like semi-liquid black things emitted something like cries and tried to jump away from her. The next second, there was another burst of darkness, though this one was more akin to a sudden rush of wind, and with a thump Mel dropped to the floor.
   The sudden aura of discomfort that had come over the place faded away like a bad odor driven out by a draft and air freshener. Under Mel, the dark sign was turned into a mere smudge on her pants. But still, there was a sudden wrongness about the whole thing. Those pants seemed a bad fit all of a sudden.
   Those who noticed it first were, of course, Keaton and Jeremiah, the frog now having to look up a bit to look straight at the jackal's face. The prominent change in center of gravity and looks were quite shocking. It seemed that Keaton in her haste had only changed a few parts of the symbol.

[Boog]

"... Woah," was pretty much all that came to mind for the poor frog. Hard to be eloquent in that sort of situation. "... Keaton? Mel? Are you... Okay?" As many of you know, shock generates ellipses. Can't be helped. "What on... What happened?"

[Aisha deCabre]

Aisha quickly followed the bird's trail through the corridors out of the library, keeping her steps slow and quiet so that she could discern the creature's noises from those of the outside.  The soft rumbling of thunder still echoed and shook the walls of stone, sound through solid...but the deeper she went, the more she could better get used to the atmospheric pattern.  The subtle sound of flapping wings, the cawing that showed it still had a presence...the huntress had a smirk on her features.  A chase was always fun.

And yet she remembered, while her eyes scanned the ominous darkness ahead, that she was alone in going after the raven.  Aisha questioned why that was for but a few moments after she passed Bambi and Gina in the halls, heading in the opposing direction.  She barely gave them the time of day...if something was happening in the library, she knew that Rynkura was one of the best to help take care of it.  And the more time she spent to decide things for herself, the better.

The cawing caught her ears again.  The obsidian bird sounded only lightly agitated.  Hm.  Birds are usually wrecks when they're trapped.  Must be calm if it was generated from a magic circle, the panthress observed with a snort.  Nevertheless, her cautious nature got to her again and she followed the path past her room.  Inside she retrieved, between her two trusted swords, the holy blade and slid it easily into the sheath that her mentor had found, still wrapped around her shoulder and resting on her back.  Then, following those subtle noises, she took a deep breath and padded into the gloom.

Gods condemn this castle, I'm not going unprepared again.

*     *     *

Rynkura stepped a fair distance away from the circle as Mel attempted to seal it, unsure if it was the right course of action to take.  The tigress did not doubt the dragon's abilities, for she found evidence of proficiency while alone healing her, but there was something she didn't trust about the situation itself...

And as she mostly hated to find, her assumption was correct.  The healer found herself casting her light barrier again as the magics backfired and sent those closest to it sprawling away.

In the wake of it, Rynkura cautiously undid the barrier spell and stood up upon hearing the voices of the others.  "By the...well, we shouldn't have attempted to mess with that thing at all..." she hummed in an obvious fashion.  "Is anyone hurt...?" she started to ask, but her voice trailed off in leu of an incredulous look, after glimpsing the others.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel just stayed where she had fallen, not moving. Her eyes were still dark, no longer black with dark magic but the normal bright blue was dimmed. The mental shields that had been stymied earlier slammed down tight, a fortress around her mind. Instinctively she tried to purge the dark with light and a slight glow began to shine. She needed time to process and regroup after the assault and shut down until she regained her balance.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Bambi is torn between helping Aisha in her hunt of the demonic crow, and getting to the Library where she feels something else is a foot.  Hearing Mel's cry, she decides to go on to the Library, where the feel of dark magical force seem the strongest.

"Aisha, Don't get too wrap up in the hunt, not to says Hello or call for help, Okay?" yells Bambi after the pantress.

"Gina, Do come to the library, I would Rather know what we are dealing with than chase a dangerous bird through unknown hallways." says Bambi to Gina, and heads on to the library hoping Gina will still follow her there.

Bambi gets to the library in time to see Mel drop to the floor, and horrified to the dark stain left on the dragon's body.  Bam rushes over to the dragon and the tigress,,and she finds Mel has seemed to have lost weight and in need of healing, again.   Also the dragon feels tainted to the Fae.  Bam tries a light spell to clean smudge on her pants, but it didn't even fade.  That Something or someone is laughing at her and them, she felt certain of it.

Bambi eyes the magic rune circle on the floor with worry.  Then She sees Mel is awake and is fighting the darkness, she adds she own light magic to Mel's fight.

PBH

[Angel]

Ketefe was at a complete loss for words.

Mel had been trying to do something about the symbol, but it had all become fubar rather quickly. Keaton and Bam had come in, and somehow Bam's interruption had distracted Mel long enough for a bunch of evil demonic things to come out of the symbol and attack her. Thankfully, Keaton had (sort of) saved Mel by changing around the symbol, but now everything was becoming even stranger. Some people looked different...

Oh dear Gods, no.

Ketefe looked down at her new self in abject horror. She bit her tongue, afraid to hear her own voice. She managed to keep herself from fainting, but she sat heavily on the floor. She shook her head a few times in disbelief, then curled up, folding her arms over the tops of her knees and burying her face in the crook of her elbow.

I want to kill someone.