Furrae Chronicles: Webs of Destiny (IC) [M] {2}

[Hilary]

Anzimani smiled reassuringly and took the proffered letter. As suspected, it was similar to the ones recieved by herself and the rest of the party. She sat the letter down beside Ephrael and cast her eyes around for suitable twigs or a walking stick.

One of the nearby trees had several slender limbs protruding horizontally from the bottom of the trunk. They were brown and dead, all the sunlight having been stolen by the higher, leafy branches. Anzimani strode over to one and, placing a foot at the joint where limb met trunk, pulled up sharply while putting her wieght on the branch. It broke off with a loud crack, and Anzimani stumbled back a little before regaining her balance. Checking the end to make sure it was free of sap, she brought it over to Ephrael and the healer.

"Will this do for a walking stick?" After a moment of thought, she voiced the idea, "If you wanted, you could sharpen the top end and it could double as a makeshift weapon."

[Paladin Sheppard]

"Two,  n..no wait, three days a..ago now." Ephrael said looking at the raccoon demon.

As Gabi examined her ankle, Eph looked at her foot, feeling another surge of pain. Gritting her teeth she forced back a scream '-painpainpainpaingoddamnthathurts'and asked instead; "Why does it h..hurt more when you look at it?" When Gabi asked her to try not to move she nodded.

[Gabi]

Gabi looked at Ephrael's eyes. The way she had phrased the question puzzled her.

"Do you mean when I touch you, or literally when I look at you?," she asked. "The latter shouldn't happen. Unless you get more tense when I look at you or... You don't have a resistance to magic, do you?"

[Tapewolf]

Jay crouched down next to Ephrael.  "If you need it, I can cast a spell to remove your pain for a short while." he said.

[Paladin Sheppard]

Eph looked mortified "N..No I didn't mean you maam...I meant when you hurt yourself it hurts more after you look at it. I don't know why it just does..."

"I..If you think it will help J..Jay." She said turning to Jay, "I don't really k..know much about magic."

"Who are you t..two?" Ephrael asked of the pheonix and squirrel demon.

((ooc) Ehp doesn't know Blaze is a cubi and I'm assuming he has his bandana on.)

[RJ]

Blaze attempted a smile at the girl. "Blaze Joybringer. You don't have to worry about me... I'm really just a baker. I'm also kind of the odd one out here..."

He glanced around at the others, a tiny look of guilt on his face before he looked back at Ephrael with an apologetic expression.

"I'm sorry to hear about your sister. I know I'd be upset if my own sister went missing too... not that she probably couldn't look after herself..." he ended his sentence in a mumble and scratched at his bandana.

[Gabi]

"I think we're all odd ones out here," Gabi commented. "And most of us have people we care for. To be honest I've been worried about my brother since this whole thing began. Fortunately, his name hasn't shown up in any letters. But I haven't heard from him in months and that worries me."

She made an effort not to think about that. She had something much more urgent to focus on.

"Don't worry, Ephrael, that's normal," Gabi said. "I believe it's something the mind does. Things hurt more when you think about them, especially if they look bad. But you'll be fine soon; believe me, it could have been a lot worse."

[Tapewolf]

Jay knelt down in front of Ephrael and stared deeply into her eyes.  His hands were glowing, and he placed one gently on her forehead.

Incubi and succubi have the ability to feed passively on radiated emotional energy, but they can also feed aggressively - most notably by tearing the soul from their victim and devouring it.  Somewhere in between these two extremes lies the ability to enter someones' mind and actively feed on their emotional energy at source, effectively draining it from them.  On occasion Jakob had used this ability to remove people's anger or pain, and this is what he did to Ephrael right now.
The glowing hands were simply showmanship, since he had no desire to reveal his 'cubi heritage to the already-frightened Ephrael, and besides there was still a chance that Arc might see him.

"That should be better," he said.  "I'm afraid it will only last for a few minutes before pain builds up again, so I may have to do it again.  I guess that will depend on how quickly Gabi here can knit your wound."

[Gabi]

Gabi allowed Jakob to help her with the magic part. Now that she thought of it, she was grateful for the offer. She could have done it herself, but it was easier to focus on one thing at a time, and this gave her more freedom to think of the mechanical part... determining right force to apply and where to do so.

She waited until the magic had achieved its effect, held the lower part of Ephrael's lef with one hand and her foot with the other, and in one strong but careful maneuver set them both in the right position. She held them together firmly, and repeated her request.

"Sticks and bandages, please!"

[RJ]

Blaze quickly crouched down and picked up some strong-looking sticks before he searched through Gabi's bag until he found the bandages.

"Here, think these sticks will be good enough?" he asked as he turned to her.

[Gabi]

Gabi turned to look at what Blaze had brought, without easing her grasp on Ephrael, and nodded.
"They're perfect, thank you," she smiled.

She allowed herself to use a little magic to put the sticks in the right place without using her hands. It was one of the first tricks she had learnt as a child. Then she pressed the sticks against both sides of the ankle with her left hand and cleaned, the wound and wrapped the bandages around the ankle and sticks with her right hand. Once she determined it was tight enough to hold while still allowing the passage of blood, she finished tying up the bandages with both hands.

She took a look at her own work, searching for any details she might have missed, and once she was satisfied she cast a spell to reduce the swelling, and tigthened the knot a bit. She took a deep breath, and began to relax as she exhaled.

"That should take care of it for now," she announced. "It will need some time to adjust, so I think it's best if I finish the work tomorrow. Until then you'll need a walking stick. If it were an emergency I could do it all at once, but then if for some reason your ankle broke again, it might not be able to heal without magic. But it's your body, so the decision is yours."

She looked at Ephrael, awaiting her answer.

[Paladin Sheppard]

With her pain gone, and fear slowly fading, Ephrael smiled alittle.

"Are you staying here for the night?" She asked, finally managing a sentence without stammering. "If you think I should wait I will."

Ephrael looked about at what she supposed what were her new campanions.

Gareeku. Friendly, troubled, Leader...somewhat hunky'
Gabi. 'Nice, friendly, healer.'
The Pheonix. 'No real idea yet seems nice'
Jay. 'Suspicious, on edge, seems ok, mage maybe?.
Blaze Joybringer. 'Nice doesn't say much, nice, friendly, *drool* very cute..nah scratch that Hunky...Baker?'

[Hilary]

Anzimani sat the stick down beside Ephrael. "I'm Anzimani Havkova. I salute the Light in you," she said, using the formal greeting from her homeland.

"I think staying the night would be a good idea, but I understand if you want to press on."

She hadn't had her own relatives taken, after all. If anyone close to her had been kidnapped, she would have used every moment she could in pursuit.

[Gareeku]

"We'll stay here for the night. I think its safe to say we have quite enough activity today," Gareeku stated before turning to the new girl with a smile, "besides, you'll rest that ankle of yours."

Walking to a tree a few meters away, Gareeku sat at the base of it and observed the stars which now littered the night sky, also subconsciously wary of anything that fall from the tree, having already been hit once.

[Paladin Sheppard]

Blushing a little Ephrael was thankful the white wolf was letting her rest.

Looking around she saw that her pack hadn't followed her to the ground. Gazing up, Eph saw it was still resting in the branch next to the one she had been on. "Oh smeg..." With slow motions, as not to alarm anyone she unslung her bow, and pulled an arrow with a weight instead of a sharp head from her quiver.

Taking aim, Ephrael fired the arrow at the bag, neatly hitting it and causing it fall off the branch.

Catching the arrow as it fell she placed it back in the quiver, while the bag which almost seemed to be in a pinball machine, bounced off branches and landed sofly in the smiling tasie devils lap.

((OOC btw shes still sitting down so anyone watching would be (in my opinion atleast) slackjawed  and she pulled this off only because a. shes a good shot b. has a good head for phisics))

After taking a blanket from her pack, Ephrael used the bag to prop up her ankle. "Thank you for helping me." She said as she covered herself. Laying back she promptly fell to sleep.

[Tapewolf]

Jay tensed himself as Ephrael reached for the bow.  It was fortunate that she had aimed it upwards, otherwise he might have had to do something drastic with his tentacles and ruin his disguise along with Ephrael's bow.

"Very clever," he said with admiration as she reached for the pack.  "but you might have warned us first."

As Ephrael began to doze, Jay settled against a nearby tree to rest himself.

[Gareeku]

Noticing Jakob's reactions out of the corner of his eye, Gareeku rolled his eyes and grinned.
"Relax, Jay. She's not going to hurt you. She wouldn't be able to do much in her current situation anyway." Gareeku commented with a slight chuckle, "No offense, Ephrael."
However, it was that Gareeku found that she had fallen asleep, but not before hearing her words.
"Heh, no problem..." Gareeku said with a smile, before resuming to observe the stars above.

[Hilary]

Anzimani grabbed a strap of her backpack and lugged it up after her as she climbed the tall tree again. When she reached the upper branches, she set the pack down on a thick one and stretched out, looking down on the camp. She always felt more secure with a good vantage point. Absentmindedly, she softly hummed a ballad as she drifted off to sleep.

[Gabi]

"I guess we might as well make ourselves comfortable," Gabi said, looking for a place to sleep. "Shall we organize watches for the night?"

Now that Pal's gone, there aren't many Cubi left, she thought. And only Blaze can admit to not needing sleep; it wouldn't be fair to have him watch over us all night long.

[RJ]

Blaze ran a hand over the back of his head. Things get stranger and stranger... RJ would be able to deal with these sorts of things better than I would. She's always been the "people" person in the family.

He watched quietly as the rest of the group settled in for the night. Most emotions he felt were fuzzy as sleep took over.

"Looks like I'm official watchman for the night, huh?" he asked softly, taking a spot over next to a tree. He opened a hand, creating a small fireball in it.

[Gabi]

"Wake me up if you get tired or would like company," Gabi offered Blaze. "I'd like to get up early to check on Ephrael in any case."

[Gareeku]

((OOC: slight character controlling here...hope nobody minds. >_>; ))

Through the night, each member of the group took turns to be watchman, with Gabi being the last so she could check up on Ephrael when she woke up.
Feeling the warm sunshine on his face, Gareeku came to, opening his eyes and observing the beautiful scene of the countryside before him with a soft smile on his face. Most people knew the wolf as a fierce warrior adventurer, yet there was also soft side to himl believe it or not.
After a couple of minutes observing the scene before him, Gareeku was fully awake, and so rose to his feet to check up on the others. By this time, Ephrael was awake and was being checked by Gabi. Walking over to the two, Gareeku knelt down and smiled.
"Good morning you two...how did you sleep?" Gareeku asked them both.

[Paladin Sheppard]

After waking up just after dawn, Ephrael watched as Gabi worked on her ankle. When Gareeku walked over she blushed slightly as he crouched down. "I..I slept ok thank you Gareeku. I'm r..realy sorry I fell on you yesterday." Her cheeks now flushed bright red, Eph wished she'd just melt into the ground.

[Gabi]

Gabi smiled. "Good morning to you," she replied. "It was a calm night. It was good to get some rest after everything that happened yesterday."

She finished examining Ephrael's ankle and concluded that it was healing well.

"Good news," she told Ephrael. "Your ankle's responding well. I should be able to finish sealing your bones now. Are you ready?"

[Paladin Sheppard]

Thankful that Gabi said that her ankle would be fine, Ephrael nodded for vixen to go ahead.

[Gabi]

Gabi concentrated as she felt Ephrael's ankle and allowed the magic to work. After a few minutes, she looked up at her patient and smiled.

"That should do it," she announced. "Just don't put too much pressure on it for the next few days, and try to watch your step. I wouldn't recommend climbing more trees for now."

[Gareeku]

Noticing Ephrael's mannerisms and apology, Gareeku smiled.
"Hehe, don't worry about it." the wolf replied with a slight laugh. The other members of the group would probably have noticed his sudden change of attitude from the night before. While he had been taking his turn as watchman, he had been thinking about what Blaze had said to him, and concluded that the squirrel was right.
Hearing Gabi's words, Gareeku thought for a few seconds, before getting up and heading to a nearby tree. Cutting off a pair of sizable branches with his sword, the wolf then used his blade to carve a pair of crude-looking crutches. While they weren't the most attractive things in the world, they would be able to support Ephrael's weight with no problems.
"Here, i made you these if you're not up to walking properly yet," Gareeku said with a smile, "but you don't have to use them if you don't want to."

[Tapewolf]

Jay woke up.  Unlike Beings and to a lesser extent demons, it wasn't necessary for him to sleep in order to stay alive, but it did reduce his energy needs and besides it was necessary that he at least appeared to sleep in order to maintain his disguise.

"Another day," he said.  "I hope it proves less stressful than yesterday.  I suppose we had better take stock of our supplies.  How far is it to the temple, anyway?"

[Paladin Sheppard]

Taking one of the offered crutches, Ephrael squeeked out a "thankyouverymuch" as she huged it to her chest.

After packing her blanket back in her bag, she fiddled with her lucky bracelet as she watched the others pack up and take stock.

[Gareeku]

Hearing the girl's thank you, Gareeku smiled, before turning to read the map.
"Hmmmm...it says here that the oracle's temple it about a day's walk from here," Gareeku said, pointing to the trail which the map displayed, "It could be dangerous along this trail. I recognise it as the "Devil's Path". Not a very reassuring name for it i know, but it seems that its the only way to get to this temple."

Having found this out, Gareeku wasn't looking forward to the times ahead. The "Devil's Path" was famed for the ruthless bandits who often lurking along it. Even though the group was a relatively powerful one, the wolf was still annoyed that it seemed to be the only path to take.