The Clockwork Mansion

The Blue. That's what they called it, the residents of Arrien, a town somwhere a bit northwest of somwhere in Furrae. It was actually called Caerule Atri, or just House Caeruleus. Up until a hundred and fifty years ago or so, it had been the main residence for the Caerule family, but since a tragedy, or the Tragedy as the townfolk liked to label it, its inhabitants had moved out one by one, and the Blue had been left empty and desolate.
   It was a strange thing, really, the history of the place. The Caerules had not been unfriendly or secretive, but nor had they been open about their dealings. The families that remembered them knew that they had lived much like the castle that their house admittedly was, on a cliff off and away from prying eyes. There had been rumors that they had angel blood in the lineage. Some could recall regal faces, stately appearances and events, a few mayors of the town from the family and how sometimes people used to talk about an institute or a school somwhere off and whatnot. Somehow though, the family members had begun dying, one by one. The ones who had not had moved to other places, taking new names or old ones from other family connections. The castle itself had simply never been mentioned after a certain point in the family annals, and it seemed that the whole deal with inheritance and rights had been quieted down afterwards.
   Most of the townspeople did not mind the history of the place though. Nor did they mind the castle, since it lay far off, barely visible from the outskirts of the town through forest and over hills and past a lake. There was a time when its tall blue-roofed spires that stretched for the sky and decorated halls had attracted historians and adventurers, but that had somehow passed too. Nowaday most people did not pay it any thought, but there had also been a time when stories had passed around, stories of horror and mystery that surrounded the place, about how the Caerules had moved away because they had been cursed or unleashed some evil that had claimed much of their family before they escaped. Stories and accounts of how those who actually went to investigate the castle didn't come back. No one spoke of them anymore, but they were recorded by historians and remembered by knowers anyhow. The fact that the castle still stood without showing many signs of age or abandon either many saw as testimony to the truth of these tales.
   The Caerules had not been poor, not in comparison to other noble families or even royal blood. They had been wealthy both in money and knowledge. And though the townspeople had learned long since not to venture too close to the castle, some others did not heed the warnings put in text and carried by voice. They dared to head for its grounds and rooms, seeking something. Treasures, tales, knowledge...
   A group of people who dared were, in fact, making their way toward it right then.

   The house was a castle, really. There was no denying it. Its main part had four tall floors, its central column seven, and it had both towers and spires that reached tall in front of the mountains that it was set against as it stood on a cliff only a stone's throw away from a large lake that reached around the hills behind and out for the sea. Its empty, dark windows and blue roofs reflected the evening sun, gold ornamentations still shining with a bit of lustre, and its white, blue and black fasade of smooth stone was all but intact, and looming with a sort of dark, imposing aura to it, giving off that sensation of power and weight that only such things can. All in all, as it towered in the distance, it was easy to imagine it as the scene for all those stories that they had heard of.

Jeremiah was a frog. Not a bullfrog, as most joked. Merely a normal, green, frog. Being by species. Many things about the young man could be described badly, such as "dressed," "kept," "inattentive," and "in need of a haircut." Indeed, he was constantly blowing tufts of it out of his face. He wore dark blue jeans, a tweed coat, a black fishing hat, glasses, a black hoodie, and a tye-die t-shirt. He strolled up to the castle and knocked on the door, twice. He'd come a long way, and rather hoped that whoever was inside would let him stay the night.
"Hello to The Castle! Hello?"

...Now that's impressive.

Upon the pathway to the gargantuan castle, a figure had paused along the route while catching sight of the towers rising majestically from its place on the hill.  It was definitely like something out of the stories she had heard in her travels, a most beautiful but almost haunting sight.  The figure, whose head was hidden and draped in the shadows of a crimson hooded cape, set eyes of the same color gazing at the remarkable building before she started walking towards it.

The adventurer's snaking black tail swished idly from beneath the folds of her cloak, a ring the color of emerald worn upon it.  She paused at a crossroads to the path, a hand pulling the cowl back to reveal her face, that of a young black jaguar clad in loose and comfortable navy-blue attire.  From the black belt about her waist, one could see a weapon or two shimmering from being hidden inside the cloak.  She thought that she had heard voices...perhaps others coming to investigate the stories?  Or searching for treasure?

The huntress smirked and pulled the cowl over her face again, walking around the path that she presumed led to the front gates.  Hm.  Always more interesting with more people, eh chica?  Maybe some will be familiar.

Hm...interesting looking place...

Standing on the path leading to the house in the distance, a figure shrouded in a brown hooded cloak looked on with a calm expression, though the figure's face was hidden underneath the shadow of the hood. For days the figure had been walking the lands, hearing tales of a house which held quite a history. With curiosity getting the better of him, the figure had decided to investigate.

A while later, the wolf had arrived at the front gate of the mansion, looking up at its blue spires with a slight smirk on its lupine mouth.
"Hmm." he mused as he thought he could hear voices...

As was his usual wont, Cogidubnus Mithlome was walking alone along some dusty, deserted path. The denizens of the city he had passed through had mentioned that there was a castle where no one lived any longer, some long-forgotten and abandoned mansion where old things and old blood lingered still. "Time eaten towers that tremble not!" Cog said, grinning and watching the long dappled grass sway along the road. He could see the place from where he stood, and the sight and scents of several others as well. He was somewhat surprised that any others would have made their way to such an out-of-the way locale, but no matter. The gates of the castle were still open, and the place certainly looked large enough to accommodate many people. He stopped in front of the portcullis of the grand place and introduced himself to the other standing there, resting his hand on his sword and tipping his hat to the strangely dressed gentleman. "Cogidubnus Mithlome, good sir. You too are planning on staying the night in this old place?"

At a point somewhere down the path a small white dragon appeared as if from nowhere. She looked at the castle, then to a piece of paper she was holding, then back to the castle. With a nod as if she was satisfied with what she saw she put the paper away and began walking up the path. She hadn't gone many steps when the sounds of other people alerted her that she wasn't alone. Between one step and the next the white dragon turned into a snow leopard. A young, modestly dressed snow leopard with only the faintest of spots on her white fur.

Mel smiled to herself, people were always an advantage on these adventures. She wasn't good at the physical stuff and anyone coming here was probably an adventurer who would be more than happy to take care of that sort of thing.

The tall, blue and square-studded doors of the main entry into the castle remained still and silent, just like the rest of it. Only a chill wind responded to the frog's calls, as it played across the entry yard and drew up some leaves from the trees there, dancing in a short display of autumn browns and reds. Above them, empty windows gazed down, hollow and dark like empty eyesockets, somehow regarding them with disdain.

"I would, if whoever was in here would open up," Jeremiah replied, glaring up at the building as if it were responsible for his inconvenience on purpose, "Worked at a few other places I stopped at, and nobles attempting to look charitable are cheaper than hotels," he held out one hand and gave a friendly smile, "Nice to meet ya, Mr...?"

As the house loomed closer into view, the panther's head seemed to continually rise just so that she could take in the size of the place.  It was intimidating and yet discarded, an ancient place that loomed and looked like it could stand another hundred years of nature's punishments.  It looked and felt to have a feeling of its own, looking down upon the traveler--or travelers, as she soon found out--walking up to the gigantic front gates.

Looking through the bars, her eyes fell on the two figures standing in front of the doors on the inside.  They don't look like adventurers much...but then, appearances are deceiving.  Turning her head, her eyes then fell on the cowled figure standing in front of the gate, in her path...a familiar one.  She smirked briefly.

"There's more than one adventurer looking into this place, I see." her deep voice laughed in a slight Hispanic-like accent as she pulled back the hood of her cloak.  "Might have some competition."

"Hmmmm..." the figure mused audibly as he found the main gates to be locked, his brown hooded cloak being carried slightly by the gentle breeze. Just about to set off around the perimeter to look for another entrance, the figure stopped as he heard a voice. Turning his head, he saw another cloaked figure; their one a crimson colour instead of brown. The figure smirked under his hood; he knew that voice.

Watching the pantheress remove her hood as she spoke, the figure chuckled.
"Curiosity often gets the better of me..." the figure replied, a warm smile on his face as he removed his hood to reveal himself; the wandering adventurer, Gareeku Manoko. "It's wonderful to see you again, Aisha."

As if to greet them, the wind blew again, howling through the gate into the entry yard and throwing up more leaves that stuck with damp against their clothes. The amber light of sunset was falling from outside now, the sun having dropped to behind the nearest building from where the entry was.
   As the wind passed them, there was a small clatter from around the corner.

Cog raised and eyebrow and gave a half-smile. "Mithlome. Cogidubnus Mithlome. Yours?" he asked, shaking the frogs hand.
As he waited for an answer, he tried the lock on the door, to no avail. "If your hoping to have someone come to the door, I'm afraid that's not possible. The locals tell me this place was abandoned years ago." He said, pressing firmly on the handle. The latch was loose, and like would give with a good push. "So if you're looking for some rest, I'd say the best option would be to let yourself in..." he said, about to try and force it when he heard a noise from around the corner. He was fairly certain that the others he had seen were still behind him, but he shrugged and let the door be. He motioned to the frog. "Did you see anybody walk back there? Maybe someone does live here..." he said, walking round the corner.

Epyon yarned and stretched. He was tired not that that was new. He had been walking for a while yet and he need a place to rest and pick up information for a few days.  He brought his right arm to his face and flex his fines on my one. He could still move them though he was not happy with the motion. Three years. It had been three long years that he had searched and gained nothing.
He though about it. Had it really been only 3 years? It had felt like an eternity. Here he was down to his last and grasping at straws. He even came here on a rumor that a family in the town had great knowledge but would it help him? he could only hope so. He approached the front entrance only to find it locked. Yet he was sure that he's been told that people were seen here in the past few days. And ever it they weren't maybe he could find an liberty were the information he sought could be found. He had lived his nightmare for 3 years and felt he could take it no longer. He would not let a mere locked entrance bar him. As he searched along the walls he found that there was a smaller side entry that was not locked.   He paused. Was this right? Maybe, maybe not but for not he would forge on and if he found some one already within so be it. With determination and a push he opened the door and entered the castle.

As Mel cleared a small dip in the path she finally caught sight of her fellow explorers. Two on this side of the main gates and two on the opposite. She wondered if it was one group split or if she found herself between competing pairs of treasure hunters. She shrugged, only one way to find out what people were up to. With a deliberately heavy step so as not to startle any hairtriggered members of the group she moved closer. "Good afternoon," she called out.

Belatedly she realized she had forgotten to add a cloak to her new wardrobe. She always did. Hopefully no one was too nosy about why she was wandering about in the woods without proper outerwear.

With a smile back, the panther bowed in greeting to the wolf.  "Likewise as always, Gareeku."  Lifting her head again, she laughed at his comment about curiosity, before quirking an ear to where the wind and the noises that had followed.  She observed the locked gate, but just to be sure, grasped one of the bars and gave it a firm shake, which as suspected didn't yield.  She heard more coming, saw the other two individuals in front of the castle.

The sun out of their view, she gazed upon the spires, thinking that with the night coming soon, the house would have to do for shelter anyway.  "I guess we'll just have to let curiosity take us in, then," Aisha said, a grin on her face.  A night in a haunted house.  Excitement abounds.

"Think there's another way around...?" she had started to ask, before another voice caught their attention.  She spotted the light-colored feline coming up.  "Ah, good afternoon," she nodded.  "Another explorer, I take it?"  Aisha inquired, though the other's clothing didn't look it...she figured anyone bold enough to look into this house after hearing the stories were.

Around the corner was another metal-studded blue door, much smaller than the main pair but tall nevertheless. The handle of it clacked as it was pushed open, admitting them into a small sidechamber to the entry hall.
   The architecture had once been gothic, there was no mistaking that. And with the fine blue tapestries that still hung somewhat disorderedly around one might have mistaken it for such, had it not been for the few telltale signs and the new form of the place that told it had been renovated first through renaissance and then romantic styles. The entry hall was empty, like the courtyard, a two-storied room with a stairway leading up and doors behind and under it on both sides, and a sort of balcony leading around the second floor. An engoldened chandelier hung from the ceiling, half-burned candles still sitting in their places, and similarly designed candleholders around hung the walls equally unlit. The whole of the room was still, but did not smell stale even though it was a bit dusty, proving that the ventilation had to be in order still.
   Behind an open door, one could just see a larger hall and beyond another an entryway into a long corridor.

Mel nodded to the two in front of her. "Less an adventurer than a collector of stories. Melisande White, generally known as Mel. I understand this is a place just full to the rafters with stories." She looked through the gate to see another wolf and a frog. "Has the rest of your party found it's way inside?"

Grinning at Aisha's comment, Gareeku chuckled.
"Couldn't agree with you more." the wolf replied with a warm smile. It was then, however, that he heard another voice. Turning round, the wolf saw another feline approaching.
"Good afternoon." the wolf said in greeting with a nod of his head. Listening to the others speak, Gareeku smiled as Melissa introduced herself.

"I am Gareeku Manoko. A pleasure, ma'am." the wolf said with a polite bow, before turning back towards the house. "I actually have no idea who they are. But judging from their location, my guess is that there must be another side entrance somewhere."
A couple of minutes later, Gareeku had arrived at another gate after walking around the perimeter, presuming that Aisha and Mel had followed. Noticing it was open, the wolf walked through into the front yard of the large house.

As Mel introduced herself, the huntress nodded back to her with a polite smile.  "Nice to meet you.  I'm Aisha deCabre...but friends just call me Aisha."  She followed her gaze through the bars again, thoughtfully quirking an eyebrow in agreement with Gareeku.  "If they're anywhere, they must be inside by now."

After taking just a quick pause to gaze once more at the outside of the castle, the panthress turned to follow Gareeku, motioning for Mel to follow if she so wanted, away from the large main gate and around the side, leading to the passage that was open.  Passing through it and into the yard, the gate made a rusted, creaking noise as she pushed on it, echoing faintly over the untended grass.  Along with the sounds of the wind, it was an ominous welcome.

The front yard seemed to spread far into the horizon beyond the house, it was so large...though without the gates, none could tell it was even a yard...the somewhat grass was carved into a path while walking through it.  Their eyes settled upon the azure-colored door that marked the side entryway.  She could already hear someone else exporing on the other side...just barely.  Heh, here goes nothing.

"Abandoned! Even better!" Jeremiah's grin grew yet wider, "Jeremiah Ac'Gregor, at your service. Heh, nobody home... Much better..." And if the place is in fact so old, then there may be, say, old books. And these hypothetical old books could contain hints as to my Condition, that- Unfortunatly, this bout of introspection and foreshadowing was interrupted by a scurrying noise. Curious, he followed Cog.
"Doesn't seem like the sort of place that would attract squatters. I mean, if it's so old, there probably isn't any lighting or whathaveyou," he followed Cog closely; this place was worrying, and he was no fighter. A combination of a horrible allergy insofar as pain was concerned and other circumstances.

The dark, empty windows continued watching, somehow growing more intent as they made their way closer to the entry into the side hall. The panthress pushed the door open...
   A raging gust of wind swept by for just a second. It tore the cape off the black feline's shoulders somehow, and similarily it swept off Cogidubnus' hat, flinging them about. It only lasted a moment but it was so strong, rustling through their clothes and chilling them deep, pulling back cowls and tugging at jackets as if it wanted to unveil or expose them, bare them before its gaze and leave them vulnerable.
   The wind went away. It had only lasted but a moment, but that moment had seemed very long. And as it drew away, and the door slowly leaned in, it was almost as if they could hear a voice, just for the tiniest moment, drawing out into a low, hissing whisper.
   On the edge of the sky, far, far away, clouds began rolling in, dreadfully slowly and inevitably moving for them.

As the three of them entered through the side gate, Gareeku looked up at the forboding building in front of them. The wind had picked up slightly, creating an eerie whistling noise as it swept around the building's spires. The area was silent save for the whistling and the rustling leaves; a most unwelcome reception the group seemed to be getting from the house itself.

Following Aisha up to the side door, the wolf looked into the darkness in front of them with narrowed eyes. There was something about the place...not only did it seem forboding...it felt sinister...

Suddenly, the wolf then had to look away as sudden gust of wind swept around the group, blowing Aisha's cape from her shoulders and the hat from the other wolf's head. Reaching out a hand to swiftly catch the pantheress' cape, Gareeku looked back into the darkness, his ear's folding back slightly as a sinister hissing whisper could be heard from within. Against his better judgement, Gareeku stepped inside and into the darkness.

"What the-?" Jeremiah clamped a hand upon his own hat, turning away from the fierce winds.
"Did you hear that? A sort of whispering..." the frog looked around suspiciously, as if expecting to be set upon by the very stones making up the castle walls, "Random whispering never bodes well."

Aisha listened carefully in the almost foreboding quiet before opening the door, though when the wind came she barely heard it open at all.  She released a surprised grunt and closed her eyes against the gust, pinning her ears back against her skull.  She hadn't felt that the cape had flown off until her arms crossed and hands came up over her shoulders, feeling just her shirt pinned against the skin from the harsh element.

"Gr," she growled silently and opened an eye to look into the darkness, her eyes trying to adjust to it.  As it finally died down, there was a slight chill down her spine.  It was like a warning and an invitation all at once...and yet the adventurers had every intention of crossing the threshold.  Aisha was surprised that her tail ring hadn't gone off when the wind echoed of very faint whispers...perhaps it had.  She couldn't be sure.

With a quick shudder, Aisha straightened herself.  "Thanks," she said, smiling briefly at Gar while taking her cape back and tying it back around her neck.  It was a relief to have it, though not even the long cloak could offer protection from the mental distaste felt from the insidious presence of the castle.  But Gareeku had already gone in...with a deep breath, the panthress followed into the dark.

"Creepy," she muttered, crimson shadow-bound eyes roaming around the gigantic chamber and taking in many of the fine and once-fine details while listening for anything or anyone else besides themselves.

Epyon looked around and gave a low withers. this inside as as impress as the outside and even more foreboding. though he had not taken more then a few dozen steps inside he felt a chill.  The place felt ominous.  he he looked he shivered a bit as he remembers what brought him him. for a moment his had goes to his old wound. It is merely a reflex as the wound had been healed for years yet he sometimes imagines that it is festers and swears that he can smell rot come form it. shaking his head to clear his thoughts Epyon looks out of a window.  

He could see see the clouds begin rolling in. they were moving with a  dreadfully slowly seemingly deliberate pace.  He could feel that they were inevitably moving for the castle like  some kind of creeping floating omens.  " perhaps i should mother further into this castle and look for a place to weather the night" he said to himself.  He sighed. he was talking to himself and he knew that, that was a bad sign.

There were paintings on the walls too, you saw. And now that the rosy light from outside was dimming in the windows the oily canvas of them cast those kinds of shimmering reflections that only masterful oil paintings can, enhancing the sfumatos and effects of the images themselves. Upstairs, hanging in front of the marble stairway was one such masterful piece. In it, a saint feline of some sort swathed in blue cloth was walking down the dark midship of some large cathedral, shadows hinting at the edges but the stained glass windows in the background still admitting some light in to play around the feline character's head, joining its gloria. The marble floor of the entry hall, though dust-strewn, still had a sort of shimmer to it as it played back the light that came from windows on the sides of the main entry door, enhancing the effects.
   Altogether, it would have made for an even pleasant setting, despite the oncoming darkness, had it not been for the blood that had been dragged and smeared across the floor in front of the doors, and the sword driven through its bars to lock it.

Mel scurried quickly after Aisha and Gareeku as they passed through the door, unwilling to lose sight of them. Even the wind was beyond normal here. It took her eyes a frightening blinded moment to adjust to the relative darkness of the indoors. She first assessed the unintroduced strangers. The wolf and frog she had caught sight of outside and another person of unidentifiable race. Since they didn't seem immediately threatening she took in the rest of her surroundings.

Her actual age being older than the building Mel quickly picked out the authentic architecture from the altered. Whoever originally built the place had good taste. And a lot of magic, there was so much magic laced into the fabric of the structure that she had a hard time separating it out. Each generation must have added to the magic as they added to the building. She felt slightly breathless from the press of it.

She smiled at the others and introduced herself. "Hi, I'm Mel. Been here long?" But she didn't listen to the answer as her eyes fell into the larger entry and the evidence of violence. She just stared.

Making his way through to the main entrance hall, Gareeku looked to his side and up the stairs, observing the large painting hanging on the wall which had been revealing thanks to the dim light shining upon it.

Looking around, the wolf found the old building to be remarkably pleasant, depsite gloominess of it all. This view, however, was swept aside when Gareeku looked back at the main doors, seeing that something had been smeared on the floor and on the doors themselves.

Taking a closer look, the wolf knelt down as he observed what it was.
"Blood." he muttered, before his eyes looked up to the sword which had kept the front doors shut. Whoever had jammed it there must have wanted people to stay out, and wanted the gate to stay locked. Looks like that plan didn't work. Looking back down at the blood, Gareeku then realised something. "This blood was spilt in recent times."

Epyon having progressed into the  first large room at the end of the hall waled the the center of he room. he turned full circle. after a few moments he nodded and reached not his travel bag. after a moment he took out a few sheets of blank paper. he sat down and began to sketch a rough map of the hall and the room he was in including other entrances. then with light touch he  marked his trail into this room

Craig slowly walked towards the 'House Caeruleus'.  He had finally hit pay dirt in town several days travel from Arrien.  The town's library had an old map that marked the location of the Castle. With nothing else to go on he decided to chance it.  After all, who knows what secrets this place holds? 
Plus, if Gal'Carth was right, his journey out here would be validated.  Clouds were moving inexorably towards the castle however, and he had no desire to be drenched.  Some personal habits refuse to die.  The undead hurried along the path.

As he got closer to the castle he noticed the entrance was open.  It could mean that it wasn't as abandoned as previously clamed.  He avoided using up his magical energy in town by simply avoiding it.

He prayed that the inside was already lit and cast Appearance of the living.
His glowing yellow eyes dimmed and turned a yellowish green in the twilight, and the patched spot of fur on his muzzle became thicker and less sickly looking.  It was all an illusion of course, but it had saved his un-life many times over.

With that he walked through the main gates and into the entry yard.

Cog stared for a moment at the interior of the place, the dark interior and the oil paintings making him pause. They were works of true art, beauteous to behold, and stained glass is always hard-wrought. He recognized a few of the scenes, some of ancient mythos, others of strangely serene things, much as one would find anywhere else.
Cog reflexively put up a hand to the wind, and his face darkened when his hat was blown off. He retrieved it, dusting it off and placing it back on his head, when he paused. There was a whisper in the wind, faint and low, but there it was. It was strange, haunting...he settled his hat on his head and returned inside.
As he returned into the building, he noticed that he had been joined by several others. "Damn wind..." he said, lamenting the distance it had been thrown. A wolf, a panthress in crimson, and a white leopard. He tilted his head and addressed the company. "Greetings, all. I see we were not alone in our endeavors." He bowed. "Cogidubnus Mithlome. I was hoping on spending the night here. Who do I have the honor of addressing?" He said, walking a little further in. He nodded to Jeremiah. "It would seem there will be company, tonight. Perhaps some long-forgotten butler left some wine out somewhere..."
As he walked, his nose twitched. The place had an odd smell...he could almost swear the place still smelled of smoke and ink, in places. He noticed the wolf examining a patch of blood on the wall, so he dismissed that scent as background. Still...

Aisha's eyes upon getting used to the darkness of the house's interior had fallen first upon the paintings.  There was a slight smile given, looking at the masterpieces...paintings that old, she wondered why someone hadn't come to claim them yet.  But then she followed Gareeku's gaze and grimaced in surprise at what was spread around the front doors.  There was a slight cringe on hearing that it was also recent.  She was happy at least that the others were talking, filling the silence....

She quirked an ear at another addressing the company, and turned to Cog, bowing her head.  "Aisha deCabre.  Pleasure to meet you," she added with a smile, just a little glad to have her gaze taken away from the morbidity tainting the otherwise serene entrance hall.  After introducing herself though, she walked over and observed the scene a little more closely, even looking at the sword jammed through the bars.  She wondered if it was possible to even move the thing from out of its resting place.

"Well, that's one way to say 'stay out', sí?" The panthress said, wondering if they should be more cautious.

Still sticking close to Cog, Jeremiah gave a jump at the gory scene.
"J-Jeremiah..." He stammered out, otherwise clever introductions escaping him, "Recent, y'say? That's... Well, that's a damn effective way of saying get out's what it is," taking note of the paintings, the frog took advantage of the opportunity to distract himself. Try as he might, he couldn't keep his thoughts from drifting to what this meant. Something I could use, or that would make my life yet worse? Curiouser and curiouser...

"Gareeku Manoko. Nice to meet you." the wolf replied, turning to look at Cogi and nod his head in greeting before turning back to the blood. Listening to what Jeremiah said, the wolf stood up and faced the others.
"The one responsible for this may want us to leave, but I'm not leaving until I get to the bottom of what's going on." Gareeku replied flatly.

The last of the light outside began to wane, and soon the room would be left in darkness. Nightfall wasn't quicker now that it was long into autumn, but it came faster and was more of a change in a way. The reflections that played in the hall windows from outside had dissappeared as he walked into the courtyard and around from where the light could still angle toward him. The main gates would of course prove locked, but from the way the main part of the building, leading into the long hall, stood out into the courtyard there had to be side entries.
   Inside, the change in lighting was more palpable in a way. Castles weren't known for being bright unless lit by lamps, and inside the candles were all snuffed out long since. They could all feel it as the shadows lengthened and closed in, darkness preparing to wrap them up in a tight embrace. For a second there was a bit of a howling sound, but then they realized that it was just the wind blowing through the tower above.

Aisha kept her eyes on the smears of blood for a little while longer, her nose turned up still at the lingering stench of the dried entrails.  Her eyes idly followed the trail that it had made across the floor, leading into another part of the castle.  She had to suppress a light shudder...it was becoming more like a murder mystery than anything.  But it wasn't much less than expected, with the stories of this place.  Any treasure they found wouldn't be worth more than the information they would take as well.

She looked up to the frog upon hearing him speak, nodding her head in greeting to him as well, but also in agreement, his words pretty much an echo of hers.  She stood and observed the rest of the house, wondering just how many surprises were in store for the adventurers.  So many rooms, so many ways to go...though so far Aisha wasn't comfortable with the notion of splitting up just yet.  With the gathering gloom outside and the shadows of the inside lengthening, slow and deliberate as snakes, it was best to probably stop lingering.

"Gareeku's right," the panther replied, a hand kept on her weapons belt out of caution.  "I'm going to follow the blood.  It's the first lead to take advantage of."  She took a breath and took a step that way, pausing to see if anyone else was coming that way too.  Talk about red carpet greetings...

Looking back up from the blood on the floor, Gareeku glanced out of the windows next to the front door, frowning somewhat as he could see the clouds rolling in in an almost threatening matter. Something about this place was off...almost...supernatural...

Hearing the sudden howling, the wolf's head suddenly shot up as he looked to where the howl can come from, but then relaxed as he realised it was just the wind in the tower. Realising his heart was beating quite fast, Gareeku took a moment to force himself to relax. The place also seemed to be getting darker, this only adding to the sinister atmosphere the castle already possessed.

Looking back down at the blood on the floor, Gareeku held up his hand, where a small yet bright flame of light magic formed, illuminating the immediate surroundings around the wolf. It was then, however, that in the light of the flame, Gareeku look see that the dried blood on the floor was in fact a trail, leading off to a door opposite the one they had come through to enter the entrance hall.

Narrowing his eyes, Gareeku followed the trail along the floor. Hesitating slightly, the wolf then grasped the handle, and slowly opened the door...

The corridor that lay beyond was, as one could expect, dark. As it was on the bottom floor to the entry side, it had no windows, and the light that was cast from the wolf's flame was somehow swallowed up easily by the far end of it, not managing to illumine the passage fully. Doors hinted to the sides, doors that probably held storage rooms or led to side halls. Along the wall and between the doors hung candleholders quite like those in the main hall.
   As he walked through the hallway, the light over his palm, Gareeku began to see at least some light around an upcoming half-corner, in hues of blue and dark red, though still very dim. It would seem that he was walking toward the side of the castle and that he was coming up to the part facing out on the other side of the veritable cliff that it stood on. If he were to look out...
   From out of the windows, one had a clear view of the mountains that towered in the distance beyond the castle. Down below was a long drop, at least two hundred metres and surely more, a steep such that while it held some trees was still too steep and too rocky for most to make their way up easily. The last of the sun reflected on the peaks in the distance, slowly falling under clouds they too. He could hear a bit of a whispering sound from outside through the windows, and from the sky and the smell, had he felt it, he could easily tell that rain was coming. Quite a lot, in fact.
   Then, he noticed something. The light here had kept him from noticing even though he had naturally looked around the corner first, and not seen it then. But it was there now. Another light. Not from the windows, but from candles. Candles that had not been lit not a minute ago.

As he walked along the corridor, Gareeku looked out of the windows and saw the steep drop.
No escaping through these windows then... he thought to himself with a slight smirk. He could hear those whispers again. They were faint, but they were definitely there.

Narrowing his eyes, the wolf then turned back to wear he was walking and saw the dim light up ahead. The light given off by candles. Narrowing his eyes once more, the wolf made his way towards it. It seemed, at least, that they were not alone.

After a while of walking, following Gareeku as his flame lit the passage just well enough, Aisha stopped staring at the trail of blood and kept her eyes ahead in the gloom.  She would be relieved to finally come to the end of the windowless corridor, feeling like she was walking in a dungeon rather than aboveground.  But there was a bit more light ahead, and therefore a bit more comfort...not a lot, but some.

Once the windows came into view, her steps paused slowly and carefully while she glanced out of them, only to have her eyes widen a bit.  The view was impressive.  Mighty and intimidating, especially when one noticed just how far a drop it had.  The gathering clouds made the scene dark and ominous, otherwise...another good point to count, they would be out of the rain.

She turned her head back ahead though, listening to the whispers as they came closer.  The flickering candlelight was as much a curiosity.  So they weren't alone, perhaps...she hoped the party was prepared for whoever they ran into, stepping in from the passageway with deliberate, quiet footsteps, watching as Gareeku came upon a door and cautiously pushed it open...

The inside led to yet another corridor, one that crossed the previous precisely perpendicularly. It too  had doors in it, but it was broader and taller in roof, and the side held a large arch-vaulted window. Over some way to the right, the wall turned in and away from their view, and they saw a warm light coming from there that obviously had to originate from more candles. The room beyond had to be properly lit...

   Back in the entry hall, things were still and dark, the windows almost black by now from the sun having finally escaped completely. The tall roof loomed over them, empty balconies and that large stairway almost beckoning to be explored, and yet at the same time seeming so distant, so vast.
   There was a small creak from above, calling their attention. It was just a sound, and it had not been loud. Yet, it looked as if the large chandelier up above was moving now, just swinging back and forth a tiny bit, when it should have been completely still.
   And while their attention was turned up, from one of the open double doors on each side of the stairs came a very faint clattering sound, from somwhere in the hall beyond...

Jeremiah was panicking. It was probably the creaking that did it.
"GYAHAH!" shaking like a leaf, he jumped a good five feet into the air and back down when he heard the clattering, "The crap!?" He cast a quick illusion (one of the few types of spell he was able to cast) of an oversized firefly, giving him some light to see by, "I-I get the distinct imp-p-pression that we should p-probably catch up with the nice, armed adventurors." Aw hell, now all I need is for my curse to start acting up and I am officially dead. Marvellous.

As the other two examined the strange lights, Cog busied himself by examining the sword plunged into the door. It was odd – the sword was very obviously old. The wood in the handle had that dark sheen that only came with very exotic woods, or a long time of regular application of oil. Yet the blade was well-kept – there were no signs of rust on it. He adjusted his hat, and was about to reach for it when the chandelier creaked.
   He stood quickly and peered into the darkness above, and jerked a bit when the something in the ground floor hall clattered. He grimanced.
   "I do not think we are alone, gentlemen." he said, putting a hand inside his jacket. "Perhaps we should see what that was, before we are bereft of all sunlight." he said, fishing a silver pendant from out his jacket and looping it about his neck. He glowed for a moment, the air around him seeming to writhe, and then fade and still. He placed a hand on his sword and walked slowly towards the hall, long shadows draping his path and flowing over him.

Aisha peered further into the gloom, following the flickering light of the candles ahead as if they were hypnotizing the adventurers following it.  The panthress looked behind her, listening for anyone else...but it seems she and Gareeku were the only ones to have come following the trail of blood.  "So what do you think, amigo?" the panther whispered, breaking the silence only briefly while following the wolf and the light that he provided himself.  "Think we're brave, or crazy?"

Maybe a bit of both... she thought to herself upon coming up to another corridor, broader and with more room and presence.  Her gaze again wandered over the impressive architecture of the place, the window showing another darkened view.  The doors she pondered over...in fact, every door they passed became a curiosity, each step another toward a mystery, each moment a passing luxury in wait for the fate that might just await them.

She stepped up ahead when they approached the stronger candlelight, narrowing her eyes and looking briefly back at Gareeku.  The next room seemed to be bright enough, but she was hesitant whether or not to just open the door or knock first, if they came to a door.  Hrmph...it's an abandoned castle...supposed to be.  She stepped across the invisible threshold that the light made.

It was a chapel. And not a small such. In fact, from her viewpoint right before the hallway opened up into a pair of thick and ornamented open doors under an arch, Aisha could look surely a hundred metres down the midship, down toward the open podium, an altar before it, and behind it the enormous and tall rear wall, arched windows of exquisitely stained glass rising up in almost perpendicular gothic style, a huge rose of it crowning its magnificent image, depicting some sort of white figure against darkness to the left side and an angel against fire on the right. From the roof hung a huge chandelier, in the shape of a crucifix turned on its head. And it, like the rest of the chapel, bathed in the low, warm glow of dozens of candles, mixed with the last of the sunlight that trickled in through the glass of the back and from equally fine arched windows surrounded by columns to the sides.
   Behind the podium, you could recognize the symbol of Iustitia, Lady Justice, a statue of a blind woman holding a set of scales from a long chain. Her other hand was holding a long sword of some kind, and her sculpted eyes were dark in the distance.

   The room beyond the stairs proved empty, just another crossing hall with tables and old satin-lined chairs made as a conversation and passing room. Yet, doors were opened to its back as well, a single main pair leading into a long round hall of some kind, Cogidubnus could see. From the side windows one could catch the last whispers of sunlight before the glowing orb settled in the distance.

Seeing Cog leaving him alone in the entrance hall, Jeremiah rushed to catch up with him, jumping at creaks and clatters as he went.
"Warn a guy, huh? Civilian here!" He looked about nervously, "I don't have a big scary sword or years of experience stopping me from suddenly and irrevercibly becoming quite dead, unlike you lot," He looked around and shuddered, directing the illusionary firefly this way and that as other creepy noises reached his ears, "You look like this is your element; what in the sparkley blue hell's going on?"

 Cog narrowed an eye from behind his shades, and removed the lenses from his eyes. The sun had set, and it was far too dark to see with them on. His yellow eyes scanned the room for some sign of the noise - it was empty, silent. And dark. Even to his eyes.
But not completely. The doors to another room were left open, though he could not catch the scent of anything new in the air. He reached into his jacket again, and brought out another charm, an amazingly crafted peice of silver, depicting the moon broken into dozens of pieces, all intricately connected together, seemingly without a matrix to hold them. It was one of his more favored items.
"Lupus in fabulae - lusus naturae. Lux Kyrie!" He said, invoking the item's magic. White light seemed to slowly trickle out from it, growing and illuminating the room. It's presence seemed virulent to the shadows - it lit every part of the room, the corners, the ceiling, even the shadows behind the furniture alighting, though the light from the charm was small. As he did so, he noticed another light in the room - the firefly the frog had conjured. He turned and was surprised to find the frog had followed him - he hadn't pegged that one as the adventuring type. Despite his wariness, he grinned. "If there is something here, I'll eat my hat if swords can kill it. This place is old. Whatever lives here has likely seen a lot of swords." he said, patting his own. "Of course, it's not the blade, it's how you weild it, yes?" he said, chuckling a bit. "As far as what' going on? Maybe nothing. Maybe there's just someone else who thought this might be a nice place to spend the night." He frowned. "Or maybe not. Whatever it is, it's unlikely I could sleep until I find out what anyway. The night is lon, and we have time to look."
Holding his charm out in front of him, he crossed the floor and entered the adjoining room.

Mel was the last to notice the encroachment of the darkness, her vision turned to follow the trails and wisps of magic that dominated the structure of the building once she had gotten over the shock of seeing the blood. Checking to see if a defensive spell might have been tripped. When her attention returned she realized she was alone. "Pay attention, stupid. Now where did everyone go?" she scolded herself. She just caught the faintest glow of light disappearing down a hallway so she hurried after it. As she went she pulled a couple objects from her pouch. A silver object, about the size and shape of a small handmirror if the mirror was missing and a faceted ball that looked like it might have fallen off a large chandelier. A quick spell and the ball began shimmering with a rainbow of light. The ball was set in the center of the open hoop of the silver object, where it floated, suspended by magic. Holding up the silver hoop by it's handle the ball cast sufficient light for Mel to at least not trip on anything. She hurried hoping to catch up to the rest of the party quickly.

When Cog stepped through the doors and through a section of broad corridor he found himself in a massive round hall, under a domed roof and with arched and vaulted clearglass windows with smithed ornamented framework three stories tall to his right. It was obviously some sort of ballroom or common, empty in the middle but with parts of the floor on the sides raised up and railed, with furniture and paintings and sculptures standing around. Another chandelier hung down from the centre of the roof, another engoldened piece, and the floor was pure white marble streaked with grey and black lines, with a rose of blue at its heart. The painting in the roof seemed to depict more angels and saints, and their important deeds through history; constructing academies, building cathedrals, waging battles, fending for people...
   Cog had time to walk in and to the side, admiring the room in its splendour in the light, before he heard a voice. It was weak, seemingly coming from everywhere at the same time, but he heard it.
   Nos servo ut quod est plurimus sanctio; testamentumi... relinquo... leave...

Jeremiah swallowed when Cog mentioned swords being of little use.
"Well, you just always look at the positive, don't you?" he followed behind closely, still feeling safer for the presence of someone with a weapon. Noticing a glow from Mel's objects approaching behind them, he jumped again and called out, "Wh-who's there?" Another illusion, this one blurring his appearance and everything within 7 feet of him, in hopes of throwing off the accuracy of anyone who decided to attack him, "Show yourself!"

Entering the chapel, Gareeku looked around and smirked a little.
"Very atmospheric." he muttered partly to himself. Looking at the statue of justice, Gareeku smirked again. "Hmmm, sometimes justice is indeed blind."
With the room bathed in the warm glow of the candles, one could easily admire the architectural beauty of the place. However, with what he had witnessed, Gareeku wasn't in the mood for admiring.

Slowly walking through the chapel, Gareeku approached the justice statue and looked up at it, in particular the eyes that were darkened in the dim light.

Epyon was awe at the size of the castle. his map was nearing the limit of his page. he had traversed several rooms and a little over 100 meters stopping ever so often to update his map and check for any sight of a library.

There was something... wrong. Wrong with the statue's eyes. A Lady Justice had her eyes swathed in cloth. This one... her eyes were merely closed. And her face was not emotionless and serene as it should have been, but dark and grim. And that sword...
   All of a sudden it was as if the rows of benches around the wolf and the panthress had been full of invisible people, who had all suddenly stood up, completely silently, and looked at them. Or as if the great organ on the elevated balcony, a piece which must have had thousands of pipes, had suddenly started playing but made no sound they could hear. The light shifted, and the place was rapt with attention. They felt as if being watched from the windows when looking to the sides, and then...
   The statue's eyes were open. They were not marble, not some stone, not a part of the statue itself, almost. They were like deep, dark, endless wells, swallowing up the light in their blackness. The statue stood perfectly still, but it looked straight at Gareeku. And then there was a voice, whispering, very, very quietly from around them, moving, until it settled behind the altar.
   Seek... me... release... I am here... seek...

   Something passed through the blurred light, right behind Jeremiah, an image trailing white and black. It made no sound, did not speak, and yet it was as if he could feel a cold breath down his neck, chilling his skin and creeping into his spine...

  Cog grimaced at the words and tied the charm on his hand onto his neck, letting it hang next to the other. He threw his hat to the ground and set his hand on his sword, his legs sweeping into a wide stance and his other hand hanging loosely at his side. The air seemed to vibrate around him, and dust in the carpet kicked up, settling in the air. He paused for a moment, straining to hear where the voice had come from, but to no avail. He could hear nothing, except for the breathing of himself and the frog in the room. He touched the moon-charm around his neck. "Transit umbra, lux permanet, ergo emitte lucem et veritatem." he said, the light from the pendant picking up in intensity, infusing his body and his sword. It wouldn't last long this way, but he figured things were about to start moving fast anyway. "Sorry Jeremiah. Just a part of the charm. Too many wizards fond of the old tongue as a trigger phrase." he said, his senses attuned to a wire-trigger. He spoke to the darkness. "I care not what you guard, and you will means little to me. Show yourself and speak." he said, trying to sound more confident than he felt.
Cog dropped his hand from his neck, and tightened his grip around his sword. Within the scabbard, the metal in the blade was glowing a hot, bright white...

Really, at this point his reaction was kind of a given.
"GYAH!" He whirled around, the effects of his spell dissolving, "Who's there? Did you see that Cogi... Cogidumbrious... Look, can I just call you Cog? Look, there's something else in here!" He kept looking left and right, his fingers flexing and unflexing (for a spellcaster, an action much like checking the ammo in a shotgun). He turned again, searching, "Guards? What are you talking about, Cog?"
You could ask for our help, you know.
We could aid you.
All we want to do...
You really can't look after yourself. So frail.
Just do as we... He pointedly ignored the voices. The last thing he needed was for his Condition to be acting up again. It was bad enough that his curse leached at his own magical reserves to maintain itself, leaving him only powerful enough to cast spells of illusionary, hypnotic, or otherwise mental nature, but it had to talk too!?

As he approached the statue, the wolf's eyes widened with surprise as he gazed at its eyes. Normally, a stature of justice had its eyes covered by wrapping. Not this one, however. This one only had its eyes shut. Something was very wrong...

Suddenly, Gareeku whirled around, his eyes darting around the room and at the windows. It felt like he was being watched, as if dozens of invisible eyes were transfixed upon him. Turning back to the statue, Gareeku jumped back to find its eyes...they were open.

Staring into the voids of darkness on the statue's face, the wolf felt a shiver going up and down his spine as he heard the whispering voice. Breathing slightly faster, the wolf could feel his heart racing. He was feeling fear.

Aisha had allowed Gareeku to walk into the chapel before her, standing awestruck at the surroundings.  Through the almost welcoming presence of the doors, her gaze swept up to the high point of the ceiling...the chandelier...and fell on the architecture...the intricate design of the stained-glass windows and of the angels...the rows and rows of benches...had it been fixed up a little, she felt as if it could still be used by the believers.  Still hallowed.  The candles seemed to want to keep it like that.

She turned her head, following Gareeku's gaze to the statue as she heard his muttered statement.  Vision swept over its form, herself smirking slightly but admiring the design...until it fell upon the statue's closed eyes.  The face...it looked wrong.  Strange and...no, wrong was just the word for it.  She turned her head away, only to have a creeping feeling in her spine, crawling until the back of her neck turned cold.

Were they being watched...?  But no, it was silent...nobody there.  Abandoned.  Her hand dove to her belt, head swerving back and forth as she backed up towards Gareeku, who also looked quite shaken...Aisha didn't want to run and scream, but to stay and be creeped out?...But then, as if on impulse, she stared towards the statue...and it stared back.

She wanted to jump upon hearing the voices then.  Her hand gripped the sword's pommel tighter, as if to draw a sense of comfort from the deadly weapon, her teeth bared.  She wanted to close her eyes against the darkness.  Seek...release...?  What or who could be talking to us...?  "Gareeku, let's just see..." she started, but just silenced herself and looked toward the altar, where the voice seemed to disappear.  She released an audible gulp, and she took a step towards it, if only out of a sort of urging curiosity.

The statue simply stood, its gaze seemingly wanting to pierce the wolf's head, not letting him so much as blink, until it lowered in intensity some, and the presence from behind the podium became stronger. The light in the windows shifted, as if something had flown by outside, and on the altar, there were suddenly specks of wet red.
   A flash of light came from outside the windows, strong and sudden, and then a crack of thunder shook the room. The lapse between the two was short, and the other side of the stained glass was slowly turning runny, just the smallest whispering taps audible as the drops hit. It looked like shapes, clinging to and moving on the windows outside.
   The voice was but the tiniest whisper to their ears as it came again, but almost a scream in its intent and will. The statue's eyes could have passed for stone now, but just barely.
   Behind... here... seek... night...! Seek...! Release...!

   Right then, the darkness seemed to tighten around Cog and Jeremiah, closing in despite the wolf's holy light. It wanted to reach out and touch them, embrace them...
   Then, there was a cry from the other end of the room, muffled through heavy and well-fitting doors but clear to the werewolf's senses. It was a woman's voice, filled with fear and trembling panic.
   "Help! Help me! It won't let me out! It..." He could hear banging and clawing on a door.
   And that is when it launched itself at them. Coming from the centre of the room and emerging from nowhere, it was a shape of shadow, masked in white, like robes of white and grey that flowed around it in impossible ways. Hidden in its hood was a featureless mask of porcelain white with two red streaks over its empty, dark eyes. In its hand it wielded something that looked like a night-black scythe, long-hafted and wickedly cruel in shape and rusted, but lethally sharp...

Jeremiah yelled and scurried away from the masked creature, halting when he reached the edges of the shadows. He didn't trust that at all. Looking around for some sort of escape, he cast another illusion. This one, if it worked properly, would make the thing in the mask believe itself to be trapped in a maze of mirrors, and see that rather than the two unfortunate fellows trapped in the same room as it. Hoping that had bought him some time, he continued looking this way and that for some sort of escape.

Mel had quickly lost the dim glow of light ahead of her and wasn't sure where she was or if she was even following the rest of the party anymore. She had dimmed her own light, hoping to see something ahead of her and was now just creeping along. "Please don't get too far ahead of me..." she wished to whoever she was following. Finally a light appeared ahead. Candles? She didn't think that anyone in the party had stopped to light candles. She kept creeping forward, trying to hear her companions in front of her now. She picked up a faint hint of voices barely audible beyond the pounding of her own heart and hurried forward towards the candleglow.

Unable to turn away from the statue's gaze, Gareeku could feel his heart beat faster, before he jumped at the flash of lightning and thunder, looking out the window for a few moments, before turning back to the statue.
Come on Gareeku! Pull yourself together! he though to himself with self anger as he turned back, his hand  now on the hilt of his katana.

Looking at the statue's eyes, he could see that the orbs of darkness were fading away. Hearing the voice again, the wolf narrowed his eyes and, pushing his fear aside, made his way towards the altar and looking behind it.

 Cog felt time slow down for a moment. He grimaced, watching the Reaper fly at him and Jeremiah, and despite himself, felt the rush of excitement. It had been a long while since he'd had the chance to match blades with anyone, and it had been long since anyone had possessed the skill to match him. This creature looked promising. The dust scattered about his feet suddenly blew away from him, as if blown by a indoor wind, and as the shape descended farther towards him, Cog flicked his thumb against the guard on his sword. Many things happened in that moment. He heard Jeremiah scuttle back and scream, right after the sound of metal rang out from his sword. The sound of scraping metal was suddenly heard as Cog drew his sword, the inside of the scabbard slightly touching the metal.
   It took Cog less than an instant, less than a second to fully draw the sword, light pouring from out the scabbard. The blade was iridescent, blindingly bright, and in that same second that he drew he aimed the sword. From out the scabbard, the blade lept forward in a seemingly horizontal strike. At the last moment, right before the tip exited the sheath, Cog angled the sword and the sheath together to invert the blade. Instead of slashing across the creature, it slashed upwards, coming under the guard and through the Reaper's body, whatever that was made of. As he did so, he moved forward, almost running, doing so in half-steps.
   This all happened in an eyeblink. The shade screamed, a ribbon of light traveling up its torso, an unearthly sound. Cog turned and held his sword out in front of him, getting something between him and that shadow. First blood was his, but he doubted that the creature would be so easily defeated. It  had been a solid shot, but again, this place was old. It was likely that many clerics and paladins, genuine warriors of light, had fallen in this darkness. The werewolf snarled and raised his sword to a high guard.
   In the corner of his mind, he heard someone calling out for help, but it almost seemed at a distance. Cog shut it out and focused on the reaper. He could only save someone if he could save himself first.

Then the werewolf realized... something was wrong. That mask had looked very solid up close. And he had not heard a clatter. A short, sickling sound was all he heard to confirm his mistake, before he had to dodge the creature's scythe, as it cut the air with vicious speed. The creature came at him again, its previously cleft shape now mended. Nonexistent lips parted and offered up a distant, echoing, wailing sound, almost like laughter... And from behind, through the wall, another shape, very nearly similar but this one with claws like knives instead of a scythe, began to emerge, fixing its unreal eyes on Jeremiah...

The behind of the altar was inlaid with an inscription.
   Dedi cruor vesco obscurum, lavo is in incendia video vidi visum is, quod scindo subjectio per a mucro scio is.
   The alabaster stone was pure white and smooth, the red flecks of what had to be blood somehow dried up. They ran down into what looked like the tiniest, hair-thin crack in the single block of stone.
   The voice came again.
   Offer blood to feed the darkness, bathe it in fire to see it, and split open the falsehood with a sword to know it... it seemed to recite, a whispering chant of many voices that echoed silently around them. Offer it up and see... we are... no hope...!

The hallway emptied into a chapel truly fit for a castle. Once Mel was assured that Gareeku and Aisha were in front of her she took a minute to catch her breath. It was hard, the magic was almost crushing in it's intensity. She looked around as she steadied herself. "What is going on?" she finally managed to ask.

Aisha took slow, gradual steps towards the altar after having made the first, trying with her willpower to shake away the fear that threatened to take over her mind, as it was doing with Gareeku.  The flash of lightning outside made her almost jump out of her skin, fur standing on end before she shook her head and paused.  Looking up at the statue again, it seemed to be returning to normal, and the rain outside was a sound filling the void of silence, though the voices were also doing that just as well.

The panther let the wolf past again, coming out of her pause to follow him up to the altar and stepping up carefully behind it where the voices were converging.  The blood was there too, but only little of it.  Comprehending the inscription, Aisha closed her eyes as the voices came again.  She cringed, but by now they were used to them...somewhat.  She mouthed silently in concentration a repeat of what they were saying, and then snapped out of it at the ominous riddle.

The voices seemed to come from somewhere below it...she considered the inscription again before lifting her head, hearing a voice...a living one cutting through the ethereal ones.  "Oh, Mel," Aisha breathed, looking around for a second.  "We're following voices, is what's going on.  I think we've found something under the altar."  She looked up at Gareeku then.  "...What should we do?"

"Oh come on!" Jeremiah cried in exasperation, darting back and forth for a way out, "You're freaking kidding me!" He attempted to duck around the new creature and sprint away, and got a nasty scratch across his back that sent him tumbling for his trouble. DAMN!
Through a haze of bloodloss and pain, Jeremiah felt additional magic flooding through him; not that it was magic he had any control over. Merely the sensation of his curse making itself known, DAMN AGAIN!
In a flash of light, a faint female figure made of blue flames stood between the other creature and Jeremiah, her stance like that of a soldier at ease. Her eyes, twin white glows like coals from the heart of the sun, gave a similar impression of a soldier awaiting orders. Or possibly a snake waiting to strike.
"You must let us aid you. Beings are so frail." the voice was barely above a whisper, but Jeremiah could hear it clearly. He couldn't remember why. He couldn't remember many things, at the moment. And he was so tired. Not from blood loss; there was pain, although the pain from the beasts attack was already dulling. A thought floated up to him. Nex. That was which one it was. Which of what he couldn't recall, nor could he recall why it was so good that it was Nex in this situation and not a different one. So tired... But he couldn't sleep. He remembered there being a good reason a few seconds ago, and assumed it was still in effect. And the pounding on that door was making his head hurt. It's a girls voice. You don't hurt girls. 'S not gentlemanly. Grandma says that's not gentlemanly... Clutching his head with one hand and staggering toward the door, Jeremiah turned his back on the beast and Nex. Nex'll take care of it. But after she does I should make sure she doesn't take care of anything else. I know I knew why a minute ago...

Mel pushed herself deeper into the chapel. The magic was so very heavy in here it felt like she was ripping through spiderwebs, thick clinging ones. "Are you sure that is something to tamper with? This whole chapel is dark and it's centered on the altar." She looked closer and corrected herself, "Under the altar. Something very dark is under there." She crept a nervous step closer. "Big and strong and dark, it's struggling against the seal." Another step, less nervous as the puzzle steadied her mind. "Interesting. The altar pushes down, what it contains pushes up. A delicately balanced system." For some reason her eyes were drawn up to the figures in the stained glass window.

Cog tumbled away from the thing and rolled to his knees. Well, there went one plan. he thought. The creature was turning, and apparently attacks to the mass of shadow did little to nothing. Jeremiah didn't look good either. Someone new had joined the fray, something with wicked-sharp claws. He had a few moments to think before the reaper would be able to take another shot. He gazed at it for a moment and took a chance.
The only part of the creature that had not seemed to flow and bend had been its mask. Indeed, it looked more solid than the rest of it. Perhaps the target was a little obvious, but it's all he had to go on.
He approached the shade and continued to run at it even as it reared back with it's scythe to strike. At the last moment, he struck into it, catching the descending scythe very neatly and pushing it back. The creature was ethereal, and thus didn't get pushed off balance, but the momentum of his swipe was shot. It was all Cog needed. He pushed the scythe forward and down, slamming the weapon into the ground. It was stuck there, and while the ghost tried to pull it back out, Cog struck. He brought the sword back up and over his head, and brought it down in front of him in a spiral motion, the blade slicing in a perfect angled stroke. It cleft the mask in two. The wraith screamed and dropped the scythe. Cog grinned, and brought the sword up. The tip ripped through the creatures now-solid robes, and Cog brought it down again quickly, slicing it in half. The screaming halted rather fast.
One foe dealt with, Cog turned and looked over at Jeremiah, who now seemed to be joined by a blue-burning woman...

The other wraith seemed only a bit confused at the blue apparition, before it dove into action, swinging its claws through the air with a cold and sweeping sound...
   Behind Cogidubnus, the door at the far end of the room stopped pounding, yet the woman kept calling out. She seemed to be going back...
   "Someone!? Please! I know someone is here...! Help..."
   Her voice had not faded, before another spectre made itself visible behind Jeremiah, this one with a large, rusty blade in its illusory hand. Yet that was not what caught Cogidubnus' attention, for he heard a low and terrible growl from behind.
   Thunder struck outside, and the light and sound together with the darkness of the room wove together, crafting itself into a four-legged shape, with horribly cold eyes of red flame that stared straight at Cogidubnus. The creature took form at the centre of the floor. It was the size of a pony, so dark-furred that it was hard to make out its features, in between the blood-red scars that parted its coat, and held the distinct shape of a large, ragged wolf. Its eyes were still locked on Cog, on the light of his sword, as it paced slowly to the side, studying him as if waiting for him to make a move for the door...

   The voice had fallen almost silent now, but it still echoed through their minds and through the chapel at the same time in a way. Another peel of thunder came, and they remembered its words.
   No hope... no hope... release me... there... is no hope... if... not... hope...
   It was almost as if the figures in the stained glass were watching them...

As the wraith attacked the blue woman, she seemed to shift. Not move, because moving implied that you saw it in the process of moving. One second she was standing still, and the next she had one arm raised, covered in slightly more solid looking blue light, and blocking the attack. Jeremiah was in no condition to notice much of anything, but the blue woman did and shifted again to place herself between this new apparation, the prior one, and the frog, who was staggering his way past Cog and the new beastie. Gotta get to the door...

Eypon checked his map. the deeper he when into this place the worse his bad feeling got. now he was at the point of fearing that he was hearing voices. he paced away his map sheets and decided that for he time being he would rely on his memory in case he need to run in a hurry. what ever happened he did not want a repeat of  4 years ago. with caution he approached the sounds before him. " hello" he called less he be mistaken for and aggressor her on nerves on edge.

Thinking about the instructions the whispering voice seem to give, Gareeku was about to speak when he heard Mel. Listening to her and Aisha speak, the wolf frowned, not taking his eyes off of the slab of stone with the crack in it.
"I know there is, but I need to see this for myself." he replied.

Unsheathing his katana, Gareeku then took one of his gloves off, before creating a cut on his hand, breathing in sharply from the stinging pain it created. Letting his blood spill onto the stone, Gareeku then created a white flame in his hand, before allowing it to drop on to the stone also. Finally, the wolf then took his sword and drove it into the stone, awaiting to see what would happen...

As the blade thrust into the crack in the great alabaster slab, there was a rumbling sound. Thunder cracked outside, and the altar split open with a burst of flames, pieces of rock being flung about and the two halves parting. Dust and flames billowed out before settling and dissappearing.
   Underneath where the altar had been was some sort of stone seal or plate that had been cracked and smashed in too, along with the altar itself. And beneath that was... a pathway. Steep stairs led down into blackness below, and you could just hint walls on either side that faded into darkness further down. It was much too dark to tell anything, but the opening smelled of ash, blood and something slick, yet caustic and poisonous.
   We... are... in the dark... seek... free... hope... yes, hope... release... guardian... seek...

   Something... chirped above Epyon. A cautious, yet curious sound. He was standing in a tall-roofed chamber now, where the ceiling dissappeared into shadows as the structure climbed above. And he was vaguely aware of movement above, even though he couldn't see anything. The chamber was empty, probably just some sort of intersection, and he could hint at a grated window up above. There were some metallic clinks from above, which hinted that perhaps some chains or lamps hung above, and might have made that squeak in the wind.
   Another chirp came. And then, something fluttered. And something... dripped onto his shoulder, red and wet...
   In the dark above him, something hissed.

The voices seemed more pressing by now...anxious, calling out.  Listening to Mel describe the gathered darkness beneath the altar, beneath their own feet...she was starting to have a few second thoughts.  The presence of the room was closing on them, and even the figures on the windows were watching to see what the intruding adventurers would do.

It was Gareeku who of course decided it with finality.  She stepped back a little, watching him fulfill the altar's inscription with concern.  Aisha tried not to look at the windows, her concentration along with Mel's fixated on that little point at the head of a large chapel, especially as the sword was driven straight into the slab.

"Holy...!" Aisha yelped when it split open, holding an arm up over her head to fend away the debris, split open with a noise as thundrous as the weather outside.  She opened one eye when all became silent again, only to hear the voices calling up from the hole in the floor.  She thought that the room draped only in the light of the candles was frightening enough...this went into, according to the smells and the sight, a pitch-black pit.

The panthress stood straight and unsheathed her own sword, staring into the gloom, the voices still unnerving.  She cast a slight grin at Mel, and then at Gareeku.  "Well.  We came this far," she said, stepping downward with everyone, after pausing to look for a torch.

Cog stopped. Three opponents, one of which was guarding whoever was trapped behind the door: perhaps she was important, Cog thought. He would have rescued her anyway, if he could, but perhaps she was more important than he had thought...but that wolf there was doing a good job barring his path. He snarled at the other wolf. The damn thing was too big to be a dire wolf, his larger cousins to the north. Those didn't come in horse size. Whatever this thing was, it had fangs as long as his hand, and the darkness almost smoked off it. Cog also didn't want to get any closer to it than he had to.
   Cog's snarl faded, and he took a deep breath. The light on his sword was fading – the charm was running out of power, and it took at least a few hours for the thing to recharge. Cog quickly sheathed the fading blade and brought both hands forward together, and then down to his sides.
   The charm had done more than infuse his sword with light energies. The Broken Moon had a specific purpose – to inundate everything that it touched with holy properties. That included himself, and his abilities worked in direct conjunction with his own internal energies. He grinned, exhaled, and clenched his fist. Dust from the carpet jumped up and clouded the air around his feet. He wound up, and shot his hand forward, palm out. The air warped in front of it, a wave of force emitting from it and slamming into the wolf. It was a strong as he could make it, capable of crushing bones and pulping flesh, and infused with the light energies the charm lent it: the wolf was struck to the ground, and he could hear it howl wetly. He ran towards it, feeling the last of the holy energies fade from his charm, and placed a hand on his sword. If it wasn't dead, he would need to finish it quickly...

Mel looked unhappily at the newfound pathway. If the chapel was a web of magic, this was a pool. Her scales ruffled at the mere thought of going down there, causing the fur of her illusionary form to puff up. She scowled when she realized her tail looked like a feather boa and swished it behind herself and out of view. She poured more magic into the crystal in her wand, increasing the white light it gave off. The lightening cracked again and the figures in the stained glass seemed to loom over them.

Mel took a deep breath and prepared to follow the adventurers.

The force had slammed into the Fenris, for that was the creature's name, and taken much more of a toll on it than expected. But the creature was far from defeated. Even with a crippled lower body, it was still monstrous in strength and in speed, and its head shot out. The fangs caught Cogidubnus' sword at the back of the beast's head, and the sharp blade cut its tongue and cheeks, but it held it tight, shaking the werewolf around with its strength and throwing him away. He hit the stone railing before one of the raised sections hard, and the beast threw itself at him, snarling with a ruined throat and dragging blood after it. One could actually see the wounds beginning to close up. If the werewolf was to win this, he'd need to kill the creature fast. Fortunately, steel seemed very adequate. And with its body mangled, the beast was much too slow for the swordmaster. It had knocked the wind from him, but given him the space he needed...
   Instinctively, Cog spaced his legs and swung his bloodstained, gleaming katana down to the side in a perfect arc, landing the handle correctly in his hands and spaced far between to gain maximum leverage. He leapt, and the silvery blade flashed in an instant.
   The Fenris flew through the air. It was not until it tumbled into the ground that its upper jaw and most above and attatched to it fell off in a spray of blood. The monster's body hit the railing, and started crumbling into smoke and ash.

   Guardian... beware... guardian... The whispers called to them again. My... jailor... entwined... wyrm... guardian...
   The blackness down there was not empty. Whatever had been held down there wasn't just imprisoned, but guarded too. And now, that guardian was awake and aware. And enraged...
   There was a horrid growl that very nearly made the floor shake, and then something shot out of the darkness at them with dreadful speed, lashing out and knocking them aside as most of the lights in the room went out, and another sort of burning light filled it. The dark shape crawled and snaked out, up behind the podium and then down on the other side near the columns, slowly moving to get some space to strike at them.
   It looked like a dragon in a way, but it certainly was not. It had a humanoid upper body set with a long-snouted head on a muscular neck and with enormous clawed hands, and a long, muscular tail like that of a snake but frilled and spined snaking after it. A pair of forward-pointed and sharp horns sat atop its head, followed by rows of smaller and smaller ones that trailed down like a crown of sorts. Its entire skin was black and crusted, and cracks that glowed red and seeped heat and fumes were all over it. Its eyes burned with furious fire, and were fixed straight at the adventurers as it growled and hissed like a furnace at them, breathing fumes and cinders.
   "Awake not the Darkness!" it roared, its voice like roiling flames.

As soon as Aisha had stepped toward the dark recess, she paused, trying to comprehend what the voices were saying again.  The growling that erupted from the floor seemed to make the very stone foundation shake beneath their feet...or perhaps, it was due to the fact that she was still more than a little uneasy...she hadn't time to think about it when the monster shot from the darkness, nearly making the panthress's feet fall from under her.

Righting herself, she stared at the thing with a sudden surprise when the lights in the chapel went out...there was something a little symbolic about that moment.  But despite the fearsome look it gave the adventurers, Aisha took her sword up and started circling around with a slow smirk forming on her face.  Finally, something shows itself.  One can only stand suspense for so long...

Shielding himself with his cloak from the reaction the actions had made, Gareeku then looked down into the darkness with a grim expression. Following Aisha down, the wolf was then nearly knocked off of his feet from the violent appearance of the wyrm.

Holding his blade in a defensive stance, Gareeku kept his eyes locked on it with a slight grimace, saying nothing as white flames engulfed his hands and sword as he began to slowly circle the beast.

The seventy-foot monster coiled slightly, and then launched itself at them without hesitation or warning, breathing flames as it did. The statue of Iustitia was nearly knocked over as it slid around it and over the podium, aiming for the closest target, in this case being Aisha, fangs and claws flashing as it leapt for her.
   Blood... boils... angel... cursed... fire...! the voice hissed, now louder, seemingly wanting to tell them something. Chill...! Move... if... cold...

Mel found herself knocked backwards by the explosive arrival of the wyrm. She still had the wand in her hand but the crystal providing the light had been shocked out and had rolled away somewhere, creating even more visual confusion. She continued to scurry backwards and away from the horrid beast as it slithered around the statue. She managed to suppress a startled squeak as the monster lunged, but it was aiming for the warriors.  Steadying herself Mel did what she could to help the Aisha and Gareeku. She blasted the snaky back end of it with ice, hoping to freeze it to the floor so that it at least couldn't chase anyone.

Aisha had continued to encircle the snake-like creature in the opposite direction that Gareeku was, waiting for it to strike.  Whomever it went against, she would be ready...but the huntress wasn't too ready for the fact that it went after her first in a shimmering flash of teeth and claws.  With a yelp, she leaped back and to the side, sword held up to block and parry whatever blows she could.

The voices she barely caught, but the panther could sense the urgency itself rising through the air and trying to command their attention.  She felt the heat rising from the body of the beast as it kept trying to close in, the panther leaping around the obstacles in the chapel and using them to her advantage as shields while swiping back at it.  Then for a brief moment, she caught sight of Mel...the ice didn't look to slow the creature down much, but it hopefully offered enough of a quick distraction.

Aisha in a quick maneuver rushed from the side, her blade's magic-resistant edge hoping to slice across the monster's right flank while she jumped over the gargantuan tail and landed hard on one of the benches, reaching for her boomerang so that at least there was one light-enchanted weapon in the other hand...

The blade took, even though the monster reached after the panthress to try and snag her from behind with a colossal hand, but semeed to have little effect at all. The thing was horribly muscled, and its skin tough and blood strong. The sword cut open the skin, but the wound was almost immediately cauterized, sealing up with flowing fire. The monster then turned, and lashed out with its huge tail against Mel, aiming to sweep her aside and then catch her and coil up around her. All the while, the thing spat more fire and embers around. The floor rumbled under its movements, and truly shook as it slammed one of its huge fists down.

As the others made their moves against the creature, Gareeku seemed to go unoticed. Taking advatage of this, The suddenly dashed forward, using one of the benches as a platform.

Leaping into the air, Gareeku then brought his sword down in a powerful strike aimed at the wrym's neck, his blade burning fiercely with powerful light magic.

Aisha growled with frustration as she turned around and leapt from the bench, noticing how her sword had little effect.  She barely dodged as the hand reached out for her, the flames threatening to singe her tail and clothes.  Rolling under another bench, constantly dodging the embers, Aisha looked out to see Gareeku leaping for it's neck.

That'll keep it busy, she smirked and took that moment to leap out, trying to keep out of thrashing distance of the tail.  "Mel!  Look out!" she shouted, noting how it aimed to coil around the felid, and let the bladed boomerang fly toward the muscle-bound appendage, the steel flashing of its own light.

 Cog landed softly on his knees and instantly fell on his hands. "Sweet mother of God..." he murmured, placing a hand behind him on his aching back. "That's gonna smart for awhile..." he said, brushing off some of the stone dust that had been ground into his jacket. In the back of his mind, he knew that he needed to get up now, but still. It took him a moment to lurch back to his feet, and fight through the pain. He hoped something wasn't broken...he really, really didn't want to be spending his days paralyzed from anywhere down.
He ignored the other two phantoms fighting Jeremiah and walked towards the doors that the voice had been coming from, his feet squishing wetly into the bloodstained carpet. He brought the sword over his head and to a rest behind his shoulder, ready to swing. He unlocked the latch on the old oak doors, and twisted the handle, swinging them open.

Mel jumped. She was reluctant to reveal her wings while disguised but she had legs designed to launch her into flight so she could jump very well. As she moved she set off another spell, daggers of ice aiming for the monster's face. Her aim was sloppy because she was moving but if she couldn't take out an eye maybe she could distract it from seeing her land and delay a second strike until she could prepare herself.

The doors easily swung up, admitting the werewolf into a dark, empty corridor. More paintings were in it, some statues, some doors... and nothing else. It reeked of darkness, even worse than the ballroom because of the lack of windows, and felt very much as if some dark presence had made its way past just recently. There was even a lingering chill, and an icy scent, still in there.
   Then, there was a scream from somwhere off down the hallway and around the corner, and probably far off after that. Cogidubnus recognized the woman's voice.

   The abyssal wyrm roared in fury as Gareeku's attack took it in the neck. However, the creature's skin and muscle was much too tough to cause substantial damage, and while he managed to cut some tendons and flesh, the wolf could not get the sword to truly bite, even if it sizzled the monster's flesh on contact. The beast shook him off with a slap, and then sent a humongous fist after him that surely would have hit. But before it could complete the move, it jerked back in pain, and brought its hands to its face as the veritable hailstorm of sharp icicles pierced its skin, and stung out one eye. Burning blood flowed, and it howled in pain.
   Yet still, the monster was much to furious to let something like that stop it for long. It smashed a hand down, crushing some benches, and then glared at Mel with one good eye, the icicles in its hide melting. It roared like an exploding engine, and spewed flames at her, and then smashed benches and flung them up toward the sides as it rushed against the masked dragoness.
   "I WILL DEVOUR YOU! RHAAAARH!"

"Argh!" Gareeku cried out and he was swept aside by the creature. Quickly composing himself, the wolf flipped and landed on his feet, before seeing that the wyrm had now turned its attention towards Mel, roaring furiously as it began to make its way towards her.

"Mel!" Gareeku called out, before sprinting towards her. Seeing that his blade had done little effect, but ice magic had been somewhat effective, the wolf sheathed his katana as ice magic began to form in his hand.
"Get away from her!" Gareeku growled, managing to leap inbetween the wyrm and Mel, before firing off a blast of ice magic, hoping that his aim was good enough for the blast to strike the wyrm's other eye.

"Of course. Now she's whisked away." Cog said, shuffling forward. He couldn't all-out run, but he made pretty good time limping as he was. He reached inside his jacket to pull out the third of his five charms, a coin emblazoned with a cloud and a lightning bolt, and held it out in front of him. He rubbed it between his fingers, and a golden light poured from it, with all the warmth of sunlight on a summer day. He made his way through the room and down the hallway, resting his sword on his shoulder and turning the corner. As he did so, he cursed. He just remembered he'd left his hat back in the other room...

Some tough meat that thing has, Aisha thought with a growl as she stayed out of the way of the blow the creature made to the benches, jumping around them as they were flung around.  With the creature's tail towards her, the panther swept her hand out and called the boomerang back to her fist, watching the beast's reaction to Gareeku's sword and Mel's ice.  Well damn, looks like I'm outclassed here for the moment, Aisha thought, narrowly dodging a flying bench with a quick and slightly painful wrench in her limbs.

Keeping behind the monstrous wyrm with weapons in hand, Aisha looked around for Mel and called out to her while Gareeku formed an ice blast of his own, trying to get her out of the way of it's attack.  "Quick, amiga, over here!  You might get a better aim, too!"

As Cog rounded the corner, a rather familiar sight greeted him in a way. Blood, smeared over the carpet and floor, as if a body had been dragged away over it. Yet, he could hear whimpering from somwhere off, just a bit up ahead where the corridor opened out into another room.

   The enormous beast fumed and roared, the flames from its maw scorching them and very nearly concealing its shape entirely. Yet Gareeku's blast came from the side, and tore into all of the fiendish creature's face, freezing the side of it. The monster howled and spewed more flames, tearing through the benches and into the columns where the wolf and the dragoness-in-hiding had stood just an eyeblink ago, before the wolf had thrown them both to the side and tumbled off.
   Around them, the darkness mingled with a fiery glow, and the cracks and peels of thunder still came strong from outside. The fiendish creature's thrashings made old dust fall down from the roof, and it seemed as if shapes were moving among the shadows in the eerie light, as if the chapel was somehow slowly coming alive and becoming more and more angry with its invaders and the destruction they caused.

When their tumble came to a halt Mel was on her feet quickly. She began lowering the temperature at that end of the chapel. Chill would increase the power of Gareeku's ice magic as well as her own and hopefully slow the monster's speed. She just barely felt that spell click into place when they had to run from another charge.

After some ducking of flying pews and running from curls of flame she found herself in a place where she was behind the monster and able to effectively aim at it. This time she chose ice mist. While not as immediately satisfying as daggers of ice she could cover more of the body with a clinging jacket of ice.

When he heard the scream Jeremiah's staggering gait sped up, the blue woman shifting to follow him.
Nex'll keep me safe. Isolate them. Just like me. Isolate us. Don't have to worry about monsters. Monsters? A scream. Gotta get to them. The blue woman's eyes flashed once, and the two attacking creatures stopped, looking back and forth. Their movements were panicky, like one suddenly blinded who doesn't know the source thereof, and their every attempt to touch anything at all was met with a flash of blue light and some force pushing them away from it.
Catching up with Cog, he looked around the room. His eyes looked glazed over, as if he wasn't really seeing anything, but he was still able to make himself clear.
"We should help the girl, probably... The other things are probably done. Gone. Not an issue. The girl..." He put a hand to his forehead and grimaced, "Don't feel so good..."

Epyon hears the echoing sound come form beneath him. for a few moments he holds his head trembles and he remembers one oh his old family outings that ended in disaster. Then stealing up his nerves he decides it is better to find what ever made that roars sound then have it find him unaware. beast case it was nothing to worry about, worst case he's be fighting for his life against some forgotten guardian. Epyon follows the sounds until he found a way down. he then updates his map on last time before braves the passage. " with my luck i it's something intent on killing all intruders."

Cog was somewhat surprised to see Jeremiah joining him. That blue one must work fast, he thought. Cog wiped his brow and handed Jeremiah the golden-glowing coin and put both hands on his weapon. "Hold onto that if you would, and keep it close to both of us. It's very...dark." he finished, not really wanted to conjecture anything about the darkness surrounding them. He walked quietly and slowly into  the next chamber, his senses as sharp as the steel in his hands.

The supercooled mist emanating from Mel's hands oozed off the beast as steam at first, but as the spell continued, one could actually begin to see how it was taking effect. While the thing dove after them, trying to seek them out by hearing them as best it could, it was getting slower, and darker, the fire of it dimming. The creature thrashed and slammed the floor, its weight and strength shaking the chamber and making clear marks. It struck out at the blows from the panthress and the wolf, but hit mostly nothing. It was getting weaker, even if smoke and steam still rolled of it intensely.
   Finally, the thing collapsed forward on the floor, one hand supporting its weight, the other clasped around its face. It growled and hissed.
   "Fools! I will bury you for this! Your transgression has awakened the evil, and I will let you go no further!" it roared. Still, its fiery breath seemed ragged, and its burning, bloody wounds were healing very slowly now, barely emitting a glow at all. The only point that still burned seemed to be something like a congregation of cracks, just a bit to the left on its chest...

   Then, it was as if the air behind Epyon erupted into a cacophony of shrieks and hisses. Behind him, a multitude of leathery wingflaps batted, and a veritable swarm of what had to be bats, large as small dogs, swept by, knocking him over. He could feel claws and teeth as they swept over him like a black flood...

   The chamber was a large two-story room with a great carpet in the centre, two sofas set against a the walls, some tables and chairs and a suit of armor set against a wall. The blood that was smeared around had created great blotches on the carpet, where a woman lay, her clothes bloody and torn. She was obviously some sort of mustelid, most likely a ferret, and had medium-long hair, round glasses and a digital camera hanging around her neck. Her right leg looked limp in some way, and she was bleeding profusely from her thigh, whimpering and shaking with soft crying sounds escaping her throat.
   "Helllp... please... I don't want to die..."

With a sigh of relief as Mel managed to escape, Aisha made a silent cheer when Gareeku's blast hit the side of the creature's face.  She was standing hunched on an overturned bench behind it, still holding both weapons and yet keeping out of the way while the others made use of their strength over the obstacle.  Hrmph, if only I were a magic user, she thought for a moment, observing the ice spells that Mel and Gareeku had cast...she could even feel the temperature of the room dropping steadily, a feat from Mel that she found quite impressive.

A smirk came to Aisha's face, observing the wyrm's flames lose their power and it lose its strength to the polar element until it finally collapsed.  She gripped the handles of both weapons tightly.  This is either going to help, or hurt.  Let's hope it does more helping.  When the panthress saw her chance, she rushed forward, staying at the side so as to hopefully avoid a thrashing.

Aisha bunched the muscles in her legs and leapt upward with a roar, jamming her sword in a lower part of the beast's back.  One foot was on the floor, the other having a hold on the cross-guard while trying to avoid the simultaneous sting of fire and ice, hoping to help pin it there and weaken it enough for the final blow.

"Gareeku!  Your turn!" she shouted to the wolf with a grin, though she was taking it a bit hard from the sudden temperature fluctuations.

Walking up to the downed creature weakened from the cold mist that Mel had created, Gareeku looked down upon it with a raised eyebrow.
"...Awakened the evil...?" the wolf replied, before noticing the cracks on the wrym's chest. Holding his sword to it in a threatening manner with one hand while ice magic shimmered in his other, the wolf growled. "Tell me what you mean or you will die right here and now."

The beast looked with unseeing, blackened eyes at Gareeku with a look that said all it could ever need. That it would die no matter what now, and that it would fight any intruders to the death.
   Then, Aisha's blade took the lower of its back, and it howled out.
   "Insolent little creeps! Die!" it screamed, and then struck out wide with a fist against Gareeku. He saw the cracks in its chest exposed.

Looking down at the creature with a hard cold stare, Gareeku narrowed his eyes as he saw the wrym make its move, easily being able to leap out of the way to dodge the attack in the creature's weakened state.
"...So be it..." the wolf growled as he saw the exposed cracks on the wrym's chest.

Acting quickly, Gareeku took his sword with both hands and, making a leap, plunged it into the creature's chest, feeling that, from the movement of the sword, he had bypassed any possible ribs and had struck straight into the wyrm's heart. Gareeku then forced his blade to the side and out in a powerful horizontal slash from its previous position, knowing that, if his actions worked, the creature's heart would be ripped from its very body.

Jeremiah clutched the coin in both hands, nodding, and continued with him. Seeing the woman lying on the floor he got the overall impression that he was, somehow, out of trouble. Energy and lucidity flooded back into him, provoking a groan when he realized why that was bad. Nex didn't think he needed her for now; she'd stopped what she was doing, which meant that the beasts were loose! Dammit, why did she choose now to start thinking I'm capable of doing anything at all on my own!? Holding out the coin as a talisman the frog followed Cog into the room, eyes nervously darting back and forth. Annnd I'm still bleeding. A lot. Splendid. Just bloody beautiful. My day needed this quite a bit. Oh yes.
Ceasing his inner whining long enough to remember where he was, Jeremiah rushed over to the mustelid's side and used what he'd learned in those college first aid classes.
"I... think she's in shock or something..." The frog bit his lower lip; a nervous habit, "Makes sense, what with all the... Look, Miss, can you hear me? You're gonna be okay, don't you worry," As he continued to try to make soothing noises, he cast another quick illusion with one hand behind his back. Letters that may have just been a trick of the light flickered across the blade of Cog's sword. I only delayed those things back there; I don't know whether they'll follow us or anything, but plan for the worst and don't spook the young lady. If she panicks or something, that could tear these wounds wider. His eyes continued to glance around the room, hopefully to find alternate escape points.

As Mel tried to keep the temperature down she hoped Gareeku wouldn't argue with the beast too long. While it didn't have any heat source to fight other than the monster it was a darn big room. It was eating magic at a great rate to keep the grand space cool enough that the ice wouldn't melt. She hoped the thing didn't have any friends in the immediate vicinity because she was going to need more than a minute to recharge after this.

The creature let out its last breath in a roar of flame and ash, and then fell forward, almost on the wolf. Its hide cracked and cumbled in places, the source of its power now ripped from its body and impaled on the end of the canine's sword. It seemed to begin to turn into ashes and bones before their very eyes.
   "You... impudent... fools..." were its last words, ragged and sounding already as if dead.
   A thunderstrike, closer than any other, flashed light through the windows on the scene of destruction, almost as if signifying some fateful event. The shadows had grown still now, only a few candles and torches still lit. Yet, they seemed more dense somehow, more... alive, even if still.
   Well done... now... We wait... here... down... the voice came again, from the passageway they had opened.

   "Please... I-I... don't... no..." the ferret said, her face pale and her head swaying back and forth. She was indeed in shock, probably with the blood loss. She could barely support herself on her arms.
   Then, she looked up, and screamed. And the next second a huge axe swung by just next to Jeremiah. The suit of armor was coming alive, red light blazing behind the bars of its empty helmet, and shadows slipping out between the metal sheets.

Aisha watched as Gareeku made his move, holding the sword still in place in the creature's back with one hand and foot steady next to the grip.  She could feel through the metal its fiery pulse ebbing once it spewed its last breath.  Once it was finally over, the panthress took it from the ash and bone-ridden remains and nearly polished the blade clean with one sweep through her cape.

"Ay!  Now that was fun," she commented with a smile cast at her fellow adventurers as she replaced the weapon in its dragon-skin scabbard, though the expression didn't last for very long, noticing the storm raging outside and the lightning barely illuminating the dark and now very messy interior of the chapel.  The mood once again turned so easily from intense to quiet and somber.

Catching the voices, Aisha took a step towards the dark corridor and looked down into its depths with a look of curious concentration.  She glanced back at the others.  "...What do you think it meant by 'awakening evil'...?"

Jeremiah screamed too, although it would take an expert team of torturers to get him to admit his was higher in pitch. Scooping up the wounded woman in his arms (he was no Hercules, but ferrets are small and Jeremiah himself of average size) he scrambled away from the aggressive, axe-wielding protective equipment. Clutching the coin in one hand and attempting to guesture for a spell with the other, he tried to make it appear as though there were two more of him running away with the girl, plus one that was under the armor's axe. With any luck, it would confuse the creature long enough for the person more skilled in things of an adventuring nature to deal with it.

Cog jupmed and cursed. The damn thing was pretty quiet for a suit of armor...but its back was turned to him. He shuffled up behind it, and reared back and kicked the thing in it's back, knocking it to the ground with a loud clang. He ran towards Jeremiah and grabbed the coin from his hand. "Sorry, I need this for a second again..." he said, placing the coin in between his fingers. As the armor got back to its feet, Cog took a deep breath and once again let loose a blast of force: this time, blasting the coin with it. The coin, glowing with the light of the sun, slammed into and through the creature's armor, richocheting around with a deafening series of bangs. "Lets hope the shadows inside it don't like the sun..." he said, taking a low guard with his sword.

There was a kind of chill that rose up from the darkness down those stairs, and a thickness and aura that made the shadows in the chapel seem pale in comparison.
   Down... come... I... pain... free... me... the voice whispered, and it really seemed to be coming from down there now. Break... chain... free...

   The girl whimpered in Jeremiah's arms as he ran, her pain seemingly worsened, and she cried, still pleading for mercy and salvation from death.
   The coin seemed to do its trick with the armor, for it twitched and let out something like a wail, before collapsing together, the darkness that held it up eradicated. It clattered into its constituent parts on the carpet.
   And then one of the wraiths appeared from out of the wall in front of Jeremiah.

Watching the creature turn to ash and bone, Gareeku looked over to the dark passage and frowned. With a quick flick of his wrist, the blood and gore on his blade was whipped off, splattering onto to the floor. Hearing Aisha's question, the wolf's eyes narrowed.
"I would take a guess and say it was referring to whatever is down there..." Gareeku muttered in reply, not taking his eyes off of the dark entrance. Sheathing his sword, the wolf then made the decision to enter the passage, quickly becoming engulfed by the shadows as he entered the darkness.

Alerted by the noise Eypon turned around only to be  blinded by the swarm. as he was clipped knocked over. This was madness. what were these things flying around him? they ware too large to be bats yet they seemed to be.  Epyon curled  into the fetal position his wings covering his face and vulnerable neck as he waited hoping the swarm would pass.

As Mel tiredly released her hold on the ice and chill she felt a chill that had nothing to do with temperature. She felt as if the shadows were watching them. She was going to need a snack soon to replenish but wasn't exactly in the right form to do that casually. She'd have to watch for a chance. She noticed her still glowing crystal nearby and picked it up. Dusting the ash off and popping it into her wand she prepared to follow the wolf.

The stairway stretched down quite far, into some sort of catacomb or crypt. There were coffins set on shelves in the walls, some rocks and dust strewn over the floor and old cobwebs hanging still, unmoving in the dank air of the chamber, that smelled of ash, and dust, of blood and of a fire long since put out, of corpses and most prominently of old and darkness. And beyond even that, it turned, leading even further down through a room-wide stairway into what must have been right beneath the heart of the castle. Darkness hinted there...
   Yes... here... down... in the chamber... these chains... break them... set me free...!

Jeremiah winced as the girl's whimpering worsened. Stupid! Her panicking could hurt her, yes, but so could your jarring her about! The armor was after you; you didn't have to get her away from it!
Then, of course, the wraith showed up. BLOODY HELL!
He'd tried illusions. He wasn't lucky enough for part of his curse to start acting on his behalf again. He didn't know how to make some manner of specter-annihilator using the contents of his pockets (that is to say, his wallet, keys, phone, an erasor, a button and some twine). He was unarmed, and carrying a wounded girl. He was left with one trick in his bag before he had to resort to track team experience and quick thinking.
Despiratly hoping that this thing was vulnerable to hypnosis, Jeremiah stood stock still and looked it in what he figured were its eyes. "You see nothing... We are not here... You see nothing... There is nothing for you here... You see nothing... You have no reason to be here... You see nothing... You will go away..." He murmured under his breath, sending a small amound of magic along the path of his gaze. For the love of any gods listening, please let this work!

That's what I thought... Aisha grimaced upon hearing Gareeku's answer, ears pinned against her skull as if to block out the voices coming up from the darkness...though to no avail.  It still had a feeling to them, urging the adventurers to continue with the task that they started.

After the wolf disappeared into the dark, Aisha grabbed a torch that had fallen nearby and started to follow with Mel, pausing only to look back at the virtually ruined chapel and the remains of the wyrm before catching up, close behind the other two.  Whomever comes after us would be in for a shock...she thought.

With the dim light fading behind them, and the darkness creeping up with each step downward they took, Aisha was beginning to become slightly impatient, though her pace was kept steady and slow by the voices.  The aged and decrepit smells made her nostrils flare again, the telltale signs of approaching a crypt, and it only went deeper. 

She kept a hand to her belt.  "If whatever's here is as nasty as that wyrm..." she whispered, really only talking to break the eerie silence a bit.

Heading down the passage, a white flame appeared in Gareeku's hand once again as the group descended into the darkness. Looking at the surroundings as they walked through the crypt, the wolf smirked.
"Cosy..." he muttered softly, before coming to a stop as he heard the voice.

Listening to Aisha's whisper, Gareeku glanced to her and nodded his head.
"I know what you mean." he muttered in a reply, before narrowing his eyes and descending down into the place where the voice came originated...

Mel held her wand above her head but it was as if the shadows frightened the rainbow-tinged white light back into the crystal, it barely illuminated the path before her feet. While most of her wanted a bright bold light so she could see what was going on in every corner a small part of her was glad she couldn't see much. She didn't like crypts, didn't understand the need to build homes for the departed. Her clan burned their deceased. No undead, nothing for necromancers to despoil. And no place for adventurers to be tromping about looking for trouble. With the wyrm battle upstairs and mysterious voices down here she could only curse the owners of this castle for not being so sensible.

The stairs descended steeply into a large chamber of some sort, a tall ceiling feeling almost as if it pressed down on them with all the weight of the cliff and the castle atop it. This room was empty, save for one thing.
   In the centre of the room, from a cross standing on metal beams that lay over a well that seemed to plunge down into infinite darkness, hung a body. It was that of a man, seemingly some sort of bat. He was athletically built and long-limbed, with very handsome features, neck-long hair as whitish blond as his fur, with somewhat long claws and a short, slim tail. He was dressed in what looked like clothes from a late victorian age, a torn and shredded white shirt hanging open over his upper body, exposing his chest and stomach and some white strips of cloth, and black pants that were equally ruined. His large hands and feet were nailed to the cross, and his body chained up with spiked chains that looked corroded or broken at places, and pieces of scribed parchment hung off him. He bore horrible scars, deep cuts into his pallid fur and skin that seemed to have turned dark with time. He looked absolutely dead.
   Free me...!

   The wraith did not heed the spell. It did not seem to be the kind of creature that would respond to such things, perhaps because it did not have a mind to be fooled or maybe because it did not have eyes. It wailed behind its mask, and came at Jeremiah with its long claws extended...

As Gareeku entered the large chamber, his eyes widened as he saw the body of what appeared to be a bat hanging from a cross, held in place with spiked chains and pieces of parchment on his body.
"I guess this is the guy we're looking for..." the wolf muttered as he walked towards the suspended body.

Hearing the voice, Gareeku frowned, not taking his eyes off of the body on the cross in front of him. The bat certainly appeared to be dead. But that voice...it sounded as if it were the bat speaking, though his lips did not move. Careful not to fall into the well the bat was suspended over, the wolf observed the chains and parchment which covered his body.

"Something tells me I'm going to regret this..." Gareeku muttered, before reaching out and removing some of the parchments and chains, careful not to cut himself on the spikes...

The chains and strips of parched paper came loose rather easily, as if something had already been struggling against them, corroding and loosening them. They began to fall from the bat's body with soft clinks and scrapes, uncovering his ragged figure.
   Then, Gareeku felt just a tiny bit of movement, and looked up into the bat's face. And then probably immediately wished he hadn't.
   The man's head had risen slightly, and his eyes were open. And Gareeku instantly recognized that seething blackness. It was deep, cold and absolutely dark. And then, much to his horror, the man smiled at him, stiff and cold lips growing softer and smirking slightly. It was like having the devil smile at a joke you made.
   "I owe you a great many thanks for this, cutie," he said in a smooth voice that very much fit the face, and his black eyes turned up, looking them all over through the dark of the chamber. "All of you."
   Then, he began to move. His limbs forcefully undid the rest of the chains, the scars and cuts on them beginning to heal and vanish before their very eyes, and broke off the nails that held them. Grinning, he stepped down onto the metal beam under him.
   "And who do I owe the honor, I ask?"

Cog, still trying to keep himself from grasping his back, cursed under his breath at the new shade. He didn't really have time to retrive the coin, or to run close to it, or even to rear back and slam it into a pulp, so he'd have to settle. He simply punched at the damn thing.
The weak wave didn't really do much to the creature, but it did hit it in its only vulnerable point, the face. It jerked back for a moment, more stunned than actually hurt, giving Cog the time he needed to close. He swung in two perfect angles, one up and slicing through the face and the other back through the body.
He spoke to Jeremiah. "You alright? You and the girl?" he said, inching his way back toward the armor, glowing eerily with the light of the coin inside it.

"We're fine," the frog replied, backing away from the creature, "Although indicating the shape we were already in as fine is starting to seem like a rather poor joke."

Having entered the chamber with the others, Aisha regarded the sight before them with as much curiosity as the others, coming upon it.  That's the one...? she thought, narrowing her eyes while looking the dead-looking bat over.  She'd have thought he didn't look like much, if it weren't for the fact of the voices coming in as clear as ever.  There must have been something once to the chains and parchment that held him still, Aisha wondered while keeping between Gareeku and Mel, and watching the wolf carefully work the bonds.

But when he started to actually move, she fought the sudden urge to jump back a couple of steps.  The eyes still looked dead though the bat was suddenly healed.  She stood straight, hopefully not having the need to draw her weapon just yet.  They did just save him at any rate, whoever he was.

"We should probably ask you that," the panthress said cautiously, but seeing as how the adventurers were the trespassers, she decided to change her words around and nodded her head.  "I'm Aisha."

Mel wasn't seeing quite the same view as the others. Where they saw chains and parchments and nails she saw magic. Dark magics. Whoever put the bat in this place had worked very hard to make sure he stayed. He was wound round and around with wards and curses like an escape artist would be wound with ropes and chains before a performance. Yet, like the escape artist, he was wiggling himself free. She was certain that their interference had only changed the timeline by a century or two, not the final outcome.

She was less surprised than the others when the bat began moving, she had seen the force the magics tied to this spot, but she was no more happy about it, despite it being their objective. Unlike Aisha she was unable to keep herself from moving a half step backwards as the man looked them over. She found herself now clutching her wand with both hands, as if it was a talisman rather than a toy. The only comfort it could give was being one of the few spots of bright magic in the sea of dark. "I'm Mel," she whispered, with an automatic bob of a curtsy, when asked her name. Drilled in manners held even when thoughts were scattered.

The freed bat laughed smoothly, and glided around to a side beam to get away from the gap beneath him. He flexed his fingers before his eyes, seemingly not paying attention to his feet smoothly tripping about the chasm below, and stepped down from the side of the well.
   "And snowy here? Does he have a name too, or is he just the manservant?" he asked, and looked surprisingly appreciatively at Mel's bow. And at Mel herself. It might have been just a bad feeling, but it felt as if his gaze lingered with her, as if he was somehow aware that something was wrong with her apparition. What was worse, the general sensation of his darkness, besides from the fear and spine-tingling, was slowly becoming less specific and harder to read. He had to be masking it, or it was something that happened when he regained his strength. In either case it was bad, probably, just like the fact that with him freed those magical bonds that held him had drawn back and begun behaving very differently. All around, the magic was starting to react. And Mel could just tell that was a very bad thing.
   Then, the man seemed to decide something, and made a fluid bow to them.
   "My name is Sebastian. I'm sorry if the look of things put you a bit on end, but it was hardly something that could be helped," he said, and grinned slightly. Then he looked at his clothes. "Humm... I guess I really do need a cleanup. But there's more important things to do..." He began walking back against the stairs up.

With widened eyes, Gareeku watched as the bat awoke, looking into his eyes with the same orbs of darkness the statue of justice has only a short while ago. As the bat descended, the wolf flipped back off of the well and back onto the floor.

Watching the bat, who had introduced himself as Sebastian, Gareeku kept the same neutral expression on his face.
Have I done the right thing...? he wondered to himself, before narrowing his eyes when the bat referred to him as a manservant. Nevertheless, the wolf decided to introduce himself.
"No, I am not a manservant. My name is Gareeku Manoko." he replied, bowing politely as he spoke. He could feel the darkness radiating off of the bat, reminding him of the darkness that lurked within him too.

Watching Sebastian leave, Gareeku turned back to the chains he had been fastened to with narrowed eyes, a white flame beginning to burn in his hand.
"There is dark magic on that. It's changing, and I think it's changing for the worse..." the wolf muttered as his eyes were kept locked on the cross that Sebastian has been trapped on only minutes beforehand.

Cog kicked the armor behind him and grabbed the coin out from the pile. Light flooded the dark room, and the shadows were pushed back to the darker corners of the area. Despite himself, he laughed at Jeremiah's comment. "Amazing how the definition of good changes like that, eh? Perhaps, asking if you were dead might have been more appropriate." He looked at the strange woman and shook his head. "She, certainly, is not alright..." he murmured. He swung his blade in a wide arc, trying to get the blood from that demon-wolf off it, and sheathed it quickly.
"If you don't mind me asking, you actually don't look very good at all." he said, sitting down. "And that blue woman...what was that?" he said, fishing around in his coat for something.

"Then bring it!" called the bat back to the wolf. It seemed that he could easily hear him even with his back turned and already ascending the stairs. "I shall make use of it. And I would suggest that we leave here now. We have little time to waste, and I am not the only thing that lurks down here." As if to answer his words, a slight swooshing sound came from somwhere very, very far down in the dark well.
   The bat slowly began to pace up the stairs and out of the crypt.

Jeremiah looked away. He didn't like talking about his Condition very much.
"She's... A curse. A part of one," He shrugged and grinned sheepishly, "I'm not exactly used to this sort of thing. I'm an art teacher, or at least I used to be. A student of mine of demonic descent showed up at school angry in general; attacking students, teachers, all that stuff. Killed twenty people, and tried to curse me. He kind of botched it; the backlash broke his arms, and I'm carrying around five different magically created personalities. He was able to go on with his life afterward, seeing as a jury of his magically inclined peers didn't see what he did as so bad," the frog spat the word 'peers' as though it was a curse, "Meanwhile, I had to quit my job because the curse doesn't listen to what I say at all. Two are sycophants, one thinks I'm unable to look after myself, one's too scatterbrained to think beyond twenty minutes into the future and one's legally in-goddamn-sane," he looked very angry now, barely paying attention to the here and now, "So because of that student I've got a quintet of magically-inclined loonies who sap my own magical power, meaning I've got less to work with than even the average being, plus nobody seems to know anything about how it works, and to top it off, that brat gets to go on with his life and maybe do it again while I'm trying to find a place to sleep in haunted goddamn castles!" About here is where Jeremiah noticed that he was starting to seem a tad short of temper. Panting, he shifted the girl in his arms in an attempt to make her more comfortable and coughed, collecting himself, "Her name's Nex. The others are In, Plic, Cab, and Bal."

Cog shook his head. "Wizards are bastards. I-" he stopped short, leaving something unsaid. "I'm sorry to hear that...I have somewhat a distaste for mages as well. Especially irresponsible, double-crossing bastards who sling around their power it was butter on toast." He blanched, somewhat realized Jeremiah was a magician of sorts too. "Present company excluded. This place is old, though, and something left this mass of shadow. Perhaps we can pluck a secret or two from the ruins of this place. Somebody had to put these shades here, after all. Perhaps he left something."
He fished a silver cross from out his jacket and let it hang on his hand. "You think she's coherent?"

"It's not mages I have an issue with, just bastards. Creatures who are thus able to get away with being bastards in particular. No offense taken," the frog raised an eyebrow and smiled a little at Cog's statement; Do I really seem like a full-blown mage? I just have a trick or two. Huh. At the mention of the girl's contition, his expression turned worried, "Good question. Best way to find out is ask. Hello, miss?" he looked at the young woman with concern evident on his face, "You okay, miss? The monsters are gone, nobody's going to hurt you. Are you alright?" If she isn't, a bit of hypnosis could convince her she is. Just enough to calm her down so she doesn't hurt herself.

Mel looked to the other two then started up the stairs. Her motivation wasn't so much following the bat as it was getting out of the crypt. The magic was changing in a bad way and she didn't want to be down there to find out what it was changing into. Not that she expected upstairs to be better, the very walls of the castle were laced with magic. But upstairs at least had exits in case fleeing became the only option. She had used up a lot of magic battling the wyrm and didn't want to get into too desperate a battle without more time to recharge.

Not much unlike the other two, Aisha didn't really know what to make of the individual they had just met.  As the bat stepped away from the chasm that only a moment ago he was tied over, the panthress stepped aside to let him through with a curious quirk of her eyebrow.  She suppressed a snicker as Sebastian referred to Gareeku as the manservant, but moreover, the mood was just...uncertain.  Her tail ring had briefly illuminated the space with a flash when he started to leave.

Shaking her head, she noticed how uneasy that Mel looked, and Gareeku's hand erupt slowly in white fire with his statement.  To her, the darkness of the crypt didn't seem any more encompassing than before, not until a soft emerald light joined in the illuminations that both had carried...her ring was slowly glowing a little brighter each second, and she shuddered, as if something had dropped from the ceiling down onto her neck.

"At least he's kind enough to warn us," Aisha said with a bit of a twinge in her otherwise calm voice.  With a glance to Gareeku, the panthress tilted her head in a motion for him to come along while following Mel...and Sebastian...up to the stairs.

The bat hadn't gone halfway up the stairs before he began to hum softly, and even whistling a bit, on some melancholy melody. He closed his eyes as he walked, leaning his head back a bit, and the shadows up ahead seemed to shift and change, obscuring him and the passage despite the light emanating from the wolf's hand, and the now flaring emerald from the panthress' tailring. And then they could hear him reciting smoothly:
   "Avaunt! avaunt! from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven-
    From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven-
    From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven!"
   Then he laughed.
   When they reached the chamber laying above, the torches along the walls were lit, and Sebastian was waiting for them. His clothes seemed to have mended themselves completely on their own, and a black vest and tie had been added to them, as well as a pair of polished black shoes and slim round glasses on the bridge of his muzzle.
   "This place is going to become hellish in an hour or two, I'd guess. She doesn't like to be awoken, and she's going to be furious that I'm free. We need to seal this place up, and then prepare. There is no way of getting out before then."

   The woman in Jeremiah's arms still whimpered and trembled. She seemed more calm and less panicked than before. Yet, there seemed to be something very wrong with her. She looked as if she didn't notice them at all anymore. Her eyes seemed to stare into the distance, as if at something only she could see.
   "No... nooo..." she moaned, her face growing more fearful. She squirmed in his grip. "Noooo...!"

"Shhh shhh shh, it's all going to be okay," Jeremiah murmured, attempting just a teensy bit of hypnosis, "Everything's going to be just fine. I don't think she can hear me, Cog."

Cog frowned at tried to follow her gaze, but still didn't see anything. "I think she's in shock, or something. Hallucinating." He put the cross back in his jacket. That wasn't going to help her, at least not till they could get her calm.
"Well, I don't carry sedatives. Not gentle ones, anyway." he said, tapping his hilt. "I'd really rather not put her through that headache, though."

"Nooooooo!" the woman cried out in pain, and bent, arching her back with unexpected strength and starting to shake. Her eyes rolled back and she started clawing the air. That could have been chalked up to shock as well, until her voice began distorting and her speech slurring, mixing with odd words and seemingly wanting to say three things at once. And then her skin began crawling. Not shivering or anything, but actually crawling, as if something was moving under it. Jeremiah even thought he could see a face under her own, shifted off to the right. She growled, in a way that no being should be able to.

"I would prefer not to." Gareeku replied as he heard Sebastian's suggest of bringing the chains. Looking back at the chains for a few moments, the wolf then exstinguised the white flame in his hand, before turning to follow the others up the stairs, though his other hand still rested on the hilt of his blade.

Who IS this guy...? Gareeku thought to himself as he began to ascend the stairs. And why was he chained up like that? Hmmm...something strange is going on...

The emerald flashes came and went through the darkness as Aisha's tail swished idly, conveying restlessness.  She could feel it from everyone else too, Mel being the most silent.  She pulled the cape a little tighter over her shoulders as if by instinct, ascending the staircase with a little bit of increased speed as the dark ahead of them obscured their view of Sebastian.  I wonder just what we got ourselves into when we freed him.  Huh.  We'll just have to see, she thought, having nothing else to focus on but following along with her comrades, and the singing, still as ethereal a voice as it had been through the air a while ago.

No doubt there was a bit of surprise when, finally relieved as the torches ahead of them illuminated the eerie patches of the crypt, he was there and already looking like new.  Aisha listened to what he had said, narrowing her eyes curiously, her hand still resting near her weapons as was Gareeku's.  "Prepare for what...and she who?" the panthress nearly echoed, perhaps in as much questioning as the others.  No way out before then.  I don't like the sound of that.

With a yelp, Jeremiah dropped the girl and backed away.
"Cog, she's-! I-! Her face-! There's something screwey going on, Cog!"

"She is a close relation to me. A cursed Archangel," the bat said with a bit of a smirk. "She's the guardian of this place since long. She was even before the place became haunted. And she'll do anything to kill us." He spoke with the utmost assurance and calm. "So we have to vanquish her, preferably quickly and painfully."

   The woman doubled over, her limbs beginning to flex and snap in very horrible ways, before she fell back on the carpet, her eyes rolling back and going all white. She moaned in a voice that was as deep as a man's now, with some odd, wailing tone to it.
   "Things in my head are weird! Of help I am pleading with impossible anguish!" she groaned, reaching for Jeremiah with a half pained and panicking, half confused look on her face.

If Mel could have gone paler than pure white she probably would have. They didn't just have an Archangel mad at them for messing about in this place, but a cursed Archangel. Probably nuttier than several walnut farms combined on top of that. She hoped that this Sebastian knew how to stop such a creature. She was about to ask when another thought hit her. "There were two more in the party, a wolf and a frog. Do either of you know where they went?" she asked Aisha and Gareeku.

"Archangel?" Aisha echoed again with a quirk of her eyebrow at the answer, before smirking slightly herself at the prospect.  And to think all we were doing was a little investigative meddling.  She shook her head slightly, her eyes wandering to the corners of the crypt, and the coffins besides.  So someone knew they were there, and now was out for their heads.  "Bueno.  More than a little deep, we've gotten now."

The panthress had started walking again, just eager to get out of the pit for the moment, when she had heard Mel's question.  Her ears perked slightly in thought.  "I recall those two...last I saw, they had stayed at the entrance, while we followed the blood trail."  Thinking of that, the question once again arose of just whose blood it was they found, anyway.  "Considering events I hope they stayed there," she muttered.

Things were straightforward now. This was something Jeremiah hadn't experienced all day, and was rather glad for the change of pace.
"Alright, alright, sorry about that then..." Jeremiah came closer and crouched down next to the girl, then reached for her arms and attempted to hold her still. That snapping could only be self inflicted, and sounded nasty, "What do you need me to do?"

Stygian nodded and hunched down, placing a palm on the ground. Slowly, a complex set of symbols and patterns, like an alchemist's circle, made itself apparent on the floor, scribed in flames that turned from blue to orange and red. It moved, until it went still and then settled, flashing and sending some more fire whipping out from it and starting to gradually fill the air. At the same time, snaps and cracks could be heard, as fine lines began spreading out from the sign on the floor.
   "Then we should find them if they're still alive, however improbable that is. The house will only rest for a short while before all Hell breaks loose, and that might be all the time we need. Also, get out of here. I'm going to make this place collapse to seal the well. Had too many of those things come up and torture me," he said, while straightening and going over, beginning to pace up the stairs into the chapel.

   The woman grabbed Jeremiah's collar, and with decidedly unnatural strength she jerked him close, her face twisting into a furious snarl.
   "I want you to die!" she growled, before her face turned, and she was crying again. "No! Just... please! Take them out! Please, let me die...!" she whimpered, before adding another snarl and saying: "You son of a bitch!"

"No need to get abusive, Miss," Jeremiah replied, automatically slipping into infuriatingly-calm-smartass-mode as he often did in the face of others losing their tempers (Often provoked by his simple outright-smartass-mode). This wasn't monsters, this was just an angry person, and he could deal with angry people.
"Now then, if you would look at my eyes, Miss, I'm sure that whatever is troubling you will go away... Be calm..." He continued to hold her down, watching what was happening to her. Now, there's things moving under her skin. Is that what she needs out? How do I get them out? "Cog? A little assistance?" He turned back to the woman, "Just try to stay with me, okay Miss? Don't let whatever else is in there take the controls. Focus on me, alright Miss? Whatever it is, it cannot control you if you do not allow it to."

 Cog sidled up next to Jeremiah and held the woman's arms, trying to help keep her subdued. He was surprised by the ferocity with which she was speaking, and by the strength in her limbs. "Pretty strong for somebody who just broke a limb." he said, narrowing an eye. He nodded at Jeremiah. "Keep at whatever you're doing, sir. I think I have something to add as well."
Cog stealthily took the cross from out his jacket again, murmured something under his breath, and quickly dropped the chain of the aymethst-embedded cross over her head.

Mel follows Sebastian up the stairs. "Um... sir, since you seem to...um... live here can you give us a little hint about what we're up against? And what can be done to not end up a bloody smear on the marble floors. As part of the preparation you were mentioning."

The bat flinched at Mel saying that he seemed to live in the house, yet when they actually got up into the chapel and she mentioned becoming a bloody smear he made a little smile, as if the thought pleased him. He turned and looked at her, his formerly blackened eyes having turned into a pair of reasonably normal steely grey ones, and leaned his face down a bit to look at her with an almost friendly smile, his fangs perking out just the slightest bit under his lips.
   "I would suggest you gather all the power you have, stay away from the shadows, wear a holy charm and just generally try and not die too quickly," he murred, looking at her like she could imagine he would have looked at a well-hung piece of meat. "I don't know what you are capable of, so I'd advise you follow the basic rules and help with what you can. And stay close to your friends, if you want to live."

   The girl hissed and spat as the cross fell around her neck, and began thrashing and wailing as if she was going epileptic. Half of the time she seemed to be pleading for help in her own, bright voice, and the other half a multitude of snarls and groans that could not have been her own escaped her lips.
   "I will murder you, you miserable little shit so please help me! It hurts! Aaah! We will come for you! You understand, you fucking little twit?! I can't... no! God, please! Someone, help me...! Not likely, you little whore!"

Concern gave way to just a teensy bit of frustration, "You. Angry one. Shaddap. Now just stay with me here, Miss, everything will be okay. It's like a shot; it hurts, but it'll help you feel better later," While the last bit was directed at the girl as a reassurance and as a question at Cog as he looked up, "Isn't that right?"

Cog looked worriedly at the girl and hesitantly nodded. "It's designed as a healing charm...but, I think it's particular properties in this case might be helping more than the healing magics." He said, trying to hold her down. "Crosses sometimes help like that.

"There, you see?" Jeremiah looked down at the girl again, displaying far more faith in the charm than he felt, "It will help you. Just relax." He looked away for just a second and scrunched his eyes shut; hypnosis tended to make his eyes ache if he tried to do it too much in one sitting. He turned back and was all smiles again, hoping to put the girl at ease. True, with the other persona that seemed unlikely, but he was fairly sure that if he could calm down the real one and keep her focused, nothing would go wrong. Assuming that the scared one is the real persona. Gah, why did I just think that!? "Stay with me, Miss, stay with me! Focus! Do you have a name, Miss?" If I can just get her talking coherently, that might help her focus on what's going on and stay in control. If it doesn't, I still have the chance to ask what's going on.

Mel refrained from rolling her eyes, "try not to die quickly" was such helpful advice. And his specifics were no better. How did one manage to stay out of the shadows around here? It was like they were hosting a shadow convention. Light barely dented them. And a holy symbol wasn't something she tended to carry with her. Or did she? She moved to one of the pews that hadn't been overturned and picked a pouch out of her pocket. She emptied the pouch onto the pew. It was a bunch of old jewelry she had picked up to either break down for it's parts or eat for the minerals. Perhaps one of the pieces was a holy symbol. "Do any of these things look holy to you?" she asked of Gareeku and Aisha.

Better and better, Aisha rolled her eyes, having almost rushed the last few stairs up to the chapel, while hearing the snatches of conversation between Mel and Sebastian.  She looked back briefly to see if Gareeku was still there, and then quickly turned her head away from the dark corridor, not adamant on wanting to go back down again.  The chapel was a somewhat welcoming sight after being near-blind in the crypt, even if it kept the feeling of foreboding.  There still appeared to be a storm outside.

Suddenly hearing Mel's inquiry, Aisha took a brief glance at the jewelry that she had emptied out.  "Lots of shiny things," she commented with a slight laugh and looked the pieces over.  Gah, how frustrating, growing up in a monastery and not instantly recognizing something like that.  "I'm not sure how many look holy...I'd keep a few of the silver ones, though, and since we're in a chapel, you could fashion anything into a cross with an easy blessing.  Or maybe something light-magic enchanted would help as well."  She glanced at the wolf to see if he had an opinion too.

Aisha gave a reassuring smirk to Mel, anyway.  "If we took care of that thing with some bruises to show for it," the panther said, referring to the wyrm's corpse, "then we can probably take care of a cursed angel, too."

Stygian's eyebrows shot at Aisha's reply. Then, he laughed, the sound echoing within the chapel. He paced a bit to the side and eyed her from next to a piece of the altar. He shot a look at the remains of the wyrm, the ashes of his half-burned corpse laying to the side of the chapel.
   "That thing was named Archaon, and he had been my guardian and torturer for some time. True, he was made powerful, but it was by the angel alone. She can do those things, given time," he said, and gestured to the creature. "I don't suppose you still have his heart? That was the source of his power. She gave him some of her own blood." He crouched down and took some of the ashes in his hand, rubbing them between his fingers with a look of distaste to his face. "She burns, you know? Burns with the fires of the Hell she was cast into..."
   He sat like that for a little while, then got up and walked over to them. He looked at them quite seriously.
   "Silver will do well. That statue's sword is blessed as well, if I remember correctly. But we will have to vanquish her in another manner. The key to destroying her is very specific, unfortunately." He brushed the ash off his hands, and cracked his knuckles a bit.

   The woman seemed to still a bit, but her face was still frozen in a sort of panicked mask as she looked at Jeremiah.
   "Gi-gi-na... Gi-na..." she stuttered, her face twisting into a snarl just a moment in between. "Ple-please hellllllp meee...!"

"Gina, what a nice name..." Jeremiah replied gently, brushing a stray strand of hair out of the wo- wait. Gina's face, "A pretty name indeed. Now," again, his voice slipped into that hypnotic, trance inducing reverberation, "Tell me what happened. It will help you keep the other one down, and help us figure out how to best deal with your problem. Just relax and tell me the whole story, and everything will be fine..."

Mel separated the silver from the other metals and looked at what remained. It wasn't much, this was simply a bag of broken items she had picked up from a pawn shop: a single earring, a couple of charms probably off a bracelet, two bits of chain, a short coil of wire, and a few small coins so worn that there was no telling their origins. The biggest item was a necklace that looked as if it had been through a fire, most likely while on someone killed with a fireball. The silver was firescaled and most of the crystals that had decorated it were shattered or otherwise ruined by high heat. As she heard Sebastian talking about the angel burning something clicked. "Would something that can spoil the aim of fire spells be useful?" An item ruined by fire was easy to enchant to attract more fire. It wouldn't be powerful enough to do much more than alter trajectory a bit but a couple of inches could be the difference between a hit and a miss.

Having stayed quiet as they had gradually made their way back up to the chapel, Gareeku raised an eyebrow at Stygian's suggested that they should not die too quickly.
"Thanks for the advice." he replied with a slight smirk as they walked back into the chapel. As Stygian explained who the fallen archangel was, the wolf's eyes narrowed as he thought of who this person was.

Upon being asked where the creature's heart was, Gareeku looked over to the spot near the altar, where the bloodied heart remained, before walking over and picking it up.
"I take it thisis what you're looking for." the wolf said as he handed the heart over to Stygian.

While Mel was sorting through her jewelry, Aisha looked back to Sebastian with a slight incredulous look when he had laughed after her comment.  She had gotten responses like that before and were quite used to them.  Without words, it felt like she was told of being or a little too sure of herself.

She hummed thoughtfully, looking over the ash, bone, and blood remains of the creature, pondering the rest of the story while Gareeku retrieved the heart.  With the bat's description of this angel, it sounded like any one of them if standing alone would be in over their head.  The panthress turned towards the statue and looked over the sword thoughtfully, and then back upon Mel's suggestion.  "Very specific key...I guess we keep on our toes and make sure they're not sliced off while looking for it."

Stygian turned a bit and listened to them, then looked back down the midship of the chapel, as if searching for something.
   "Right. So, were we going to search for your friends, or are we going to be sensible and prepare here so that we can find out what it actually is that kills her?" he asked them. He didn't seem impatient, there was no stress in his tone or nervosity to his movements, and yet you somehow got an overwhelming feeling of urgency from him.

   "I... was go-ing to... ta-ke pictu-res of th-the painting-s... there's a-an interested buyer in Zinvth... for the p-proper-ty...!" the ferret twitched out, looking at them. "An-nd I came in-to the library, and th-then...!" She started to cry.

"Shh shh shh shh..." Jeremiah continued to try to calm her down, "Don't worry, everything's fine now, just you wait and see." The frog looked up at Cog. Anything else you could try? He mouthed.

Aisha turned back to Sebastian, then cast a glance to the blood-ridden heart that he had asked for with a grimace.  "Will that have any significance?" she inquired.  For a moment, the panther shifted on her feet a little and started to pace across the chapel, a little impatient herself, after hearing the question.  "Indeed the sensible choice is to stay and find out.  But if our party members are in trouble..."

Her voice started to trail off, and she strode over to where the altar once stood, looking at the statue thoughtfully and reaching up to touch the sword that it held with narrowed eyes...Sebastian had said that it was blessed, and one of the good things to use against the angel...just not one of the specific things.

Then the huntress reached for the handle and paused, wondering if she'd even be allowed to take it.  During that time, Aisha glanced over the others.  "I guess we all go find them and try to wing through the fight...or we split up.  Either way, maybe it is time to get moving."

Cog paused and shrugged, and then stopped - for some reason, the cross did seem to be doing something...perhaps something of a similar nature would help as well. He was no priest, but he could read. Holy books weren't limited to clergy, after all...
He started to chant, low and softly, and began to ramble on, reciting what he had read in the old books that some long-lost cathedral had once housed... "Kyrie, fons bonitatis, pater ingenite, a quo bona cuncta proecedunt, eleison, Kyrie, qui pati natum mundi pro crimine, ipsum ut salvaret misisti, eleison, Kyrie, qui septiformis dans dona pneumatis, a quo coelum, terra replentur, eleison, Christe, unice dei patris genite, quem de virgine nasciturum mundo mirifice, sancti proedixerunt prophetæ, eleison..."

Mel had been so distracted by the items in front of her that she only caught the last part of Aisha's statement. "We're leaving here?" She looked down at the things she had been planning to enchant then with a sigh set her plans aside. While preparation would help, people were important. And if they didn't know where they would be when trouble hit most of her preparations would be useless anyway. Better to save her magic if they were going to be moving around.

The bat simply shot them a look over his shoulder, before beginning to pace down the midship and waving a hand at them for them to follow.
   "So, we're finding your friends. Let's hope they're somewhere near..." he said. With every step he seemed to slip more and more into the shadows, as if there was something with him that naturally made him stick to them, or that made shadows attract to him. "And don't trust them if we do find them. They might be possessed."
   
   Stygian gathered the shadows to him, and started letting his darkness slip out just a bit, extending his senses and using the night that had settled over the castle to augment them. But the darkness fought back, influenced as it were by some other malignant will. He did not enjoy being so overpowered as this, or so trapped. If she wanted to, she could sacrifice herself and bring down the whole castle around them. That was the greatest danger, he decided. They had to approach and kill her in a way that did not have her suspecting that they could actually succeed. In a way, that made searching for these people's companions convenient...

   As Cogidubnus began to chant, the girl started moaning and thrashing again. She hissed and screamed.
   "No! No! Are you insane?! Please! Help! She's hurting me...! Aaargh! She'll kill us all! Do you understand?! Niveus era rumor lacuna, quod contemno lemma! Lacuna moneo suus! Please! Nooo...!"

Listening to the confirmation in Sebastian's voice, Aisha turned to the statue and made a respectful bow of her head before prying the sword away with effort and letting the weight of it settle in her hands.  She didn't like the idea of practically looting the cathedral...but whatever was best in helping their fellow adventurers...she couldn't rely on her boomerang alone, the only real light-enchanted weapon in her arsenal.

While stepping down and moving across, the panther paused to watch Mel as she pondered over her jewels.  "It might be good to still keep those on hand, amiga," she commented and started walking again, glancing to Gareeku as well with a smirk.  "Time to walk into another fight."  Maybe it's overconfidence.  But our party is still quite formidable enough, I think.

But while hearing Sebastian, she paused.  "Possessed?  Oh great," Aisha commented silently with a roll of her eyes, pacing with a little more determination.  However her expression turned from annoyed to curious again, seeing how the bat mingled with the shadows.  I think we'll be asking ourselves for days just what we got into.

Jeremiah struggled to hold her down when her new outburst began, cursing the other voice for showing up again.
"Who'll kill us all? Who!?" the frog gritted his teeth and glared down, his patience fraying, "Something about a mistress? Speak english and give me some damn answers! WHO?! Cog, what are you saying to her?"

Stygian stopped, and looked around a bit. He had heard some screams. By the sound, they should have come from very far off, and toward the ballroom. But there had been more there. Was...?
   He looked up above, at the two gargoyle-esque cherubim statues that cornered the balcony where the organ stood, one on each end. Those were not supposed to be there. This was a more modern building style, and no renovator would have kept a pair of statues of that kind, or size, inside. He took a step back.
   He barely had time to react before the first "statue" opened a pair of glaring red eyes, and then dove for him. He made a handflip to the side and avoided the devilish creature's swipe. Then its large tail struck out at him before he could get into stance, knocking him back and into a column. There was an audible crack.
   The fiend turned, and then shot a glare at the others. It was about twenty-five feet from head to tailtip and looked like a wicked-horned dragon, almost, but with nearly black leathery skin and a flatter, shorter face and more spines along its back. It whipped its tail as its twin landed down beside it with a rumble, and growled, loping for them down the midship.

   "No! Not me! Please! The Lady who hides the knowledge of this house, you idiot! Aieee! Fuck you! Hear that!? Nooo! Fuck you, you fucking prick! She'll kill us all! Stoop! Pleeease!"
   The ferret woman cried out a last curse, and then fell back, going unconscious. Silence followed, strengthening the feeling that Cog and Jeremiah had of being watched.

Cog faltered when Gina started to react the way she was, and thought perhaps he wasn't helping as much as he had thought. He rambled off and stopped.
"It was a old liturgy...I'm fairly certain it was used in exorcisms, long ago." He said, shrugging taking one of Gina's arms. He managed to get it around his neck. "She said something about...a white mistress...she condemns the emptiness as a rumor, or some such." Cog shook his head. "My Latin is very rusty. In any case, give me a hand here. We're not going to get her any better in these shadows, and I'd like to see if we can't find the others. Maybe they're back from wherever they went." He grinned. "Boy, do we have a story for them..."

Jeremiah looked at the unconcious woman and thought hard about his situation. Unfortunatly, he was unable to think of any curses that really and truly expressed his opinion of how things had gone. Fortunatly, where his volcabulary had deserted him his creativity had picked up the slack, and he belted off a single sentense that, if asked later, he would say he didn't remember all of and blush furiously. Seeing Cog hefting Gina, Jeremiah shook his head and made as if to take the girl off his hands.
"A story we have, but we haven't finished writing it yet. And, as your co-author, I refuse to let you end it with "and then they were eaten by a monster". You need your arms free. My spells just involve my hands and eyes, but you need your dexterity to use that sword," Picking up the diminuative mustalid, he grinned at Cog, "So, how much you want to bet the other personality is this 'White Mistriss's ex? C'mon, it makes sense! He's abusive and angry because she scorned him, he shows up at her house in some other woman's body, fight scene ensues..." It was a sort of coping mechanism; better to find things funny than horrifying.

Cog laughed in spite of himself. "Maybe so. Let's hope we're not in the middle of a lover's spat, then. Hell hath no fury, and all that." He let Jeremiah take the woman, and he placed a hand on his sword, and another on his back. "Don't know what I was thinking, anyway. I couldn't lift a brick, much less a person." He offered an apologetic grin. "When I was fighting that huge dog-thing, he managed to slam me into the wall but good. Back's felt a little funny since." He twinged. "And by funny, I mean pain." He removed his hand from his back, and held the bronze coin in front of him. The light parted the darkness, and he began the long trek back to the anteroom, trying to stay aware of any shadows that might spring, and keeping an eye out for his hat.

"I hear ya," Jeremiah winced, pain lancing through the scratches on his own back, "Huge dog thing, eh?" He remembered it in a sort of hazy manner, details blurring together, "You mean the one I just staggered past like an idiot while I was bleeding and out of my head because of Nex?" He followed Cogidubnus, stepping gingerly to avoid both shadows and more pain in his back.

As she followed, Aisha's ears perked at the sounds of screaming, about the same time that their guide stopped in his tracks as well.  An immediate grimace came to her face, muscles bunching.  "Damn, I think we've taken a little long to..." then her voice trailed off, just as her foot had started to come down on the floor and propel her into a run.

But instead, it braked, skidding slightly on the hard dust-strewn floor upon hearing another noise, an impact like something heavy had fallen down.  She turned back to see a flash of dark grey moving against Stygian, a gargoyle moving on its own accord.  "Oh for the love of..." Aisha muttered, but had a smirk on her face, almost humorous due to the fact that a fight had sprung up not long after saying so.

The other gargoyle jumped and moved against the group, and the panther looked it in the face with eyes equaling the hue of red, raising the sword in her hands with a pause.  Test run time, I think.  She sidestepped around the flank of one monstrosity, then sprank to its side and made a swipe, hoping to distract it for Gareeku and perhaps Mel to get in a shot somewhere...

Cog nodded as they walked back into the room where the dog had attacked him. "Yes. That one." he said as he peered into the shadows.
He was somewhat on edge, this room being where the majority of the shadows had attacked them, and he kept a firm hand on his sword accordingly. As he walked, his back protested against him, and he absently hoped somebody in the party was a healer. About halfway through the room, he saw his hat lying right in the middle of the path. He smiled and kneeled down to pick it up. He dusted it off and placed it back on his head, somewhat relieved to have found it. Just a hat, but still. He was pretty attached to it.

Mel jumped backwards, away from the gargoyles. They were as large as she was in her true form. Hopefully their hide wasn't as tough. She cast the first spell to come to mind. "Snake." The illusion of a half dozen snakes, large red and black ones, slithered and circled the gargoyles. She put enough magic into the spell that they would feel very real if they bit.

The loping "gargoyle" didn't mind the snakes, but Aisha's new sword had a substantially greater effect. She felt a slightly stinging feeling in her hand as she swung it, but it felt very good in her hand, the balance and handle just perfect. And even more, the effect that the blade had was devastating. The gentle curve of it seemed to lengthen almost doubly as she struck, and turned into an arc of fire in the air which sliced right through the fiend's arm and a good bit of its neck as well, the pressure of the strike feeling much lighter than it should have when hitting something so hard and large. There was no need for her companions to finish it off, because the demon turned to the side and fell over screeching, its blood spraying around a burning wound from which its flesh was quickly turning to cinders and ash.
   The snake illusions then quickly concentrated around the other demon, which seemed busy pounding the column against which the bat had been thrown. The smashing hits struck it with furious force that shook the floor, and the column cracked on the point of breaking.
   Then, the thing stopped with a scream, one of its arms still held up and ready to strike, but now bleeding profusely. It was hard to see for all the darkness, but there seemed to be something jutting out through it, something like a spike, darker than the shadows themselves. The fiend screamed, but was quickly silenced as something else swept through the air with a hard, almost metallic swipe, and summarily decapitated it, sending its ugly head flying a good way against them. Finally, there was a short burst of visceral, cutting sounds, about a moment long, and then the demon was thrown back into the opposite column, striking it and falling into crumbling, burning pieces.
   Some dust and ash settled, singling through the air, and out of it the bat walked, straightening his vest. He peered at them over his glasses, his eyes dark but with a dangerous glow to their heart for a moment. Then, he brushed himself off a bit.
  "Let's go," he said in a slightly off voice, and started walking out again.

   There was a screech to the side of Cogidubnus and Jeremiah, from the doors on the side of the ballroom where they had not been yet. Then, a few seconds later, the doors flew up, and myriads of bats swarmed in, filling the room and flapping around them. They could feel claws and teeth and leathery wings beating at them from all directions.

Following the others and staying silent, Gareeku looked at Aisha with a slight smirk, though he probably wasn't as enthusiastic as she was about fighting. Noticing the gargoyle coming to life, Gareeku reached for the hilt of his blade, only to stop when he saw the devastating effect that Aisha's new sword had when swung.
"Wow...that's some sword..." the wolf muttered, relaxing and standing back upright as he knew the fight was over, albeit rather quickly.

Looking towards the other demon, the wolf's eyebrows were raised as he observed how Sebastian dispatched of the fiend; appearing to use the darkness of shadow as a weapon.
Who is this guy... Gareeku thought to himself as he watched Sebastian compose himself, before setting off and following him.

Aisha had barely noticed as snakes had suddenly begun to writhe around the demons, though she could spot them from the corner of her eye.  Her concentration and effort had been put into her attack, and the slight sting as she swung the blade was but a minor distraction, excitement and adrenaline flowing through her veins upon feeling it strike the beast.  The grip felt well enough in her hands as if she had handled that particular one before.

Suddenly, she felt a blast of heat near her hands, though her grip held firm until the arc of the attack was completed easily, forcefully, and swiftly.  With wide eyes, she watched as the flames lengthened from it and burned the gargoyle's flesh, the blood splattering her clothes.  The thing charred and fell, and she stood watching, the moment feeling like it went in slow motion.

Then she brought it down in front of her face, eyes still wide as she examined the upright blade, the shimmering surface appearing almost clean and new.  "Dios mio..." she muttered with amazement, gripping the handle with both hands and holding it up to the dim light in the chapel.  "Yeah.  It works."  With a grin of approval, she brought it down and used a part of her cape as a makeshift sheath, placing it in her belt next to her own dragonblade while smirking at Gareeku's remark.

Her head then swiveled at where the other creature had fallen, splattered against the other column, more broken up than its brother...decapitated and leaving the floor as much painted in crimson.  She tilted her head at Sebastian as he walked past, urging them to continue on.  "Yeah...we'd better," she replied, albeit with a thoughtful tone while keeping in step with the others.

Cog's eyes alternatively widened and narrowed, and Cog yelled and tried to tell Jeremiah to get down. A bat flew in his mouth as soon as he opened it, and stifling a scream, he spit the foul creature out, and simply closed his eyes and dropped to his knee. Stifling yet another scream from his back, he slammed a fist into the ground - the air around him warped, a powerful wave of force emanating from his body in a fishbowl shape, striking and pushing everything around him. The swarm was crushed and blown away, and most of the bodies fell dead from the sky.
A moment later, he grimaced. He dearly hoped Jeremiah and the girl were alright...

Mel recalled the magic she had expended on the snakes. The battle had been over so fast that no one had even noticed them. She didn't even know if the monsters were susceptible to illusions. She chewed on her lip as she realized that her strongest attack, ice, ran counter to Aisha's new sword and it's holy fire. She'd have to stay far from Aisha or try to figure out what help she could be with only her weaker skills.

She shuddered as she watched Sebastian just dust himself off and walk away after being put through a huge column then butcher a gargoyle. Right now she was wishing she had that holy symbol.

This time, Stygian didn't wait for the others. The house was obviously more entwined than when he had last been free, and manifesting the Angel's fury more clearly. If she was so blatant as to send a pair of demons on them right away...
   He took a few steps forward and wreathed himself in darkness. There was a seething sound, like sand in the wind, and he dissappeared...

   There were still quite a few bats flying even after Cogidubnus's release of fury, but those quickly fluttered out of the windows which had smashed open, and now admitted the pouring rain and chill darkness of the night outside. The quarter moon did little to light the ballroom, almost completely obscured by dark, thunderous clouds.
   There was a crack of lightning that could not have come more than a mile away. And then Cog felt a presence. And then, someone placed his hat, which had been knocked off by the bats, on his head.
   He heard a low, murring chuckle in some snaking, demonic voice from behind.

Cog jumped somewhat at the voice behind him, and grabbed his sword, already beginning to draw as his feet twisted neatly. Many opponents thought that sneaking up from behind was a good way to take out a swordsman - most would be right. Not Cog's particular kind of swordsmanship, though.
Quick-draw wasn't developed because it was easier to fight from a draw. With the sword in the sheath, one was already at a distinct disadvantage to another opponent who had his sword at the ready. It was an anti-assassin art, an art designed to defeat surprise attacks and ambushes. In essence, it was designed to keep a knife from slipping through your kidneys.
Cog's back was injured, but he retained all of his speed. Cog struck in a flash of liquid silver, faster than sight.
Two will see the flash of lightning, but only one will hear the crash of thunder...

The wolf's sword swung around faster than thought, flashing in what little light there was in the ballroom, and the smooth, rasping sweep of the sword leaving its sheath echoed throughout the large ballroom.
   A sharp, metallic stop cut that sound off, and Cog felt his sword hit something hard, stopping nearly instantly.
   "That is no greeting," a low voice said, and the wolf faced it.
   Before him, against the open frames and crushed glass of the windows, stood a man dressed in a black vest, tie and pants, and white shirt. A bat, about six feet tall, athletic, with pallid blond fur and hair, and eyes darker than the night. His face, handsome in a predatory sort of way, was twisted into a vicious smirk. And in his right hand, stretched up, he held the end of Cogidubnus' sword, the gleaming edge inches from his face. The blade had bit into his hand just some, but there was no blood.
   "I guess you're quite on edge, so I'll forgive that one," he said, showing sharp teeth. His grip on the sword edge was iron. "But don't do it again. I tire quickly."
   There was another flash of lightning, and for a moment his figure stood out as dark against the background. For just an instant Cog thought he could see an unnatural glow around the bat's eyes, a dim corona, like bluish light that bends around a completely dark moon.

Throughout the fiasco with the bats, Jeremiah had been huddled in the doorway trying to protect Gina. At the sound of the attack that cleared the air of aforementioned winged rodents he looked up, and at Cog's elegant move against the fellow behind him he stood up and walked over hesitantly. If this is another freaking possessed person then I say let Cog stab him; the last one was way too much trouble.
"Well, haunted houses seem to attract all sorts," he looked the newcomer over, probably nobility, judging by his manner and clothes. Arrogent, but he might know something about this place we don't. Best be polite for now. "Who do I have the honor of addressing?"

Aisha kept a brisk pace behind Sebastian, walking level with the others, though she glanced at Mel upon seeing the expression that she had, pretty much frightened.  The panthress gave the other felid a reassuring smile before turning back around, only to stop dead in her tracks, narrowing her eyes at the shadows in front of them.  The bat had disappeared again, and she had caught only a few traces of movement left with the sound...and then there were just three left.

Well, that's slightly rude, Aisha thought, briefly placing her hands on her hips with a quirked eyebrow, curious still at the powers he had.  Then, she brought her head up and looked around, keeping her hand on the pommel of her new sword.  "I guess Sebastian figures we can find our way back without his help," she said with a sigh, her ears quirked to listen for any more sounds before walking again.

Aisha made way for the doors that they had come into, figuring perhaps that it was best to go out the way they came in, for that path was a little more familiar, therefore faster...and it might not involve more monsters.  The huntress wondered though how they could find their way back without taking an accidental wrong turn, before she mentally slapped herself.  The blood trail.  Duh.  Now it'll be faster.

Cog stood quiet for a moment and removed his blade from the stranger's hand. That should be impossible. he thought. Unless I'm quite a bit more injured than I was, or that hand is really made of steel...
Cog sheathed the blade quickly. He was standing at an almost imperceptible angle to the stranger, just a little to his left, and kept his words short. "I apologize, sir. You'll forgive me if your house has worn my manners." He narrows his eye. "Is this your mansion? If so, you should probably think about moving. After you burn it down."

"It's the family house," the bat said, his voice and face returning to relative normality. "I've just guested it for... some time." He chuckled, and straightened the slim glasses over the bridge of his nose. It was still hard to see where he was looking, since his eyes were a clear sort of black normally anyway. He seemed to be looking at Gina. And then he stepped up to Cog, almost uncomfortably close, and looked at him inquisitively, cocking his head a bit to the side.
   "And I'm not going to burn it, whatever you say. There are alternatives."
   The bat then walked over to Jeremiah, and looked at him just as closely, though with much less an appreciative face. He shifted his eyes between him and Gina a bit.
   "And what's this then? The mad leading the crippled, or the other way around?"

   The blood trail led back the same way they had come in, then took a left turn and another left past a corridor, and then another left through a long, dimly lit corridor. It looked like the way they had taken in... but it was too long, and there were too many left turns...

"Mad? I'm not mad. Peeved would be the word, I suppose, but not mad."
I dunno, you're always angry and yelling at me in your head when it is in no way my fault for-
Ha! Says the man with magically created voices in his head! You've been legally insane for a long time, Jeremiah.
Break'emBreak'emBreak'emBreak-
The lot of you shut up! "It's your damn house, you see?" Jeremiah grinned manically and jerked his head to indicate the scratches on his back, "It can be a bit of a pain in the neck, or at least in the general vertebre area. In all seriousness, could you take her for a bit?" Not waiting for an answer, he foisted Gina into the arms of the newcomer, "She's possessed or something. Was babbling about a mistress. Says her name's Gina, but whoever else is in there ain't too friendly. She's had what you could call a bad day," the frog looked the newcomer up and down again, as if wondering whether it was wise to have entrusted him with the unconcious woman, "Anything you can do for her?"

The shadows were different without Sebastian. No thinner or less frightening, but different. Mel pulled a second crystal from her pouch, sparked light in it, and added it to the first in her wand. The two brightly lit prisms circled each other in a dizzying manner but did increase the rainbow-edged light. As she followed the other two she became uncertain of where they were heading. She didn't remember making this many turns on the way in. Weren't they supposed to be heading back to the entrance? "Is this the way to the door? I'm lost."

Back through the doors she stepped, hoping that the others were also nearby, and also hoping that the instinct to follow the blood was correct.  It should have been...it was what brought them to the chapel.  They left the building behind them, also leaving behind the smell of death and the trail of destruction.  I wonder if that will have to be cleaned up later, the panther grimaced, but nonetheless kept her eyes partially ahead and partially to the ground, the morbid trail still feeling like a wierd variation of a red carpet greeting.

After following for a while, Aisha began to wonder if it this was really the way they came...but it should be, there were no other blood trails that they had found...or were there?  She stopped upon hearing Mel's inquiry, scratching the back of her head.  "Actually, I'm wondering the same thing..."

It was like a labyrinth in that castle...a maze, and some force was correcting the line that it had drawn.  Considering the creepy things that had gone on in the place, and knowing well that it was haunted, suddenly instinct was screaming out "trap!" in the back of her head.  Turning back to the wolf and the leopard, she cautiously laid a hand on her sword.  "Well, if we're lost, we still have this route.  Might as well keep taking it.  And be on our guard while we're at it..."  With a deep inhalation through her nostrils, she moved forward with her comrades again.

The bat cocked his head again, this time to the other side, and his ears twitched. Yet, he answered the frog politely and calmly.
   "Yes. I do think there is something I can do," he said. He looked at the girl's face, his nose twitching a bit. Then, he made another one of those grins. "Actually," he said, "I think I know this one."
   His hand went to the girl's throat, stroking down it a bit, and then slipping off the cross hanging around it. The girl's brow furrowed a bit, and she whimpered, but her eyes stayed shut. The bat still held his hand around her neck, and then he murred.
   "Hello, Peter."
   The ferret's eyes flew open, and she looked at the bat with horror.
   "You... no...!" she said, in a decidedly male voice, tinged with as much fear as her face. "You can't be loose! She'll kill us all! Torture us!"
   "I've already endured her torture for quite some time, thank you," the bat said seriously. "Come now, Peter. You didn't think she'd be able to hold us here? She is like the rest of this family; weak and reclusive. And you've already found an exit too, I see. Or, at least you had before she decided to stop you..." The bat chuckled grimly.
   "Fuck you, Sebastian! Fuck you!" the ferret responded in anger and spat at him. "You deserve to be locked up! It's all your bloody fault! When I get out of here..." She didn't have time to say more, because the bat's hand clamped her mouth shut.
   "There will be no getting out. You died a long time ago, Peter. It's time that you accepted that. And if you can't see whose fault all this is... then frankly you don't deserve the other chance either." The ferret shook and thrashed in his grip, but the bat seemed completely unperturbed. He lowered his head. "Goodbye, Peter..."
   The bat forcefully locked lips with the ferret, and she cried out in a muffled wail, her eyes wide open. She thrashed and struggled, her body seemingly cramping.

   Then the corridor opened up before the party, and they passed through a pair of double doors into a room that easily rivaled the chapel in size. It was a library, four stories tall, with catwalks running out from balconies and books on books stacked full on the shelves on every wall. Before them, at the other end of the room, were incredibly tall windows set within exquisite frames, running from the very bottom floor to the top of the roof, and ending in a rose much like in the chapel. The light of flashes from the storm outside trickled in through the water-covered glass, and cast the shadow of a huge globe depicting furrae that stood to the middle of the room. There were tables around, some of them with candles and open books on top of them, as if someone had been searching through the place and then just decided to walk out on their work.

Following the bat with the others, Gareeku narrowed his eyes as Sebastian abruptly disappeared, leaving the three of them on their own.
"That was quite sudden." the wolf commented with a grim expression on his face, before following Aisha and Mel, his hand on the hilt of his blade as his eyes continually glanced about, as if anticipating someone or something to jump out at them from the gloom of the house.

Eventually, Gareeku and the others entered what appeared to be some sort of large library.
"Whoever was here last wasn't the most houseproud of people." the wolf muttered, walking around and inspecting the different books on show.

Her eyes lifting from the floor as they were led to another chamber, they just kept going up, until she saw just how high the ceiling was.  Once again, the place held them in a good amount of awe and wonder as her head dropped and she paced across the library, glimpsing the storm that still raged on the other side of the beautifully-designed stained glass.

With a light snerk in reply to Gareeku's remark, Aisha strode around the grand library, though still with caution as she still remembered about the danger...still, even with caution, one couldn't help but take a look around in curiosity.  Maybe we'll find out a few things while we're here...a history, or something, the panther thought while starting to walk about the curious candlelit tables.

The place had a sort of aura of power to it, one that was easily recognizable, when one saw the strange mix of formulas, the long texts, the calculations and the sketches displayed on each page of the opened books. There was a great difference between books about power, and books of power. These were of the latter kind, packed with knowledge that could just as well be miraculous as horrible, as easily wondrous as terribly dangerous. The pages were practically reeking with it.
   There was one other thing that was common among many of the books; most of them seemed to have religious connotations. Gods, demons and angels shared pages with complex magical formulas and scientific calculations, numbers, symbols and patterns noted down everywhere in notepapers and files laying between the books.

   The ferret woman stopped thrashing, and went limp. Her eyes fogged as they rolled up to look at the roof, and then the bat let her go. He pulled back his head, breathing in a last bit of what looked like moonlit mist that trailed between their mouths, and then sighed deeply. Then, he gingerly placed down the ferret woman on the nearest sofa. She was still breathing weakly, but her gaze was dim and lifeless, and completely still, just like the rest of her.
   The bat smiled, and then turned to Jeremiah and Cog.

Jeremiah (OOC: Not Boogey. Different character this time around.) gazed at the spectacle worridly. That wail sounded like the body's rightful owner.
"Hey, you're not hurting the girl, right? That'd be, erm..."
Something it's too late for you to fix?
Didn't I tell you lot to shut up!? You in particular!
It's incredibly difficult to glare at someone in your own mind. The closest you can do is just glare in general. Thus was his expression as he backed away from the bat and toward Cog. "Psst! Cog?" He whispered, hopefully keeping his voice low enough for the bat to miss the particulars of what he was saying, "I dunno about this guy. You trust him?"

Mel looked around with interest, this library was the sort of place she was supposed to be nosing around in. She glanced at some of the closer books, quickly memorizing the open pages for later analysis. Personally, as an illusionist, she found the image the window was casting more interesting. She bet it was something special on a sunny day. Regretfully she looked around the room, this wasn't getting the others found. "The entry hall seems to have had a change of profession. Either that or we've gotten turned around."

"Trust is not in the issue, mister," the bat said, pacing back and around them. He could quite obviously hear the frog very well. "Neccessity is. You need to stay alive. And for that, you need to work with me."
   The bat stopped, and looked at the windows, the rain still trickling in through them a bit. He frowned and looked at them a bit. Then, he reached out his hand, and there was a sort of fizzing sound, streaks of black and dark blue crackling around it. He snapped his fingers, and the glass and water strewn over the floor began to flow back and out, the windows seemingly becoming liquid as they repaired themselves, until they froze into position in their corrected frames, the water seeping over them on the outside.
   The bat turned and smiled at the wolf and the frog, and began to walk back against the door from which the other bats had come.
   "My name is Sebastian," he said when he passed them. "Pleased to meet you." As he walked, his shape started to become more shadowy, the darkness gathering to it, and his voice once again began to take on that dark character.
   "Through here, then a left, a right and another right, then straight on. Don't go any other way," he said. When he entered the shadows beyond the doors, he seemed to... crumble, to dissolve into the darkness. The last words came to them from no discernable direction.
   "See you up ahead..."

   Mel heard a chuckle from behind her, right from one of the corners where the shadows seemed deepest. The bat sat on the edge of the table right closest to it.
   "Well, you didn't think it would be that easy, did you? This place changes, all according to her will and her whims. And people don't find their way out. I'm amazed you've so much as managed to stay on the same floor."

Aisha continued to walk among the lit tables, curiously glancing at some of the books that were open, and taking in the light serenity that the library seemed to have, though she could sense, as with the rest of the house perhaps, that things were much different.  Energies and feelings seemed to go and be forgotten at whim...perhaps the panther was reading much into it, but always when there wasn't much else to do but think, that's what she did.

After a minute, she curiously flipped through some of the pages, just skimming what was on it with minimal interest.  A cathedral and now this.  The owners must have been very religion-conscious...or something to that effect, she thought, her ears resting near her skull.  But they perked again when hearing a familiar voice from somewhere, answering Mel.  "Ah, our shadowy guide is back," she remarked with a smirk when Gareeku was in earshot.

Leaving the book, Aisha made her way towards where Mel and Sebastian were, tilting her head, then shaking it.  "Yep, knew it.  So the lines in this labyrinth are being redrawn.  It can be stopped, espero."  (I hope.)

Walking around the somewhat majestic library, Gareeku also noticed the religious content of the books, thinking along similar lines to that of Aisha about how the owners of the house must have been quite religious.

With his ears swivelling as he heard Aisha's remark, the wolf turned to be Sebastian had entered the library.
"Being redrawn, hm?" Gareeku commented as he returned to where the rest of the group was, a slight smirk on his face as he spoke. "I see we are being made quite welcome here. Still, a part of me would like to see what we are up against instead of her hiding behind a changing labrynith and demonic minions, if those things we encountered back there were her doing that is."

As he finished his comment, the wolf glanced at Aisha's new sword, looking at it with great interest.
"This house holds all sorts of surprises." he muttered.

"Then it is the will of the archangel that we are here, in this library? We are here for her reasons?" Mel looked around with more interest, and a bit of trepidation. Were they here to see something or because it was a trap? As nothing had jumped on them so far she looked around again to see if anything strange caught her eye.

"Well, that's reassuring..." Jeremiah muttered, picking up the once-more unconcious Gina, "You remember all those directions of his, right Cog? My sense of direction's crap."

Cog shook his head and muttered darkly. "No, I don't trust him." He adjusted his hat, and picked up the cross that had fallen on the floor, placing it about his neck. "I'll take him over the other shadows, though". Coolness seeped into his body, and congealed around his back, soothing it somewhat. It would need more attention later, but this kept him flexible, at least.
"Left right right straight." he said, starting to walk towards the exit. He kept his coin aloft in one hand, lighting the way through. It was beginning to fade - the stored sunlight was running dry. "Tell me if you need to stop." he said, motioning towards the woman in his hands. "We can't get separated. At all. Stay close."

Sebastian stepped down from the table and began to pace, looking at the books. He snickered at some of them, and stared bitterly at others.
   "Honestly, I have no idea. I have not been up here for..." He stopped, and scratched his chin. "A hundred and sixty-four years. Yes. Damn, but I've got a lot to catch up on..." That seemed an oddly accurate number, but he did not look like he had pulled it out of nowhere.
   The bat stopped by the big globe by the window, and traced a finger across it idly. Then he looked back at them all with a bit of curiosity.
   "I would guess that it has to do with whatever you're here for. After all, she would most logically be looking to hold you here by tempting you with just that," he said, and looked them over, one by one. "Why are you here, if I may ask?"

When Sebastian told them roughly how long it had been, Aisha's eyebrows shot up with slight amazement.  Of course, she knew Creatures who had lived longer, but there was still something unimaginable about such a number...more so when one had been imprisoned for that long.

At the inquiry, the panthress glanced upward in thought, pausing to still notice just how high the ceiling was above them.  There was hesitance mostly because what she and perhaps the others were there for would make them sound as much intruders as they seemed to be then...something only barely short of thieves.

"To sate a curiosity, mostly..." Aisha began, holding up her hands to indicate both of her comrades.  "That's something in common with us.  There has been stories told about this place, and passing through, naturally we couldn't help but overhear things.  Some of us I suppose came to learn about the history...to investigate the 'haunted' aspect..."  The dark felid crossed her arms and gave a slight smirk, denoting that perhaps was the reason she was there herself.  "...Or even for treasure," she added with a swish of her tail and the slightly-gleaming ring on it.

"But honestly, señor, we weren't expecting to find someone still hanging around," Aisha finished with a sort of apologetic nod, glancing to Gareeku and Mel to listen to their own reasons while her hand came down to rest on the handle of her new sword.  We've found quite a few things so far, and who knows how many things there are left.

The bat laughed, quite surprisingly mirthfully, and studied Aisha with his gaze.
   "Estoy menos cosas honorables de buscar, muchacha. Poder y riqueza pueden ser los más morales de objetivos,"* he said, smiling. "Y amor y asuntos de familia pueden ser los peores... Dígame ... su acento. Lo he oído antes. ¿De dónde están usted, si puedo preguntar?"** There was a glimmer of recognition in his eyes, and he seemed to be looking at hers, inquisitively.

*(There are less honorable things to be looking for. Power and wealth can be the most moral goals.)
**(And love and family matters the worst... Tell me... your accent. I have heard it before. Where are you from, if you don't mind me asking?)

Hearing Sebastian speak again, Aisha blinked in surprise.  Other than her mentor, she hadn't heard someone speak her family's tongue almost so fluently for a long time.  There was slight suspicion, as for a while she only thought her own family knew it...but then again, he did say that he was around for a while.  The accent wouldn't have been too far out of a realm of knowledge, especially around her particular region.

After thinking for a second, she smirked, deciding to respond in kind.  "No soy de ninguna parte que sabe..." she paused and glanced over the map of Furrae before running a hand over a portion of it, just around the same region as the Shadowed Depths.  "Está escondido.  Además, lo haredé de mis padres."  There was a pause as she stopped to think, then she laughed slightly.  "No lo he hablado mucho." 

Her expression became serious, looking back at the bat.  "Yo no estoy de acuerdo con usted, sobre familia."  She shrugged.  "Pero mi familia verdadera...son muertos."

With that, she shook her head and glanced up at her comrades, who must have been somewhat confused about the language they were speaking.  She laughed and switched back.  "Enough.  I'm sure we can't be more interesting than this place.  And we have something to take care of."

((Second paragraph: I'm not from anywhere you'd know...it's hidden.  Anyway, I got it from my parents.  I haven't spoken it that much.
Third paragraph: I don't agree with you, about family.  But my true family...they are dead.))

Mel looked around and managed a smile. "A room like this is certainly a temptation to a collector of stories. But I'm sure every room in a building of this age has stories to tell." She gave the graceful and information-filled room a regretful look. "Shouldn't we gather the others and find a less distracting room? I don't like obliging the expectations of someone who wants to kill me."

"Can do..." Jeremiah muttered, following closely as ordered with the occasional worried glance at Gina. Her breathing was shallow, ans she wasn't reacting to anything around her. After all the stress they'd gone through trying to help her, it would be rather inconsiderate and awkward if she were to simply die. Just not done, that.

The bat smiled, and walked over to the other "feline", looking at her with that knowing gaze again. He paced around her a bit.
   "Feeling targeted, hmm? Perhaps it was your desire that she appealed to then? Heh..." he said, and chuckled. "I don't think so. Really, what she wants is to get us away so she can take us out one by one. But here we can find some clues, perhaps." He stopped at a book, one of the larger ones, displaying a dark and intense drawing of some kind. He frowned.
   "But of course you're right in that we should go somewhere else later. We don't want to mess this place up. Still, right now we have to wait for your friends." He looked around at the entryway, and whispered something barely audible. Then, he snapped a finger, and immediately the candles in the room lit up, spreading a dim but warm light.

   Down the hallway, Cog and Jeremiah were coming around the last turn, when they heard something. A voice, like a whisper in their head, traveling far from down the hallway.
   "Over here..."
   They thought they could see just a little light coming from over there.

Cog stood still in the shadows, the fading light from the coin draping his face alternatively light and shade. The air seemed to be dead around him as he contemplated the voice whispered in his ear.
Cog turned toward Jeremiah. "What do you think? Trap, or the 'nice' shadow?" he said, and scratched the back of his head. "It certainly...'sounded' like Sebastian." he peered into the shadows surrounding them, and back towards the light. "I don't think we have much of a choice anyway. The coin's running out of sunlight..." he twirled the fading piece of metal in his fingers.
He took a tentative step forward, hoping that perhaps another demon-dog wasn't awaiting him past this door.

While watching Sebastian as he turned his curiousity towards Mel, Aisha thoughfully looked back over at the globe of Furrae that was standing near to them, and then her gaze started wandering back over the vast amount of books in the library.  Clues may be found here...so where would one even begin to look?  To be honest, even in this dark place she didn't feel like lingering there for very long if it was where their unseen antagonist wanted them for the time being.

"Well, I wonder where we ought to go, then," Aisha muttered, having listened to Mel's statement about finding another room, as well as Sebastian's reply.  But she suddenly perked on remembering that they still had friends who were wandering around.  "Ah, so they're okay," she said with a bit of relief, following the bat's gaze over to the entry.

Mel gave Sebastian a suspicious look in return. He was acting as if he could see through her illusion. How powerful was he? Which lead to the question of how powerful the archangel that imprisoned him was. She shivered. She started to scan the papers on the table nearest her to at least get a sense of what someone had been studying when she heard a noise from the hallway and looked up.

"Wouldn't it make sense that shadows would be nice? After all, without light they don't exist, so they'd love light. It's darkness I'm worried about... Sorry, somewhere between trying to be funny and waxing poetic here," Jeremiah grinned and shifted Gina slightly to free up his hands and grinned, "After you, good sir."

Cog nodded to Jeremiah and took another step. "As you say, perhaps." He grinned lopsidedly. "Well find out soon enough, yes?"
The hallway was short, and it took little time for them to traverse it and enter the light at the end.

Stygian turned, and looked at the doors. His eyes narrowed, and the heavy wooden pieces swung up by themselves, creaking just a little bit, admitting the wolf and the frog with the ferret in his arms. The bat smiled.
   "Darkness doesn't matter from some perspectives. And a shadow can be anything that isn't illuminated fully. What you're looking for is 'good' and 'evil', good sirs. And immediately it becomes very hard to judge," he said, another testimony to his hearing. "Welcome."
   The papers and books that Mel could see mostly concerned things about light and darkness, about the nature of celestial beings and 'higher powers', whatever that might have meant. Others were on sealing techniques, and one seemed to be some sort of account, or perhaps a lab report. The book that held it was smaller than the others, and written by hand with a sort of leaning, fine text that was somewhat unique, a journal or a diary perhaps.

"Getting the sneaking suspicion he just did all that stuff with the directions just to make us worry," Jeremiah muttered to Cog, either demonstrating a resolute refusal to learn from prior experience or a mere refusal to care. Louder, and to the room at large, "Good to see you lot again, glad you've had a better time of things than us. Is there a doctor in the house? We're not in the best of shape here."

Mel picked up the handwritten journal first. Notes were more likely to be clues than published works. She had barely glanced at it when the frog asked for a healer. While her ability to read a multitude of languages would help searching the paperwork a healthy group was more valuable. Weakened members were a weak spot the angel could exploit. "I have a little skill with healing, if you wish to risk it. What happened?"

Cog muttered in assent to Jeremiah's suspicions and nodded to his suggestion. "That we're not." he said, putting a hand to his back. "I don't mean to whine, but her especially," he said, pointing to the girl in Jeremiah's arms, "she needs help from more skilled hands than either of us."
He blinked and remembered his manners. "Good to see you all alive, by the way." he said, and looked up at Sebastian. He nodded and adjusted his hat. "I'll suppose you all know about the nature of this house, then?" he said, closing the oak doors behind him. "Truly, I haven't seen the like. The staff especially! Such hospitality I've never seen..."
He walked further into the room and leaned on a bookshelf and sighed. "I dearly hope one of you is a healer. Or perhaps an enchanter?" he asked hopefully, fingering the empty charms in his jacket. "I don't know about you guys, but I've used up a lot of stored magic recently..."

Quirking an ear as she heard someone enter, Aisha stood and crossed her arms curiously, casting a questioning glance to Gareeku before looking to where Sebastian and Mel were greeting them.  Indeed she recognized the voices of their fellow adventurers...she nodded a quick greeting to Cogidubnus and Jeremiah.

"Nice to see you alive, as well muchachos," she remarked to Cogi.  Her head tilted with slight concern, having heard that they were asking for some healing.  No kidding... she thought, noticing the unconscious one they had also brought with them.  Her eyes narrowed.  Someone's definitely gonna answer for all this.

Her head shook briefly, but apologetically.  "I'm not much of a healer, I'm afraid."

"Then you should learn more of the ways of magic yourself. You seem to have the spark, wolf. A strong one, even," Sebastian said with a smile to Cogidubnus, ignoring the jibe at his manners. "I could teach you a thing or two," he then continued, but then changed subject very quickly. "We've been talking about our agendas here, common and individual... Might you share yours?" the bat asked, looking through the book with the drawing.
   Then, they all heard a growl, like the rumbling of cracking stones grinding bones between them, from far down the dark hallway outside the doors. The shadows down there shifted and moved, intensifying and pushing the candlelight back.
   Eerily, Cog's hat jumped on his head, and the bowl of the cloth wrinkled and bent into a shape reminiscent of a face around two suddenly appearing hollow eyes and a fanged-looking but toothless mouth made from the now open seam between the brim and the bowl at the front.
   "Shizcakes!" it yelped.

Cog gave a low laugh at the shade's words. "You speak to me, good sir? I think you perhaps refer to the frog. I'd not become a mage for all the power in the world. They can keep it." he said, his disdain for wizards obvious. "As far as why I'm here...odd you'd ask." His eyes danced with some unknown mirth. "I'm looking for someone, actually. It's apparent he's not here...but ironic you should ask."
He was about to go into detail, when he heard a low growl, then something move on his hat. Annoyed, he was about to reach for it to dust whatever had fallen on it off, when he head a voice. Coming from his head. Above his head, more precisely. He tilted his head forward, and when nothing fell from it, he leaned back up very quietly.
"Please tell me my hat is not talking to me." He said, somewhat dejectedly.

The bat had stepped to the side at the growling, his eyes narrowing and fixating on the darkness. Then his head snapped around at the noise from the hat, and despite himself he laughed.
   "They're a coming! Once more, dear friends, or close up the door with our dead! Oh, the blood, mommah!" the hat exclaimed, in the strangest mixture of an English and southern North American accent, twitching on Cogidubnus' head, and Sebastian laughed harder, clenching his gut. All the while, the rumbling growls grew closer.

"... Erm..." Jeremiah backed away from Cog worridly, "On the plus side, as hats go it's rather eloquent..." He looked around when the growling started, searching for the source of the noise, "Please tell me that's someone's stomach? Wait..." He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, "Bad thought. Please, for the love of god let that not be someone's stomach..."

The storm was worst than I thought, I was blown off-course and lost over the mountains in my proto-type skycar.  I could barely see out front of me, then I bounce off a large dragon.  He wasn't amused and in very foul mood.  I was out of control then he hit me with his tail, send my little craft into canyon.. and barely controled crash landing.  I just enough time to pull my packback and trying stuffing my battlesuit into bag then I caught the sight of the Dragon coming in for strifing run my crash site.  I ran into trees as he torch the remains of my ship.

After a few hours, I wandered to the edge of a lake with a castle overlooking it.   Soaked through the fur and cold, I head to the only shelter I could find.  On the dark path, I follow it to the bottom of the castle's cliff and a twist path into the cave entrance in lower parts of the Castle under kitchen and service areas.

With a light spell, my first spell, I managed to learn, I follow a narrow tunnel up into the mountain and then the castle.  it looked like the only promising path up.  After a hour, I stop as I hear voices but I can't make them out.  I feeling something dark and foreboding as that growling noise.  I knocked on the wood nearest the voices.. and search to see if there is a door or something in the wall.

PBH

Observing the others as they spoke and just tried to become more comfortable, despite the ominous surroundings, Aisha was leaning to the side of a nearby bookshelf.  She grew tired of standing still after a moment or two and was about to make herself useful in some way, either by searching the bookshelves or at least try to help with their injuries, though the panthress knew not what to do about the invalid they were carrying...her own experiences with healing hadn't gone much beyond some uses of light magic and the basics of curbing some heavy bleeding.  But the sudden growling noise made her jump just as much as it had done with Sebastian.

She eyed the dark hallway ahead, and the lengthening shadows, her expression returning to nothing short of stern fear.  Aisha's right hand was slowly reaching for her weapon belt, out of caution.  But the fact that Cogi's hat had apparently come to life was at the second more confusing.  Perhaps it was just the randomness of the situation...already the adventurers were almost used to things as scary as the growling.  Aisha laughed too, despite it all.  "Who did you say was possessed?" she snerked at the bat.

The humor didn't stay for long though.  Hearing these things, watching, she was just on the edge of wanting to confront it, already...

Mel set down the book in her hand and walked towards Jeramiah and the injured ferret. Then the noise started and the hat shouted and the frog began hopping around. "What happened to the girl? Hold still and let me see." When Jeramiah ignored her she switched to an imitation of her grandmother's commanding tones hoping to focus his attention, "What is wrong with the girl? This isn't my strongest magic so you need to stand still."

Jeremiah stopped mid-panic. The noise wasn't as immediate as Mel, and even when you don't know you're dealing with one a dragon can be an imposing creature.
"Ah, sorry..." Jeremiah grinned weakly, "We're looking at blood loss from all three of us, plus she was in shock when we found her and was also apparantly possessed. Got anything for that, Doc?"

Cog's face alternated between bemused confusion and complete dejection. His sighed, and his face settled into a sort of resigned acceptance of the event. He began to speak to Sebastian, become somewhat more animated the more he spoke.
"Why is my hat speaking to me?" he said, keeping himself oddly rigid. "My chapeau, should not be chatting! Last I checked, my hat was quite mute!"
He began to mutter under his breath. "Why the hat? I liked this damn hat. You have no idea what I went through to get it!"
He almost reached for it, and then stopped, not quite sure if his now-sentient headgear had teeth. He sighed again, perhaps somewhat dramatically. He addressed the bat again. He seemed most familiar with this house, and seemed to find his hat quite amusing.
"Why is my hat speaking to me?" he asked again, his face one of resigned recognition.

As soon as Jeremiah steadied Mel looked the ferret over. She was pretty much scratched up all over but the worst injury was the gouge in her right thigh. Barely missing the major femoral artery that would have bled her dry in minutes it was still close enough. As she focused her magic on the girl Mel remembered why she only received a mediocre grade in healing class, she hated doing healings. Too many things to think of at once and all of them critical. Yet despite her focus on the task she noticed something else, something more along her typical line of work.

Mel's brow wrinkled in concern as she checked more thoroughly. "That is most peculiar. I'm not finding any thoughts. Even deeply unconscious there should be something, if only the mental equivalent of a moan. Nothing older either." She brushed the hair from the girl's face and checked her eyes, then her pulse. Mel scowled at the girl as if she was deliberately trying to be confusing. "Half my senses tell me she is alive and half say she is dead. Where did you say you found her?" The noise from the hall was getting louder, dividing Mel's attention between it and the perplexing ferret.

Sebastian slowly regained his composure, and looked at the werewolf, still with a quirk to his lips and humor in his gaze. He did not mind the growls down the corridor just yet, though he shot them a short look before eyeing Cogidubnus and his hopping headwear.
   "Honestly, good sir, I have no idea. I certainly have not done anything to it. Maybe you should not have left it on the hanger?" the bat said, and cocked his head to the side.
   "Oh, what a thief this deformed fashion is!" the hat exclaimed, and the bat began to laugh again. However, this time he stopped short, and looked over his shoulder at the encroaching darkness down the corridor. His face reassumed a serious look, and his eyes narrowed.
   "More wolves to join the feast, it seems... But we can't let them into the library. So it seems we shall need a bouncer for this job. Unless, some might want to provide a distraction? No, wait... that's not a good idea..."
   Something began moving down at the bottom of the hallway, slowly coming against them.

Cog grimaced. This is perfect. he thought. He opened his mouth as if to speak again, then stopped and seemed to calm. He took a deep breath and grabbed the sword at his waist. He took the coin he had out of his pocket, and rubbed it thoughtfully. It no longer gleamed with stored sunlight, and he frowned, and put it back.
"I'm out of magics." he said, slowly drawing his sword and letting it hang at his side. "As long as we have light, they should be vulnerable, correct?" he asked Sebastian, keeping an eye on the oak doors. "We can kill them in here, yes? Or can we kill them in darkness too?" He said while trying to pick up on the the tables scattered in the area, but as he tried to scoot it over to the door he dropped it and grabbed his back. He shrugged and simply stood back from the door.

Sebastian stepped up beside him, a gentle smile spreading over his features, and his eyes becoming a deeper black again. That corona of light that wasn't light seemed to gather again, and their surface writhed, as if the light were bending around them, or being drawn into them. Like a pair of black holes, set into his face.
   "We can kill them regardless. These are not creatures of darkness, but evil. There is a great difference..." he said, looking down the hallway. He slowly flexed and clenched his fingers. "And when darkness turns upon the evil that hides in it, that evil fears..." he murred, quirking a lip just over a fang.

"A big damn hallway. There were some couches and stuff," Jeremiah grinned weakly, "She was lying on the ground with a lot of blood everywhere, and then started ranting in someone elses voice. Ah!" He raised a finger to the classic, 12 o' clock "aha!" position, "The bat guy with the stunning personallity kissed her, and she went out cold. No talking from either voice. There was a few whispy things going from her mouth to his. That explain it?"

Mel looked from the girl to Sebastian and back again. "Yes, I understand now." She didn't know what to say to Jeremiah. Beings tended to get funny over things like this. She couldn't really fault Sebastian for taking advantage of power available from someone who was moments from death. Even with the magic Mel had just expended on the girl she would still have been likely to die either from extended blood loss or being possessed. "I really can't do anything else to help her. I'm sorry but I don't think she has much longer. Why don't you tell me about your injuries."

While the others talked, Gareeku had once again stayed silent. He seemed to be doing that a lot today. Looking off into the dark hallway, the wolf could sense the approach of something sinister. He did not laugh at the hat's antics, rather humourous ar they were. He instead approach the entrance to the hallway, his katana unsheathed and glowing softly in the same manner as his hands were.
"If it is wolves that approach, then it is a wolf that shall meet them." Gareeku muttered, standing strong as he faced the approaching evil with a hardened resolve.

Sebastian returned Mel's gaze. His face was perfectly still and cool, and yet... she got the impression that he was smiling at her somehow. A smile that would have chilled anyone's spine, especially with those eyes. Then he turned back toward the doors, and slowly walked out of them, into the crossing of the hallways and up beside the wolf.
   "Swords would usually be no good here, you know..." Sebastian started saying. But then, his nose twitched, and he made a bit of a sour face, as if he'd just caught a foul scent, and shot a look at the wolf's katana. "...but you seem equipped for the deal, I guess." He stepped forward just a bit, and looked at Gareeku over his shoulder. "Just don't get in my way," he said.

   The girl lay, her mouth slightly open and her eyes now completely rolled back, limp in Jeremiah's arms. Her heart was beating, her breath was light but steady, and her wound was nearly gone. She would stay that way forever, until someone saw it fit to put an end to her hollow shell's continuance.
   Then a chill came over the frog and the dragon in disguise, a chill that had nothing to do with temperature or wind. Like a movement through another medium, that could not be seen nor heard nor felt, just sensed...
   "Really, nurse? Can nothing be done?" the girl said, leaning up and looking at Mel with ghastly white eyes. "Oh, well... I suppose that I knew, in a way..." She was speaking in the voice of a much older woman, a grandmother perhaps, one with power and pondus, but one who had found death was coming for her, and come to terms with it. Her face settled in a serene smile. And then, twitched and contorted into a snarl. "You can't know that! Talk about ego. As if you ever studied! And where are those books, young mister? Where are they!?" she spat, the last part directed to Jeremiah.
   Outside, in the corridor, the bat's ears twitched, and he growled. Thin cracks started appearing in his skin at his hands and around his eyes...

Listening to Sebastian as he spoke, Gareeku grimaced.
Asshole...who does he think he is... the wolf thought to himself angrily. Calming himself down, Gareeku's look of anger then turned to a smirk.
"Well then, I'll just let you take care of the threat by yourself." Gareeku replied in a calm voice, resheathing his katana and leaning against a wall with his arms folded.

It was then, however, that the wolf overheard the girl. Looking at her, a grim expression appeared on Gareeku's face once again.
"Someone still controls her..." he muttered to himself.

 Cog shrugged at Gareeku and let his sword hang loosely in his hand. "If you wish, sir, you could use that weapon to good effect. If you can truly use it, aiming for the head works wonders. At least, it's worked well for me so far."
He turned to the tiger-lady and frowned glumly. "I'm sorry to hear that. We went through a lot to try and save her..." he sighed, and turned to the door again. "I suppose there's nothing to be done, then. If she lives, so she lives. We've done what we can."
He was about to walk into the corridor and see what could be done, when he heard the girl began to speak in a strange voice. One that did not match the young girl's age. As she spoke further, and seemed to jump from subject to subject with seeming randomness, Cog snarled and removed the cross from his necklace again, letting it swing from his hand.
"Another demon, then. Let's hope that this one isn't stronger than the other."

"Leave her alone," the bat said, his voice darkening again. "I'll want to talk to her later. That old bitch..." He growled.
   "You have a lot to answer for, young man!" the ferret shouted, her voice still that of a dry, prude middle-aged woman. And then it changed again, to a musty, male one of about the same age. "Oh, damn, am I on the floor again...?"
   Sebastian just ignored the whole of it. As a rumble grew closer, and three pairs of red, glowing eyes came into view, he started slowly walking down the hallway again.
   "Yes... that's it... come a bit closer..."
   A heavy, thudding sound came, and a fanged, horrible maw came into view beneath one of the pairs, growling and hissing. Another Fenris. The other creature behind it though, was not. It seemed more like some sort of lizard made of coals and embers, like some offspring of that wyrm from before. The growls of both creatures mixed, and they paced closer, sounds behind them signifying the presence of more like them...
   "Come have a taste...!" Sebastian hissed, and grinned. The shadows seemed to congregate around him, slipping and writhing, almost as if they were alive, as if they were taking shape...

With one ear swivelled towards the girl, Gareeku looked back at the hallway. Seeing the eys and the maws, his eyes narrowed. He was itching to fight, but thought that, seeing as he hadn't seen much of Sebastian's abilities, it would be better to let the bat fight. Watching the bat in front of him, Gareeku raised an eyebrow as the shadows around Sebastian seemed to come alive.
This should be interesting. the wolf to himself as he looked on, waiting for the inevitable battle to commence.

   Cog grimaced at the woman, and placed the cross back around his neck. "I don't know why I trust that shade, but by god, you should thank and not scold him."
   As he turned from the ferret, he removed his shades and walked into the darkness of the corridor. His eyes adjusted unnaturally quick, and he found himself suppressing another snarl. He remembered those red eyes, and he certainly remembered that kind of dog. Of course, in his state, it was unlikely that he could kill such a creature. The lizard, though...perhaps a salamander? If so, he did indeed have something for fire...
   His sword was already drawn, so he merely reached inside a pocket and pulled out a silver hound's-tooth. It was an intricately detailed model of a long fang, and it's surface beaded with condensation. Cog grinned and ran it down his sword. The metal of the blade reacted with the charm, the blade suddenly sucking the moisture of the air around it to it's surface, and a slight pall of smoke rising from the edge. The air around it cooled, and the innermost part of the blade glowed with cold, blue energy. Cog grinned.
   Cog ran and swung at the dog, not really expecting anything to happen to it, but merely trying to distract the creature with pain. Blood slopped from it's cut maw to the wall, and an unearthly growl escaped it's lips. He had caused it no permanent harm, but it had let him run past to his real target.
   The lizard reacted quickly. The lizards maw snapped down, and Cog grinned and merely stepped to the side, bringing the sword up in a block. It is of course impossible to block a mouth, but the cold edge bit into the lizards face, and it recoiled from the cold, surprised. Cog merely flowed with his block, never really stopping at any moment, and brought the sword down in a vicious strike. The blade passed clean through the creature with incredible force – it was perhaps one of the strongest strikes he could muster.
   

The horrid lizard-like thing shrieked out in pain for just an instant before it toppled on the floor and began crumbling into ashen pieces. Smoke trailed from the edge of Cogidubnus' sword, pieces of the creature's fiery blood stiffened to little flakes singling off it.
   That was when the beast next to Cog decided to turn and repay him dearly for his earlier cut. It twisted around roaring, turning on the spot, opening its wicked maw and stretching out its claws before it as it practically leapt to face him. It seemed to be taking on a more humanoid shape somehow, perhaps to fit the conditions of the cramped corridor, or perhaps just in a parodic mockery of Cog himself. Its swipe was uncannily fast, and over the dead body of the salamander the wolf could see another creature, this one some sort of chimaeric beast sporting two ram-like horned heads, closing on him. It was precisely the kind of situation that he had difficulties with; multiple enemies from multiple directions, all at the same time. His hat cried out in fear, and in the corner of his eye he could see black claws heading for him. He was bringing up his sword, but he had no hope of avoiding the hit.
   Then, the claws stopped mid-air, and dark red blood splattered as a visceral, slicing sound was heard and the wolf-creature's forearm was abruptly separated from it. The Fenris didn't have much time to howl out before it was slammed against the wall, pinned and held.
   "Bad dog!" Sebastian snarled, a wicked smile on his face. His teeth and the flesh in his mouth had turned a glistening black, and he flashed a long, pointed black tongue over greying, ashen lips. His right arm had ripped off the cloth of his white shirt, and the skin on it had all but cracked and fallen off, darkness seeping forth from within. His right hand, almost taloned now, held the Fenris' throat in an iron grip, its thrashings shaking but not moving him.
   "You wait for your turn!"
   There was a veritable shower of blood as the bat ripped its throat out, the thing's growls and screams dying out in a wet gurgle. It fell to the floor with a heavy thud, and he turned, directing his attention down the corridor. His shirt and vest were ripped into shreds as the same darkness that enveloped his arm spread up all over his torso. It seethed and snaked, slithering all around him, but Cog thought he could see most of it congregating to his back, much of it taking on a pair of almost solid shapes...
   Stygian didn't care whether if he was giving away too much right then. These people were trapped like him, and if they all had to fight their way out, then he would have to spill at least some eventually. Better then to have fun while he could, he thought.
   The chimera before them hesitated only a second before it leapt, a companion to it with a more serpentine appearance and long, raking claws running up just beside and behind it. Stygian took a step to the side to get past Cogidubnus, and just looked at the ram-headed beast came for him.
   At the very last second, the shadows beneath the bat moved, and something made entirely of darkness whipped up from the floor, like a huge black whip. That slashing sound came again, and then Sebastian moved forward as three sloppy bits of chimera tumbled down practically right at him and Cog. He dashed forward, the darkness from his back forming more whips and claws and ripping into the other creature before he even reached it. It smashed into the wall before him, and just a second of a shriek reached their ears before it was drowned in the sound of flesh tearing and bones cracking.
   The lashing tentacles receded onto the bat's back, and he turned his head to eye Cog for just a second. His shape, mainly his arms and the lower part of his face, was soaked in deep, deep dripping red.
   "Fight...!" he said, the word barely audible for the slithering, deep growl of his voice. Then, he turned, and launched deeper into the darkness.

Watching the others deal with the wolf-like creature and the lizard, Gareeku raised an eyebrow as Stygian finished off the Fenris.
"Most impressive." the wolf commented with a smirk, before ceasing to lean on the wall, standing up straight and walking into the hallway a little as he unsheathed his katana once more. He was itching to have a fight; seeing Stygian and Cogi defeat the creatures only reincofrced this feeling. "At least leave me a little something to have some fun with."

Aisha had been standing off to the side for a while, moving with the others up to the entrance of the corridor, where the shadows shifted...the growling was getting louder...and finally the beasts had made themselves known.  With a slight hiss of her own, she took the sword from her belt again, preparing to use it if need be...but Sebastian and Cogi had gotten there first, and she lowered it with a smirk.  First come, first serve.

Instead she was near where the others hung back, curiously watching the ferret woman as suddenly she had seemed to come to life again.  Her thought was the same as Gareeku's, after having listened to what Mel had diagnosed about her...she was the possessed one.  Who knew if there was really any help left for that one...but everyone else was still alive, for the time being, and she intended to keep it that way.

Her head swiveled as she saw Sebastian use the shadows to his advantage once more, taking out the Fenris, and then dashing off.  The way Cogi had dispatched of the lizard was as much impressive as well.  With a grin, she watched as the hallway was open once more, the sword still drawn and ready as she too slowly made her way across towards it, though she kept an eye on where Mel was, as well as the others behind.  "I hope this doesn't turn out to be a gauntlet of demons..." she hummed...a part of her hoped it was, itching for as much of a fight, but there was the others who weren't as prone to be warriors to think about...

Just then, a torrent of large bats came storming down the corridor and a pair of upper doors in the library. They shrieked and tore through the air in a blood-crazed frenzy, leathery wings beating, teeth and claws ripping and eyes gleaming. Like a black shroud, they descended upon the adventurers.
   The bats were far from all there was to it though. Chilling laughter filled the library as a trio of wraiths slipped in through the walls, flashing long claws. And outside, coming from the corridors to the sides, more beasts growled as they leapt for the two wolves standing there. Cog just saw the glinting of teeth before another Chimaera loped through the bats, while Gareeku was beset from the side by some sort of dark gryphon-like monster, easily the size of one of the Fenris and swiping out with wings and leathery arms with talons the size of kitchen knives, aiming for his head.

She all but collapsed as the doors creaked open.

The moment the doors parted so much as a few feet, allowing entry—uncomfortable, unwelcoming entry, but entry and a viable opportunity nonetheless—Keaton shoved herself through the steadily closing space, head-wings and back-wings drooping like wilting plants atop her scalp and shoulder-blades. Brown eyes, one colorblind, the other untainted, glazed unfocusedly even as she struggled to her feet. Straining against the blurring haze that clouded her vision, she surveyed her surroundings.

A macabre place this was, but her quickly deteriorating vision ripped away the more meticulous details of the room, swirling like rippling, melting watercolors. What a place to choose as sanctuary, she thought sardonically, finally succeeding in lifting her body just enough to get to her feet. Not too long ago had she been attacked by a group of Adventurers, nearly defeating her and beating her within an inch of her life. A long gash sloping along her side was evidence of that skirmish, as well as the pair of perforations in her back from where two of their arrows had struck her. They were purely superficial, but they would likely get infected if they were left untended.

What was really an endangerment to her life was the laceration cleaving her side. Keaton had arrived at the castle in hopes of finding an abandoned place to rest, to recover from her battles and hide the best she could, as she didn't trust the Beings in this area enough to heal herself for her. Soon after she entered this area had she realized that her pride would likely cost her her life, especially as she slouched against the wall, clutching her head with her free, bloodied hand.

Sounds. Unfamiliar sounds. Keaton's ear twitched attentively, swiveling upright to capture the source of the noise. They were distant, but audible enough for her to hear. Someone—or something was here? This place seemed abandoned enough. Her first instinct was to wander in the direction of the increasingly deafening screeching sounds, but another part of her protested: it could be more Adventurers and she was hardly in the condition to fight more. Eventually, her survival instincts won out: she needed help and maybe the people here would offer it.

Gouts of syrupy blood slipped and dribbled down from her fingers, staining the lurid yellow-black fur on her hands in thick, ichorous patches. Walking was becoming more and more exhausting, what little stamina Keaton possessed in her reserves wearing thin as she ventured deeper within the innards of the castle.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

Mel heard the bats before she saw them but their size and number was still a surprise as they poured into the library. Most of the party was in or near the corridor, it was just her and the injured left in the center of the room. "Down. Under a table," she told Jeremiah, a touch of command in her voice to speed him along. Mindful that the injured frog would probably be more susceptible to cold than most her first response was air. A blast of wind into the main mass swooping beasts sent them up, smashing into the ceiling four stories above hard enough to crack both bones and plaster. Hopefully the mural wasn't by anyone too famous.

The jackal had not gone very far past the main entry, not so much as two rooms and one corridor in fact, before she turned on another hallway, following the sounds, and a flurry of little winged monsters flew past her, very nearly knocking her to the floor. She managed to steady herself against the wall though, and the beasts flew past her with manic shrieks, apparrently heading somewhere else.
   That's when she heard a growl from the darkness to her side, and looking, she could see a pair of gleaming red eyes, glowing of what little light there was to reflect, slowly made their way against her. The long, wicked fangs of a Fenris came into view from out of the shadows, the thing pacing slowly, sizing her up with a malicious, greedy look. It snapped its jaws at her, almost forming them into a smile it seemed, before it tensed its hind legs, preparing to leap...
   Then something struck out from the dark, and most of the vile wulven's head was torn right off its neck. It shook, and then slumped to the floor, its lower jaw still hanging off some sinews from its throat. As its carcass started turning to ash, Keaton could hear slow steps. A figure walked into view over the fiend, shadows slipping off him like smoke.
   He was tall, athletic and strongly built, with pale blond fur and similarly coloured straight hair that fell to just around the base of his neck, a pair of pointed ears parting it. Save for his pants, he only seemed to wear shoes and black wrappings that seemed to finish up doing themselves over part of his long, muscular arms. Keaton thought she could see black lines, like cracks, just closing and fading into the fur and skin over his shaped chest and around his dark eyes that looked out from a sharp face under his parted hair.
   "My... another soul come to join the damned? This place is getting awfully crowded..." he said in a low, smooth voice, black eyes fixing on hers. "Kära syster, hej, svara inte nej..."* he hummed in a little tune, and then chuckled.

   The bats were easily cleared by Mel's blast, even though the windows strained dangerously, and even one of the wraiths was swooped up somehow by the magic wind. Yet, the other two did not mind much. Cackling, they sped for her, stretching out their talons and giving the impression of some sort of horrid robed medical assistants set upon using a whole new batch of surgical tools and specimens to have a time.

*(Dear sister, hey, don't say no...)

Too preoccupied with her own wandering, Keaton had realized the incoming winged creatures a moment too late--they barreled right past her in a rush of leathery wings, the jackal swaying and staggering dangerously on her heels as she struggled to maintain what little balance she had. "F--" she stopped herself just in time, her hand quickly returning to her side as she collapsed against the wall. Craning her head over her shoulder, she watched the creatures fly further and further away, soon disappearing behind the wall of fog that was encroaching upon her vision.

It certainly looked like the people in the other rooms weren't the only ones here, she realized somewhat begrudgingly. Who knew how many other godforsaken beasts there were out here? It was best she remained on her guard. Grunting, she removed her hand from her gash, absent-mindedly ignoring the blood on it as she gripped the handle of her Morningstar.

A sudden, guttural growl. Keaton nearly jumped out of her skin, whirling around--and nearly pivoting off of her heels--to face the glowing eyes, seemingly hovering on their own in the atramentous umbrage. Ears plastering flat against her skull, Keaton backed slowly away from the eyes, the red glow reflected in her eyes--

--and then a pair of daggered fangs leapt out from the darkness, snapping its jaws at her just as soon as it revealed itself. Yelping, Keaton staggered back, trying to lift her weapon to defend herself--

She apparently didn't need to, however, because a moment later it was dead with a sudden severing of the muscles and sinew and bone. Staring at the slowly disintegrating corpse in a mixture of disbelief and relief, the jackal-succubus was once more drawn to the sound of heavy footsteps, her eyes darting over to face the... man (she wasn't sure whether or not to consider him one, because of the crack-like black lines she noticed trailing along his body) approaching her.

Keaton looked apprehensive, maybe even slightly mad, her pupils dilated and her hair disheveled like a moptop of dirty blonde between her unconcealed head-wings and ears. Still keeping a ready grip on her weapon and ignoring the throbbing, irritating pain generating from the gash, she hefted Catastrophe up, body shaking. Maybe this wasn't the proper way to treat someone who supposedly rescued her, but she wasn't exactly the most trusting of people--especially not in this atmosphere.

"Who are you?" she demanded, trying to keep her shuddering under control--couldn't let her fear show, never--as her muscles tightened, "You... did you kill that thing? Did you just save me?" Despite this slow realization, she didn't relax in the slightest. "Are you one of them? Are you?"

She probably wasn't making any sense, but the blood loss was getting to her, draining as quickly from her veins as the color from her knuckles and the glassy gaze in her eyes. His sudden chanting only made her feel even more tense, her body quaking with every heavy breath.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

As Gareeku held his blade, he grimaced as Stygian rushed into the darkness.
"Huh. Show off..." he grumbled, before hearing movement to side. Acting almost instinctively, the wold raised his blade in an upward slash, deflecting the creature's talons. A calm yet focussed expression remained on Gareeku's face through his movements, before moving in a forcing his blade through the gut of the creature, before slicing upwards, the glowing blade ripping through the creature's torso and head.

As the blood on his blade was seemingly vapourised by the glow of light that surrounded the sword, Gareeku looked up.
"We have a new arrival." he muttered, being able to sense Keaton's soul. "She seems injured, however."

Cog grinned at Stygian and wiped some blood off of his jacket. "Clothing can clean, but only blood can wash out blood, yes?" he said, almost laughing and stepping easily to the side of the new Chimera. One of the creature's heads descended towards him, and Cog made yet another sweeping sidestep, avoiding both claws and fangs before grasping his blade in both hands. As the head descended for him once more, he quite easily swung one foot behind him, and as the jaw almost snapped at his face, mere inches from death, he stepped back into his stance, and again, swung down, hard. There was an audible crack as the blade cleft into the bones of one of the head, and he gripped the back edge of the sword as he cut his way out, stepping closer to the other head, and brought the sword back in a vicious upwards cut, severing the neck. He stepped out of the way of the fountain of blood, and swung the blade in a wide arc, spattering the walls and cleaning the blade in a swipe.

The tan furred Cat-girl (PBH), not finding a door or lever to the library, followed the narrow tunnel back down to a small room some ways down.  In here, she found a small loose rock in to wall that does click.. a door opened into a basement/storage room.. with many wine bottles, barrels and wood crates lined the walls (most are open and empty)..the heavy dust on the floor showed no boot or paws prints, not even any small mice trails.  There a ladder going up to the next level.  She stepped into the basement and then floor clicked and the door in the wall closed leaving no apparent lever or switch for it on this side.  The only light is from her glowing sphere of a light spell and dead silence is all she hears around her.

PBH

Mel heard the crazed laughter before she spotted the wraiths. The further one she sprayed with ice daggers. She judged the closer one too near for the daggers to have enough momentum to bother. The looped silver wand she was still carrying began glowing blue-white, the handle lengthening until it was more a staff than a wand. Mel swung at the wraith. She had no quarterstaff skill and used it merely as a club but it was her experience that at least half of the things she'd run across disliked a light-magic enhanced thump to the head.

When Mel said that Gina couldn't be helped, it took Jeremiah a couple seconds to believe her.
"She... What?" The frog was at a loss for words, "But, we went and rescued her, and... You..." he sighed and looked away. Just another poor little being girl who got in the way of some big, scary creature, a little voice in the back of his head said cynically. Jeremiah wasn't sure whether it was his curse again or him.
Then, of course, all hell broke lose.
Not needing to be told twice, Jeremiah scurried under the table, bringing the now once again concious ferret with him. Huddling under there, he (this time slightly more carefully) dropped the ferret on the floor and flexed his fingers, readying a few spells should anyone take notice of him.
"Alright," he muttered, half to himself and half to whatever was talking through Gina now, "What the hell's going on now?"

The bat stopped, and looked Keaton over very hard. His nostrils twitched, and from the way that he eyed her side it was plain to see that the smell of blood excited him. Still, he stayed at a set distance, even if he began to move a bit to the side. Now that he was out of the shadows, the jackal could see the blood soiling the near-white fur on his hands, and how the tips of his fingers were still blackened, claws glinting.
   "I killed that thing, yes. The definition of 'them' is a bit hazy, so I can't answer that. And yes, I did save you," he said, his voice unchanging, unlike his face. He took just one slow step closer to her, carefully so as not to alarm.
   In his mind, Stygian was going over the situation over and over again. She couldn't sense the slightest hint of either emotion or thoughts from him, which was a good thing. Still rushing from the fighting and going on the smell of her wound and the feeling of cubi to her, half of his mind was telling him to take the shot and score another meal right there and then. The other half was cursing him for being an idiot and just standing there, when he ought to head back and take care of the real business.
   In the end, and much like usual, neither of these sides won out when he actually considered things.
   "I won't hurt you," he said, stepping closer. He quickly licked off a small patch of blood on his upper lip, and looked down at the jackal. "You look like you could use some attention."
   Slowly, he reached out a large, open palm for her.
   "If I may?"

   The horrid gryphon reared back with a screech, and then fell forward, its broken body landing heavily against Gareeku. Its feathers fell as it began to burn and crumble much like the other creatures of the house seemed to do. The Chimera that Cog had taken on, once liberated of the cruel drive of both its heads, shook and twisted, and then fell to the side on the floor, laying still at last.
   Still, the monsters were not at an end yet. Another Fenris and a wraith carrying a scythe came up on the side against Gareeku. The darkness down the main hallway was luckily empty, but it seemed much a calm before the storm in this case.

   One ice shard or three the wraith might have been able to avoid, but not the hail of them that now tore into the mask that held it to this world. It cried out, and evaporated before its voice had even stopped echoing. The other one was not so easily dealt with though, as it deftly avoided Mel's blade and swept out at her, passing her and raking its claws over her side. The chill she felt from the wounds had nothing to do with temperature, and the thing laughed out again at getting a taste of her, swooping around for another attack. Even worse, the one which had been flung into the roof now descended, shrieking furiously behind a cracked mask and holding a rusty, black sword, aiming for Mel's head...

   Underneath the table, the ferret once again changed personalities. The voice that crossed her lips now was that of a young boy, surely no older than fourteen.
   "Oh, please, please, please don't come...! Please...! I didn't mean...! I'm scared!" she said, getting up and holding Jeremiah and shaking in fear. "Oh, god...! I'm sorry...!"

   And somewhere off, away into the basement under the commons and the kitchens, a cat-girl was assaulted by a rush of bloodthirsty bats, scared away from the main battle and seeking other prey.

Aisha had growled suddenly with surprise as the bats literally flung themselves into the room against the rest of the adventurers...deciding at all costs to stay back and protect those who would be otherwise vulnerable to such attacks, the panthress raised her new sword against the bats that had flown against her, feeling again the slight sting in her palm as it was swung.  She hadn't downed more than a few of them, however, before Mel's spell had taken them all out.

But now it was just a frenzy.  Demons in the hallway, quickly trying to move against the wolves...she could hear shrieks and growling from in the darkness.  But Aisha backed away into the library...she knew that Gareeku could handle himself, and as Cogi had come back alive, she figured he could too.  She grimaced upon watching the wraiths diving straight for Mel...the panther had to give her credit, the way she handled ice was more than impressive.  But she was outnumbered.

With a quick glance at her own blade, starting to lance with fire, Aisha grinned.  They can't stand against two extreme elements, here's for hoping.  Just as one of them was rushing straight for Mel, the huntress raced to try cutting it off, if not try to cut down one of the others that were in her way...

Keaton stiffened as the bat-man's eyes ventured over her, apparently absorbing every detail about her, perhaps in return of her own scrutinization. Losing energy fast, she would've said a snappy comment such as "What're you looking at?" or "Never seen a lady before, bat boy?" if it weren't for her quickly-evaporating strength. Instead, all Keaton could do was glare weakly at him and try and tighten her grip on her weapon, although the joints of her fingers were beginning to ache from the sheer force behind her hands.

If she were in any coherent condition, she would've been reasonably impressed about the man's slaying skills and how efficently he disposed of the beast that had accosted her before. She also would've elaborated upon who 'they' were--the Adventurers, or more of those monsters--but her mind wasn't in the right place, too dazed for her to really comprehend her own words. What further increased her heightened apprehension was the blood caking his hands and melanoid fingertips, and how he seemed to look at her. Like he was sizing up a potential meal.

And it scared her to think that she might not put up a decent fight if he happened to be considering her as a midnight snack.

As he took a step forward, Keaton inched her way back a centimeter, bare feet scooting along the ground with a neat squeak. At first, Keaton wasn't sure if that utterance came from her, or from the friction of her feet against the floor. Once more, she opened her mouth to say something sardonic, but she stopped short as her blood loss barreled right into her, reminding her painfully of the situation and how close she was to death.

She looked down at one of her hands as it released her weapon, leaving an inky handprint of sanguine on the length of the mace, only for it to seemingly dissolve as though it were swallowed up by its surface. "..." Keaton stared at the blood coating the black palm of her hand for a moment, before she glanced wearily up at Stygian.

"Yeah," she croaked, "I do. Go ahead."

~Keaton the Black Jackal

Hearing the bat rushing down to meet her, PBH grabbed a small wood box about the twice the size of her head.  Using the box as shield over her head, she chargers up the step ladder into the kitchen as the bats engulfed the basement.  Quickly throwing the box off her head, she searched and finds a trap door that closed off the basement.  She slammed it shut, and locked the bolt...Still some bats have escape with her or never make into the basement.  Using a flaming paws spell, she pulled and fried the suckers off her.. As the catgirl with fae antenna ran away from the remain bats into the servant's dining hall ..

PBH

The bat smiled, not entirely coldly, and took that last step, easily sweeping the jackal up into his arms in a smooth move, and turning back to the hallway. He started walking, carrying her as if she had little weight at all, his eyes beginning to seethe again as they left the candlelight of the room down the hall and made for that of the library some distance up ahead. Keaton thought she could actually hear as the skin around his eyes and on his arms began to crack and turn ashen. It was a low, seething sound, like a coal burning or sand moving on sand.
   "By the way," he said, making conversation as if nothing at all were happening right then without looking at her. "I'm Sebastian. Sebastian Don'Chel. Who do I owe the honors?" He didn't really expect an answer, seeing as she seemed on the verge of passing out, but it seemed like the thing to say. He was distracted for a moment as another pair of those hellborn hounds turned against them with a pair of snarls and tried to leap for them. He didn't stop walking, the blackness under his skin just spread more over his neck and back, much of it taking on wing-like shapes again, and the wulven were torn to pieces by darkness come alive. They closed steadily on the library.

   The wraith, caught up as it were in its lust for Mel's life, didn't notice Aisha's flaming sword in time, and was quickly dispatched by a lash of fire that lit up the library walls. One still remained though, crazed and wild for their souls, unknowing anything but the need to end its pain by devouring them...
   Screeching, the ghast headed straight for the wounded Mel, wanting for her death.

Before Keaton could protest or react in any way, she found herself whisked into Stygian's arms almost as though she were as light as a feather. Nearly dropping her mace in shock, Keaton spasmed once, but did nothing else except for blink in confusion: she was too exhausted to do anything else, even frown. Although slightly uncomfortable due to her wings' positioning, she managed to allow her body to relax just enough, the hand holding her mace dangling pendulously beneath her.

"Eh?" she nearly missed Stygian's introduction, her ears lifting only a centimeter before she let them fall back again. The sizzling of his body radiated eerily, disturbingly, in her ears for that moment they rose, her eyes tracing his arms almost nervously, as though she expected for them to fall apart at any second. "...Keaton."

That was the only thing she said. She never gave out her real name, not even to her most entrusted confidants, and the very few who knew her name were encouraged strongly to call her otherwise, even if it were derogatory. Anything but her real name. The haze had reached a nearly blinding pitch, her body growing colder and colder, even as the low growling of the hellhounds reached her shaking ears. Was the whole castle inhabited by creatures like this? Before it would've been a casual thought, but in her weakened state she couldn't help but feel scared, something she would never admit to under slow torture.

The hellhounds were instantly torn asunder the moment her eyes drifted back over to them, her partially-blank eye nearly stark white. Groaning once, Keaton's eyes widened at the sight of this, her mind reeled as it struggled to register the gruesome sight--

--and then she passed out as the blood loss finally claimed her.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

Mel let out a snarl that definitely wasn't feline as the tainted claws slid across her ribs. With her tough hide she wasn't used to being cut so the sensation was as startling as it was painful. Then she found herself jumping backwards, as much away from Aisha's flame as the wraith. The she made a second jump as a rusty sword swished past her head. Another wraith hit the ground in front of her. She needed distance if she was going to use magic and jumping wasn't gaining enough space, particularly not with furniture everywhere. With a soft curse in her native tongue over even the partial loss of her disguise she went up, her wings unfurling and with a strong beat popping her up past the first balconies. Now all she needed was a clear shot at her target to puncture it with her ice shards. She owed it for the cut it's kin gave her and could feel angry wisps of icy fog dancing on her skin as she pulled up her magic.

Jeremiah glanced down at 'Gina' in surprise and put one arm around her (or whatever the proper pronoun for far too many personae at once is). The voice sort of reminded him of his little brother, back when both he and said sibling were younger.
"Shh, nothing bad's going to get you. Just calm down..." And stick around awhile. Scared kid is preferable to jerk any day.

The ghost howled, trying to push through the storm using its sword and sheer force, and failing. Its already damaged mask broke with a porcelain crack, and the outline of the darkness beneath its "robes" evaporating amid the shards of ice. Its sword fell, breaking asunder and already beginning to rust away as it hit the floor.
   Then, a sharp pain from her side made Mel's wings twitch. The wounds from the former wraith's claws were visibly blackening on her side, very quickly, like frostbite finding its way outward. She would not be able to fly for much longer, as her strength was being sapped...

   The ferret stopped shaking and crying, calming down and just making a little whimper at the roar and the flash from Aisha's sword outside.
   Then, she went still. And then Jeremiah could feel her beginning to move again... though a bit oddly...
   "Yeah... It's allright, Snow... hehe..." she resumed, this time in an older, and much, much more lurid male voice, perhaps around eighteen or nineteen, and smooth and beautiful. "It's nothing to worry about... I'll take care..."
   It took a moment, but then the frog realized she was copping a feel on him.

   From the main corridor, Stygian slowly emerged from the shadows, whipping off the remnants of a dark gryphon's wing and shoulder from his own blackened wings, and drawing in his darkness, slowly reassuming a normal form. In his hands, he still held Keaton, having moved his arm a bit to support her neck and head better. He glanced over Gareeku and Cogidubnus while hastily making his way into the library, intent to see Mel.

Had to go and jynx it, didn't I?
"Well, that was a new and interesting kind of confusing and awkward," said Jeremiah, putting his hands on 'Gina''s (Gino?) shoulders and pushing him/her out to arms length, "Sorry, I'm rather big on the whole 'not being groped by random people' thing. That right there would require a good twenty drink minimum. Dammit, can't any of you ever stick around long enough to get me some coherent answers?"

Mel landed while she could still land and not fall from the air. She folded her wings back into her disguise, hoping Aisha thought they were just another magic spell. She stumbled into a table and caught herself up on it, holding onto her side. She hoped the others could take care of the monster menagerie because it was taking all her concentration to slow the taint overtaking her.

The fire burned as much in Aisha's eyes as it did from her weapon, the bright illumination having made them shine for the moment in the otherwise dark library, as she watched the flames overtake the wraith.  Once again, after recovering from the swing, the panther was quite impressed and even just a little intimidated by the blade's power, having felt the heat near her hands.  She made an apologetic grin to Mel, whom she tried to avoid hitting, but was taken aback by the wings that she had sprouted to get away from the fight.

Her eyes narrowing briefly, the panther returned to the fight.  A mystery that perhaps will be saved for later, she thought, watching as the remaining wraith tried in futility to cut through the severe blast, only to be thrown straight back to the floor.  She came up and, while she had the chance, took the sword's handle in both hands and drove the blade into the creature's body, making very sure that it would be quite dead.

With a deep sigh, Aisha looked up at Mel, who looked as normal as before...but also looked to be in a bit of pain.  "Are you okay...?" she started, only to glance up as she heard walking through the corridor, and the owner of the footsteps appearing soon after.  She tilted her head.  "What the...another injured?" she asked incredulously, carefully replacing the sword.

Sebastian carried Keaton inside, his eyes scanning for Mel, only to find her injured herself, and apparrently from one of the wraiths, he could judge once he got close enough to feel and smell it. He looked at Aisha, his face now completely devoid of leering or wicked smiles, something they had not seen before. He spoke quite seriously.
   "I found her in the hallway. I don't know whether this was Sa..."
   His sentence was cut short as a curved, rusted blade drove through his neck, ending his words in a gurgle and a hack. A wraith had come diving right out of the wall at him, and it laughed, two of its companions joining it with claws and some sort of half-moon shaped sickling blades. He almost dropped the jackal, but then, with a furious look, he turned a bit, and a black, whipping something crushed the mask of the creature that had stabbed him. The other two moved in closer though...

Mel was startled far enough out of her concentration by Aisha speaking that she opened her eyes. She was only slowing the taint, not stopping it. Before she could answer Aisha, Sebastian appeared with another stranger, a badly injured one. Before he could explain who she was yet more wraiths appeared, the first stabbing into Sebastian's neck. This only seemed to irritate him. "Aisha, be careful. Don't let them touch you," she warned, her hand over the growing blackness on her side.

Listening to Sebastian, while glancing curiously at the female in his arms, Aisha breathed a light sigh and reached behind her on the right side of her belt, where she kept another accessory that was always of use in such situations.  But as soon as the panther had grabbed it, she jumped back in surprise, watching as more wraiths appeared from behind the bat...or were they the same ones?

Growling in slight frustration, she brought out the accessory, which was a bracer that was designed in a golden-silver hue and glowing softly...another item enchanted with light.  She put the thing in her left hand while her right drew the sword again, upon seeing two of them come closer.  "How many of these are there?" Aisha snarled.

She turned toward Sebastian, about to say something, when Mel caught her eye first.  She noticed how the wound was getting worse, the blackness spreading quickly...her eyes narrowed, switching back and forth between the injured girl and her comrade...the invalid's injuries were more extensive, but what good would the magic do?  Relying on quick instinct, she dove for Mel and aimed to snap the bracer around her wrist.  "It's okay, it's light-enchanted, it'll keep that thing from spreading," she said hurriedly, also hoping that what she said indeed had truth to it.  She didn't exactly like the powers that the castle held within...

Then, with a grunt, she raised the blade and sped towards one of the wraiths who dared descend upon them...

 Cog spat some blood and stepped wetly through a length of carpet, approaching the Fenris that was facing Gareeku, and giving the fellow wolf a nod. "I think I can kill the dog. Your sword can touch the wraith." he said, before sheathing his own. Steel would be inadequate here.
He'd have to kill the dog this time. Crushing it's torso wouldn't do, and breaking the legs left a whole mouthful of fangs. He backed away and began to focus his mind again, letting the energies of his body flow, and he set himself in a deep stance, the wet carpet underneath his squishing as he moved. The dog growled, and Cog snarled back, rearing back with a fist and striking, and invisible wave of force ripping the carpet underneath him and leaving a trail, aimed straight at the head of the demonic animal. It was a bone-crushing blow, and with luck, the creature would die after it's skull imploded.

The Fenris saw Cogidubnus coming, but his speed meant that it did not have time to do more than start to move to the side. In fact, that might have been what killed the creature definitely, because when the hit impacted with the side of its face, the shock traveled down the rest of its body like a whiplash. The Fenris looked as if it slammed into Cog's fist when it moved, and then just abruptly stopped, twisting its back and then falling down on the spot. Out of sheer malicious will it managed to draw two breaths like that, before dying and starting to crumble.

   When the bracer slapped around Mel's wrist, it became noticeably easier for her to fight back the infection stemming from the wound. It actually began to recede, ever so slowly. Yet still, there was still the looming threat of the wraiths. Aisha faced the one coming directly from the side, raising her sword, and it was as if the thing actually hesitated to face her. It would not have time to attack her though.
   The other wraith was coming from a bit further away to the side, its claws reaching greedily for the panthress. That one did not hesitate. As if in slow-motion, Stygian could see the things closing with her, and his still blackened eyes narrowed. If she did not get both in the first attack...
   Behind him, darkness assembled. But he did not think that he would be able to stop that thing before it cut her...

Running and slamming doors behind her, PBH had reach the front entrance hall by going up a servant stairway, down a hallway that ended under the grand stairway in the hall.  She had take her backpack off to reach a bat and slam herself into some walls to break their bite hold on her during her run to escape. 

A few bats managed to stay with her as she reached the scene of several bats who were busy lapping up the some blood on the floor.  They squeeked and yelled as their launch themselves into the air. Tired and Weak, PBH made a last-stand under a arched window face the staircase.  She put down her backpack and pulled out her gun and tried three shot at the bats but only got one.  The noise from the gun resounded through the hall into the castle.  PBH realized that the pistol was nearly useless because her limited ammo[7 shots left], and put it back in her backpack, which she left by her side.  She touched the ancient emerald from her Nanna that hang around her neck, and calls on the last of her strength.  After a few moments of not moving, some the bats attracked the kneeing Cat-girl... But slowly building green glow and green fire burns all across her body and a mighty flash of light killed or afraid the bats from the entrance hall.

The green glow restored PBH health and recharge her magic battery, but her lab coat and pants are turn to ash and she fainted dead away....

PBH

Grunting as the corpse of the gryphon fell against him, Gareeku pushed it off to the floor as Cogi dealt with the fenris, before hearing growling and sinister laughter. Looking to the side, the wolf looked on with narrowed eyes as another fenris, along with a wraith emerged from the shadows.

Seeing the wraith lifting its blade to strike, Gareeku brought up his katana as the wraith attacked, blocking the sinister creature's strike. It was then, however, that the wolf felt a stinging pain in his back. Glancing round, he found that the fenris had moved around to behind him and had slashed his back with its claws.
"Clever, but not clever enough!" Gareeku snarled, before taking a soul energy enveloped fist and sending it crashing into the fenris' jaw, a distinct cracking sound ringin out as the strike broke the creature's jaw.

Not stopping there, Gareeku quickly grabbing the creature's nose with his hand and dragged it forward as the wraith lifted his blade and brought it down once more. Dragging the fenris' head into the path of the wraith's strike, the wolf then quickly moved out of the way as the wraith's blade cleaved through the fenris' head, beheading it. Taking the opportunity, the wolf dashed forward and, with a precise and powerful slash, cleaved through the wraith's mask with his katana, before whirling round and cleaving through the fenris to make sure it was dealt with.

Back in the library, Aisha approached the wraith in front of her slowly with her blade raised, just a little amused that it was hesitant on attacking.  Again she felt it in her hands, the power coming alive, the sword glowing like a holy torch.  She was certainly giving the thing a lot of exercise...who knew when it was used last?

However, she wasn't completely out of concentration...she still knew there were two wraiths, and she had seen the other one coming just barely out of the corner of her eye.  Aisha took a quick glimpse at the thing, rushing at her with its claws extended.  There seemed to be a moment of slow motion, at least to the panthress, before she acted on sheer impulse and dodged the wraith's swipe with a slight yelp...it managed to put a few holes in her cape, dangerously close to her back, but not touching the skin.

She was in a dodging roll, at an angle that would get her away from the ghastly creatures, who were at that moment right in front of each other.  She stopped rolling when she was behind the one that struck and caught herself with one foot on the floor.  With that same foot, she lunged, taking the handle in both hands for extra force and swung, hoping to slice straight through the back of the first one and have the flames whiplash the second.

The sword's flames scorched and burned, the clear, holy fire singeing and scathing through the shadows of the wraiths like the nothingness they were. The masks of the things cracked as they cried out in insane pain, and were extinguished along with the flames coursing through them.
   Pieces of porcelain and ashen bits lay strewn on the carpets and floors as things finally became silent, and dark stillness again settled over the library and hallway. Stygian, his breath still rasping and crawling from the wound through his neck, set Keaton down on a sofa set to a wall next to the door, and then looked at Mel and Aisha. He looked rather odd there, where he stood with a broken off blade straight through his throat, and his eyes that now began to brighten, the darkness pulling away and back from grey irises, filled with worry for them instead.

The flames died down, slowly as they receded back to the blade and extinguished the light, leaving the metal with a still glow before diminishing in itself.  Aisha watched as it did, panting slightly...though the look in her tired eyes was triumphant, the wraiths having been finally been vanquished.  She probably hadn't done as much as the other warriors, but there was still some fatigue from the exercise...it was a far cry from walking the whole time.

After a second, the panthress stood up and glanced toward Sebastian, whose expression looked livid enough despite the blade through his throat.  She winced slightly and then regarded Mel, who was still under the spell of her bracer, the darkness slowly ebbing on her side...slowly but surely.  There was a smile on her maw, of relief, but the one who was unconscious needed treatment some time ago.

"Well, next case," the panther hummed with thought and untied her cape...seeing as how they wanted to make sure Mel would recover fully, this would have to do for the other.  Aisha came up and looked over the jackal, widening her eyes slightly...she had seen wounds like this...in her career it had become easy to recognize.  She was either in a fight...or running from one with little success.  There was a slight grimace from the adventurer...but this was no time for dwelling on the fact that she was a Creature.  After looking over the bleeding areas, the panthress carefully wrapped her cape around the girl.

While trying to quell the bleeding, also trying to pull memories from her head on non-magic healing, Aisha turned a concerned gaze to the corridor, where her comrades were seen last...hoping that they had survived their own ordeal.  Then, while listening, she gave a second wince, tilting her head at the bat's predicament.  "You need some help with that, muchacho?"

Sebastian looked down at her over the rim of his slim glasses, that had oddly come back onto the bridge of his muzzle somehow, much like the shirt he was now straightening. He was about to say that he was fine, but the short gurgle and discomfort that came told him otherwise. With a grunt he gripped the rusted piece of dark metal in his neck and pulled it out with a wet, disgusting sound. The black, cracked wound began healing immediately, drawing together and slowly forming unscarred skin and fur.
   "I'm fine. Just fine," he said, still a bit coarsely, but his voice settled as he looked at her again and the hole in her cape and shirt. "What about you?" He shot a look to Mel, and to the "leopardess'" side, and then to the halve of a porcelain mask on the floor. It seemed that he knew well what those wounds could do...

Watching the remains of the wraith's mask smash on the floor, Gareeku smirked and sheathed his katana, before walking back into the library and checking up on the others. Unfortunately, it seemed that there were wounds to be tended to; something he couldn't help much with as he did not know healing magic.

Mel stood very still, her left hand supporting her against a heavy mahogany table, her right pressed to the wound in her side. Black tainted blood slowly oozed between the fingers, thick and sticky like molasses rather than blood from a living person. With the help of Aisha's bracer she was slowly pushing the poison out the gashes in her side. As soon as the blood ran clean she could heal herself. But until then she could do nothing but stand still and hope there would be no more emergencies for a few minutes.

Jeremiah leaned out from under the table and looked around, still keeping Gina at arms length.
"Erm... It clear?" He'd probably feel like a coward for hiding under the table if he had anything approximating shame. As it was, he was just hoping that he didn't have to both feel awkward and afraid of impending death my monster, "You guys get 'em?"

Aisha looked on with a sort of disgusted fascination as Sebastian pulled the blade from his throat, the skin returning to normal soon after, just like new.  That wasn't something that one could easily get used to, and only added to the mysteries surrounding the bat.  Regardless, he was okay, and that just left Mel and the stranger, whom she was still keeping watch over.

At Sebastian's inquiry, she glanced around as far as she could see towards her back, where there were still small holes in the loose fabric...but thankfully, no broken skin.  She wondered if that was really just plain dumb luck, or that she had used her speed well.  Aisha nodded briefly.  "I came out of it okay, thanks, but I don't suppose there are more dangerous things that she wants to send us?"  She turned a quick concerned look to Mel, who was steadily getting better at least.  Everyone should have a chance to recouperate...

Though her cape was the color of the blood that it was covering, it was still darkening in places, and her hands were nearly coated with it...but she hoped that the cloth at least would do until she got the bracer back, as well as Mel's help.  Aisha's grim concentration was broken though, quirking an ear as she heard and saw Gareeku wander back into the library.  She turned her head to the wolf briefly with a smile.  "Good, you're not one of the broken-up ones."  Then, hearing Jeremiah, she answered him while turning back to the injured.  "Looks like it..."

Looking at Aisha with a smile, Gareeku laughed softly at her comment.
"Who, me? Aisha, you wound me with those words." the wolf replied with a playful smirk, before turning to Jeremiah. "Yeah, we got them, though I think it goes without saying that those creatures weren't the last."

Settling, Sebastian sighed and moved over to Mel. He still couldn't help but sniffing the air and feeling about, taking in the sensations of the room, mainly the smell of chill that drifted off her and the foul feeling of the wraiths and their poison, all of which were dissappearing fast.
   "Are you okay enough?" he asked her, looking at her side. More sensations, up this close. Ones that almost made him smile curiously. But he kept his face in check. "She seems to need healing..." He looked over to Keaton for a brief second, turning a bit. Most of his attention was still on Mel though. How to find out for sure...?
   "You little brat!" came a voice, that dry and prude one again. The ferret stormed out of Jeremiah's arms and up to the bat. Her face was practically snarling again, and she seemed somehow surprised and irritated that she wasn't tall enough to slap him in the face. "You will answer for what you've done, young man!" she foamed, and jumped up at him, beating and scratching. The bat caught her somewhat unsteadily, and held her at arm's length, looking at her, half angrily and half perplexedly.
   "You little spawn of a whore!" Gina hissed, shaking and clawing his arms.

She smirked at Gareeku's reply, despite still keeping her concentration and alternately tightening and loosening the bonds of the fabric.  "My words don't wound, they bruise," she laughed.

However, upon hearing someone yelling her ears quirked and she turned around to notice the ferret woman who was with Jeremiah and Cogi, now awake and attacking Stygian like mad.  Her eyebrow was quirked.  "I thought she was unconscious."

"Apparantly, they got better," Jeremiah replied, clambering out from under the table, "Whatever the bat did, he missed a few," He smiled to himself as he watched the ferret verbally abuse Sebastion. He should probably do something, but this was really freaking funny. He gave it a couple more minutes, and then forced himself to bring something to the elderly personality's attention.
"Shouldn't you avoid standing with that leg wound? Could tear it open more, or something to that effect."

Mel gave Sebastian a wary look as she checked the gashes in her side. The blood was running clean now so she could begin the healing. The bat was giving her such an odd look. With his strange eyes it was possible that her disguise didn't look quite normal to him. It had happened once before, ten or twenty thousand years ago, with a mythos with six eyes. "I'm getting close to okay, thanks. I'll check the succubus as soon as I stop this little leak." She hadn't even finished speaking when the dead and possessed ferret jumped him. It was all Mel could do not to laugh to see the ferret, so tiny, trying to beat up the bat who had just moments before been tearing monsters to shreds.

The bat was clearly disconcerted with the ferret's rage, and truth to tell he was curious at her strength too, but not entirely out of balance.
   "This isn't the same one! She's... picked more up. This is the librarian," he said, holding her by the scruff of her neck now in his right hand. The ferret was going so far as to try and bite him, white eyes filled with rage.
   "You will call me, Mrs. Alikin, boy!" she hissed.
   "Like I said," Sebastian sighed, "the librarian." He seemed to know her very well, and regret it. "And I don't think that any leg wound will stop her now. She's a Legion. It's what happens when spirits inhabit bodies under extraordinary circumstances sometimes. Really rare, but I think we ca..."
   "Snow?" the ferret said, now in that smooth, young man's voice. She looked at him with sadness. "What happened to your wings?"
   The bat's eyes went wide, and he snapped his head against the ferret. He dropped her carelessly on the floor, just as she was about to say more. She yelped, and rubbed her behind, and the bat looked down at her, his eyes narrowing.
   "We need to keep her in check. And not just so that she'll be yelling at us to return books."

Jeremiah winced as Gina hit the ground, tsking. Yes, that personality seemed to have it coming, but still. Ah well, mebbe they had a history.
"I'll keep an eye on her," Jeremiah volunteered, surprising himself. Where on earth did that come from? "I've been looking after her so far, and I probably wont be too helpful in the monster killing department anyway," he looked at the woman sadly, "She have any hope of getting her body back?"

Mel just shook her head as she moved to check the jackal. Obviously Jeremiah didn't want to believe that the body's original owner was gone, if indeed he had ever met her. The jackal girl was in bad shape, worse than the ferret had been. First and foremost was the large cut on the side. She started from the inside, assessing the organs behind the cut before beginning the work of knitting things back together.

Stygian could have said something right then, and normally would have, but he let it go. The ferret looked up at him with an expression full of harm and indignance.
   "Why'd you do that? Snow?" she said. Then, she looked back down, and at her hand, seemingly becoming confused. He ignored her, and walked past and up to Mel, taking a look at her working.
   The jackal's wounds seemed to be healing fast, but the bat still stood back a bit, looking at her, his nose twitching at the overwhelming, intoxicating smell of blood.
   "Is she going to be allright?" he asked. And what do we do with her if she is...? he thought to himself.

Aisha held back her snickering with a grin on her face, slightly amused as she watched the ferret, though her eyes held pity in them as well.  The state of mind that she was in must have been unimaginable, a body possessed by, as it looked, more than one spirit...she agreed with Sebastian, such a person was more than unpredictable...but it was hoped that at least there was a way to keep her--them?--calm.

The panther breathed a slight sigh of relief as she finally saw Mel approach the wounded, and with a nod, she loosened the blood-drenched cape away from her so that the leopard could work, pausing after a quick moment to utter the words of the enchantment that made the bracer open and drop from Mel's wrist.  On her way up, Aisha picked it from the floor and gently took the wrist of the jackal girl, snapping it on her next.  "Very versatile, this thing," Aisha said, just speaking in the midst of the tense surroundings.  "Dark magic inhibitor and good for keeping vile things out of the way of the healing process.  Even helps with it."

And then, the panther stood and moved out of Mel's way, leaning on a table while crossing her arms, eyes wandering curiously over the party, and especially with curiosity on the ferret.

Mel smiled at Aisha. "Yes, your bracer is very effective. Thank you. I don't think I could have fought off the poison without it." Then she addressed Sebastian, "Closing the holes is the easy part. She doesn't have very much blood in her. I can make her produce blood faster, but fast enough would be the question. Even if it's fast enough for survival she's going to be weak and confused. Hardly conducive to survival here." Mel thought about it for a moment as she worked. "She's a cubi though. Maybe emotion-feeding can boost her system."

Cog walked back into the library, brushing some hair out of his eyes as he placed his shades back on his head. He'd not been able to do much after killing that fenris...he needed more time, or at least a new dawn, before he'd be able to be any real help anytime soon. Or perhaps an enchanter... he thought.
He stayed mostly in one corner as the others spoke amongst themselves, a little tired for talk. His vision was getting blurry at the edges again - overusing the force-waves, probably. He shook his head to clear his eyes, and a deep breath seemed to steady him somewhat. There was time yet, perhaps, for rest. He raised an eyebrow when the tiger-lady said the newcomer was a 'Cubi. Rare indeed., Cog thought. He pushed himself off the wall and approached where Mel was helping her. He thought for a moment, and then unwound the cross from his neck, offering the trinket to the white tiger.
"This can help. It's supposed to be a healing charm, although it's helped more as other things thus far here..." he said, grinning sheepishly. "But it sounds like she's in somewhat bad shape. Every little bit, yes?"
As he spoke, he surreptitiously removed the twisted silver charm from his pocket, and let it dangle from his other hand. Perhaps if she was so inclined, she might be willing to charge this one for him...assuming she could do so, of course...

At Mel's statement, the bat chuckled and shook his head a bit.
   "Well, I'm hardly ideal if that's what you're looking for," he said, and Mel could quickly verify the truth of the statement. The same emotions that 'cubi fed on were after all an integral part of much of what she knew about thought-reading, memories, mind-control and the likes. The bat didn't exude a shred of them, save perhaps for a bit of chill that could be chalked up to the mere knowledge of his presence. She couldn't sense his thoughts either. The only thing that was there was the darkness of him, a slithering, crawling blackness, tightly bunched up and enclosed within him, but permeating all of him, and hiding something even darker and bigger behind it, she suspected.
   The bat turned his head and looked at the ferret, who was still looking at her hand with empty eyes, a confused and slightly afraid look on her face.
   "Perhaps we could use her? It's the only good she'll do anyway, I think..." he said. Then, Cogidubnus walked up and offered his pendant. Without asking, Stygian took it in his hand and looked at it. His hand only touched the cord, not the cross itself.
   "Healing, you say?" he said, eyes narrowing and examining it very closely. "I suppose... But it seems to work quite generally..." he muttered, straightening his glasses and peering even closer through them. "It seems to be hampered in its function somehow... But it's an elegant piece... I suppose that I could charge it with some raw magic, if I may?" he then said, looking at cog, raising his other hand, which began to crackle with some small, purplish bolts.

"Ah, well, that one should be fine, good sir. I've never seen it run dry..." he said, his eyes suddenly brightening. He hadn't expected the shade to have that kind of skill...although, he wasn't one to waste opportunity. He held the other charm up. "Although, if you might be so kind..." he trailed off, letting the other charm twist in his grip.

Stygian made a face, and took Cog's other charm, and danced sparks of dark blue and purple hues into it, some of them coalescing off the charm's surface and crackling into the air, making little bends in the light appear at places. It was hardly efficient, as the energy form wasn't suited for the charm itself, but Stygian had no capabilities with light magic at all, so considering circumstances it was still very good.

Mel was still closing the last of the jackal's wounds when Cog offered his charm, and inquired about the charging of others. Before she could free her attention to answer him Sebastian handled the situation. She nodded to the wolf, "I was about to answer that enchanted objects were a favored hobby but you seem to have that well in hand. I do seem to remember you being in line for this other skill of mine before the interuption. What seems to be ailing you Mr. Mithlome?"

Things seemed to be going rather fast for poor Jeremiah, but he was able to catch a little bit of what was going on.
"On the note of healing wossnames, I've still got these big damn stab wounds here..." Jeremiah chuckled, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, "So, I'm seeing there's some new faces since I was last with the rest of you lot. I miss anything while me and Cog were off getting chewed on?"

Hearing Mel's thanks, Aisha smiled and nodded back to her.  "You're quite welcome.  Any way I could help."  The panthress at least thought that she did that part well enough, looking at the succubus as the snow leopard worked on her.  I wonder how she'll react once she finally comes to?  There was a light sigh as she looked down at her hands and her clothes, most of the fabric stained in the mixed blood of the injured and the slain.  To kill...to save...life's just a big walking irony, Aisha thought with a grimace.

But her thoughts were interrupted on the conversation about feeding from emotions to help the succubus.  Aisha crossed her arms, wondering how that would be, also following Sebastian's glance to the ferret woman.  "How do we even know what kind of emotions she feeds on?" she inquired, quirking an eyebrow.  Having known a few 'Cubi for her life, as friends, one would think that she'd know a bit more to that.

Then she heard Jeremiah's question, and she just laughed, glancing around.  "You didn't miss much I think, amigo.  Most of our handiwork is back in the chapel."

"Please, do take over if you wish. As you can plainly see," Sebastian said to Mel, and gestured against the charm, "I am hardly good at this sort of thing." He gently handed her the charm, and examining the jackal laying in the sofa.
   "Yeah, some handiwork..." he said, shooting the panthress a look and smirking. "Though it's still for nothing if we can't get this done soon. For all we know, the house may come down on us. There may be others trapped in here too. And those can be even more dangerous than the ghosts."

   The wounds on the frog's shoulder were beginning to itch. They weren't that deep, but still... Then, the ferret moved up next to him, looking at him silently with those empty eyes, almost like a kid trying to figure out what she'd never seen before. Or maybe one who knew what was up, but wasn't sure what was going to happen from it.

Cog smiled and thanked Stygian for his help. "You are, sir, a scholar and a gentleman." he said, making a bow, and thanking him again. "I assure you, that helps me more than you know." He tipped his hat, and turned to Mel.
"You are kind indeed to inquire, but does not the Cubi, or perhaps Jed, need more attention more than I?" he said, his face one of compassion. He shrugged. "My back got in the way of a rather large wall. It's not felt very well since."

"And mine got in the way of some claws on this big damn ghost thing, so I'd say yeah, I go first," Jeremiah chuckled, absentmindedly scratching at the area around the gash. A thought occured to him and he looked up in alarm, "Wait, alright, someone refresh my memory. Does itching mean it's healing or that it's infected?" Noticing Gina, he looked down at her and smiled plesantly, on the basis that if there's so many personalities in there there's probably at least one or two who warrent a bit of politeness, "Something up?"

For what felt like an eternity, Keaton hung, suspended in limbo.

There was no sensation, no awareness, no nothing, save for the lifeless, smothering cape of darkness that enveloped her like an atramentous, sticky blanket. Occasionally, Keaton gave a twitch or some indication that she was still alive, such as the uneven, shaky rise and fall of her chest, but other than those subtle movements she seemed quite dead. Cadaverous white stained her skin beneath her fur, making its normally vivid coloration appear ten times lighter, save for the dappled splatters of blood scattered along the side that Mel was working to mend.

Keaton's body suddenly turned over slightly, the jackal's body threatening to fall over entirely, which would probably disturb the meticulous work Mel completed on her gash. Speaking of the aforementioned gash, it appeared less severe than it did when Stygian found her. It was obvious that the combined efforts of the group had aided its recovery.

Keaton suddenly jerked, as though fighting to release herself from the proverbial web of darkness that held her. The light was a few, tantalizing feet away, close enough for her to touch, but just a few millimeters from her grasp. Shattering the web, Keaton burst free from the clutches of the darkness that sought to hold her, flying towards the welcoming embrace of the white light--

Her eyelids fluttered slightly, allowing her a slight glimpse of the blur-marred world, her surroundings, and the people filling the room, from the frog to the pantheress to the now subdued ferret. For a moment, Keaton let herself slip back into the tumultuous sea of black.

Then, once what she saw registered, her eyes snapped open altogether, clouded pupils tiny.

Letting out a blood-curdling yell that would make a banshee green with envy, Keaton jerked herself back, crawling against the barricading arm of the sofa--which happened to be a centimeter away--ignoring the stinging pain of her gash and the two perforations in her back all the way. Keaton's head jerked from side to side, her body quaking spasmodically despite her efforts to control it. Her eyes were wild, wide, from beneath her disheveled hair's tousled bangs.

"Who are you people? What's going on? Where AM I?!" Keaton demanded, about to continue, but getting cut off with a sharp groan. Doubling over, she clutched her chest, cursing fitfully among her hyperventilating. Her hand groped for her mace--where the hell WAS IT?--off to the side, as she was too weak to use her wing-tentacles to try and defend herself. Too panicked, she didn't readily recognize the man who brought her in--her eyes were just too blurry.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

Stygian was actually relieved to see the jackal open her eyes and look at them. However badly she was wounded, and however bad she still looked, that meant she would be able to answer questions and perhaps even aid them.
   However, as she really began to come to her senses, she began panicking, something that he found annoying no matter the circumstances. Muttering, the bat stepped forward and leaned down a bit, and grabbed her probing hand, which was looking on the wrong side of the couch if it was the mace she was after, and her shoulder, forcefully straightening and holding her to keep her from tearing her wound open. She struggled, of course, but he was he, and she was weakened by blood loss and bruising. She might as well have been trying to push away the wall behind her.
   "Calm down. Calm down!" he said, trying to fix her eyes. "Mel!"

   That itch on Jeremiah's shoulder mildened a bit, but rather than going away it was simply replaced by a sort of numbing, stinging chill that began spreading. A little jolt of pain came as it surged through his shoulder and neck. But it didn't really feel normal. It was like that sort of thing that one feels when a nerve gets squeezed together, but different. He actually almost wanted to laugh at it.

Keaton's screaming gave Jeremiah a start, understandibly. "Alright, that's not my responsibility. I've already got my 'looking after short, crazy girl' quota filled," rolled his shoulder again, frowning. It was feeling worse. Call for Mel and risk looking like an ass for attracting attention away from the really sick lady, or let it lie and die of infection. Decisions, decisions, Eventually, he reached a compromise.
"Hey, if anyone's not using that charm chuck it here, willya? I think there's something up with my-" there was another jolt of pain and the frog winced, glancing at Gina's rapt expression out of the corner of his eye, "- Ngh... Shoulder..."

Mel turned quickly on Jeremiah, her eyes wide. "Ghost thing? Like the ones that were just here? With a mask for a face?" Before she could get an answer the succubus began thrashing and shouting. As Sebastian stepped in to hold the jackal still Mel asked, "Someone check his wound. If it's the same thing that just poisoned me he might be in competition with this one for most critical."

Waiting for an answer to that she let hypnotic magic drift into her voice, "Shhh... you're safe. Relax. Relax." At the same time she mentally left a message for the cubi. "You're being healed. Calm down before you make it worse." She didn't try anything deeper than a surface message, the critically injured were often crazed and she didn't want to get trapped in a backlash.

With a smirk to Sebastian's retort, Aisha couldn't help but wonder again about the castle.  With its size, it felt that even with the combined efforts of the party the surface of the place was only barely scratched...not even half-explored.  There was the foreboding feeling again, taking a glimpse out of the windows and to the grey and morbid storm clouds, before settling once again on the party.  Watching Mel work hard on the jackal's wounds, and seeing everyone alive, there was hope that soon enough they would be prepared for whatever else would take place.

It was then, hearing about Jeremiah's wounds, Aisha turned her head with the same look of surprise as Mel had.  "...Mierda..." she cursed beneath her breath.  "If it is, we may need the bracer again if the wounded wakes up."

With those words, she noticed from the corner of her eye some movement from the girl.  The relief from the others didn't last long however, as she suddenly panicked and leaped up, the others trying to get a firm hold on her again.  The panthress walked up beside them.  "Relax, or you're only going to tear your wounds open again," she said in a slightly-frustrated but calming tone.  She only hoped that the bracer's magic wasn't hurting the jackal girl, but she was ready to snap it off if that was the case...she looked lively enough that the wounds could be fixed further without it.

"Yeah, one of them, them thingies... Feeling woozy. Why'm I feeling woozy?" The frog put a hand to his forehead and staggered, his face taking on a panicked cast, "What'd it do?"

Keaton probably would've went so far as to fling herself off of the sofa in her panic if it weren't for Stygian's sudden restraint, his larger hands capturing her wrists easily. Electricity flashed dangerously in Keaton's eyes for a moment, the girl converting all of her energy and effort into trying to kick, squirm, and tug her way out of Stygian's powerful grip. Thanks to her weakened, numbed state, however, all Keaton could manage were a few, pathetic jerks, her wings' tips sharpening into serrated daggers for all but a second, but fluctuating back into their leathery base form five seconds later. In her anxiety, they continued to spasm, twisting gelatinously until Mel's mentally delivered words reached her.

Keaton's ears fell back against her skull, mind gravitating back towards reality, where the stabs of pain radiating from the gash lacerating her side were more provoked from her frenzied movements than ever. Twitching and face locked in what looked like an eternal wince, Keaton's muscles relaxed the best they could, and her wings returned to relative stability. Worse yet was that the duo of punctures in her back were equally agitated, where they were once just a mild hinderance if they didn't get infected.

The jackal was utterly silent now, save for feverish breathing, and the nervous shifting of her eyes. They flitted back and forth in their sockets, her vision uneven because of the absence of her glasses, as one of her eyes was colorblind. For a moment her gaze slipped down to the bracer which was clasped around her wrist, confusedly inspecting it. That hadn't been there before, but for some reason it felt as though its presence was helping her. She made no effort to remove it, although she was uncertain about it at first and would likely remain so.

Where the hell were her mace and glasses? She didn't want to think that she dropped them someplace in this godforsaken castle. To exacerbate the matters was that she hardly had any recollection of the events that transpired beforehand, as the resigned slump of her shoulders and the questing angle of her eyes indicated once they slid to the ground.

"...what the hell's going on?" she repeated, voice very, very hoarse.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

Mel heard Jeremiah's confirmation of the source of his wounds. They now had two dangerously ill patients. "Aisha, would you mind swapping the bracer to Jeremiah? Hopefully it will stop the toxin until I'm free to deal with him."

Thankfully the jackal stopped thrashing and let Mel continue working, which meant she could get to the frog that much quicker. It also meant Mel was gaining on the wounds, since the girl was at least somewhat in control of herself.

Stygian felt the girl calm down while looking back at Jeremiah, yet he still held her as he turned and gazed into her eyes again. His face was absolutely serious, but his mind was smirking, and in spite of the situation he just couldn't help himself.
   "You're in a haunted castle quite close to Hell, among people who would most likely kill you when in doubt, and we're all being held here against our will and pelted with ghosts and demons by a fallen angel. Keaton... That was your name, wasn't it? Right. Keaton, you need to be very, very calm and rational." He grinned, and his eyes went black again, as did his teeth and gums in his elongating jaws, glinting like obsidian razors. "If not, I am going to bite your neck off."
   Stygian was very much on the edge of laughing, but another part of his mind was tense. If it worked as he hoped, she would be practially frozen. If it didn't, he'd need to knock her out again.

   Another jolt of pain shot through Jeremiah's shoulder, the skin under his clothes rapidly beginning to blacken. This time, he actually felt a bit of a giggle rise up from his throat, before he could stop himself. The surroundings were becoming dimmer and more blurry, but also clearer somehow, as if the colours were blurted out slowly into a green-tinted sepia and the range of brightness increased.

"I hate to bother you Miss, but you still have my cross." Cog said, tipping his hat. "It might help. With whatever Jeremiah might have...be it physical or perhaps not."

Watching the succubus, Aisha spared a quick glance to Jeremiah as he answered about his wound.  Her ears pinned against her head at the news, but her ear swiveled back to Mel and the girl as she finallly had started to calm down.

Carefully hoping not to come within range of a hidden wing-tentacle, Aisha nodded and reached over, using the words of the enchantment in one quick breath.  The lock of the thing clicked open once more, the slight glowing on its ornate outline growing a little stronger.  Aisha spared a polite smile and a nod to the jackal, taking it back, but rolling her eyes a bit to the bat's explanation.

With that, the adventurer then heaved a quiet sigh and walked over to the woozy frog, taking his wrist and using the light impliment on its third patient with an audible metallic snap, and quickly as she noticed a slight change in his demeanor.  "One of those things got Mel too, and I think it would've poisoned her...or turned her into a wraith, some such.  It might've done the same to you too."

Aisha stood up then, casting an apologetic glance to the ferret woman, if she happened to be in her way.  The panthress ran a blood-scented hand through her own hair.  Mistress Rynkura would be happy to know that I'm getting a healing workout.  She then glanced up at Cogi as he spoke, humming briefly.  At least there's more than one of us to help.

As the others conversed, Gareeku once again stayed silent, his eyes fixed on the hallway and the darkness beyond. It was then, however, that he heard a sudden yell. Turning round, he saw that the succubus had regaind conscious. Unsurprisingly, she was confused and defensive. Seeing that the others had calmed her down, Gareeku resumed his gaze on the hallway.

The ferret standing next to jeremiah looked at him fearfully. Then, she poked him. And twitched, and jumped back. Then she spoke up in a voice as if a dozen people or more were speaking at the same time.
   "He ate my brother!" she said, and her eyes went wide open. "He is going to kill us all!" she, or they, screamed out. Then, with a nasty, cracking and fleshy sound, she bent in the oddest way, and showed much too big teeth, roaring at the frog.

Hearing the ferret's outburst, Gareeku looked at her with narrowed eyes. Walking over and standing in front of her, the wolf gazed gazed down at the roaring ferret for a second, before his fist suddenly crashed in her jaw. It was powerful enough to break anything, but it would silence her.
"Shut up." Gareeku stated flatly, a look of calm seriousness on his face. "Who ate your brother?"

The ferret didn't take the punch the way one might have imagined; rather than get knocked back, she just bent with the fist, taking it, and then looking up at Gareeku with those big eyes before roaring out. Leaping up, she grappled him with a strength that seemed the sum of all the people in her, and attempted to twist his arm around.
   "Please! No! You're hurting me!" she yelled in a completely normal voice with a fearful tone, before twisting around in some joint- and inertia-defying manner and hurling the wolf away against a bookcase. When she got back down on the floor, she doubled back and began running around them on all fours like some sort of spider, screaming in panic half of the time and moaning in a distorted voice the other half.

Too confused and in pain to continue to resist, Keaton listened to Stygian as attentively as possible, her ears flat and her expression dazed. It took her a moment to register who he was, and to identify him as the person who had rescued her, but the true revelation came the next time he spoke.

Keaton absorbed his explanation swimmingly enough, nodding at his question. "Yeah... Keaton," she said the name uncertainly, as though her own epithet eluded her as swiftly as her immediate memories. Trying to exercise her mind back into relative order, she struggled to recall her full birth name, her favorite color... rudimentary tidbits which she had repeated several times before in nearly amnesiac states. "And you're that Sebastian guy, right?"

Right. He was. Keaton could clearly remember him now, invisioning the memory of their meeting in flickering detail. Keaton remained tempered throughout the rest of his presentation, at least, up until his darkly-humored statement, which made her entire expression deflate like a balloon. A muscle in her cheek twitched. Some part of her started to wonder if he was just attempting to play with her mind, while the other suspected he was actually serious.

Keaton was too preoccupied to notice Aisha darting up, muttering an incantation, and stealing away the charm so she could bring it to the afflicted frog, Jeremiah. Unresponsive, Keaton allowed her to come and go as she pleased, too stunned to snap at her or curse at her despite her courteous gestures.

Unexpectedly, before Keaton could regain her composure, the once-crestfallen ferret started spouting nonsensical jibberish about Jeremiah eating her brother, and even began to convulse in grotesque angles while she snarled and bared her teeth at the frog. A frown springing to her face, Keaton tried to peer at the ferret from around Stygian's arm, morbidly curious about the mustelid's behavior. Before the ferret could grow any more riotous, the wolf managed to sock her in the jaw, making her scuttle about the room like a deranged crab.

"...what the hell...?" Keaton started, her voice tinged with obvious, disgusted confusion.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

Hmm, I should have known she wouldn't react normally... Gareeku thought to himself as his arm as his arm was twisted around, before being hurled at a bookcase. Acting quickly, the wolf positioned in himself so that he landed on the book feet first, before using it as a platform and flipping to land on the floor, again on his feet.

"You're going to have to do better than that." Gareeku stated flatly, the look of calm seriousness still on his face. "Seems like a number of spirits are currently residing in you. I guess you're the only organic thing at this time that they can use as a vessel."

Startled, Stygian turned back and looked at the ferret, letting Keaton go as a look of wariness crept into his face which slowly returned normal, all but the eyes.
   "You fool! Don't tick her off! The librarian alone is a danger!" he shouted at Gareeku.
   "Snooow!" the ferret screamed in that young man's voice, clinging to the side of a bookcase with her back against the wall and her arms twisted illogically. "Pleeease! Don't hate me!" she screamed, and roared as she threw herself into the air, flipping over and stretching out her hands at Gareeku. The hands themselves grew, along with her claws, turning a darker shade in their fur and bestial and much too large for the rest of her body. She spoke in tongues as she tried to hit the wolf and crack his bones.

Jeremiah shook his head and giggled again, steadying himself. "Thank you. That was... Odd," His voices were all clamoring about something, and his ears had this curious ringing sensation, "That was very odd indeed."
Although nowhere half as odd as what happened next.
"Eat someone? What in the-?" the frog fixed Gina with what could only be called a Look and stepped towards her, eyes widening as she changed. He put his arms up in the universal guesture for peace, "Just relax, everything's fine, you know ol' Jeremiah wouldn't hurt a fly no matter how hard he tried..."
Breakumbreakumbreakumbreakum-!
It's not stealing if they have spares, right? She has lots of extra-
Sir, it grows CROWDED in this skull!
Danger! Stay away from her!
Let me out, you greasy little-!
SHUT UP! ALL OF YOU SHUT THE HELL UP!
You can't scream at us for the crime of existing forever, greasy!
WATCH ME, BAL!
Alright, Jeremiah concided as he mentally subdued his Condition, Admittedly, the company I keep would. I wouldn't, though!

Aisha kept a close watch on Jeremiah from where she stood nearby, as the bracer of light took on its soft glow before encompassing the frog's body...she hoped that it would work as quickly as it had done for Mel.  His taint was further along than hers had been and would have probably had more time to plant itself, she thought, considering the time since he had been attacked.

Then, the ferret woman had started speaking again, so suddenly that the panther stepped back a few feet, gritting her teeth with surprise as she spoke in numerous voices at once...something that was impossible to do otherwise.  She was definitely possessed.  Aisha was about to step forward, when she noticed Gareeku take the opportunity and tried to get her to calm down in a most direct way.  That should work... she smirked.

But when the wolf was flung across the room, the look on her face returned to a grimace.  ...Or not.  She growled quietly and started side-stepping around the room, trying to avoid the mad spirits as their vessel seemed to want to go in many different directions, before deciding that Gareeku was its new target.  Her eyes widened, mostly in pity for the ferret girl, wherever her true spirit was.  Her hand was resting thoughtfully on a large book in the shelf.  This is just going to end in more bloodshed...

"Shhh..." soothed Mel to Keaton. "Concentrate on healing, not on the other patients. I'm sure the others can deal with whatever is going on." At Cog's request Mel realized the cross was still dangling from her hand and she tossed it to him. Perhaps it would help the ferret. She forced a smile as her cool hands settled over Keaton's major wound. "If you feed on crazy you'll love this place."

Seeing the girl transform, Gareeku narrowed his eyes.
"Shit." he growled. Thinking quickly as the girl lunged at him, the wolf then rolled forward, before grabbing the girls arm and hurling her away.
"I was hoping it wouldn't come to this." Gareeku muttered, with one hand resting on his blade as the other was enveloped in light magic.

"Oh, but fuck...!" Sebastian said. He wondered if there was any way to stop this at all. He might be able to use something he remembered about the spirits inside of the ferret. The problem there was that he didn't know exactly who they were, save for two of them. And he didn't know which were the most prominent either. Still, he had to do some bloody thing. He turned, and moved in between the crabwalking girl and Gareeku, just as she was about to leap onto the wolf again.
   "Sto...!" he began, only to recieve a foot in the stomach and being knocked aside. He lost his balance, but fortunately didn't lift or fall.
   "My god! I'm sorry! Aaagagagagagaga...!" the ferret foamed, and then spun around to the side. A giant, vertical maw formed in her chest somehow as she leapt for Gareeku, arms flung out and head bent back. "They were in the restricted section, young man!" she shrieked, again in the librarian's voice.

"Hold her still!" Jeremiah yelled as Gina flung herself at Gareeku, "me and Cog were able to sort of calm her down before! Just get her to hold still! Cog!" Jeremiah whirled and pointed at the were, "You remember whatever it was you were chanting earlier?"

Easier said than done, idiot... Gareeku thought in annoyance as he heard the frog's words. Looking on as the girl advanced, Gareeku narrowed his eyes as Stygian was pushed aside, before they widened somewhat as a mouth something formed in the girl's gut.

Leaping out of the way just in time, the magic in Gareeku's hand intensified. He just needed the right moment to us it.

Wholly transfixed by the spectacle unfolding before her, Keaton watched with macabre fascination as Gina, the ferret, proceeded to rampage briefly around the area before she hooked herself to a bookcase. From there on, she--who sporadically seemed to adopt drastically different voices--underwent an alarming transformation, her body warping and twisting as she babbled archaic language after language, swiping furiously at Gareeku with her newly-oversized arms.

Keaton would've watched the chaos further if she hadn't have been rallied back to Mel's valiant efforts to mend her injuries, which Keaton had entirely forgotten about in the midst of all the panic. "Holy shit..." Keaton muttered, eyes trailing after Gina, who had yet to concede in her relentless assault on Gareeku, even as she inexplicably grown a horrendously proportioned maw on her chest.

She turned her head towards Mel. "What the hell's with that ferret? And where're my glasses and mace?" Keaton traced an outline of her adored weapon with the tip of her finger in the air. "They're easy to spot. Don't tell me I didn't have them with me when that guy" -- Keaton pointed to Stygian-- "brought me in."

~Keaton the Black Jackal

Stygian grunted and moved around. Gareeku and Gina both looked ready to blow each other's heads off. As the ferret touched ground, the maw in her chest dissappeared, and instead black shapes, like disembodied, ghastly torsos with gleaming red eyes and clawing hands, sprouted out from her and around her. She wailed with the shapes, standing in place and twitching a bit.
   "Aaagh! Why won't you love me!?" she screamed, and then turned her eyes, now glowing red like those of the horrors around her, against the wolf. She sprang for him.
   That was when Stygian mustered as much as he could of his speed, and placed himself between them, shouting loud enough to make their ears pain.
   "STOOOOOOOOP!" he screamed. Halfway through, his voice changed to that of the original Gina, and some sort of whispy energy seethed around him. The crazed ferret stopped, and shook, returning to normal and looking up at him as if she were about to cry.
   "N-no...! We're Gina! Y-you...!" she said, then made a little sound in her throat, and threw a punch into his gut that smacked him halfway across the room and into a desk, which broke around him. The ferret then twitched, and fell unconscious to the floor.
   Grunting, Stygian sat up, and wheezed.
   "Bloody, thrice-damned ghosts...!" he rasped and coughed.

Mel continued to smile soothingly at Keaton, resisting cringing at the sounds behind her. She had to trust that the formidable party could take care of one possessed ferret one way or another. "Gina? She's possessed by multiple spirits. As Sebastian told you, this is a haunted house. As to your possessions, I'm sure they're around somewhere but I wasn't quite myself when you arrived to notice where they went. I'd been poisoned by a wraith and had to heal myself before I turned into one. It's just a laugh a minute here in House Caeruleus."

"Yes indeed, I remember." Cog said, letting the chain loop around his hand once and walking softly towards Gina. "Although, I don't think it would have been beneficial just then..." he looked warily at Stygian, and knelt next to the unconscious ferret's body. He looped the cross around her next once, and held the silver piece in his hand for a moment before letting it fall softly onto her chest.
As he did so, he backed up suddenly, ready to begin murmuring in the old tongue once more. He had the sneaking suspicion it would take something a bit more than a piece of silver and old liturgies to calm her this time, however. "If you needed that cross, sir, I apologize - I think it might be unavailable for awhile."

Aisha kept watching carefully from around the bookcases, her hand having instantly started to go towards her boomerang handle when she transformed.  She could see Gareeku getting ready to use what powers he could, but the panther was poised to help, though she was also a little tired from helping otherwise.  She winced as the ferret blocked Sebastian's effort as if it was nothing.  Her grip tightened.

And that was when the bat tried again, and her eyes widened at the blow...but to everyone's infinite relief, the possessed woman's body collapsed, and she relaxed with a sigh.  Aisha stepped out of the shadows, glancing towards the bat again, to the ferret, to where Mel and Jeremiah still were with the 'Cubi, and finally to Gareeku.  "Good gods," she breathed.  "Is everyone okay?"

She then quirked an ear to Mel's statement and couldn't help but laugh nervously, glancing back toward the bookshelves.  "Crazy as it is, I wonder if there isn't anything about exorcisms in the books these religion-fanatics kept..." she muttered thoughtfully.

"I'm sure this place is a laugh riot," Keaton remarked sarcastically, her voice nearly lost to the screeching tirades of the apparently-possessed ferret resonating within the chamber. Tensing instinctually, Keaton tried her best to ignore the scuffle ensuing between the others and the demented ferret after her gaze managed to wander back to the scene once or twice.

"But dammit. Don't tell me that I lost them somehow..." Keaton buried her head in her hands. "Fucking monsters attacked me at the doors to this place, I probably dropped my mace there, but my glasses... I need those."

Keaton waved her hand before her eyes for emphasis. "It's really hard to explain. I just need them, and he'll be really pissed if I don't find him soon." Keaton rolled her eyes, remaining purposefully ambiguous about the sudden, masculine referrence of her mace. "But you said you were attacked by a wraith? You mean to tell me there are things like that all over this hellhole?"

~Keaton the Black Jackal

People were talking right in each other's mouths now, and nothing made sense anymore. The place was a mess. And now the other wolf seemed to think he was going to perform an exorcism right here in Stygian's presence. It was too much. He was used to things being hard, but the sheer amount of unpredictable oddness was just too much.
   "I'm... just fine... there's no need..." Stygian said, getting to his feet and straightening with a cough and a dry crack from his spine, pulling the jackal's glasses from a shirtpocket. Oddly enough, they had survived unscathed. He walked up to the jackal, and handed them over. Then, he threw himself in a chair and made an exasperated moan.
   The ferret seemed to be coming to her senses again. But quite oddly, she was crying.
   "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..." she said in a shifting voice, that seemed to begin to settle at that of the young man, tears streaming down her cheeks.

The gash on Keaton's side was almost closed, although still raw and painful looking. "Sorry, but you picked a very bad place to hide. This place is literally a hellhole and evidently we're trapped. Sebastian can explain it better. Can you turn a bit so I can see your other wounds?"

After accepting her glasses back from Stygian, who she thanked with an appreciative nod, she acquiesced to Mel's gentle commands and turned her body over so her back was completely exposed to Mel's experimentation. Located between and just below her wings were two, livid punctures in her back, the splintered edge of an arrow, snapped in two, lodged in the center of one of the more deeper wounds. Obviously Keaton hadn't had the energy to completely remove the arrow, and she would've rectified it at that moment if it weren't for the assumption that Mel would discourage such a hasty act.

Rolling her eyes, Keaton commanded her wings to blend in with her body, the metamorphosis proceeding as fluidly and efficiently as per usual. The wings sunk deep into her back, disappearing from sight and allowing Mel a better glimpse, as well as more room to tend to the two, worrisome perforations. Thanks to her hard work, however, the pain that had been bombarding Keaton for the past few, agonizing minutes had nearly subsided, dulled to an unnoticable pulse in the back of her head. It was probably safe enough to move around, but she didn't want to risk ripping her wound open again.

"So I take it I have to stay here for a while until you guys find a way out of this place?" Keaton asked, arching an eyebrow. "Great... just... wonderful."

~Keaton the Black Jackal

Cog contemplated trying to suppress the ferret woman again, but thought better. At this point, it would likely be like a bucket of water in a volcano. Stronger things than what Cog had would be necessary. He merely kept quiet, and kept a steady eye on the girl. If she did start going off, perhaps he could distract her long enough for one of the others to knock her out.
He looked at Jeremiah, and at the rest of the party, grimacing. He addressed Stygian. "If you have a plan, good sir, it might be wise to inform us. Before another shade, demon-dog, or insane possessed ferret decide they'd like us to die before the next sunrise."

Stygian scoffed at Keaton, and sat up a bit more, supporting himself on the thick armrests of the red leather chair.
   "Really? Wow. I'm amazed you feel that way. After all, I've spent more than a century and a half locked up here, and I have found the place to be rather... dreadful," he said, his voice seething sarcasm. He sighed heavily, and didn't turn to look at the wolf when he asked his question. Instead, he murmured something shortly - "Pulmo iuguolo" - and waved his hand through the air, trailing black smoke which congregated to form the shape of a slim cigar. He lit it on a flame from his finger, and then took a deep breath on it, leaning back and looking quite normal for once as he smoked.
   "We have to find her and kill her, it's that simple," he said, referring to the cursed angel. "If that sword which you're holding is not the key, which I bet it isn't, even though it'd be a good guess," he said and nodded to Aisha's newly acquired piece, "then it should be something that's mentioned somewhere in here. She had to be bound and chained to this place first, before her power could be turned into a prison. The rituals and the procedures are rather specific. That gives us only a few books to look through..."
   The bat nodded his head to the side and looked nowhere in particular a bit, pulled on the cigar, and blew a cloud of bluish tobacco smoke. Then, he got to his feet and began rummaging through the books at the nearest table.

Seeing the ferret woman collapse, Gareeku relaxed and let go of his sheathed sword, the magic on his magic also disappearing as the wolf  turned to Aisha.
"I'm fine." Gareeku muttered. "Though it'll probably be the last time I punch a possessed ferret."

Walking over to Keaton, Gareeku looked as her wounds were being healed fast. Hearing her words, the wolf grimaced.
"Nice to know we're appreciated." he replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. From his blunt mannerisms, it was safe to say he was in a bad mood. "If if weren't for us, particularly Mel, you would be dead, so shut up and deal with it."

Walking off, Gareeku joines Stygian in looking through the books to find any evidence or information as to where they might find the key to defeating this rather twisted fallen archangel they were up against. After searching through one table full of books, Gareeku frowned as he looked at the rest of the library. "This could take a while."

PBH wakes up on the floor of the main entrance hall.   Looking around in the darkness, she lights off a light spell, the bats are gone for the moment.  She pulls shorts and a safari shirt from her backpack and quick dresses.. Listening a moment, she call out "Hello, Is anyone here.?"

PBH

Jeremiah's eyes widened at Stygian's solution to the Gina debacle, Gonna have to ask him later how he did that. If it's what I think it is... Shaking his head some more, he walked toward the ferret and Cog. The slight ringing in his ears hadn't stopped, and every so often his shoulder gave another pang of pain, but he could deal with it. The frog sat down on the floor near the Legion, and smiled at her warmly.
"Shhh, don't worry about it. Just try not to do it again," Just a teensy dash of hypnosis, to calm her down and get her to listen, "Just remain calm," At Sebastian's words, he looked up in alarm. "Kill who the what now? Methinks I've gotten to this conversation a tad late. What's going on?"

Keaton shot a fiery glare at Gareeku, her expression indignant, but she said nothing in response to him. If anything, Keaton was a rather rude, tactless person--never one to admit that she was incorrect on anything the grand, irritating (to many others) majority of the time. However, she was terrible at defending herself when, behind the layers of causticity, a frequently-neglected, denourished part of her knew that Gareeku was right.

Since she was too exhausted to put up much of a fight, Keaton returned to letting Mel do her handiwork, absently looking over her gash, scowling and ruffling her still-materialized head-wings bitterly. "Sarcasm," Keaton stated in total deadpan to Stygian, trying to crane her head over her shoulder to look at him. "Look it u--fuck."

For once, Keaton's normally steel-enforced mind unfurled to accept the entirety of Stygian's words and properly process them. If he had been locked in the castle for centuries, who knew how long they would all would be here? It wasn't like Keaton had an excess of friends (in fact, her deterrent attitude deflected just about most people, save for the very brave ones, despite her sometimes internally boisterous demeanor) to worry about her. But the idea of being holed up in some dilapidating, haunted castle for the rest of her possibly thousand-year-long existence wasn't a very entertaining concept, to be blunt. She supposed it was rather convenient that Cubi didn't need to eat or sleep, because lord knew if they would be able to salvage any food.

She just doubted they would ever give off a decent amount of suffering or humiliation. She hadn't had her favorite emotions in a while.

Her revelation clear in her suddenly thunderstruck facial features, Keaton averted her gaze from Stygian and stared blankly at the wall in front of her, turning over a rather crudely-fashioned list of possibly futile escape and/or survival options in her mind. She could fight well enough without her mace...

...but 'he' would be as pissed as all hell by the time she found him.

Still, some part of Gareeku's words saturated into Keaton's mind. She DID owe a lot to these people, though she was hardly one for honor, or life debts. No, those had immersed herself in an endless amount of problems before. Most especially the innocuous-looking snow leopard.

Regardless, in order to remove the parasitic feeling of guilt that was leeching off of her, Keaton drew Mel's attention to her with a timid, awkward cough. "Um..." Keaton whispered to Mel into her fist. "...Thanks. You know, for healing me."

~Keaton the Black Jackal

As if Mel knew how difficult the verbal expression of thanks was for Keaton the response was delivered in a faint flutter of thought, "You're quite welcome."

Mel looked at the arrow lodged in Keaton's back. "You might want to brace yourself while I pull this thing out." Mel tugged on the blood slickened shaft, but despite her care it was only the shaft that ended up in her hand. The tip had to be lodged in a bone, likely a rib from the location. She cursed a bit then told her patient, "You're going to feel a bit cold. The tip is stuck and I'm going to numb you with cold before probing." She quickly laid her hand over the hole and did just that before the jackal could comment. Mammals were such sissies over cold. When the flesh was properly deadened she wiggled two fingers into the wound, glad that she had chosen such a small form with proportionally small hands. With claws designed to rend stone it was easy enough to get a firm grasp the iron wedge and jiggle it loose from the bone. Once free of the flesh she handed it to Keaton. "You'll feel better without this inside you. And now to get it patched up."

The bat kept going through the books, first checking who they were and on what topics and setting the relevant ones aside, then beginning to search through those for individual traces of information.
   "Like it or not, it's a while that we have to take..." he said to the wolf as he kept scanning the texts. Still, his face began to sour quickly. He rummaged and almost threw some books around.
   "He must have been helped by that despicable dragon... No. No! No, no, no...! What idiocy! Where are the notes...?!" he muttered and said to himself. Then, he sighed, and as if to calm himself he started conversing. "Allright... so, Keaton. We were discussing what we were doing here. Any particular reason on your behalf?"
   He passed the ferret amid all of this, and she looked up at him with eyes that seemed to say 'please, forgive me'. Then, she looked back to Jeremiah, and resumed. It was quite odd to hear that man's voice from her sweet face.
   "The angry lady. She who wants to keep all knowledge locked up," she said, with just a bit of fear in her, or his, voice.

Aisha laughed quietly at Gareeku's reply, though he seemed to be in the direct opposite mood for laughter.  It seemed everybody was in the same state of mind, and she could just feel it from the others in the room, a spectrum of expression that ranged from calm deliberation to frustration.  The panthress was leaning towards the latter at this point.

Listening to Sebastian, she took the sword from her belt and looked the blade over with curiosity.  Had she not known better, it would have looked like a simple and old weapon.  From the description of what they were up against, she doubted that it would be a key, but the huntress knew that it would certainly help.

With a sigh, she turned to Jeremiah and his question.  It was easy to forget that the party was split and so not everyone knew of the situation.  There was a pause as the ferret piped up in the strange voice range.  Her eyes narrowed in contemplation before offering an answer of her own.  "The bat says it's a cursed arch-angel making all of this trouble."

Cog stood still and quiet at Aisha's words, and then looked at the rest of the party, silent. He ventured to open his mouth once, then shut it, and opened his mouth again. "An Archangel. I see." he said, unmoving. "An Archangel. And all of you have no problem with this?" he asked, finally moving towards the oak table near Mel, and grabbing the forgotten Broken Moon, and placing it back in his jacket. "You are all aware of what Archangels can do, yes? Not that I am afraid, mind, quite the opposite. But I'd really rather not die in a futile excersize." he finally said, looking at the shelves and shelves of books.
He suddenly brightened. "I've never seen someone with the complete collection of Beddoes. How morbid."

When Sebastian started cursing about dragons Mel winced, then realized that he wasn't talking about her. "Notes? There was a lab manual or diary or notebook of some sort on one of the tables. I had it in my hand before Jeremiah arrived with Gina." Mel spared a second from the healing to look around but between her air blast and the rest of the fighting all the papers were scattered. "I'm not sure where it is now. The table it was on seems to be on the other side of the room in small pieces."

"Lovely..." Jeremiah growled. The ringing was dying down, but his ears still felt a little funny, like a noise outside his hearing range, "An angel. Not just that, but the religion-specific variety. Of course," He went on, turning back to Gina, "You don't have to worry, because you have these nice people looking after you. Just relax..." He looked up again, with a pointed look at Sebastion, "What's this about knowledge?"

Stygian looked up at Mel's statement. Then, he paced over to the other side of the room and began searching around the remnants of the crushed desk. Then, he burst out a triumphant 'ha!' and picked up the journal and began flipping through it. His eyes darted qucikly across the pages.
   "I don't believe it... He actually composed this part practically by himself!" he said, and muttered. "Curse that dragon, and all of his kind!" he hissed. His eyes focused on the book, he passed by the frog and the ferret just as 'Gina' looked at Jeremiah with a bit of a hurt look.
   "Stop trying to hypnotize us!" she said, now in a female voice. "We haven't done anything!" Sebastian paid them no heed, keeping up his reading.
   "She was chained in the basement, inside a stone casket. But not under the chapel, fortunately. It seems they used a sort of 'bordering' magic to place her in a separate chamber in this castle, closer to Hell than the rest of it. A Malebolge, if you will. But it doesn't say anything about... hold on..." He read something closer. "Oh, great. The sword is the key. But it needs something else too. The untainted spirit of the family? What the Hell?" He looked confused for a while, then bitter.

Mel pulled her illusion more firmly around herself as Sebastian released more bile against dragons in general. True some were famous for mischief, but what species could claim innocence? Angels and demons had a much higher rate of individuals causing trouble than dragons. She concentrated more completely on the healing, trying to be very small and quiet and very undragonlike.

"We're okay with it because of the hope that there's a way to get rid of it," Aisha answered Cogi, looking up briefly while leaning on a table.  Her eyes wandered over the multitude of shelves and the greater multitude of books, before wandering down to the book that was in front of her.  It looked much like the rest with its mix of scientific and religious notes.  "But at least we're in the best place to figure out how."  The panther had to admit that she wasn't very religion-conscious herself, anyway, thinking about it.

After thoughtfully inspecting her sword a little more, Aisha shrugged and made a quiet hum, after listening to Sebastian read the journal.  I guess I'll be a keybearer, then, the panthress smirked to herself and replaced the blade carefully back in her belt, taking her cape to use as a makeshift sheath once more so that it wouldn't accidentally slice through her leg.  The cape had been cast aside near where Mel and Keaton were, the crimson-drenched fabric no longer needed to bond the wounds.

It was then that she glanced at the vessel named Gina, still feeling a small amount of pity for the spirits that witheld themselves there.  "All the better to find out what it all means," she muttered, crossing her arms.

"Right then..." Sebastian said, and snapped the book together, stuffing it in his pocket. "The reference is clear enough. Get the ferret, and let's go find that chamber." The book had to be referring to one of the souls trapped in the castle; a special one, to boot. By having her around, they could essentially steal that spirit from the place, and then use it to form the key.
   The bat pulled on his cigar again, and walked briskly over back to the table with the other books he had been reading. He went through a few, muttering and mumbling, blowing smoke at the pages from time to time, and then took one in his hand.
   "Right. Who needs more healing? We have to get moving as quickly as possible, before she throws more horrors at us."

The arrow wounds were much simpler and quicker to heal than the deep gash in Keaton's side and Mel was quickly finished. A quick burst of magic to energize the blood she had left and to get her body producing more and Keaton was as well as Mel could make her. She gave Keaton a pat on the shoulder. "This is as good as it gets for now, I'm afraid." She paused a second then added, "I know this is a ridiculous thing to say under the circumstances, but try not to overexert yourself."

Mel stood and looked between Jeremiah and Cog. The frog was temporarily stable but the swordsman was claiming back pain. Back problems were tricky and could quickly deteriorate if someone moved wrong, like in a swordfight. She walked over to where the wolf was scanning the bookshelves. "I think you're next. May I?"

Cog turned from where he stood staring at the bookshelves and nodded at Mel. "Please, and thank you." Cog said, and then hesitating. "Should I lay down, or...something?" he asked. Not being a healer himself, he was somewhat unsure as how to proceed.
He removed his jacket and set it on a chair, and stood quietly.

Jeremiah blinked when Gina mentioned his hypnosis and chuckled.
"Sorry. Guess I'm not giving you enough credit," he stood up, dusted himself off, and held out a hand to Gina, "Well, it would appear we're on the move. Come along, madam." The strange nonsound was fading now, but still very much there. Eh. Probably not an issue.

Mel softly addressed Cog."Just stand still please. You can keep reading that book if it helps you. I'm going to put a hand on your back and I've been told I have quite cold hands," she chuckled. "So don't be startled."

Mel closed her eyes and searched for his pain. "Ah, you seem to have a few cracks and chips along with some offended muscles. Not a difficult fix." The cool sensation from her hand spread outward. To distract him she spoke, "That's a very well made charm you have. Is it a Chandler?"

Cog's eyes dimmed and moment, and he smiled wistfully. "No. I've met the man who made those, and his name wasn't Chandler." he said. "His name was Arcturus. He's the man I'm looking for, actually. I don't know if he made more, or was particularly renowned for enchanting, but they do what I need." He winced and continued on. "Thank you for your compliments, however. I've had them for some time."
Thinking thoughts of burning villages and cold, green eyes, Cog barely felt Mel's cold fingers.

"Wonderful," Sebastian said, standing over in front of the door. "But perhaps we should hurry? I think I heard something earlier. This place won't stay empty for long." He folded his hands over his chest, tilted his head just a bit to the side and lowered one eyebrow, looking at them.

   In the entry hall, the stillness of the dark was broken by a short, chittering sound.

With the signal from Sebastian that it was time to get moving, Aisha pushed herself from the table with a relieved grunt.  Being stuck in the library for most of the coming night was not going to be her idea of an adventure in the castle, that she knew.  The panther made a quick head count of the party, from the now-healed Keaton to the recovering Jeremiah and Cogi...she figured and hoped that the ferret would accompany them as they'd make their way to the chamber.  She turned to Gareeku last and smirked, knowing that he was okay.

"I'll agree on hurrying," Aisha said, moving towards the doorway with the others while keeping a hand at her belt and peering across the darkened hallway.  A hefty round of pity goes to the next beast that crosses us.

Mel removed her hand from Cogi's back. Cracked bones were one of the fastest things to heal. A bit of soothing to the strained muscles and it was done. "There you go. You'll still be a bit sore but you should move much easier now." She picked up her staff, the sparkling crystals giving off light again once it was in her hand. "I think the patients are stable enough to get going."

PBH moves up the hall with a a glowing green sphere light ahead of her....

Slowly tracking to the trail of blood toward the main part of the house.  Going down the hallways.

Hearing a sound behind her, PBH starting going fast along the path of cubi blood ...

PBH

Stygian nodded, and began walking out.
   "Then let's go. Watch my back, and drag the ferret if she doesn't want to come," he said. The girl eyed him indignantly when he did, and spoke up, getting to her feet, still sniffing a bit.
   "She's going to kill you, Sebastian," she said in that other voice. "She's going to kill us all. And you can't kill her."
   "Shut up, Azel!" the bat snarled at her, "If it's really you. You don't exactly have any option but to try either."
   "Not that tone with me!" the ferret retorted as the prude librarian. Then, she went back to the young man. "I never wanted this either... not at all..." Sebastian snorted, and walked out into the hallway.

75 had awoken within this strange castle, before he had time to think let alone gather his bearings or readjust his tie, he spotted a black shape moving out of the corner of his eye, looking up he saw to his horror giant blackened spiders descending from the ceiling on thick sails of webbing which shimmered in the light cascading down around him. 
         He lep to his feet and ran immediately, he didn't care if was capable of beating a spider in physical combat, he was confused, disorientated and had no idea where he was.  So he blindly ran down hallways, the constant clicking of spider legs against cobbled stone pursuing him forced him to run faster, throwing himself through a doorway he slammed into a wall.  Gathering his senses he found himself looking at a cat girl accompanied by a glowing green sphere, without thinking he immediately grabbed her wrist with a forceful tug and exclaimed "Quick! There's Giant Spiders chasing me! We have to go NOW!"

Jeremiah shrugged and followed when Gina declined his aid in getting up, "Certain doom. FUN!" He sniggered to himself, both at possible humorous demises he might meet and possible ways of using members of the party he didn't like as meat shields. Gallows humor cures all wounds.

Who what?!!!  Hey this is an invasion of personal Space!!!! **as PBH is pick up andcarried along by this Dog in a black tie and suit...She was about to hit him, to get him to let go..but happen to see large Spiders running after them on the wall and ceiling.


EEEEEEEEKKKKKK!!!!!

PBH

Cog grabbed his jacket, paused a moment, and bowed. "Thank you. I feel better already." he said, and slipped back into his jacket. "Such skill with healing is rare." he said, and grinned. "Onwards and upwards, I suppose? Off to the coffin of that which ails us?" Cog shook his head and followed Jeremiah, grinning sadly. "The living come with grassy tread, to read the gravestones on the hill; the graveyard draws the living still, but never any more the dead..."

Me winces at her voice, trying to concentrate. Glancing up he spots one particularly rapid moving spider on the ceiling above him, affirming his grip upon this strange cat girl, he begins to dash madly.  Forcing the questions as to his location, who the girl is, or why he is here to the back of his mind, he focuses on finding a way to lose these giant arachnid menaces.  Concluding he can not run forever, especially with someone in his arms, he slams through the nearest door.  Abruptly throwing the girl to the floor he spins upon his heels and slams the door shut, slumping back against it and panting for breath.

Stygian paced along the hall, heading for the central part of the castle and not minding looking back for the others, when he heard the voices and sounds up ahead. He actually started to like at least a bit of the memory of being chained up. At least it had been silent then...
   He decided against waiting for the others, and blurred as he moved into the darkness. His eyes blackened, and thin dark lines began spreading out from them and his clawed fingers, but that was all. He didn't use enough of his power to do more than ease his way forward. After all, he was good enough to stay silent and swift, even without it. Silently, he swept around a corner.
   A canine in an impeccable suit, and a much smaller feline. Up ahead. Along the corridor, and into a sitting room, before a large double door. He assessed the situation quickly, and then moved. He wanted stealth, and the roof was high enough...
   The bat's fingers and hands darkened and cracked even more, as he began using more of his power. He placed his long-fingered hand on the wall. Then, another. Then a foot. And then he clung to the wall, starting to move up into the dark roof. Climbing across it, much like the spiders the canine had been chased by, he very silently and smoothly slipped into the roof, staying to the shadows as much as he could. If the canine's eyes didn't stray, he'd have no idea of the bat slipping over the roof and climbing down next to him...

Oww spiders  Small bats Big Bat and a cubi somewhere... and A-would be hero canine

** pulls a pistol out ***

WE can't stay here, this castle is house magical horrors.. PBH

The Canine gathers his breath, assesing his situation and scanning the room.  He notices the Catgirl's gun and frowns, not yet knowing what threat she might present if any to him. But it's not pointed at him for now, so he would not act. Instead his attention is drawn away from a shuffling object out of the corner of his eye, fearing one of the spiders had somehow penetrated the room he clenches his fists and slowly turns his head to look up.  The sight suprises and confuses him, a bat clinging to the wall above him, looking him square in the face.  Staring back at the new creature through his tinted shades, expecting the worst, he awaits what he assumes will be the bat's assault.

Instead of attacking, the bat cocked his head to the side and looked inquisitively at the canine. Then, his eyes turned to the cat. He seemed to ponder just a brief second, before he recognized the gun. Then, he smirked and flipped agilely over from the wall, down on the floor.
   "Hmm? That's not a very good decision, sweets," he said, and looked at the gun. "You'd be wasting ammunition."
   Then, a huge claw tore through the door, just above 75's head. The bat snapped his head around and frowned.
   "Which I think you might need..."

The Canine blinks in confusion at the Bat's sudden casuality in his words, watching him intently as he lowers himself from the wall.  He frowns, not appreciating the humour in their current situation. Still fearing the arachnids on the other side of the door he can't help but realise there is no banging, or scratching against the door. Relaxing for a moment before the huge claw came crashing through the wooden door, sending splinters cascading down around him.  He flinches and launches himself away from the door, looking to the Bat and then the Cat Girl, he readies himself for combat.

"Ah Yea, Right "
**turns the gun on the thing on the door **
** aims at the spider wait for a clear shot**

"I'm Prof B Hunnydew. May I have your names Sirs.? Before we go to Hell or wherever" said PBH

PBH

The bat just chuckled as more claws began tearing through the doors. They began budging inward, the hinges bending and splinters of wood cracking down. The bat looked at them, and shook his head.
   "No time. Those things behind there are too many, and too strong. Get to running," he said, and turned, walking back into the dark. As soon as the shadows were thick enough around him, he seemed to... dissappear somehow.
   Just a moment later, he appeared further back, and rounded down a corner, facing the group outside the library.
   "Seems we've got more company. Both monsters and others. Think we can afford picking up more strays?" he said with a bit of a smirk.

"Depends, are they rabid?" Jeremiah joked, flexing his fingers at the mention of monsters. That weird noise was getting louder, "Because that would be a selling point. I think we could use rabid, around here. Also, their bite being really bad when they never bark at all would kick much ass."

Saying nothing as the others conversed, Gareeku decided on listening to what was said as Stygian found what they were looking for. Following the bat, the wolf grimaced as he disappeared.
"First he wants us to follow him, and now he disappears on us..." Gareeku snarled in anger. "What an idiot."

Making sure that the others were coming along, Aisha paused before moving along the corridor, soon to be leaving the library behind them.  The way the others were talking annoyed the panthress just a little...even when they were joking, acting like they were walking into death was just a few steps short of giving in, at least in her opinion.  Her ears flattened slightly against her skull while hearing the complaints made by the ferret's various spirits.

She had kept the order as well to help watch Sebastian's back, that is until he suddenly disappeared again.  Aisha stopped with a slight grimace, listening to Gareeku, feeling somewhat the same as he did.  She shook her head...though the pause didn't last long, and soon he was back.  Her eyebrow quirked, and she barked a slight laugh from Jeremiah's comments.  "Strays, huh?  Well, if they can hold their own, I don't see why not," she admonished in a somewhat cold but true way.

Then she briefly turned to the frog then.  "I suppose you're feeling well enough that you don't need that any more," she gestured to the bracer, which he was still wearing, before muttering the spell and causing it to fall into her hand.

Mel began the mental shift from healing magic to battle magic at the mention of more monsters. "What kind of monsters? More demon-dogs and wraiths?" She looked to Keaton and hoped the healing she had just performed would stand up under stress.

The bat nodded, then shot a bit of a glare to the wolf, and turned. He began pacing down the corridor and against the room where 75 and Bunny were, clearly expecting the others to follow.
   "Spiders. We'll be up against a swarm here, so if we can just bottleneck them and keep those who can't fight back we'll have the biggest chance of survival," he said.

   The spiders were smashing down the doors now, the ones that were the size of dogs now giving way to one that was more on par with a cow. They smashed through, and crawled all over, swarming out quickly.

The instant the bracer came off, the nonsound became outright earsplitting and the pain in the frog's shoulder returned.
"GNHH! Haah... haah..." eyes bugging and clutching at the source of the pain, Jeremiah panted and reached with his other arm for the bracer again.
GetitbackGetitbackGetitback-!
OH MY GO, WHAT IS-!
PUT THE DAMN BRACER BACK ON, GREASY!
"Give it back!" He managed to gasp to Aisha, "Not well enough! Give!" He looked in terror at the unrushing arachnids. He couldn't focus enough to cast anything! "Give!"

OOC: Dun dun dunnnn...

Following Stygian, Gareeku's eyes widened slightly as the bat mentioned what they were up against.
"Spiders...?" he asked. Although he hated to admit it, he was a bit of an arachnophobe. Unsheathing his katana with one hand, the wolf conjured up a bright white flame of soul energy into the other.

Aisha hadn't followed the bat too far down before she felt Jeremiah grasping back for the bracer in her hand.  The panther turned to regard him with a wide-eyed look, before immediately snapping it back on his wrist.  "Sorry, amigo," she apologized quickly, "I thought you'd have been well enough by now."

She decided to let him keep it for a while...being one of the more critically-wounded ones in the group, and not much else for a fight, the light enchantment would have done him a good bit of defense.  But she hadn't barely heard Sebastian speak about spiders before she heard something heavy skittering closer.  She stood again with a sigh and growled, reaching this time for the hilt of her trusted dragonblade...she wouldn't try to waste any more of the holy sword's power if she could help it.  It slid smoothly out of its sheath with a metallic shing, music to her ears at the best of times.

"Great...giant bugs.  It's always giant bugs," she muttered and stepped forward.

"I hate spiders perhaps more than I hate...it's incomprable." Cog said. He would have turned a shade of green, but instead simply unsheathed his sword and held one hand up in front of himself, his sword in a side guard, his hand ready to crush any arachnids that appeared. "I hate spiders perhaps more than any...thing, dead or living."
He stood still, awaiting the onslaught. His hands, though pale, he managed to keep from shaking, but only barely.

Mel stared at the frog. She had experienced the same affliction without such an extreme reaction. She granted that he had allowed it to fester far longer than she had but his performance was like a child's. If he was trying to appear sick to get out of fighting spiders it was unnecessary. It was apparent that he was a worse fighter than even she was. She prepared her favorite ice shard spell but held back with the injured and insane. Her fighting style, if she could be said to have one, wasn't good for closeup battles.

Sebastian muttered something, and then, when they had just reached the corner, spiders began coming down from the corridor straight ahead. Ranging from a size of about between a terrier and a Labrador, they swarmed closer, somewhat hairy black bodies with colored parts in all manner of colors scuttling about quickly and black eyes glinting. Some of them trailed web, but most just rushed at them. They chittered and clicked their jaws, hissing as they got closer. And then, one of them made some sort of odd sound, something that was recognizable...
   "'Gainst him whose wrong gives edge unto the swords, That make such waste in brief mortality..." quoth one spider, chittering and like a whisper. "Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur, get you your weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle..." said another.
   "Oh shit!" exclaimed Sebastian, and reared a bit, his eyes widening. "Don't get bitten! Not at any cost!"

Noticing out of the corner of his eye the strange bat dissapearing as quick as he came, the canine  focused upon the door, each thrust of a leg weakening the door and sending splinters flying at him.  He heard far off voices, one particular seemed to be screaming in pain.  It would have to wait, for the surface area of the door was now in such a state that the smaller of the arachnids were scuttling through with intent.  The canine growled lowly beneath his breath and launched foward, firmly pressing a foot down on one of the smaller creatures.  Hearing the satisfying "CRUNCH" of its exoskeleton collapsing, he spins upon a heel and high kicks another spider upon the door.  Keeping the vermin at leg's length, he continues to kick out.

"Well put," Jeremiah replied to Sebastion's initial exclamation, "Moving away. Moving away very fast."
He quickly cast a handful of illusions. Copies of the party standing amongst the spiders, with traps of flame waiting for anything that bit them. The nonsound had quieted down when he got the bracer back, but it was getting louder, and understandable.
Take off the bracer... He could barely hear it, almost as if it was his imagination. He assumed it was, much like the little voice telling you to jump when you stand at the edge of a cliff, Take off the bracer...

**Shooting at the dog size Spiders on both the wall and ceiling, she downs one of cow-size spiders with two lucky, but she only killed two more of the dog-size ones with the last of her ammo..**

**With no more time, Prof Bambi Hunnydew turned follows Stygian.  She puts away her gun as she puts on her backpack and casts a flame hands spell.  Ready to give the nearest spider a flaming fists.**

PBH

The canine flinches as the bullets from the Catgirl's gun whistle over his head, watching a spider fall to the floor and curl up in its death throws beside him.  He just about dodges the clawed leg of one large spider, stepping back he kicks his heel into it. Hearing it crunch, he begins to retreat slowly, grabbing a lunging spiders rear and throwing it back at the other, larger spiders in the doorway.  He looks about anxiously and eyes a small nightstand, grasping it firmly like a club.  He growls and smashes it, holding onto one of the legs he swings it at the approaching spiders frantically.  His heart sinks as he feels the cold stone of the wall of the room against his back.  holding the club ahead of him defensively, realising he is now alone in the room with the group of spiders. Gonna Die, Gonna Die, Gonna Die, Gonna Die

**PBH was the hallway, punching at the smaller spiders with her flaming fists and just bearly keep a semi-cleared path for 75.**

"Come on, Doggy Hero  unless you want to be spiderbait." PBH shouted  at 75...

  She was also trying to think of the word for throw in Fae language...
"DAMN IT! Does Anyone one know ancient word of Throw?" PBH yelled

** She jumped and hitted one spider square with two feet on one wall , and then pushed off to landed hands first to burn up another spider on the floor,  and then flew to the another side and kicked another spider off the another wall.    But with a misstep PBH found herself landing on the floor on her back and then she just rolled away from the jaws of a larger spider.**

PBH

As he readied himself, Gareeku could heard the heavy skittering the spiders made as they neared the group's location.
"Spiders...why did it have to be spiders..." he muttered to himself, before trying to shake the slight nervousness from his mind. However, when the spiders came into view, his eyes widened slightly as how big they were.

"Shit..." he cursed under his breath, before slamming his hand onto the floor, causing a large wave of powerful soul energy to thunder towards the spiders.

As spiders ran towards the group across the floor, walls, and ceiling Mel had the stunning revelation that swords are short range weapons. There wasn't going to be a front and a back to the fight when the beasts could easily bypass the warriors on the high ceilings. They had to be kept back. With that in mind her first spell was the same airblast that had crushed the bats. Her second was ice daggers. She remembered at the last second that spiders wore their skeletons on the outside and put an extra push into the spell to get the shards through.

PBH had to use both her legs and arms to keep the large spider off her and keep it from eating her.  Her flames hands slowly burned into the spider's head, when it bombard by dozens of ice daggers, which just missed PBH, but killed her spider.....

PBH 

Despite her being ready, Aisha seemed to want to shudder as soon as the spiders came into view...the largest ones she had ever seen were no bigger than rats.  At least none of them had gotten any bigger than a dog, and so the shuddering receded and she raised her sword, lunging at the closest one as soon as they had appeared.

She only paused for a moment though, listening to Sebastian's advice on not getting bitten, before driving her dragonblade into the back of one of the scuttling arachnids and immediately swiping at another, rendering its legs useless, jumping out of the way as its fangs nearly swiped at her body.  It had to be giant spiders, and it had to be THESE giant spiders... she thought with a grimace, hearing one or two of them verse.  Aisha saw Gareeku's attack then out of the corner of her eye and jumped out of the way as it barreled into the horde of creatures, as well as Mel's chilling blast.  "Heh, that might make a few of them cower," she smirked and leaped back on the center of the floor, grabbing her boomerang and tossing it at them from a considerable distance.

Jeremiah grimaced as the other's spells shredded his illusion traps. Yes, the traps were set off and pulped a few spiders, but not nearly so well as he'd planned.
Take off the bracer...
Unconsiously, Jeremiah's fingers brushed the bracer shining on his arm. He quickly sent a handful of illusionary drakes against the spiders. He had little magic, and couldn't simply finesse his spells solid like Mel, but it was the work of a moment to call up a slight breeze to whisk a good deal of dust and other bits of shiftable matter to make at least parts of the drakes solid.

Despite the calls of the strange catgirl, the suited canine did not follow.  He did not yet know her, or any of these other strange creatures, whether their intentions were benine or malicious caused him to keep his distance.  Before he could turn back away from the girl, a large spider reared upon its hind legs and lunged at him.  Holding up the table leg horizontally he held its large fangs at bay, yet its legs hit his torso with great force, causing him to wince and grit his teeth.  He growled in rage and brought the tip of his foot to meet the Spider's carpace with great force, repeatedly kicking into it, each crunch followed by a painful screech from the spider.  The canine took his chance and pushed foward, landing the spider on its back and he on top of it.  He hesitated as it thrashed pathetically, hearing the hiss of ice shards flying over his head.  He snaps out of it and raises the club above his head. Don't think, just smash. Violently smashing the club into the spider's mouth, he raises it and brings it down once more, repeatedly smashing it into the spider's face.  He knows the spider is now dead, yet he continues to pummel it, each impact of the wood against its crumpled and bloody head, splatters spider brains and blood up into the canine's face and over his suit.

Following Mel's orders, Keaton immediately found something to grab on to while she tried to work the arrow out of her back--which happened to be a pillow. A very old, vermiculated pillow which felt more like a boulder than any respectable cushion, but a pillow nonetheless. The diminutive wings crowning her head tensed and flapped instinctually as Mel managed to jerk the bloodstained pole out of her back with a hollow snap. Back stiffening, Keaton's pupils pinpricked as she looked numbly at Mel out of the corner of her eyes, momentarily distracted from her sulking.

Unfortunately for her, she could still feel the metallic point embedded a little past her bone. Just as Mel warned her that she was going to numb her senses, Keaton felt her blood run cold and what pain that still antagonized her go utterly desensitized. Considering that this would make the procedure go by as painlessly as possible, Keaton found no reason to complain, resuming her gripping and tugging on the moth-eaten upholstery of the pillow.

"Uh?" In her almost drugged haze, Keaton nearly missed what Stygian had asked of her. Lolling her head to the side, she took a moment to process what he said, and then answered brusquely, "Oh. Well, as you can see..." she sighed, delaying her answer for a rather regretful period of time. "I got my ass kicked. By a bunch of Adventurers. Jerks." Keaton buried her face in the pillow as Mel started to loosen the spiked arrow caught in her back, groaning in frustration. "Beat a few of them but I had to run. I ended up here. S'kinda hard to see where you're going when you're dying of blood loss, don't you think?"

The arrowhead finally popped loose from Keaton's bone thanks to Mel's effort, the snow leopard handing the blood-coated thing to Keaton. Keaton turned it over in her hand, examining the sanguine goo clinging to it with a sickened interest. Frowning, she pocketed it, too dazed to bother throwing it away. "Thanks..." she said again, clutching the pillow to her chest. Keaton had removed some arrows from her body before, but she never could get used to the gruesome sight that followed extracting them.

After a bit more time, Mel finally got the wounds as patched up as possible, giving her shoulder a perfunctory pat on the shoulder. Deciding to test her newly-repaired body, Keaton started to rise, setting her glasses back on the bridge of her nose and fastening the earring, which was connected to the glasses' rim by a small length of chain so it wouldn't be jostled, back to the lobe of her tapered ear. It was best to not antagonize her body needlessly, so she kept her movements limited.

"Hey... thanks again," Keaton said to Mel, rubbing behind her head awkwardly. "I feel a lot better."

When the further operations on the rest of her 'teammates' were completed, Stygian apparently deemed it necessary to venture further. Keaton wasn't sure she liked the sound of that, nor did she want to remain with the group, but she decided it was wisest to stay with them. Judging by the excess of otherworldly monsters in this castle, she couldn't stand a chance against them all, especially unarmed. Hopefully she would find Catastrophe soon, or she would catch hell from it.

Climbing to her feet and hugging herself tight, Keaton trudged wordlessly behind the group, not contributing anything to their conversations. Things seemed eventless enough, and Keaton would've rather it continued that way, but unfortunately it was not meant to be.

Claws began to rip through the walls, after they were joined by a canine and a feline armed with a mechanical firearm of some sort, penetrating the walls as though they were formed out of wet tissue paper. Soon the door was splintered. Keaton's ears fell back, her grip on her arms increasing. Fantastic. Just fantastic. The moment she thought her day couldn't get any more sordid, more problems had to surface. Was whatever deity that existed up in the afterlife punishing her for something? Obviously it had to be the rampant soul-stealing, but it wasn't like she was the first Cubi who indulged in that—

Spiders the size of household canines were clambering through the destroyed doorframes, quickly flooding through like a rushing river of writhing, spindly legs, bristling fur, and beady eyes. Beady. Fucking. EYES. Keaton hated spiders, hated them like nothing else, and now they were being invaded by enormous arachids that looked like they were plucked right out of deepest, arachnophobic nightmares. Stifling a horrified yell, Keaton leapt back, her wings swiftly emerging from her back in a blur of black-streaked yellow and cream-colored membrane. The tips of her wings hardened into daggered claws, elongating and sharpening like pike-crowned tentacles. She would've combined it with dark magic as she normally could, but Keaton was lacking too much energy to muster it.

Around her, the people accompanying her prepared themselves for battle, individually striking out with spells, weaponry, and ammunition. One of the spiders that had filtered through its brethren managed to scramble over to her, its vile mandibles chattering together like fanged maracas. Keaton took a step back, the tentacles springing from her wings sprouting serrated, tooth-like barbs, and with a narrow of her eyes thrust two of them forward, skewering right through the spider, mouth-first, perforating all the way to the other side in a glorious splash of gore.

Withdrawing, Keaton whirled around to face another, bringing down her tentacle like a scythe, cleaving right through the spider like a knife through butter.

One of those days. It was just one of those days.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

As the others went all out, Stygian let out his power as well, his skin cracking up, wings emerging, darkness swirling... He threw himself at the spiders just about in time to catch a few ice shards into his back when he leapt before Mel. He didn't pay it much heed though. Even the core of his darkness regenerated the damage away so quickly that it didn't matter the least. So he began lashing out right in the midst of them, whips and claws and horrid fanged maws of darkness tearing up the arachnids into messy pieces.
   But the spiders were much too many, and behind and between them some wraiths also began zipping forth and back, shrieking with shrill laughter. The tide of the things began pushing the adventurers back.
   "Aaargh! We have to find a better bottleneck! They're coming from everywhere!" Stygian shouted, caught up right in the middle of the carnage and ridding himself of some web. "Get those two other fools back here and start backing up! Back into the chapel! It's sealed up!" Then, he yelled as a spider somehow actually managed to sink its fangs into him, despite his speed and his shadowy state. "Son of a bitch!" he growled.

Another thing Jeremiah didn't have to be told twice. Those wraiths' laughing was getting to him in a way other than blade wielding specters usually would. Throwing out a few more illusions to confuse the spiders he backed away. He almost found himself laughing, but stopped himself before he did. What on earth would I find funny about this?

The canine watched the bat fight through the mass of scuttling legs and fangs.  Hearing his cry, he turns to see the wraiths advancing down the hall.  eyes widening at this new threat, surrounded by the giant arachnids he sees nowhere to run.  Swinging horizontally he connects with the head of a spider, obliterating it and sending blood and brains flying.  He then uppercuts to the right, knocking the sense out of one spider looming behind him.  As it falls, he plunges the splintered end of the table leg into the spider and twisting it. 
             A spider leaps onto his back, feeling its sharp claws tear into the fabric of his suit, the canine relinquishes the club and reaches over his head, grabbing the spider's legs and pulling it free.  He throws it over his head into a wall, leaping to his feet and stomping down on its head.  Kicking another spider away but having to dodge a spider leaping from the ceiling above him before he can finish it off.  Feeling himself overwhelmed, he wheels desperately, throwing fists at any spider within close proximity.
              Crap, I need to get to those people, but theres at least 10 spiders between me and- before he can finish thinking, a larger spider hits the back of his legs with a claw, sending him flying off his feet.  He lands on his face, grunting as his muzzle takes the impact of the cold stone floor.  The canine frantically hoists himself up and rolls over to see a cow sized spider looming over him.  It's dripping fangs quiver, the venom dripping from them and falling to the floor at his feet. Oh man... I need a miracle

Aisha had been tossing her boomerang back and forth through the melee of spiders, keeping a few smaller ones at bay while tearing off appendages from the larger ones.  Arthropod blood was being added to the party's reportoire of things that have been gathered from these battles, including sore muscles and fatigue.  Aisha was starting to get into the midst of it, watching as the others went all-out in their efforts, but with little avail as more poured in.  At one point she had lost her weapon in the onrush, and she had to concentrate, shouting the enchantment over the roaring and skittering of the monsters to try getting it to fly back to her hand.

It was then that the wraiths appeared...Aisha's eyes widened and the blood drained from her face.  "Oh madre de compasión! (Mother of mercy!)" she snarled, thinking it was indeed time to fall back, as per Sebastian's shout.  She quickly drew the holy blade from her belt, holding it up against them as she looked around for the two newcomers...she finally found them, a feline and canine, both in the midst of the fights.

"Get your heads down!" she called out, swinging the thing so that an arch of fire swept over the spiders in the front and hopefully trying to keep one or more of the wraiths at bay, also hopefully making a path for the strangers.  Aisha then quickly backstepped with the group as she hoped they were headed towards the cathedral...

** PBH Pushed the dead large Spider off her by slide it to right, she peeked over it body to the wraith coming down the hall... She had an inspirational thought... she combined her light spell and her flaming hand spell... Casting a approved light sphere which was as bright as the sun which burned up the local spiders but it last but a few seconds...With the wraithes blinded and scared for the moment, PBH grabbed the suited blinded Canine back to his feet and ran to the others passed the few Blinded spiders which were still standing.***

" Quick Sirs Bat. Where is the Chapel?"

PBH

The canine blinks in disbelief as a wave of fire soars of his head, obliterating the spider looming over him.  As it falls backwards, he rolls over to see the castor and sighs in relief. Not having time to think, he is dragged to his feet by the strange cat girl, stumbling to his feet he manages to keep pace with her.  Upon arriving at the group of adventurers, he looks down at his suit and feels rather indignant. Uttering a low "Thankyou" and shrugging the Catgirl's grip loose now they're safe, he brushes down the front of his suit jacket, neatly tucks his tie and finally straightens his tinted shades.  Moving to the back of the group of strangers, his eyes scan intently for this 'chapel' as the catgirl called it.  He turns back to look at the group, awaiting them to move and inadvertantly show him the way.

Mel kept alternating spells between ice shards to slash the spiders and blasts of air to sweep the spiders off the ceilings and walls down to where the swordwielders could deal with them.  Then the wraiths appeared and her focus changed to blasting them. Having felt the wraith's venom they spooked her far worse than the spiders. Then she heard Sebastian order them to the chapel. The big question was how to find the chapel in a building where the hallways had a bad habit of changing their destinations.

Stygian snarled, and began pushing backward with the dark tentacles that he didn't use to tear the spiders apart. A wraith cut in close, and he swiped its mask in turn with its own claws.
   "Back! Down and to the left, then keep going and another left! It should be to your right then! Go!" he shouted, the black tentacles reaching back and pushing them best they could. Stygian grunted and grabbed at his side, where the spider had bit him. He wasn't afraid of poisoning, but if they could actually bite him, who knew what else they could do?

The Canine did not hesitate upon hearing the Bat's barking orders.  He looked back and eyed the left turning in the seemingly maze like castle corridors.  Quickly bounding down the corridor towards the left turn, he briefly turned to face the group of strangers and yelled gruffly. "C'mon!" Not sparing another moment he launched himself around the corner, each step light upon the ground as he moved swiftly, his mind only on finding the chapel and escaping the spiders, he took a left.  Feeling a muscular pain in his chest he winced, the blow from the spider's leg had winded him, he grimaced and moved on.  Veering right he found the chapel entrance,  he went to take a step foward yet hesitated.  Turning to look down the halls, he could hear the strangers still fighting.  Stopping there he awaited them so they could enter the chapel together, convincing himself that it was for his own best interests. That chapel might not be as safe as the Bat claimed, I might as well wait for them and not enter alone.  He leaned against the wall and took a breath, anxious for their arrival.

Jeremiah threw a few more semisolid illusions into the fray to smash up some more spiders and then tore like heck in the indicated direction (of course, managing to make at least one wrong turn), taking little time to put quite a bit of distance between him and the group.
Take off the bracer...
Do it...
DO AS I SAY...
Jeremiah had gotten good at ignoring voices, and this one wasn't very loud. Maybe it had gone right to his subconcious. Maybe his luck was just that bad. Regardless of the reason, Jeremiah tripped.
And knocked the bracer off.
YOU IDIOT! He can steal my trick! Do you understand me!? HE CAN STEAL MY GODDAMN TRICK!
What is it!?
Sir! It's-!
Angerangerangerangeranger-!
Don't they ever shut up? Jeremiah thought as he slumped on the floor. He could feel flames flickering along his arms, his legs, his everything. His thoughts weren't muzzy. On the contrary, they seemed to be moving too fast for him to know what they were. Only Bal manifests as flames on me. Maybe he'll make himself useful... Could age the spiders to dust... He raised a hand in front of his face, huddling down in his coat.
Bal's flames were black, and gave off no smoke. These were a dull white, and smoke was pouring off of him. The new one? What is it? What does it-? A chuckle escaped his throught, and his face took on a panicked cast. He figured it out a whole twelve and a half seconds before it truly started.
"Oh dear."
And the flames washed over him. "Eheh... Eheheheheh... Eeheeheeheeheehehehahahahahahahaha...."
"Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!"
"EEEEEEAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! AHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" "EEEEEAAAAAUGHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAH!"

**Prof B Hunnydew checked to see if anyone need help moving out  and down the hall... Seeing the Ferret, She lend-ed a hand with the girl, and **

"Do you need help with her Mister" asked PBH of the frog.

**quick moved her small group to where 75 stopped.  **

"We should go in or check it out before wounded go in" said PBH

** moved to open the door to Chapel  But Stopped because the frog was missing**

"Hey Mr Frog Hey Are you still around?" PBH called out

** She found him by his laughter as it had gotten louder over the giggling before... She slapped him **

"Snap out of it!"PBH Yells at The Frog and waits to see if he will claim himself

PBH

Mel started down the hallways, stopping occasionally to blast at the following monsters. She noted that the new people had wasted no time in retreat. Not fighters evidently. The ferret and frog had also disappeared. The only one of her patients she could see was Keaton.  She slowed, taking time to send an extra strong blast of air over the heads of the fighters, hoping to blow enough spiders back down the hall to give her companions the breathing room to follow.

"Get in!" Stygian roared, at the head of the rest of the group as they moved back, holding his arm and neck where more spider's bites had landed. He was feeling quite odd, a rush over him like he hadn't had even before he was locked up that he could remember. He didn't mind that the frog was gone; actually, he had almost forgotten him. All he really cared for was that they could hold the chapel, and that they had the ferret.
   "I said get in! Move!" he shouted, and grabbed the now babbling ferret around the neck, the little woman yelping out and saying things that Lovecraft could most likely have taken good inspiration from. He practically smashed open the doors and stormed in. Back down, the spiders rounded a corner, and began coming against them.
   Inside the chapel, the bat let go of the ferret, pushing her to the side and then using his tentacles to smash away benches and debris, clearing the floor before the entrance. He sunk to his knees, clenching the bites a bit, and then raised his blackened eyes, growling furiously.

Standing in a ring of freshly-slaughtered spiders, chaos and arachnid massacre occuring around her, all Keaton could do was fight for her life.

Hacking and slashing, Keaton tore through needly legs, serrated mandibles, and clusters of glittering, opalescent eyes with her wing tentacles, moving stiffly and jerkily. It was necessary, to keep from tearing open the injuries Mel had worked to remedy, although it combined with the absence of her mace impaired Keaton's fighting abilities. It came as a miracle that Stygian ordered a retreat.

Keaton wasn't really used to obeying orders, at least not in a very long time. She didn't give her loyalty to just anybody. But she wasn't stupid, and it was with every inch of her body cheering her on that Keaton whirled around and pursued the group.

Stygian wasn't the only one who hadn't noticed Jeremiah's disappearance. Frankly, she didn't know the amphibian, thus there was no reason to care about him, in her perspective.

As always, she was Little Miss Sympathy.

The bat cleared the way, allowing the rest of the people to rampage into the chapel, while the spiders stampeded close behind. Keaton's wing-tentacles remained as rigid as possible, blood and brain matter coating the bladed edges, as she skidded inside of the chapel. "Oh, fuck..." she hissed, clutching her head in her hands. Keaton's body began to shake again from the ferocity of her uncontrollable wheezing. "Fuckfuckfuck..."

One of those days indeed.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

**PBH grabbed and pushed the laughing frog into the chapel after the wounded bat **

"hurry up Dog Hero the spiders and whatever else is upon us" shouted PBH at 75

Seeing the fallen bat "Healers Healing needed!!!" yells PBH

PBH

He had a name, but had left it somewhere. Details. The black flames continued their work as the cat dragged him to vile safety.
With him tossed in a heap nearby and shrouded by his coat, nobody could tell what had happened until he got up on all fours with a noise like "Tik-Shnk, Tik-Shhhhnk."
It was recognizible as Jeremiah, but just barely. The shadows over his face cast by the brim of his hat had hardened and bleached into a mask covering the upper half of his face, plus some along his jaw. The reason it was along his jaw and not coving his mouth was because said mouth had grown. Well no, just the teeth, to the point where he couldn't close his lips over his mad grin. His eyes had sunken into black holes in the mask, with pinpoints of white light in the center. His coat billowed around him, which was rather cool until one realized that firstly, there was no wind, and two, tweed as a material doesn't usually billow so well. Smoke poured from beneath the mask, his sleeves, any gap in his clothing.
The most noticble change, however, was that his hands and feet had been replaced by large, spade shaped blades, each coming to a stingerlike point. Those were what were keeping him moving on all fours; he couldn't balance otherwise. He shambled to a respectible speed, heading straight for Sebastion. Without thought, without an idea of what such actions will and will not entail, he lept off of the ground and slammed into the door, all four blades imbedding themselves in the woodwork.
Drop down. The bat ponce first. Kill, wet your blades and-
No.
...
It is quite possible to have awkward pauses in ones own mind.
Grehhh?
In, shut him up.
To anyone psychically inclined, there was a sound exactly like someone slamming a masked face against a table.
Whu-?
You have some control. You don't know the rules yet. However, while your not knowing when you cheat makes it that much more likely that you wont get caught, there's a reason you don't wish to be caught. I am of the opinion influences like you should be kept Isolated.
Rotted away.
Controlled.
Robbed blind and left in a ditch.
CanIsmashagaincanIcanIcanIcanIcan-?
Jeremiah's mind was in no state to think too lucidly. On the surface, on what his concious mind was going over, he was only a cut above one of the specters. But he was no stranger to being in such a state. Isn't a subconcious grand? You think it has no say in what's going on right until you find yourself having to do your own damn breathing. But this is all off subject.
The above argument took a matter of seconds as Jeremiah and the specter fought for control. The masked thing that was the sum of their efforts skittered to the other side of the door and pushed itself off of the wall. It whirled in midair, bringing all blades to bear against a pair of masked wraiths. They sliced through mask and cloak, and landed to pin three spiders to the floor. Then it reared up, flailing and stabbing. No movement didn't end in hitting something as it went from standing on two legs to one to a hand and a leg to one hand to two hands to midair and back to hands.
"HAHEEHAHOHAHIAHAHAHA!"

Aisha was one of the ones trailing the group for a while, making sure that everyone had gotten through safely enough.  The wraiths and spiders she could hear pursuing, but with the new sword gripped tightly in her hands, Aisha's concern wasn't at the monsters behind them, but on the path ahead.  She heard Sebastian yelling out the directions to the party, and after only a brief pause, the panthress ran to keep up with the others, the directions repeated over and over again in her mind while winding through the labyrinth of passages.

There was relief when finally they found the chapel, a dark but familiar sight, her ears pinned against all of the fearful shouting and barking orders.  As the spiders rounded the corner, Aisha took one last swipe against them, careful not to hurt anyone while the flames lashed at the legs of the arachnid in the front.  Deciding then not to waste any more time, the panthress practically leapt through the doors, leaping around obstacles as she went, and skidding on the floor, doubling over and trying to regain her breath from the running.

Making a quick headcount, she realized that Jeremiah hadn't been with the rest for a while, until she caught sight of him with a hurriedly-relieved sigh...until her eyes fell on his wrist...and his quickly-shifting appearance afterward.  Aisha shot straight up then, raising her sword in front of her.  "What happened the bracer?" she demanded.  "It should have stayed on!"  Not to say that the look on her face wasn't one of complete confusion, eyeing the frog as he seemed to have gone insane...

Prof Bambi  Hunnydew worked fast to remove the Bat's clothing and used her first aid for a anti-vemon shot and speed heal to cure his wounds... 

"Did the canine in Black make in, Panther Lady?" asked PBH as she worked on the Stygian and also notice the frog.

PBH

Mel had been trying to push one half of the heavy and now off-kilter pair doors closed when the transformed Jeremiah embedded himself in the other. She was caught stunned and forgetful of what she was doing watching his acrobatic display until Keaton's moans drew her attention in the opposite direction.

The masked thing simply continued killing spiders and slashing at wraiths. It was a happy monster. It was enjoying itself.
Jeremiah and the wraith were both kind of pissed though.

Stygian's eyes focused on the frog now, or what had been him just a while ago. That laughter and that mask... It was obvious that the curse had gotten to him too. And that could only be bad. Just like the poison stings that he had received. Before, he had been all but untouchable to whatever that bitch had thrown at him. Now, he felt so heavy...
   Fighting off the intoxicated feeling, he got to his feet. He could still resist, still put it out of his system. But he certainly didn't want to take any more bites. Watching the others spill in through the doors to the chapel, he growled and emanated more darkness, a thick, dark swamp of it standing around him.
   "We make a chokepoint here. They will go away eventually. And if they don't... we're still in a good place to smash through them!" he said, not quite entirely reassured himself but not letting it show. Then, with a roar, he threw himself forward, letting tentacles and claws rip into the arthropod swarm. The spiders quoted furiously, leaping and slashing, but he did not let them get through, overwhelming them with sheer speed and number of attacks.

"Whoa, Batty if you want to keep fighting then you better give the anti-vemon and quick heal chance to work in few minutes...." said PBH

"Okay Anyone else need a quick fix up before rush into battle again.?" asked PBH as she watched the warriors go off and fight anyway.  PBH knew she was down on spell power and would need a few hours if not a day to fully recharge.  She had something left, but she could not say how much.

Keaton waited in her personally-claimed corner for a moment to curse and curse and curse, firing off every befouled word in her admittedly exotic vocabulary like a gunshot. During this rapidly paced, relentless bombardment of unmentionables, Keaton kept her head rooted firmly in her hands, dirty blonde hair spilling before her face to perfectly shadow her infuriated, frustrated expression.

Great. Wonderful. Just freakin' PEACHY. First she was assaulted by Adventurers, barely escaping with her life with a few arrows in her back like some mere ANIMAL, next she's dragged into this place and attacked by monstrous spiders.

And this was going to involuntarily be her home for Lord knows how long.

Muffling an exasperated shout, Keaton removed her head from her hands and smoothed her bedraggled hair back down into its commonly-used, aerodynamic style. For someone who had just recited every foul word in the English dictionary (and some crude variations of other disapproving phrases), she looked oddly placated, as though she had rid herself of some terrible weight burdening her shoulders.

To the unobservant eye, she appeared almost blank. To others, the more astute, she appeared... placid, as a content smile was on her face a moment later. It only lasted for a few seconds as the reality of the situation saturated her, but it was a precious moment, one where she was isolated from the hell and brought into an ephemeral asylum to unleash her personal rage.

It was nowhere near as relieving as killing a Being or two, but it would do.

Adjusting her glasses and brushing away some bangs as though nothing had ever happened, Keaton's head snapped in the direction of the frog who had just entered--only she wasn't sure if he WAS a frog anymore.

Instead of his usual visage, it had become something ghastly, otherworldly, spectral. Diaphanous mist poured out from every available sleeve in his now-flowing robes and a pallid rictus made up his toothy, barbaric smile, his hands constantly fluctuating through multiple, threatening shapes. Utterly ignoring Aisha's concerns, such as why the bracer vanished, the mask-adorned frog merely stormed out, continuing to hack away at spiders and take swipes at wraiths.

If Keaton hadn't seen worse, she would've been quite distressed. Even then, like everything else in this hellhole, it frightened her.

Stygian barreled into the charging mass of eight-legged nightmares, fighting through their frenzied assaults to chip away at them with his supersonic blows. Sighing, as though burdened by a mild inconvenience, Keaton massaged her temples past her dirty blonde hair and armed herself all over again, the tentacles lurching to life. Anubis-shaped heads emblazoned with spiraling sable emerged from the serpentine limbs of her wings, craning about until their numerous, crystalline brown eyes landed on the throng of spiders before them.

Shrill, trilling growls resonated in the hollow throats of the anubis heads, the eyes of each head narrowing simultaneously, along with their mistress's. Purple light encircled the pitless pupils of the heads' oculars like a mangled halo, sparking viciously with livid energy. Dancing bolts of fiery, black sparks crawled along their razorblade canines, pulsating like rings along their lengthy necks. Slowly, each one sunk into her tentacles all over again, the tips sharpening into jagged stalactites.

Showtime.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

"Friendses? Enemies?" The masked thing cackled as he continued to slash away, spider gore up to his elbows and knees, "YAHAHEEHOOHOHAHAHH!" As one of Sebastian's tentacles drew near him, the monster formerly known as Jeremiah took one or two swipes at the area near it. Not close enough to risk harm, but enough to send the message, Regardless of which, you keep the hell away from me!
Creepy though he was, a dancer or other type of performer may have appreciated his moves. There was a certain grace to it, each move flowing into the next combined with the use of every limb. Never did those huge, tombstone like teeth come into play, but the occasional clacking noise he made with them made it a definate possibility. The clacking added to the overall appearance of some dance; a maraca-wielding madman dancing death before an audience of spiders and wraiths, with their full participation in the show.
"HAHAHAHAHEHEAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!"

Mel got one side of the door closed just as Sebastian charged back out. Keaton stopped moaning and her tentacles changed so Mel decided it was a cubi thing and not a new injury. Lacking any other way to lock the door she froze it in place with a mass of ice. Then she stepped away and thought, what would scare a giant spider with the average intelligence of a sock puppet? A bird maybe? Birds ate small spiders. Mel began work on an illusion of a bird big enough to eat these spiders in a single bite.

Aisha was mostly wound up with frustration at this point, watching with still confusion as Jeremiah--or what seemed to be left--charged into the fray alongside the bat and the 'Cubi, their efforts going at all costs to halt the swarm of spiders.  Aisha was staying near the door, using her dragonblade this time to cut through any of the beasts who had the hard determination and strength to actually make it past them and into the chapel.  She and the others were practically drenched with the vile entrails of the arachnids, and still they seemed to have kept coming...at least as far as she could see as one of the doors were closed.

Quirking her ear at one point to the inquiry of the feline stranger, Aisha paused and glanced out through the gloom.  "He should be around, thought I saw him as we were coming around to the chapel."  She was panting, tired, but held the sword in front of her with determination to keep the place from being ransacked.  "And my name is Aisha," she added with a quick and polite nod of her head.

Throughout all of this, only three things ran through her mind over and over again in the same pattern, steady enough that it would have been a chant or a song.  Kill the monsters.  Keep the others safe.  Find the damn bracer.

The canine had waited, cursing the triumph of conscience over logic, he still told himself he'd be better off waiting for this group of unlikely and strange creatures.  He had waited for all to pass before entering the chapel himself, letting others go first to face an unknown wasn't exactly selfless, but hey, they didn't need to know that.  He could hear manic laughter emanating from the chapel interior, hearing it gave a feeling of relief that he'd let them go first.  Despite this, he concluded that whatever's in there, would be better to face with the group of strangers, than facing the spider swarm alone.  Looking down the hall he could see the mass of arachnids surging towards him, spinning upon his heel he turned to flee before being knocked flat on his back by a figure that seemed to be on fire.  It's blades sinking into the swarm of spiders, yet moving with the grace of a swift, it was almost as if it was enjoying the bloodbath, swimming in each kill it made. 
      Before the unknown canine could rise to his feet the mass of spiders began billowing past the creature, one crept onto the wall above him.  Arching back it lept at him, raising his hands he caught it's legs to hold it at bay.  The force of its landing and its snapping fangs forcing him down onto the ground.  Wathching other spiders pass him he heard the cries of the other members of the group. I'm gonna get cut off if I don't get outta here.. again!  He immediately rolled to his side, swinging the spider like a club and smashing it into the ground repeatedly.  Its guts splattering all over him, he eyed another clambering over his legs and swiftly brought the heel of his shoe to meet it's face.
             Another stranger had run into the fray now, seemingly screaming in anger.  It's tentacles thankfully making short work of the swarm of spiders surrounding the canine.  He tried to scramble to his feet yet felt a seering pain fire through his back as a large spider brought a leg down onto him like a hammer, you didn't have to be a doctor to know he'd definitely broken something.  The canine clenched his eyes shut, gritting his teeth in agony.  He kicks out, freeing himself from the spider's pin.  The canine found himself shaking with rage, turning to face the spider as it reared up to deliver a fatal blow, he launched himself at it.  His hands grabbing its legs, sinking his teeth into its underbelly.
              Feeling himself lightheaded from the pain, he tore away at the spider's belly, ripping out it's guts and spitting them out.  His hands quickly tearing the spider's legs off, sitting up he breathes heavily and begins pummeling the spider's body with it's own limbs.
              Coming to his senses as more spiders approached and the bladed spectre made more of a commotion, the canine stumbled to his feet.  Slumping against a wall he limped through the one open chapel door, passing one stranger as he did. Catching a look at the concern of her face, he turned to see it was for the two that remained outside.  Turning he slumped against a wall adjacent to the door, sliding down to rest upon the floor.  He licked his lips and tasted the hot blood of the spider, wincing as he raised his hands to look at them, coated in blood. ...Ow

Things were, by the looks of it, not going well. Several people were either unaccounted for, or unaccountable, and those who weren't were pinned by these horrid spider-creatures, much to busy to do anything but fight and hope for the best. Stygian was beginning to feel some sort of odd effect from the spiders' poison, though he didn't know what it could be. Keaton was all busy ripping flesh and getting hers ripped, Jeremiah was dancing a mad tarantella of carnage, Mel was staying at the back it seemed and Aisha hit fast and flanked, as was her habit, it seemed. The ferret was simply scared, talking in tongues and hiding behind benches. And who knew where the wolves were if they hadn't arrived?
  Mel's illusion provided at least some relief. The spiders slowed and fixed, shuddering in fear as a primal image of claws, a beak and huge, dark wings made itself apparrent to their eyes. But it only slowed them down; it didn't stop them from biting and clawing back at the adventurers once they did attack.
  Then, with a loud roar, something seemed to be making its way between them, from the back and within the enormous swarm...
  "Pluck them asunder!"

**after check on the ferret, Bam saw that the girl was unhurt physically but her mind maybe lost forever.   PBH was also looking at the damage door to see what it would take to get it repaired as she talked to Aisha**

"Thank you, Aisha, you are the only one whose name I know right now. ... I am Prof Bambi Hunnydew, but You can call me, Bam   You aren't hurt anywhere, are you? " Asked PBH as looked at the panther and then the battle... and to the beserker Frog

"I don't know anyone else, Even Batty, out there is a mystery  Hey you know that bracer you were asking about.  There was one on the Frog's arm when I found him just to the left down the hallways... But I see that it is not on his arm, now. " said Bam

PBH

Amidst the carnage and spider gore flying helter-skelter, Keaton fought like an animal, not stopping or faltering in her frenzied hacking, slashing, and carving. Limbs like razorblades descended upon her, several managing to cleave through the black fabric of her clothing to reach her skin, tearing her fur and flesh with ease. In retaliation, Keaton would slice through several of them with a whip of her tentacles, moving in a broad crescent. When one wave fell down, ten more would accost her, moving swifter and more efficently than before.

Keaton no longer paid any heed to being conservative in her movements, deciding that managing to emerge from this encounter alive was much more important than accidentally lacerating the intricate work on her aging injuries. This gave her a considerable advantage, but, realizing the danger, the spiders rushed her in a squirming throng, nearly smothering her with bladed-mandibles and scimitar-legs.

Writhing tongues of purple, nebulous light escaped around the surfaces of Keaton's tentacles, glowing with brighter, more erratic clarity with each spider she fell. Legs stabbed at her, drawing blood, dozens of tiny eyes glared at her...

The world was gone, leaving Keaton stranded in the hellhole of thrashing arachnids with nothing but darkness for company. Shadows twisted around Keaton as though it were drawn out from beneath the spiders, flaring up about the jackal like a billowing curtain. Diving down, it orbited her with lightning-fast speed with one swoop, spiraling like a serrated cape, shredding a few unlucky spiders in the process. Manipulating the palpable shadow, Keaton directed it to wrap around her, seeping into her body and cloaking her in tangible black. Untamed electricity crackled around her form as it finished covering her, drowning out all traces of color until she was suffused in inky sable. White beamed anew from her eyes along with an archaic symbol--the same carved into her shoulder--which seemed to bore through the layers of darkness on her hip, glowing with the same, ghostly, empyreal light.

She nearly missed the ferocious cry that rose up from the figure moving between the flowing mass of spiders, even with the heightened supernatural senses her new, shadowy armor provided. Whirling around, unhindered by the spiders that were paralyzed in fear by Mel's illusionary projection, Keaton's glowing eyes widened.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

Well, you're not gonna do much towards your own survival sitting here, get up and help.  Its just a broken.. something, wuss.  The Canine told himself, pressing the palms of his hands to the wall, he began hoisting himself up.  Pain seering down his spine and through his chest with each insufferable inch.  Biting his lip, he balanced upon his feet.  Stopping before heading towards the door, he turned away from the others to hide his face and removed his shades.  Seeing the blood splattered across them, he wiped them clean with his shirt cuff before neatly placing them back on his head, once again obscuring his eyes.
                     He turned to see the commotion taking place around the door, some of the strangers throwing what looked like magic at the spider swarm, the spectre, Bat and a jackal with tentacles were admist the frenzy. Can't just wade in, I might get worse than broken bones next time..  Eyeing a tall Candle stand next to the wall, he stepped up to it.  It was as long as he is tall, knocking the candle aside, he grabs the stand and holds it ahead of him like a staff. Bounding towards the door, he looked to the Dragon attempting to hold one of the doors shut. Before he could think he spotted a spider out of the corner of his eye descending from the wall above her, without hesitation he quickly swings the staff back over his head and brings it foward vertically with great speed.  The base of the stand crushing the spider's abdomen and sending blood splattering across the wall.  Quickly proceeding through the door, he watched the other fighters valiantly struggling to thin the waves of arachnids.  Hold the door, cover them He thought to himself, holding the staff ahead defensively, he hung back to defend the door and cover the strangers retreat.

Mel nodded her thanks at the new canine as he smashed the spider sneaking up on her and went back to her illusions. The bird illusion seemed to be working so she strengthened it and tied it to a floor tile in front of the door. She then worked up a flock of birds. Smaller than the doorway guarding avian, but more solid illusions that could really be felt and sent them out to peck at the spiders further back in the river of monsters. Better to spook them off before they ever got close to the door than waste the fighter's strength on what was probably nothing more than a diversion before the real fight.

**Seeing what the Snow Leopard did to the other door, PBH reasoned that if they could get the another door back up together and into the door frame, they could seal themselves in the chapel and maybe get to rest a few moments to everyone.**

"Aisha can you help the Cubi, there and get her in here!" callled PBH to the panther
"Hey Spy-dog can you help me get these pieces of the door together and lined up" asked PBH  for 75 and then to Mel "Lady Snow Leopard get you freeze these in place and once we get the fighters in."
**using some of the broken pews, they muscled the two main part of the door back together but ajar..And then she welded the iron bars on both sides over the door's metal bracket with a flaming hand spell.  The door was semi-repaired, it could swing and block the doorway from the big monsters, but how much holding power it had was unknown **

"Sir Bat, Frog, and Aisha can we hurry up. Please." PBH shouted to the fighters

The canine was busy swatting spiders left and right, parrying the legs of the larger ones then systematically bringing the staff base down upon their heads, crushing what little brains the Giant spiders had. Grinning in satisfaction back at the snow leopard. He couldn't tell whether he just enjoyed splattering the giant bugs, or felt a certain lust for revenge which only increased the more heated the pain in his back became.  Hearing the Cat Girl's cries, he turned to look back at her and then the doors.  It dawned upon him that if they were to survive this, they'd have to secure the chapel. If just one of them gets in, the whole place will be compromised...  "spy dog"?  Arching an eyebrow at the girl, he began to pace back, uppercutting one spider in the mouth and sending it wheeling backwards across the corridor. 
                          Moving back to the door, he looked to the girl and then to the splintered door she was reffering to.  Bending down on his knees, he slid his hands beneath the door and braced himself.  Grunting in exasperation, he begins to lift the suprisingly heavy door but slower than he'd like. 
                          One spider had split from the main group, scuttling towards him, it clattered across the wall then leaped onto the door, landing right in front of the Canine's face.  He blinked in suprise and looked square into its clicking, razor sharp fangs.  Straining to keep the door aloft, yet unable to let go for fear of breaking it.  He looked over to the other two and whimpered. "...Li'l Help?"

Whatever Jeremiah was now didn't care much about 75's request for help, but the sight of a spider focused on someone else was not something to pass up. With a leap it landed with one foot blade skewering the insect, gave a salute and a slightly wider grin, and lept back into the fray. Fun times.
Keepgoing, keepgoing I must do. Were the thoughts of whatever Jeremiah was now (entirely seporate from what the rest of the personalities, including the ghost-thing, were up to), But not too fast. Then I runs outs of the spiders and the ghosties, and then might be temped. They are not for stabbing. Must remember that. Why? Because. Must remember.

"Thanks Hun." PBH said to 75 in a silky voice, "I will have it welded in a minute"

** the cat-girl with flaming green hand welded iron bars to re-force the doors old brackets**

**after exhausting her hands, Prof Hunnydew quick pulled her spell book out and found the word for the spell, she needed. and goes to the doorway **

PBH shouts to the others "The Door is ready, everyone out of the pool"

**as she throws fireballs to cover them..
By the light of her fireballs, PBH spys a bracer on the ground by a doorway her found the frog earlier.**
"Aisha, The Bracer is there by the left doorway"   shouted PBH

The next second the doors smashed in, as whatever had been moving through the swarm of spiders pushed through to the front and broke through them, sending bits of door and what was in front of it flying. From behind them, something large stepped in on clattering legs.
   It looked like the odd melding of a spider and a woman. Somehow, her black-skinned torso was almost human, but on the back of it was attatched the form of something like a monstrous spider's cephalothorax, with the abdomen hanging down beneath her, as if someone had decided to just merge two creatures like that together. She was dressed in tarnished grey cloth, hanging down her form more like a bedsheet than a robe, and from out under two red-tipped black horns three pairs of red eyes, two big ones and four surrounding small ones, glared at them.
   "You hath awoken the lady! Why did you do so?! To find out pracices of cunning Hell?" she roared, the eight legs on her back carrying her forward with the tips of her clawed feet hanging some distance over the floor. "Well, you shall have Hell then! Death awaits you, like all who enter here!" She clawed forward, the spiders around her keeping back but close.

Spooky had been browbeaten into doing as ordered, for the time being, although he could quite possibly resume command without any notice. The other personalities were either aiding in keeping Spooky down, hiding, or in Bal's case berating Jeremiah. The original owner of this crowded shell was in a gibbering panic.
Meanwhile, the monster was growing tired. The noisy lady with the gun had locked him out, which was mean, and then the flood of spiders and this new loud lady had smashed him through the door. He lay on the floor and whined, laboriously picking himself up with a "Tik-shng". Something about what she had said confused it. Not too surprizing; it's mind being made mostly out of only part's of Jeremiah's, plus a small handful of interjections from the wraith.
"Then she goes back to bed. Don' needs your troubleses," Halfway between that pained whine and a growl, the thing panted out a reply to what was so baffling, "It'll just rile up, makes the adrenline and the wet claws. Then hows you go backs to sleep? Wet claws is to waking and feeding and play; you wants sleeping, go sleep. We keep down."

Aisha was barely even listening to Bam as she spoke to her, save for having caught her name a few times.  She was hovering in and out of the doorway of the chapel at this point, using her sword more as a shield against the spiders rather than a weapon.  Her boomerang had been the major use of that as the panthress kept out of the range of any dripping venom and fangs...she had also started to fall back inside the chapel, hoping and praying that all of her comrades made it in.

Over and over again the enchantment was muttered loudly through her voice, over the hissing and skittering, to bring her weapon back into her hands only to throw it again...Aisha needn't have repeated it, but the sound of her voice trying to stay calm was better than all of this destruction.  "I know it was on his wrist, I put it there!" Aisha growled a little annoyedly upon hearing the felid, more than just a little angry and put upon by stress, and also when something else was moving through the writhing bodies...Get the 'Cubi out too?  By her performance I really don't think she needs help.

But finally, by the time she heard that the door was about to be closed and reinforced, her head swerved, taking a brief look at the horde of arachnids for anything distinctly resembling a mammal or amphibian before diving back into the chapel from the outside.  Oh thank goodness, Aisha sighed when she finally heard Bam's directions and found it lying on the floor, and instantly grabbed it back.  This is going back on Jeremiah, the panther thought, looking around for the frog...

But at that moment, when the doors were splintered from their hinges, the sound made the exhausted huntress fall to her knees briefly.  What she saw when she turned around, the horrid monster staring them down with eyes that made her cringe, made the panthress back up quite a bit and draw the holy sword again.  "Oh, no way..."

As The spider-anthrowoman brakes in the doors.  PBH flys across the room falls behind some pews.  And falls unconscious

Mel hadn't been standing as near the door as the others as she had been directing her illusionary birds so rather than being tossed aside by the door she was able to jump back, to the side. The regular spiders hadn't scared her any more than any of the other monsters but this queen spider did. Unable to think clear enough to cast illusions she went back to her primary skill, ice. Wisps of fog began to dance around her as the nearby air cooled from her preparations.

Fortunately for Keaton, she, too, had been out of the spider-woman's range when she burst through the sparsely-barricaded doorway, sending a furious shower of splinters sailing helter-skelter like sharpened, wooden comets through the air. Throwing a spider off to the side after skewering it on the end of one of her tentacles, Keaton watched as a stampeding wave of fresh spiders rushed in, accompanied by one of the vilest creatures she had seen thus far in this castle.

It was a strange concoction, a horned, lurid mishmash of human and arachnid garbed in blemished, bedraggled robes, and screeching in an equally lurid voice. It--or she, as it possessed distinct feminine qualities to its upper body--appeared to lead the rest of its smaller brethren, like a queen over her subordinates.

Disgusted beyond belief, as despite the fact she had slain numerous spiders before, her arachnophobia didn't abate in the slightest, Keaton backed up, her wing-tentacles immediately shedding the gooey nets of spider gore and ichor that coated them. Narrowing her eyes, Keaton let out a rumbling snarl as she directed the wing-tentacles toward the enormous spider-woman, sparks starting to ripple along the sleek, sable surfaces all over again.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

Sebastian reared back, his darkness beginning to crawl together as he looked up at the spider-woman-thing. His black eyes were wide, and his face an angry gape.
   "Shite..." he said, practically gawking at the woman. "She got to you too, Sally?"
   The spidermorph downed her eyes, and hissed.
   "You bastard...! I am going to seal and shackle you up again, if I do not destroy you here and now!" she roared, and flashed out a clawed limb to stab through him. The bat just dodged to the side, whipping out a headed tentacle to sink its fangs into her leg. It worked halfway; the attack hit, but her exoskeleton seemed too hard to penetrate, and so she swept her limb to the side and flung the bat away. She saw Keaton's attack coming, and threw a great deal of web at her to tangle up her tentacles and to make the fight messier and harder for the adventurers, and the other spiders kept away as she then smashed forward. Sebastian caught himself and flipped over on his legs, and then moved to face her in a slithering, snaking way not entirely different from her clawing about on her back-legs. She had just the time to throw up some fire to try and begin to avert Mel's ice before he smashed into her, and the fight began, the two many-limbed monsters slashing and whipping out with strikes that snapped and cracked loudly.

Cleaving through the hoardes of spiders, Gareeku grimaced as he took down one after another, the blood of the spiders splattering onto his clothes and fur. No sooner had he cleared a path for him to get to the chapel, the spidermorph had appeared. Narrowing his eyes, Gareeku forced himself to forget his arachnophobis as he gathered a large amount of mana into his hand, before releasing it at the spidermorph in the form of a powerful blast of light magic.

The unamed Canine had been syphoning all of his strength into holding up the door whilst the cat girl worked upon it.  Suddenly with an almighty crash, he felt a large flat surface connect directly with his face, sending him flying backwards and tumbling to the floor at the feet of a creature he noticed to be recognisable, though his vision blurred and hearing fuzzy after the blast.  He recognised her as the stranger throwing what looked like a boomerang.
                                       He could hear muffled yells from what sounded like an infuriated exchange, smoke and ash filled the room blurring his vision more than before.  He blinked and felt a flash of pain in his face, blinking again it doubled in ferocity.  Raising his hands up to his face, they appeared to be shaking, covered in blood.  He brought one hand down to feel his face, upon finding what felt like something hot and sharp he flinched and pulled his hand away. Ow... Hope just my face is f***** up he thought, looking to the ground beside him he eyed the candle stand.  Reaching across and grasping it, he felt hot pain in the palm of his hand as his torn, bloodied flesh met the cold steel.  Dragging it towards him he uses it to prop himself up slowly onto his knees, suddenly feeling his chest heave he lurches foward and coughs out blood onto the floor, bringing a sleeve to wipe his muzzle.
          Breathing heavily to regain his composure, he looks up across the room to see the battle taking place between the bat and what looked like to be half a spider and half a woman, looking behind him and up at the panthress he begins to raise himself to his feet, struggling he finds himself slumped against the stand for support. C'mon pansy, s'just a li'l shock, you've got stuff worse than this in your face before, GET UP AND FIGHT

The sight of flame to Mel's already half-panicked state had her skittering backwards. She almost took to the air to get above the flame but realized that would only make her more of a target. The ground had nice stone pillars to hide behind. As she hid she admonished herself, "Calm down. Think. You can't help if you can't think." She took a deep breath and peeked around the column to see what was happening.

The web that the spider queen launched did its job quickly, the gooey substance striking Keaton before her attack could efficiently launch. White, sticky tendrils of opaque, glue-like substance wrapped instantly around Keaton's body, wrapping around her limbs and severely reducing her movements to tense jerks before she could properly resist. Growling in a voice that was no longer her own, Keaton attempted to move her tentacles, but found that they too had been trapped in the irresistable ooze.

Despite her earnest efforts to break free of the web trapping her, Keaton found that doing so was exceedingly difficult when her struggles were restrained within the net of spider-sludge. Meanwhile, it seemed as though Stygian had somehow identified the spider-woman monstrosity as a former acquaintance, but this was summarily neglected by Keaton, who was too busy trying to break free from her mucilaginous cage.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

Far away in the PBH's mind,

"Nanna Nanna, I am here I come to visit...

I'm here, child, in the garden. "    The 8 year old kitten ran to the  great oak in the back garden. 

"What are you doing, Nanna?" ask PBH the fae feline.  The fae was hugging the 200 year old great tree with all her might.  The Tree and the fae glow with a green light and the little kitten could see the tree growing and getting taller and wider. 

"Wow Nanna the tree is growing... Make it bigger and bigger!" clapped the happy kit
"No, my dear, but you can make it bigger" said the fae as she stopped hugging the tree and handed the kitten the emerald medallion from her neck.
*flash*
"Now Bam you didn't come here to play, did you?" said Nanna
"What?" said the Adult PBH.
"What were you doing, young lady?" asked Nanna
"I was  I was repairing one side of these  double oak doors with more iron bars vertically to keep the oak pieces together on one side... It accidentally closed as I finished repairing it and and I was just going to re-open it for the fighters when it exploded  and and now I 'm here." said PBH

"But why dear? You are the heir to forest magic, and You can mend the Oak itself." corrected PBH's granny
"but that is impossible.."
"The children of the wood always remember their roots" said Nanna with a smile
"All it takes is you to believe in your magic and anything is possible." said Nanna as she touch my emerald on my chest...
*** a  flash of green light from behind the pews from across the room.
PBH feels the touch of many crawling legs as smaller spiders traveled along her legs and body.
She could feel no bites yet or fear .. as the green light  glowed  along her body and turning the smaller spider on her body change them to normal spiders.  She watch them drop off and run away. 

The Cat-girl/ Fae Feline with blue hair, leafy wings and a glowing green aura raises from behind the pews.  She turns and looks at the battle scene, looking confused and dazed.

PBH

Aisha had stood back for a moment as the spider-woman advanced on the adventurers, the smaller minions having seemed to fall back, which left some exhausted party members to take a few short breaths...the panther had her sword raised and braced for an attack.  However, she was tiring, and actually had no bother against letting some of the more powerful of the group cut in...and anyway it was hard to land find a blow to land once Sebastian had gotten straight involved, and once the webbing was thrown at Keaton and across the room.

"Uuugh..." she shuddered with a growl, clawing away the sticky threads of silk that she had been caught in, kneeling on the floor and cutting away the rest with the bladed edges of her boomerang...she didn't want to risk using the holy blade if the webbing was flammable.  At one point she caught sight of one of the strangers they had saved, the canine, looking as if he found it hard just to stand up.  "You probably shouldn't do that, unless you want to collapse in the next few minutes," Aisha pointed out with a grunt as she sliced away another layer of webbing.  If more of us are injured, we'll have a hell of a time taking on the angel...but how in the world are we going to get rid of this brutish one quickly?

The canine sways a little in disorientation. Blinking, his vision comes into focus only to see the dire situation the group had been landed in.  Shaking his head and sending blood flying from his lips, he hears the voice of the panthress behind him.  Hunched against the stand for balance he turns his head to look back at her through his dark shades.  He coughs and spits out blood onto the floor, forcing a small grin in the corner of his mouth he stutters "I'm.. *cough* I'm fine.. don't worry about me"  Turning back away from her he is forced to grit his teeth and wince in agony, Cripes this hurts! I can barely breathe!  Despite the pain, he couldn't just lay back, he had to do something of contribution to the group of strangers.
        Taking a deep breath, he sluggishly stomps towards the mass of spiders advancing around the larger spider woman.  Raising the staff slowly with what seemed to require a lot of effort, he swings at a spider and clips it, sending it catapulting across the room.  Almost losing his balance, he raises a foot to level himself out, quickly bringing it down upon the head of another spider scuttling beneath him.  Smashing down upon another with the base of the staff, he looks up from its corpse to see a spider larger than a cow facing him. Lunging at him, he raises the staff vertically and forces it into the spider's fangs, holding an otherwise painful death at bay.  however the force of its lung knocks the canine onto his back, the spider moving ontop of him.  Its rear legs pinning him down by his knees,  yelling in pain as its front legs push down on his chest. He bares his fangs to the Arachnid, holding it at bay with the staff, despite his best efforts, he could feel his strength weakening and its fangs coming ever closer. This may not have been the best idea...  He thought to himself, pinned to the spot and resiliantly holding the staff rigid, flinching as the spider's venom oozed and dripped from the tip of it's fangs, landing upon the gaping wounds on his face. "ARRRGH!" He yelled in desperation.

A couple strands got the not-Jeremiah's leg and wrist, but it was the work of a few moments to stagger out.
Lady fights Ponce. Why? Find out later. Spiders hold back, those who intervene damaged. Intervene? Territory fight, one on one? Can't tell, confused. Go kill spiders? Restrainer and Proffesional go fight spiders. Frail Juggurnaut is tangled. Legion unconcious. Loud lady got up, maybe not Loud lady. Newthing. Where Clever Healer? It cast about until it just managed to notice Mel peeking around the column. Quickly and quietly it skittered over, the stingers on the ends of its blades finding purchace as easily on walls as on the ground, and attemped to get her attention.
"Psst! Clever one! What do? No know what do! Give method!" it said, keeping low to the ground and away from the spiders, it's voice managing to sound manic even when it was keeping its voice down (the occasional giggle didn't help), "What do?"

In a loud and sweet girly voice the glowing PBH askes

"OH MY, I think someone needs a HUG!"

"What do you have to say for yourself?" 

PBH

Immediately after he had unleashed the wave of magic at the spidermorph, Gareeku looked around, before laying his eyes on Keaton, who was trapped in webbing. Reacting immediately, the wolf quickly rushed over and, with a few lightning quick slashes of his blade, freed the jackal succubus of her sticky prison.

"You ok?" he asked as he helped her up, putting her arm over his shoulder as he helped Keaton to stand up. Looking back at the spidermorph, Gareeku frowned, knowning that he needed to get Keaton to safety so that she wouldn't be further harmed in her injured state.

The spider-woman had seen Gareeku's shockwave coming, and reacted to it by unleasing some dark magic in a slash out against it, neutralizing the hit. She turned her attention to him and his attempts to aid the succubus, and with a nasty hiss she spat out more web, a sticky net spinning all over the place where they stood, attempting to snag them. But then she seemed to think herself finished with them and returned to trading blows with Stygian, now on the defensive that she hadn't paid him full attention.
   "To Hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil!" she moaned, snarling at him. "And your dealings have trapped us too! Argh!" She staggered back as he cut through a part of her tattered clothing. She clenched her stomach, just below her breastbone, and there was something there, like a glowing crack in her otherwise smoothly black skin.
   "She gave you part of it too?!" Stygian snarled. "I will have it back!" He began swiping at her again, force meeting force with loud cracks and slashes, and he looked up as he pushed her back under the great chandelier.

Before he could do anything more, Gareeku looked up to see the spidermorph shooting web at him and Keaton. Narrowing his eyes, the wolf swung his blade at the incoming web, the sword glowing with magical energy as it sliced the web to pieces. Seeing that the spidermorph's attention had turned away, Gareeku took the opportunity to get Keaton to a safe distance, checking her over to see if she was alright.

With a harsh growl, Aisha half-cut and half-tore the last of the webbing that had confined her to the floor, relief overcoming the heat of frustration.  At least while being pinned there she had enough time to get some strength back, though she used most of it to make some distance between the battling spider-morph and Sebastian.  Looking around, she could see from the corner of her eye another of the larger spawn about to pin down the canine.  The panthress tossed her boomerang, aiming for the spider's head, and having it return stained with entrails, hoping she had gotten it.  "Dammit, move!" she shouted.

Then, she took a quick look around...everyone was either too far away to help, too weak, or have been shot by webbing, as she saw that had happened to Gareeku and Keaton without her even giving a chance of a warning.  Her head jerked around the chapel rapidly, her tail whipping with annoyance.  There has to be something...

Her eyes passed the ceiling then, and did a double-take upon catching the sight of the giant chandelier hanging overhead.  An idea had suddenly crossed her mind, and her eyes seemed to gleam and sharply as the bladed sides of her boomerang, drawing back her arm and to aim straight up.  If only...now! her nerves released as soon as the spider-morph was beneath it.

"Everyone who can, get some cover!" she roared above the noise.  Aisha's arm whipped forward, and she let the thing fly like the spinning sawblade it was meant to be, holding her hand still in the air and giving the enchantment a little control over its flight as it sped and snapped at the chains...

The spinning boomerang cut a rope and supporting lock for one of the chains, and the suspended chandelier creaked before snapping its chains and crashing down upon the spidermorph with a sound of smashing benches, cracking stone and bending metal. The spider-woman called out as it hit her, roaring and crying out in pain. Stygian had just been out of the range of the impact, and quickly ceased the opportunity to nail her to the floor with a few well-placed tentacles once she started budging the metal structure. She yelped once again, cursing and crying against the floor, hissing and growling low words of fury as he swept out the pieces of chain and starting to restrain her.
   "It's got to go, Sally. Don't struggle," Stygian said with a chilly tone, grunting and getting up a bit.
   "Curse you! Curse you and Hell take you...!" she replied, more weeping than foaming at him.
   "Been there, done that. Now, hold still...!" he hissed, the claws on his hand lengthening as he closed on her.

Much to Keaton's eternal relief, before the jackal could exhaust herself swearing and struggling in the grasp of the net imprisoning her, Gareeku intervened. Slicing through the ropy strands of ichor like butter with his impeccably sharp blade, the wolf then proceeded to help her to her feet. Keaton groaned and swatted some strands of gooey webbing off of her shoulder, absorbing the rest into her body with ease.

"Ugh," she arched her back with an audible pop as she relocated it, stretching her arms out and flexing her tentacles. "Thanks for that. I owe you one." Checking over her body for any stray strands of web, Keaton remarked, "I've been socked around worse. You holding out alri--"

Keaton noticed the incoming glob of gelatinous substance flying at them a moment too late, but thankfully, Gareeku disposed of it with a swing of his sword. The next moment, Aisha was shouting at them to find cover before Keaton could realize what was happening, the jackal reacting instinctually. One of her tentacles looped around Gareeku's waist, pulling him in toward her, and with a wide sweep of her arm the shadows pooling around her sliced neatly through the air, covering them in an opaque, protective, black dome. The chandelier came crashing to the ground in a brilliant explosion of flying shards and crushed wood, chunks of stray debris pelting the shell of Keaton's shield. When she was positive that it was safe, Keaton dispelled the shield with another, minimal gesture of her hand, and looked around the chapel.

Crystallizing her tentacles again, Keaton snapped her head in the direction of the spider-woman, who appeared to be distracted by Stygian. The bat and the spider were fighting against one another, the spider-woman releasing a terrible string of noises as she sobbed, screamed, struggled, and swore in retaliation to Stygian's attacks.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

Mel managed not to jump when Jeremiah came up behind her. After all, she'd grown up in the Fortress where things of every species passed through every day and he wasn't the strangest thing she'd ever seen. "We don't want the spiders to hurt our friends. We..." Before she could finish there was a loud crash. She turned back to the fight to see that the spider queen was pinned by the chandelier. Sebastian appeared about to finish her off. Mel peered at the smaller spiders, wondering how they would react to the loss of their leader.

**PBH looks on the trapped arachnoid and what the bat was up too.  But she sees the nameless canine is in bigger trouble on the other side of the room and quick goes to he aid.  **

"Don't let spiders hurt friends. Gotchagotcha," the faux-Jeremiah replied, just as the chandellier came crashing down on the spider woman. Not being certain if that would spook off the rest of them he made a few swipes and jabs at what few were still nearby, keeping them from getting to close to the center of the room where Sebastion was giving the spider woman a bad day. He darted from place to place keeping them back, although without the finesse he was putting into it earlier.
Tired... Gonna nap soon, and keeper will find me a nice part of the mind to sleep in wrapped in the rest of myself, and that bit of me can handle things from there. So sleepy...

edit delete

The canine's eyes widenend in suprise as a metallic object flew into the spider's head from above him.  Its entrails flying backwards, it twitched for a moment then slumped on top of him, lifeless.  He grunted at the immense weight of the corpse and began shifting his arms to lift it off of him,  pressing his elbows to the floor and his palms flat against it's body, he gradually raised the spider off the ground, sweat forming on his brow.  He took a deep breath and managed to raise himself to his knees, holding the large spider up above his head.  Before he could free himself, he caught out of the corner of his eye a large object crashing to the ground with a mighty blast, shrapnel fired into his side and before he could scream, the shockwave sent he and the spider flying across the room.  He felt his back slam into a cold, flat surface.  The weight of the spider crashing into him was crushing, he slumped to the floor with the spider atop of him.  As ash and rubble buried him and his late attacker, his eyes drifted shut. Can't... br-  His body finally succumbed to the immense and multiple injuries, passed out beneath  the rubble.

PBH can't much more than bind the canine's wounds... She watches over him while turns to study her spell books.  She is out of magic, but she will have to learn news spells...

PBH...(see ooc)

Stygian stepped down in front of the woman, and with a forceful hand jerked her head back, eliciting another cry from her. She thrashed violently in her chains, but futilely, the weight on her shifting and the metal creaking from her enormous strength but her limbs still being held solidly in place by the evidently stronger bat. Claws flashed as he slashed open the front of her cloth, and then she shrieked as he dug his hand in, ripping up her skin and prying out the glowing fragment inside that fuelled her transformation. With a spatter of blood, he then withdrew it, holding up a piece of fiery and glowing substance, like a hot coal, sizzling in his hand. The spider-woman's cry died out abruptly, and she fell together, collapsing and twitching under the steel. And that seemed to be the end of the rest of the spiders. The wounded ones on the ground stopped struggling and simply fell together as dust and coal, while those still alive made fearful shrieks and ran, scuttling away and out of sight into darkness and corners and dissappearing.
   Stygian stood for a second, eyeing the fizzing thing in his hand, before standing back and slowly reassuming his normal form, putting it away. He looked down on the woman with emotionless eyes for a few seconds, and then stepped forward again, grabbing and wrenching the metal on her over and off her, and then carefully laying her on her back.
   "That's another one..." he said coolly, but sadly. "We had better get to that chamber." Then, he stood up, and immediately winced and grabbed at his neck and arm, where red, swollen marks blemished his skin.

The fight over before Mel could even figure out what to do. She came around the pillar and looked at the chaos and counted allies. Sebastian was moving the chandelier off the spider queen. Aisha was standing nearby. Keaton and Gareeku were together and looked battered but upright. Jeremiah was... well he was probably beyond her skills. The ferret and Cogi weren't within her sight. "Everyone okay? Where is Gina and Cogi?" Then she saw the two new people. The canine was buried in the dust-like remains of spiders and the feline seemed to be giving first aid. Mel crossed the room to investigate. She knelt on the other side of the canine from the blue-haired feline and said, "I'm Mel. Can I help?"

Stygian straightened, and assayed the situation. The two books he had brought along, the notebook and the larger one on the subject of the sealing, were laying to the side, people were wounded but it seemed they had reached an end of the danger for now, and...
   "Azel!" he shouted forcefully, and a tiny whimper could be heard from somwhere. The bat's ear twitched, and he turned and walked back. He returned a few seconds later, hauling a flailing and tongue-talking ferret along under his arm.
   "We're heading for the chamber as soon as we get ready. The entry should be through the second chamber under the castle. We'll get there through the cellar, since this entry is sealed," he said matter-of factly, walking up behind the group and placing the ferret against a pillair under the balcony. He eyed the others, and then slumped down against a bench, holding his neck. The poison and exertion was weakening him, and he didn't know if he'd be able to hold off the effects. It seemed it might have been a good idea to just take them on and deal with them, while everyone was being healed.
   "Kitty... Mel... Use this..." he said, and threw a little pendant-like metal object against her, a thing he had picked up in the library. It landed on the stone floor next to her with a metallic tink.

Before Gareeku could say anything more, he found a tentacle wrapping around his waist, before being pulled close to Keaton as she summoned some form of protective shield as the fight against the spidermorph continued. Watching the shield dispersing as the fight came to a close, the wolf turned to the jackal next to him.
"Looks like we're even. Thanks for that." he commented with a smile.

Sheathing his sword, Gareeku looked around. Various members of the group seemed to be in bad shape, though he knew that, unfortunately, he did not have any healings skills to put to use.

Nothing to stab. Uh oh.
As the spiders fled, the Jeremiah-thing curled up and started shaking. It in itself was neither Jeremiah nor the spectral curse, and was being pulled on by leashes leading to both of them. Working rather hard to keep listening to the one he was made out of, rather than the one who rearranged those parts to get him, he stayed where he was and shuddered, giggling every so often.

Keaton didn't readily respond to Gareeku's thanks, instead distantly watching Stygian scuffle with the spider-woman with an almost twisted, sadistic interest. She was putting up a noteworthy fight, kicking and thrashing, but the bat proved to be the strongest out of the two when he deftly pinned her down--then much to Keaton's surprise, shredded the front of the spider-woman's clothing and plunged his hand into her flesh. Moments later, his claws surfaced, holding an indiscernible object aloft.

The spiders surrounding them started to dissolve, crumbling into a collective mound of half-stagnating ashes. Their remaining brethren simply scuttled fearfully out of sight, but Keaton didn't notice, focusing on the spider woman's body for a moment before she averted her gaze back to Gareeku without so much as a hint of ostensible concern on her neutral face.

Although mildly unnerved underneath the shell of disregard, Keaton returned her attention to her other 'comrades', who she assumed she was going to stay with whether she liked it or not. Inspecting her body for any stray pieces of detritus, although she was almost positive that nothing would've penetrated the shield without her noticing, Keaton's head snapped up to look at Mel, who inquired on everyone's well-being.

Having no idea who this 'Cogi' person was, Keaton shrugged her shoulders loosely, then, with a snap of her fingers, the lamination of shadows hugging her body disappeared on the spot, withdrawing into the darkness pooled around her and Gareeku's feet. Flipping her once-more disheveled hair out from her eyes and examining her injuries--including the ones that had lacerated some segments of her clothing, but thankfully nothing revealing--Keaton decided that aside from the livid cuts criss-crossing over her body, she looked far from dead. Then again, it was hard to tell without any sort of reflective surface to project her visage.

There was still a dull, throbbing pain stemming from the gashes, but Keaton endured it--it was really nothing, compared to the enormous injury she had suffered before. For now, it was bearable, and could probably be treated later.

"I'm fine," Keaton said, prodding at one of the cuts with the tip of her finger, "But don't you think you should be focusing on THAT guy?" Keaton jerked her thumb over to the convulsing, giggling, obviously disturbed Jeremiah, who had apparently run out of spiders to carve up.

While Mel tended to the teal-haired feline and her fallen canine acquaintence, Keaton turned back to Gareeku. Idly tearing off a strip of cloth from her sleeve, she used it to bind her disorderly hair back in an unkempt, low-hanging ponytail, struggling with it for a moment, but looking rather satisfied once the ligature was secure. "By the way," she said, dusting her hands off and smirking loftily, "I guess we are."

~Keaton the Black Jackal

By the time the boomerang returned to her hand, Aisha was already well away from the site of the chandelier's fall, her back being pelted with debris from the pews, the floor, and the glass while ducking her head.  Afterward, she turned to watch this exchange between the spider-morph and Sebastian with slight curiosity, though she quirked an eyebrow at the way the monster was dealt with...no doubt with much pain.

At least the smaller spiders had finally decided to leave them alone, as the whole of the chapel's interior settled into a quiet relief.  The very air itself was saturated with the smell of death, which the panthress sneered at with a little disgust, knowing that there was surely more to come...the calm before and after the storm, this seemed to be.  Aisha polished her blades clean and placed them back on her belt.

With a sigh, another quick head count was taken.  Everyone was alive, some barely, some more winded and clothed head to toe in dust and blood...and a few were missing, which made her wince and close her eyes in silence for a moment.  Glancing briefly to Jeremiah, or the thing he had become, she took out her bracer again, the artifact still glowing in the steady and soft colors of the enchantment that it was forged in.  It had come off the frog's wrist, but looked if it wouldn't do too much to help him now...

When Aisha took out the bracer from wherever she'd been keeping it, the masked thing chose that instant to look up. At the sight of the bracer it's trembling lessened, and the flames running along its length banked slightly.
"S.. Ss... Sleeeeeeeep..." He managed to giggle out, raising one "hand" to point at the bracer slightly. Said hand suddenly jerked toward Mel, the nearest party member, but the other hand darted out to pin it to the floor by the sleeve of his exessively billowing cloak. Of course, with only the blades on his hind feet being used to hold him up he fell forward onto his elbows, "Breycrrrrrrr... Rest... Reeeeeynnnn..." Another slight giggle, but with both eyes fixed firmly on that bracer.

Judging from people's reactions, Stygian decided that it was about safe and appropriate to use the time for quick healing, before they went on to their final objective. After all, he was probably the one who was going to have to dispel the whole ordeal after they had finished the archangel, and he didn't think that anyone else knew how to unseal the chamber right away. Fighting the angel with poisoned wounds would be hard as well. So, he ceased to hold back the effects from the three bites and prayed for the best.
   The first thing he felt was the tingling sensation as the magical poison began flooding his system, an itching and unpleasant feeling for the greatest part. Then, he felt a concentration of the itches forming into a sharp sting at the base of his tail, and the next second he had to move in his seat as it swelled and lengthened, falling out and down to the floor next to him under his shirt. The tingling continued somewhat, but the change seemed to stop, and he looked at his tail, the short little flick of it now having become perhaps four feet long, maybe more, and much thicker and more muscular.
   "Well, that's not..." he began, and then the itching grew to a crawling in all of his body. He looked at Mel. "Ehm... I think I might need some help here..." he said.

Mel picked up the little item Sebastian had tossed to her and looked it over. "I've read of these but had never seen one before." It was a small silvery tube on a chain, about finger long and as slender, delicately carved with symbols. "Magical storage, correct?" Then she heard his request for help. She looked up from the little item to see the bat wasn't looking well at all. She looked down at the canine in front of her. The blue-haired feline seemed to have his injuries under control for the moment. She stood and moved closer to the bench where Sebastian was sitting, "What's wrong?"

"It's these bites..." Stygian said, watching the swellings and redness go down on the wounds in his skin and slowly begin to regenerate. "I can't resist the poison without purging it actively, it seems... And I can't do that now..." His face flushed under his pale fur, and the redness began spreading a bit. "And now I'm starting to feel warm... And stingy... And what the Hell just happened to my voice?!"
   Like the bat had remarked, his voice had begun brightening considerably. And he was getting shorter, his clothes suddenly a few sizes too large for him. Except for the front of the shirt, where the fabric began straining a bit instead. His face, the skin on it shifting and squirming before it settled on a different bonestructure, looked at Mel, now a great deal cuter than before. He, or she, or whatever, quirked an eyebrow at her, and watched her expression. Then, she looked down on herself, and yelped.
   "ACK! What is this faggotry?!" she exclaimed, and whipped her white tail angrily, the tip flaring a bit. "Stop! No! Not for real! Argh!" She stomped her foot angrily and pulled her skin and clothes, trying to smoothen down the front of the shirt but failing. And then, the third wave of itching hit her, more of a burning sensation than before...

Keaton normally wouldn't have given Stygian's wounds a second thought, as she was too preoccupied and concerned with her own well-being--not to mention the attempted repair of a few of her lesser injuries. Adjusting her pants slightly so she could effectively conceal the shredded sections of black, faintly bloodstained fabric, Keaton turned around to look for more spiders, carefully surveying the area--

--until a sudden commotion over where Mel and Stygian were garnered Keaton's attention immediately, the jackal's head snapping in their direction. Ears pivoting upright, Keaton raised her eyebrow, originally slightly perturbed--and yet amused--by Stygian's exclamations, and his suspiciously high-pitched voice, up until she noticed how dramatic the changes in his body were.

Although it was somewhat hard for her to tell from where she stood, Keaton noticed that Stygian's chest had inflated slightly, and his--or her, she couldn't tell--height had decreased, his features more feminine. Unable to control her facial muscles, Keaton felt her jaw drop open, her eyes widening. If she were in any right mind at the moment as she watched Stygian flail and curse, she probably would've been aware that she resembled a dehydrated goldfish.

Finally able to form a coherent sentence, the first words out of Keaton's agape mouth were: "What... the... FUCK?!"

'What is this faggotry' indeed.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

The masked thing didn't show much change, save for his laughter sounding less manic and more authentic. How do you properly appreciate comedy gold when you're a knife-limbed monster without spooking them bad enough for the act to stop? He seemed distracted from his rapt attention to Aisha's bracer, but who wouldn't be?

Stygian stopped pawing down his, now her body, closed her eyes and muttered, rubbing a temple.
   "Okay... No panic. It's a passing condition. I can do this..." she said. "It could be a lot, lot worse." Still, a slip of a look down the crack in her shirt made her swallow, and she averted her eyes with an annoyed look. "As I said, a lot worse."
   Then, her ears suddenly caught fire. Her eyes went all wide, and they twitched, before her hands darted to cover them. But it didn't stop. Next, with a fizzing and then a veritable rush, her entire fur over all her body and subsequently her clothes were set on fire. She went still, reached out her arms and silently looked at them with beady eyes. Then, she screamed.
   "AAAGH! OH, FUCK! THIS SHIT HURTS!" she cried out, and grabbed and yanked Mel. "IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO HURT! MAKE IT STOP! AAAH!"

Mel jumped backwards from the terrifying fire but luckily her second instinct was to put it out. Icy mist, just barely frozen, to coat the flaming bat, hopefully stopping the burns as well as the fire.

Aisha had been distracted for a moment, watching Jeremiah's reaction as she drew the bracer from having been clasped to her belt.  Her head tilted, wondering what had made him so fascinated with the artifact.  Questioningly, her eyes darted between the two, and she had a thought that maybe it wouldn't hurt to try putting it on him again...

However, her thoughts were interrupted when there happened to be some sort of commotion with Sebastian, and Mel.  "What the...?" she muttered as he seemed to be shifting and suffering, and definitely cursing.  By the time the bat was finished with his (her?) transformation, the panther was dumbfounded...and were it not a serious moment, on the verge of laughing, clasping a hand over her mouth.  But as he rapidly burst into flames, she stopped laughing and grimaced at the pain he seemed to be enduring...though Mel took the situation quickly enough.

That's just a wierd effect for spider venom... Aisha thought briefly before turning back to the frog, and opening the bracer while taking a step towards him, though cautiously as she didn't know if his wraith-sickness could still be passed, despite that he hadn't attacked his comrades. Let's see what happens.

The masked thing began shuddering again when it noticed Aisha approaching, but had itself pinned thoroughly enough for it to not be a risk.
"Braycrrrrr... Sleeeeeep..." The grin widened in what appeared to be some manner of relief. It wanted the bracer on, even though it knew that would put it to sleep. It wanted to sleep. It didn't know why.

The chilly mist swept around the bat, but it didn't even manage to touch her, instead becoming steam as soon as it came in contact with her skin.
   "IT'S NOT WORKING!" she wailed, shaking and looking down at herself. "IT'S THE POISON! AAARRRGH!" Stygian was trying to stay as coherent as he could, but he couldn't help but feel the pain. Focusing, he put all of his effort into purging the poison and pushing it outwards, into his skin, which began peeling and singeing away as his regeneration turned its work inward to deal with the toxin and the magic causing him to immolate. As Mel applied more freezing cold, and the bat's skin burned off, the poison slowly went away, before it could really seep into Stygian's body as deeply as the other toxins had. It took a while, but it worked, and Stygian's skin slowly began healing back.
   The bat now stood, looking almost bluish underneath her bare fur, with frost coating some of it, big-eyed and shivering, with steam rolling off her and her tail frozen stiff, staring straight forward.
   "W-we... are dealing... with th-this now...!" she said.

Blackness, a deathening silence and his own thoughts were all the canine had known during the commotion.  As close as he came to the brink, he held on, determination and his high pain threshold not allowing him to simply slip away.  He heard voices and a small light appearing ahead of him, hands appeared to be pulling the black away, casting light down onto him all he could see was a blurred vision of what looked like a catgirl and snow leopard.  He had felt pains in him as something had moved and lifted him briefly, wrapping something strange around him.  Whatever it was, as soon as it had ended his light headedness stopped and he felt his strength returning.  One of the blurred figures had moved away, followed shortly after by the other, where she went he could not tell. But it didn't matter, I'm Alive
             He blinked, squinting his eyes as they adjusted, thankfully shielded by his shades.  He winced upon feeling a shooting pain in his cheek, reaching his hand up he grabbed what felt like a sharp wooden object.  With a grunt he pulled it loose, feeling heat rush to his cheek as he did.  Holding it above him he sees it to be a shard of wood, half drenched in blood.
             The canine began forcing himself up, pushing debris and spider remains off of his form, grunting in exasperation.  He could hear a commotion to his right but he was so distracted by his own welfare he didn't seem to notice.  Sitting upright, he cracked his neck and looked down.  Seeing his shirt had been opened and heavy bandages had been wrapped around his torso, the right hand side of his ribs had evidently lost a lot of blood.  Pressing a hand to his chest he winced in pain, baring his teeth and growling lowly. He gave an indignant sneer to his attire, slowly buttoning up his shirt and re-adjusting his tie. 
                 He tries to lift himself to his feet but the weight of his injuries is too much to bare, falling to his side he yelps in agony upon his chest slamming to the ground. You don't need help, c'mon pansy, get up already. And get that crap out of your face and clean your suit, you look atrocious!  Pressing his palms flat against the ground, he raises his torso aloft, bringing his knees up beneath him.  He finally relaxes, slumped down upon his knees, his hands wiping down his trouser legs.  Feeling a small convulsion in his chest, he lurches foward and spits out blood onto the floor before him. "Ugh." He grunts in disgust.

With only a moment of hesitation Mel removed a ring from her left hand, heavily carved gold with a ruby center. She was immediately miserable without it but the bat was the key to getting out so her personal discomfort was a secondary concern. She handed it to him/her. "See if this helps. It suppresses heat and fire and speeds healing of burns. It works for normal and magic fire, but I have no idea if it will do anything for cursed fire." It was then that realization truly hit, Sebastian had shed all of his skin and despite rapid regrowth looked more like one of the University's musculature models than a living creature. Yet he/she was upright and talking. She blinked once, twice, then shook her head. Okay, she already knew that Sebastian was a tough bastard, back to business. "How many bites did you take? Are there any more effects coming?" And how the heck did you find a bite on someone with no skin?

Then she heard the canine trying to get up. "Will someone keep him still until I have a chance to see what is wrong."

 "Sweet mother of GOD!"
Dripping spider blood and trailing entrails from one of his feet, Cog stumbled into the room, and barely avoided tripping over the dead spiders inside it. His hat was gone, and a single lens on his shades was shattered, and a single long cut ran down the side of his face. He dripped blood as he continued into the room. He stumbled and almost fell over, almost in parody of a drunk, and fell back and again managed to keep his balance. He brushed some blood-matted hair from out his eyes and patted his head, looking for his hat.
"Where...did you guys just leave?" he said, his eyes somewhat wild. "One second you're all there, then you guys were gone!" He shuddered for a moment, then the palsy seemed to fade. "All alone. With so many spiders..." he shook his head, and his eyes seemed to brighten. "I take it I missed some signal. Because until just now I was wading in spiders."
He tried to find Sebastian, but couldn't seem to locate him. "The bat said not to get bit. I..uh...got bit. A lot." He suddenly flinched, and then stifled a laugh. "Sebastian? Is that you? What the hell happened to you?"

Aisha hummed thoughtfully, considering Jeremiah for just a few more moments, before opening the bracer further.  "Stick out your wrist and don't move," she advised, which was more of an order than anything.  Considering the fact that he almost looked like one of the wraiths, and since there was still some leftover adrenaline in her system from the battle, the panther was somewhat jumpy.

Carefully, she snapped the thing on the frog's arm with a quick prayer for hope that it would actually stay on, and then backed away with a sigh, glancing over to Sebastian with a bit of concern.  Mel seemed to be working hard on the bat, which left the canine stranger one of the more injured.  Briefly listening to Mel, Aisha sighed and walked over to help.  "Señor, for a canine, you don't seem to know the meaning of 'stay'."  She laughed.  "Stop trying to walk so that you can get your turn at healing."  She tilted her head.  "You have a name, anyway?"

Suddenly she swerved, having caught sight of Cogi, whom she had thought lost in the horde of spiders. "Mierda santa..." she pretty much exclaimed.  "Good to see you're alive.  And you were bitten too...?" Aisha sighed with a bit of relief that the head count seemed full now, but ran a hand through her hair in exasperation.  We're going to need some more healers.  Or more light magic.

The masked thing grinned wider as it held an arm out. "Sleeeeeep..."
The effects of the bracer were instantanious. There was a noise much like a bucket of water being informally introduced to a bonfire and a great deal more smoke, and Jeremiah came staggering forward. He looked for the most part restored, although his teeth were still a little larger than that of an average being. Otherwise he seemed... If not fine, than no more messed up than he'd been prior to the giggling fit.
"Whuh? Oog," looking at the remains of the spider woman, the frog put a hand over his mouth and looked as though he was going to be ill. When he realized what was still coating his arms and legs, the look only got worse. Fortunatly the stuff quickly dried, blackened and flaked away like the rest of the dead spiders, preventing yet more of a mess.
"What on...?" Memories returned to Jeremiah as though they felt guilty for being caught, or memories of a particularly odd dream. What he did, what he wanted to do, what he would have done... Deep, brooding thoughts that were interupted by a particularly loud hiccough.
"Guess I was la- hic!- aughing too h-hic!-hard... Thanks Aisha," he muttered, sitting down on one of the nearby pews and looking at his feet. I was... Me. Most of me. Me with bits missing.
Was that really all that many bits missing? Am I already like that?
My gods...
When Cog returned, Jeremiah grinned. Some good news to go with this crappy situation, "Yeah, the signal was to run like hell," his grin then transferred in direction to Sebastion; he remembered that too, "He got bitten by a-"
A look of shock crossed Jeremiah's face. Crap, more bad news.

The Canine blinked and gave a disgruntled look to the strange girl's wit, still facing away from her.  He turns his head to reveal the extent of the damage, large splinters and small chunks of wood embedded within his face, blood drying into the fur of his muzzle.  Looking up at her through his stained shades, and forces a crooked smile against the discomfort it causes.  Eyes widening at her question, he hesitated Aw crap, I hate when I'm asked this, every time I get asked its never easier, I don't even know what my name is! I s'pose I'll just be honest with her, she'll probably figure out a name on her own. blinking as he pulled himself out of his inner monologue, he looked up at her and opened his maw, stammering then facing away again, he reaches up to pull a large splinter from his face. Thats it! avoid the question!  Grinning in his mind, he said with an air of humour "Am I gonna end up pulling c*** out of my face everytime we meet?"  Wincing as his lungs feel the strain of laughing at his own joke, lord knows his pride was wincing more.
                Dusting off his suit and straightening his tie and finally tucking his shirt neatly into his trousers.  He turns to look up at her again and raises a bloody palm "Here, help me up would you?" Smiling crookedly out of politeness.

Sebastian didn't accept the ring from Mel. Considering that he had quite powerful regenerative properties, it wouldn't do much good in time, and since it only worked on burns and not frostbite...
   "No, that's all I got... Three of them... There shouldn't be more," the bat said, and looked at Mel, and then around at the others, the color to her skin returning quite quickly as she brushed herself off absenmindedly. Then, Cogidubnus wandered in through the door. And only at the canine's comment did the bat really seem to notice her condition. She hastily covered herself with hands and arms, blushing just a bit, and shadow began flowing up from beneath her.
   "I... got bit..." she said for an explanation, and looked at the wolf as the darkness formed pants, a shirt and a coat on her. "I thought I told everyone to get to the chapel. How the Hell did you survive?!" The way she asked the question she sounded much as if she thought he could very well be possessed. And even if all he had was spider's bites, that was still true. He might explode or turn into raw magic for all they knew.
   "If you were bitten, I don't think you should be walking. Mel, we're going to have to draw the poison out of him before..."
   Cogidubnus felt an itchy, crawling feeling, concentrating around his back. The next second his spine cricked a bit and his clothes tore as two greyish bat-like wings tore themselves out of his back. His feet began to drift from the floor, as if he was too light to stay on the ground or being lifted, and in his forehead the itch built even more, as a third eye began appearing. But he couldn't focus much on that, because what he felt for the most part was just going cold, very, very quickly...
   "Shit. Mel!" Stygian shouted, and quickly walked forward and caught the wolf.

The panther briefly watched as the bracer brought Jeremiah back to himself, heaving a sigh of relief and nodding back to him.  Then, she quirked an eyebrow while awaiting the canid's answer, only noting that he didn't give one, nor did it look like he would anytime soon.  She just smirked and lightly rolled her eyes; some adventurers did like to use the whole "mysterious" thing, herself included.  But at least she was polite enough to offer an alternative if her name could not be said.  In this case, the panther did use it while helping him up.  "Well, Splinters, I'm Aisha.  And no, I hope not, but according to what I've heard we might end up pulling worse out of our faces."

And bloodstream, she thought while casting a quick look to the now-female Sebastian, and Cogi, the two victims of the spider venom...and who knew what would happen to the wolf, if it was anything as bad as the bat had taken.  No sooner had she thought that though, than he had sprouted wings.  Aisha grimaced, eyes widening as she started to reach for her boomerang, Cogi rising into the air by then.  "I don't suppose I could take the wings off?" she inquired, but then thought better of it...she didn't want to hurt her comrades...but this was starting to turn quite wierd.

Mel had been relieved to hear Cogi's voice behind her as she continued to ponder Sebastian's condition. Unfortunately she had only taken basic healing at university and hadn't advanced to more exotic biology. She returned her ring to her hand just as the wolf commented on being bit, a lot. She spun just in time to see the wings rip from Cogi's back.

Mel wasted no time getting to the wolf. She grabbed an arm before he floated off and slapped a hand over the nearest bite to his heart. The hand glowed pale blue as she concentrated on separating the toxin from the bloodstream. Soon sickly green liquid flecked with blood was flowing between her fingers and down her hand to splash to the floor in sticky strands.

While Mel worked the toxin out of the wolf, Sebastian focused on countering and inhibiting the magical effects of the poison. Flame-like incantation circles and symbols began appearing in front of her hands, and a larger one formed on the floor under Cogidubnus where she held him down. He had already taken quite a great deal of poison into him, and Sebastian was no healer. But if there was anything with magic that he was good at, then it was taking it apart, and that was what the bat was doing now. She was disassembling the magic as fast as she could, stripping the toxin of its magical effects even before it was drawn out in some cases, even though one or two had taken a near-permanent rooting in the wolf and would have to be removed quite forcibly later on.
   With Mel's and Sebastian's combined efforts, Cogidubnus was, if not immediately, then at least quickly healed, with minimal side effects. Minimal in this case being some scars on his back where the wings had grown back in and serious fatigue for the wolf. The bat had to hold him up just so that he would not fall to the floor.
   "Easy... Damnit!" she said. "We need to get him on his feet soon. We can't afford to drag people around." She picked him up, something that was still very easy for Sebastian, and carefully set him down on a nearby bench to rest.

Jeremiah, throughout this entire fiasco, stayed put and blinked a few times.
"Sebastion, it was rude of me to say the following when we first met, as I hadn't seen much of this place and made an unkind generalization based on what I'd seen. However, now that I've gotten more aquainted with the place, I can say without violating any sane laws of courtasy that I hate your goddamn house." Obviously, those deep inner musings weren't potent enough to surpress his sense of humor, "You feeling alright, Cog?"

Looking up from her spell book, PBH first trys to quiet the Canine in black..

"Hey Soldier You need to rest when you have a chance to rest.."  says PBH

**But it looks like he is determined to get up, so she helps him up **

"Sure, But you really should be in bed resting" say PBH

** Only now does PBH notices that the bat is now a female  After Stygain screams in pain and something about the poison, a worried  PBH helps 75 to stand and walk towards Stygain ** 

PBH

  Cogidubnus stifled a laugh at Sebastian's condition, blushing somewhat and averting his eyes and he scratched his neck. Itchy.
        "My dear Sebastian, it would seem you've...changed..." he said, a short laugh escaping from him and being quickly squelched. Cog's smiled faded and he frowned somewhat, pulling his coat a little tighter about him and taking a stumbling step forward.
   "I survived quite simply, really. I killed everything that moved, and everything with more than the recomm- recomme-, normal number of parts." he said, his neck quirking for a moment. "You know, I don't think I..." Cog said, before he fell forward, his vision going blurry. To his surprise, he didn't hit the ground, rather, rise above it, and his vision winked out in truth.
So cold...
   He woke up with a gasp, his yellow eyes burning brightly for a moment before fading back, and he leaned on Sebastian gratefully, fairly certain that his legs wouldn't be able to keep him from buckling to the earth again. "What...huh?" he said, his vocabulary somewhat shortened after awaking from unconsciousness. He kept leaning on her until she led him to the bench, and he murmured his thanks as he sat. He coughed for a moment, getting his bearings. By the way some of the others were staring at him, something strange had indeed happened. He coughed again, and then laughed and coughed at Jeremiah's comment. He was glad to see that the frog was still alright. He certainly hoped that he hadn't been hurt in the ordeal with the spiders.
   "What...what the hell just happened?" he said, taking another deep breath. "I was...very cold. And I feel like I just tried to lift this whole damn house. What..." he shook his head, and grimaced, sighing. "Don't get bit, right? What happened?"

The bat sighed and looked down at Cogidubnus.
   "You haven't heard about Arachspearians, have you?" she muttered, and her ears twitched a bit. "Well, these ones were twisted, but... You get bit, and something plainly random happens. In your case, it was growing wings and a third eye, defying gravity, getting paralyzed, and about thirty or more other random effects we managed to stop before they manifested. I think that something might have lingered, but whatever it is, it doesn't seem to be physical, or a threat."
   The bat sat down on the bench next to Cog, and rubbed her temples, ears leaning back a bit over her blonde hair.
   "I hope you can move well enough. You'll have time to get some short rest, and then we'll have to get moving. This curse has to be stopped. And now that the two guardians are dead, I doubt there will be very many monsters out there to mess with us. Yet, at least..." she said, and growled a bit. Her eyes stared straight forward, her frown loosening up and her gaze losing its focus. She put her chin in her hand, and muttered, looking away at nothing.

The canine cringed as he was raised to his feet by Aisha and the catgirl.  His shades hiding the expression subtly. "Splinters"? Ugh, oh well least she wont ask again now.  Could be worse, I could've told her I had no name and looked like one of those mysterious brooding hero jerks, I shoulda just made up somethin' like "John Smith" or something admittedly more creative.  Pressing down upon both their shoulders to hoist himself fully onto his feet, teetering for a moment before balancing, turning to look at the catgirl. "Naw I'm ok" looking over to the now transgendered bat and a winged wolf. Before he could say anything she was gone to assist. 
            The canine licked his lips and tasted blood, ignoring the injuries as best he could for now, he began tidying his suit.  Hope I get some answers about why I'm here and who these people are... why there are giant spiders... possesed people... okay, a lot of questions.

**PBH stops when 75 doesn't go towards the transgender Bat and returns to the canine's side.  As much as she would like to see the effect of the bat's curse closeup, she thinks that 75 needs a friend more.  **

"My name is Prof Bambi Hunnydew from mmmm Well I am not sure if you would know where, on my "world", I live on La five SkyCity of Furra in the Homestar system.  But around here, I am from Lost Lake, I am still learning the rules of magic or of this unverse for that matter.  Are you a newcomer too?   Oh my gosh... you are still bleeding. Do you need any more help?" comments PBH when she see blood from his muzzle.

PBH

Having Cog settled as best as was possible Mel turned to the new canine. "Okay, puppy. Your turn." She scowled to see that he had gotten up despite being told not to. She tried a look of disapproval on him but doubted it's effectiveness across the fifteen inch height difference. "Not good at taking friendly advice from the healer huh, tough guy?" She folded her hands in front of her, noticing they were sticky with a combination of blood and spider venom. "My next piece of friendly advice is to stop being tough and tell me where you're injured. Things are going to get worse around here before they get better. You might want to be in the best shape possible to deal with it."

The unknown canine blinks in suprise as the catgirl returns as fast as she left, staring blankly at her as she talks. He hadn't heard such an introduction delivered so fast before, maybe it was concussion, he couldn't tell.  He raises a bloody paw and grasps her hand firmly, shaking her hand and forcing a crooked smile in the corner of his mouth. "Um.. nice to meet you- what?" He looked down his muzzle and then back at her. "Oh, that, naw I'll be fine, just damaged my vanity is all." Trying to lighten the mood slightly to no avail, his inconfident stammer sapping the humour from his words.
           He glanced over at Mel upon hearing her words, he wasn't sure but he assumed she was addresing him.  Releasing the catgirl's paw he shambled to turn and face her as she approached.  Looking up at her in curiosity as she talked, almost swaying slightly to one side.  He blinks invisibly behind the tinted shades at her words. Tough guy? What fight was she in? I just got the living s*** kicked out of me!  Discovering the concern in her stern words, he looks down his body and back up at her.  Intimidation forcing a stutter in his voice. "Oh.. uh, I'm fine.. I'll be okay."  Brushing his muzzle with a paw and flinching upon touching a large fragment of door sticking out of his muzzle, blushing slightly as blood dripped from his chin. "Aheh..."

Mel glared up at Tough Guy. Evidently he was the kind who thought little and cute meant dumb and useless and he could brush her aside. Next time she needed a disguise it wouldn't be the 5' tall fluffball leopard, she'd be a 6' crocodile with extra long teeth so people would pay attention.

"Perhaps you didn't understand what I just told you. There WILL BE another fight in the IMMEDIATE future. Pretending you're too tough to get hurt is stupid. Particularly when I'm standing here offering to use healing magic on you." She put a hint of command into her voice and ordered, "Sit down on that bench and tell me where you're injured, Tough Guy."

Cog sighed and nodded, and took off the broken shades on his face, staring forlornly at the shattered lens. He dropped it to the floor and produced another pair from inside his jacket, placing them on his head without a word.
"That makes me happier than you know." he said. "I'm getting sick and tired of the beasties in here messing me up..." he trailed off, rubbing his arm somewhat. He felt...fuzzy, if that was the word. The points of his fur were standing up, though he felt fairly calm at that moment. Well, drained really, but not really exited or frightened.
"I'll be okay in a minute." he said, still somewhat irritated by the feeling on his arm. "A few moments and I'll be ready to go get stabbed and bit again."

Aisha sighed as she replaced her boomerang, watching with a bit of interest as the poison was taken from Cogi's system.  The methods of magic that have been demonstrated so far in this adventure never ceased to amaze the panther, and being one without skills of her own at least it made her feel better to know that she had found a very useful and lethal weapon in the castle.  "I'd agree with you on the castle, Jeremiah, though we haven't been here all that long.  We'll see how it is once the Archangel is dealt with..."

With a glance back toward the unnamed canine, she turned to leave him in the care of Bam, who surprisingly had revealed herself a Fae, and Mel.  She had to smile at the snow leopard's demeanor, though small she could indeed command if she had to.  Then there was a sigh of only slight relief as Sebastian informed that at least there yet wouldn't be large monsters to come of bother for a while.  Everyone was already very messy, and Aisha wondered if it was just a matter of time before she got injured herself.

Thinking no more of it, Aisha was just glad for the rest stop that they were taking right now.  She walked around the others, already having checked on most of them, and stepped over the piles of debris that was once the hallowed interior of the chapel.  She came up towards where Gareeku and Keaton were, as she hadn't checked on them yet, and probably hadn't time before to introduce herself better to the jackal 'Cubi.

"So, you two alright?" she asked, coming up to them with a smile, while sparing a glance at Keaton.  "I hope your injuries will keep in the battles ahead."

The canine blinks in suprise at the strange leopardess' stern voice, Almost recoiling back from the suprisingly intimidating girl.  Arching a brow in a weak attempt to salvage his pride, he slumps slightly and slowly lowers himself onto the bench, grunting in pain as he does.  He refuses to look her in the eyes, trying to salvage his pride still.  His hands tenderly unbutton his shirt to reveal his bruised and bloody chest, being careful not to touch the sensitive area.  He places his hands flat on the bench and grunts, forelorn; "I got hit in my ribs... hurts a li'l is all.. its nothin', really.. I s'pose you can already see what happened to my face and side" Guestering to the puncture wounds and embedded shards of wood. Looking to the floor he mumbles inaudibly.

The bat still waited for the others to recover, and thus subsequently did nothing but sit. She watched her own arm, muscular and large-handed but at the same time slender and well-formed, much like the rest of her. Unsurprisingly, Stygian's handsome streaks had turned directly comely in a female form, if a bit unique because of his predatory streaks. But her face still bore a frown that marred its beauty. She flexed her fingers and claws.
   "It's not..." she said, snapping her fingers and biting together, still looking intently at her hand. Then, suddenly, she slammed it into the hard bench two times. The wood and the arm cracked. As the appendage snapped its bones and regenerated, she growled at it. That blackness spread down it, cracking and sizzling, turning it wicked. Yet still, its basic shape remained. She snapped out with it, turning it into a long, snaking tentacle and slamming it into a bench, which was smashed up against the chapel wall in two pieces.
   Still, when the limb returned to its normal state, its shape was thesame. She flexed and shook her hand angrily.
   "This isn't working..." she muttered, and leaned back, ears folded annoyedly and eyes looking up at the ceiling.

Despite his injuries and aches, Cog still managed to giggle rather loudly at Sebastian's newfound...estate. He quirked an eyebrow from under his glasses and grinned. "It would appear you've changed somewhat since we last met." He said casually, trying to keep the laughter brewing in his stomach from pouring forth. "At the very least, good...sir, you might want to keep back for the next few fights." he said, a tiny laugh escaping. "You might be just a little...off-balance." he said, sliding down the bench somewhat. A futile gesture, but old habits die hard, after all.

Is he actually about to try hitting on hi- erm, her? Jeremiah chortled to himself. With this sort of entertainment, little issues like "Am I a horrible psychopath who could snap at any moment?" were completely forgotten. It helped that Sebastion was a creature. Your turn to have to deal with the messes you leave! Justice at its finest!
However, there were other things to do. Such as meet the people he hadn't yet had an opportunity to, thus preventing his falling under red shirt status.
"So, did we lose anyone else? No? Right then, who did we gain?" he grinned over at Bambi and 75, "If you'll forgive the lack of formality, who're you lot and how'd you get here?"

** PBH helps Mel pushed the Canine to a bench

"Oooo, I like that name, "tough Guy"

Yea, I know you secret service Types,
I wear my sunglasses at night
I can take any punch in a fight
Don't tell me the Facts I know I'm right.

You better take a seat and heal-up, Tough Guy, we may like you to survive." says PBH with a smile

**PBH turns to Jeremiah, and says**
" I'm Prof Bambi Hunnydew, and This is Tough Guy"   **pointing to the Canine**
"I crush landed about a day's walk from here.  I come in out of the rain into the fire I seem."
And who are you guys?"

PBH

Smirking back at Keaton, Gareeku bowed his head slightly as he introuced himself.
"My name is Gareeku. Gareeku Manoko. It's nice to meet you." the wolf said, his smirk turning into a warm smile as he introduced himself.

Turning to look at the others, Gareeku tried not to laugh as the effects of the spider bites took effect of Sebastian. It was then however, that Gareeku suddenly winced as a shot of pain ran up his back.
"Shit...I forgot about that..." he muttered to himself, referred to the injury to his back he had suffered from the fenris he had battled earlier.

Hearing Aisha's voice, Gareeku turned to the approachign pantheress and smiled warmly.
"I'm fine." he replied, before glancing to Keaton. "Though I think at some point she may need tending to. I'm not keen on the idea of you walking around not fully healed up, especially since we'll most likely be involved in battles in the very near future."

The bat made a low sound and whapped Cogidubnus on the back of his head with an open palm. Not hard, but firmly enough to make him twitch.
   "Thanks for the compliment, but I don't appreciate it in the form of a jibe," she said, and placed her chin in her hand again. "We're going to get moving as soon as everyone decides they can move and fight well enough." This statement was followed by a glance over the members of the group. A bad-mooded one.

Jeremiah considered replying with some smartass remark about those members of the group who can't fight to begin with, but saying something to the effect of 'I couldn't hurt a fly no matter how hard I tried' would be rather stupid coming from him at the moment. Wincing at that thought, he simply nodded to Sebastina.

Mel shook her head, "Chest hurts just a little huh? I think you broke every rib." She touched each rib in turn, knitting broken edges together. "Sorry about the cold hands. Kind of mandatory for healers. I'm Mel by the way." After the ribs were repaired she began the slower task of removing the slivers and healing the punctures.

Aisha nodded to Gareeku, smiling lightly though she had seen the slight wincing of injuries he had sported on his own.  Nevertheless, the panther knew the wolf, and he wouldn't have given into any injuries.  She figured that Mel would see to it when she came around, her gaze glancing back to the snow leopard as she worked easily and quickly on the canine.  I think "Splinters" fit him, but "Tough Guy" works too.  Canines are always the stubborn ones.

She thought that the case certainly when she turned back to Keaton, awaiting her answer on how she was doing, though it could be seen that she was suffering just a few injuries on the surface.  That just left Sebastian with the worst condition it seemed on his/her transformation, to which she just quirked an eyebrow at the look he gave everyone, and especially his reply to Cogi.  People should stop making jokes or someone's going to be dead, Aisha thought, despite the fact that she was biting her tongue to keep from snickering.

But with that, she stood and looked back at the bat for a moment.  "I'm more than ready to step out of this little pit," she answered, at least for herself, before turning back to the others.

For the next few minutes, Keaton didn't think her eye would stop twitching.

From where Stygian had suddenly grown feminine attributes and started speaking in a distinctly emasculating voice, things only seemed to deteriorate and slope down into even more chaotic oddness. Cogidubnus, the afore-missing gentleman from before, made a hasty arrival, dripping a foul mixture of arachnid-ichor and blood from his own injuries. Keaton barely regarded him at first, too focused on disassembling the sleeves of her jacket to use as presentable bandages. It wasn't that big of a materialistic loss to her, as they were already torn enough from the battle to begin with.

Her attire selections were far from practical, maybe even promiscuous, but over time she began to adopt a more battle-friendly style. Then again, she was never one for clunky, clumsy, noisy armor... she was all about agility and magical prowess. As Cogidubnus started to rattle on about being bitten by numerous spiders, Keaton felt strangely compelled to conduct a full-body inspection in case an arachnid happened to bite her. One of them DID latch to her for an inconvenient amount of time, which perturbed her greatly...

In fact, if she could recall, she felt long, scimitar-like fangs sink deeply into her body, nearly penetrating bone, and--oh god.

Leather-encased fingers brushed by an unusually wet gash in her side, opposite to the one that Mel had tended to and located more around her ribcage, by the time Cogidubnus started to undergo startling transformations, and Stygian (Sebastainette? Keaton thought derisively) somehow burst into flames on the spot and continued to smolder even after Mel showered him with ice. "Guys--" Keaton started, glaring down at her wound more intently, "I think I got--bit..."

Sure enough, two, gaping puncture marks were evident in the bloody spot that engulfed part of Keaton's abused ribcage. "How did I not notice this before...?" Keaton thought in aghast disgust, "Was I really that numb when I was fighting?"

It wouldn't have been the first time that she neglected her injuries, somehow suffering their sideffects and realizing their existence after she emerged from the battlefield, but it never ceased to unnerve her to an extent. Witnessing the effects that the spider bites had on Stygian, and the momentary mutation of Cogidubnus (who temporarily sprouted wings and a third eye before Mel tamed his transmogrification), who knew what Keaton's own afflicted injury would do to her?

~Keaton the Black Jackal

Stygian, or Stygianne, or Sebastainette, or whatever the Hell one was to call the bat now, slapped her hand over her eyes and shook her head. She was about to get up, when Keaton felt that crawling sensation come over her; a strong one, that writhed throughout her entire body.
   The spider must have injected a rather strong dose, because the change that the jackaless experienced was fast. Either that, or circumstances had just made it so that Cog and Stygian had been able to resist their own longer. She felt a sort of ruffle in her fur all over as the yellow of it turned a white that sharply contrasted the black portions of it. Then came a twitch in her wings that built to a shake she could not stop. The joints and limbs twitched, and the hooked claws on them receded, while white, black-tipped feathers began to push through the skin beginning from the base and working out. Her eyes turned blue, her hair paled, and around her head a dim light slowly began to play, growing stronger.
   Most alarming to Keaton herself though was the odd feeling she was getting. The world seemed to be slowing down just a bit, becoming more mellow. Or perhaps it was she who was. She almost felt tipsy, as if high on joy or excitement from someone around, and she fought a compelling urge to smile and do something... cheerful.
   "Keaton?" Stygian said, eyeing her with wariness, and shooting Mel a sideways look.

Despite Cog's previous maneuvering away down the bench, Sebastian still managed to whack him in the head. His glasses slid down his face and he flinched, glaring at her with one yellow orb. The grin on his face belied any ire in his eye, however.
He leant back and pushed his glasses back on his face, and jumped again when a spark jumped between him and the metal backing of the bench. Static buildup, bit still. Annoying. He was about to continue conversing with Sebastian when Keaton began to start glowing. And continued to glow until she looked like she had a cotton candy cloud surrounding her head, and by the look on her face she was eating a pile of it too. He quirked an eyebrow, and his grin faded. He stood quietly for a moment, and brushed dirt off his torn pants.
"We have an angel." he said, his voice flat. "Fantastic."

The canine arches a brow at PBH, I'm who in the what now? his mouth opening slightly but his words holding back, uttering nothing more than in inaudible whimper.
              He looks at Mel and down at her hands as she examines his chest, blushing softly at his exposure.  eyes widening at her words That means this is gonna hurt.. he thought to himself.  Clenching his eyes shut as her hands approach his form, instead of pain he feels a cold shiver upon the touch of her hands which soothed the pain, flowing deep into his torso.  He bit his lip, trying desperately not to giggle ticklishly at the feathered touch of her cold hands.
              As she began to remove the shards of wood, he flinched as one particularly large piece in his cheek came free, blood flowing now free from the obstruction and down his face. "Ow.." So much for "tough guy"

***taking a clean cloth, PBH cleans 75's face  from the blood and applys pressure to his wounds until Mel healings them.***

"Well, You are in a Fantasy adventure, now, Tough Guy.  Magic,  Dragons, Demons, warriors, and adventurers, you are in for some fun and adventure.   Oh yea" giggles PBH and quickly hugs the Canine.

"Now Sirs ..ah  Lady Bat How serious is the sitution?" said a suddenly sober  and serious PBH as she stands but leaves an support hand on Canines shoulder...

PBH

Gareeku was about to comment in agreement with Aisha, when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Turning round, the wolf saw Keaton, and what appeared to be some form of transformation.
"Ah...I take it she was bitten, too..." he commented, raising an eyebrow in curiosity as the jackal succubus' transformation took place.

Jeremiah quirked an eyebrow at Bambi's introduction, "Nice to meet you Bambi. You too, Tough Guy," with his usual grin, he nodded in 75's direction as well as he was tended to by Mel, "We're pretty much like you; all of us just staggered in for our own reasons. Except Sebastina over there," the frog jerked his head at his subject matter, the grin dropping slightly, "Apparantly, her family owned this place, and now to fix whatever curse the castle's under she has an angel to kill. We, naturally, are along for the ride if we ever want to get out. Which means you are too, I would guess. The ferret's possessed by like five diferent personae, so play nice. And you are officially up to date with everyone's various quirks and reasons for being here." he finished with a flourish, "I'm Jeremiah, resident civilian. Don't expect usefulness from me. If you're hurt, go see Mel, and if you want someone to hit things there's the rest of the gang." The grin broadened again, "Welcome to the party, folks."
Then, of course, Keaton began changing. The frog sighed, "You know, at this rate you folks are gonna make me feel left out for not getting bitten. Really, I think I'm developing a complex." He didn't take the issue too seriously. After all, they were able to help Cog.

It happened like clockwork. Mere seconds after Keaton realized the existence of the gruesome spider bite piercing her flesh and bone; she began to experience a series of intense, quivering sensations budding along her body, racking every corner of it. "Wha--" Keaton's pupils dilated, her hands leaping for her stomach in a vain effort to keep herself still, and to prevent any nausea that may occur from such erratic movement, "What's--"

She never got to finish her sentence before the transformation began. Purest, ivory white s flooded her instinctually electrified fur, purposely evading the outlines of her melanoid markings almost as though it were some diseased rodent, something that would contaminate the undeniable virtue of its shade. Keaton's pupils dilated down to pinpricks as the white continued to exude along her body in wispy trails, quickly spreading to every contour and ridge like a beautiful plague. "WHAT--" she started, "WHAT THE FU--"

Then her wings began quaking as her body did, reducing her already jerky, uncertain movements to uncontrollable, ferocious shudders. Feathers emerged from the fleshy membrane of her wings, her claws began to sink into her body almost fluidly, liquefying bone and melting flesh with ease. Around Keaton, at first unseen to her, the changes didn't stop there: there was a quick flash, blinding her vision for an agonizing second, before it died down, leaving her eyes a crystalline blue. Light coalesced off from around her head like oceanic, lapping waves, encircling each pallid strand of her hair like an arctic halo. No. What the hell was going on? Why--

This thought, too, was interrupted, replaced with a pacifying mist that clouded her senses, whisking away every unpleasant thought in her head and replacing it with nothing but unnaturally harmonious, reeling joy. Combating with her restrained confusion and quickly-escalating fear and nearly kicking it into the stagnating corner that it belonged, Keaton realized this wasn't natural--this was too artificial of a feeling, like she was having this injected into her--

The lips of Keaton's mouth twitched, struggling to form a smile despite her efforts to keep her face as it had originally been: a contorted mask of shock and dismay. As her body and these false emotions battled, Keaton felt her body continue to convulse, her mind staggering and crumpling within her skull like an abused dog in a rusted cage. "What's... what's going..." it was hard to speak, as fighting her instinctual urge to smile was becoming a losing battle, "Why--"

Stygian was looking to Mel now, uneasiness evident in his eyes. This did nothing to help Keaton's growing anxiety, which was also beginning to be smothered. Mellowness started to regain complete control over Keaton's thoughts, soothing her for a moment and allowing her smile to slowly become genuine, whispering sweet nothings and cooing in her plastered ears that it would be alright, that things would be just fine...

Until the deadpan, succinct words of Cogidubnus stabbed right through the burgeoning, empyreal shell that Keaton's newfound relaxation had forged, entering her mind like the cold, invading blade of a sword.

Slowly, Keaton's head turned to Cogidubnus, her expression one of monotone horror. "What... did you say...?" she started, each word like a barely-chained shotgun blast. "An... An ANGEL? You're... you're joking. You can't..."

It couldn't be. It just couldn't be. It was impossible... no creature could change the race of a Creature, could they? It was unheard of. It was outrageous. But despite that spell of denial, and against the wishes of the crooning voices that tried to seduce her back into calmness, she whipped her body around in a desperate effort to gaze at her newly-feathered wings.

At first she didn't succeed, as her movements were too jerky and frantic for her to get a proper look. But the feather that was knocked from its tidy arrangement on Keaton's wings that drifted to the ground was enough for her.

Sapphire pupils dilated into pinpricks as they landed squarely on the dreaded, ebony-streaked feather, gazing at it with such unadulterated hatred that every pleasant voice in her head was cowed back into hiding. It was a precious thing, made of delicate fibers and seemingly velveteen to the touch by just looking at it, tarnished only by that one spot of sable on its tip...

...And that only made Keaton hate it even more, as her head snapped around her shoulders to finally stare at her wings, covered from joint to joint in budding, flowing plumage. All traces of serene entrancement that was once in her expression before her horrific revelation was gone, sucked right out of her by some parasitic, wretched leech. Her eyes widened, her pupils expanded to the point they nearly engulfed the whites of her eyes—

--and Keaton let out a horrified, blood-curdling scream.

The moment after the uproarious shriek departed her mouth, Keaton's hands clasped over her muzzle in a late effort to stifle the following screams that threatened to erupt shortly after. Nearly falling over herself in her haste to scramble the hell away from that hateful feather, that goddamn fucking piece of shit feather which she had already begun to blame for all of her troubles, that she hated so fucking much and by this point Keaton's rage and incredulous, thunderstruck shock was engraved in her formerly tranquil facial features, hideously juxtaposing with the heavenly appearance her body had unwittingly adopted.

"No—nonononoNO!" Keaton exclaimed, eyes wild; a weaker individual who witnessed her outburst would've probably recoiled from her almost deranged expression. "How is this happening!? This ISN'T supposed to happen! I don't—I don't--"

Her first instinct was to rip those wings off of her back with her tentacles and fling them to the ground like the trash she knew that they were, but for some reason no matter how hard she concentrated, she simply could not will her wing-tentacles to emerge from their resting place.  Perhaps she was crippled by her panic, perhaps it was a side-effect of her transmogrification: it was uncertain, and Keaton wasn't in the state of mind to speculate. For a moment it looked like she was on the verge of breaking down entirely, her hateful thoughts nearly lost in the jackhammering palpitations that echoed in her firmly-pinned ears. Clouded blue eyes searched the room frantically for what she knew was the only way to remedy this curse, as though she were beseeching everybody to DO something, to STOP THIS...

...then her vision skipped over to Mel.

Only those with a keen eye would've seen what happened next. Keaton dashed from where she stood, away from the feather and toward Mel, where she staggered over to her. It was obvious she was resisting the urge to grab Mel by the shoulders and shake her, as indicated by the tremors that vibrated Keaton's hands.

"Change me back," she stammered, "You have to change me BACK. I CAN'T stay like this. You DON'T--" It was becoming impossible to keep herself from dissolving back into incomprehensible jargon, and even more so to tackle Mel altogether and outright threaten her to undo this travesty. Finally, Keaton squeaked, "This is NOT happening. I don't... I just don't..."

I don't want to be an Angel.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

Mel was busy removing slivers from Spinters or Tough Guy or whatever they were calling him when she heard Keaton softly say that she had been bit. In fact Keaton spoke in such a normal tone that it took Sebastian calling her name in an agitated tone for the words to sink in. She turned to see the transformation already in progress.

Mel's eyes shifted back and forth between the Keaton and the canine. She smiled apologetically for interupting his healing yet again then crossed to the new-made angel. "Where is the bite Keaton?"

It was then that Keaton let out a scream and just about tackled her. Luckily Keaton wasn't that much larger than Mel's current size so she merely staggered backwards under the impact. "Show me the bite, Keaton. I need to see the bite." But with the girl shaking and babbling about angels Mel herself had to find the holes and begin pulling what poison she could from the jackal's body.

As Aisha watched Keaton, her eyes widened as she admitted to being another victim of the spiders.  The panther started to back up a little bit, for there was no telling what kind of effect could be had with the venom of an arachspearian within the blood of a 'Cubi.  It was a wildcard chance...the panther was both relieved that she hadn't been bitten herself, and yet feeling sorry for those who had.  Even so with Keaton when, as she transformed into an angel, she had let out a scream the likes of which could cause everyone's pulses to race.

Aisha had started to step up and help to comfort her, but she had already raced over to Mel, pleading to have the poison drawn from her system.  The panther's ears flattened against her skull.  There must be some deep-rooted hatred for angels... she sighed quietly.  Paths of sadness converge here.

Looking on as Keaton underwent her transformation, Gareeku jumped slightly when she emittied her scream, watching her run over to Mel with panic evident in her eyes.
I take it someone doesn't like angels then... the wolf thought to himself, slightly puzzled at the succubus' react to her transformation. Where Sebastian had been annoyed at his transformation, Gareeku found it odd that KEaton was, to be blunt, absolutely terrified and loathing of hers.

"Mel, I think I have some Anti-venom or anti-poison shots in my first aid kit for the cubi. If you think that could help?..." 

**PBH starts looking her backpack, but she only finds some dresses, some spell books and basics magical technique , and personal computer notepad... the first aid kit **

"Murf, I wish I had a better understanding of magic, like you Mel.." says PBH as she watches Mel work.

PBH

The canine listened intently to PBH, suppressing small flinches and baring his teeth as she and Mel worked.  Blinking in suprise at the abrupt display of affection, he remained still and gripped the bench, digging his claws in with each shard of wood Mel removed.  His eyes widened at the Succubus and watched her rush over, leaning back slightly in the bench out of fear.  He discreetly clenches his fists in preparation, still unsure of the strangers, he wouldn't let his guard down.  Feeling the heat of his torn and bloodied palms clenching, a small drop of blood falls from them, he stares up at the succubus' torment. Oh snap..

Stygian stood in simple shock at the jackal's new state. Nothing, not even her scream, moved the bat's facial features. It took until about when Mel began draining the poison of the bite, establishing that she would not be able to counter its effects, as the venom had already circulated Keaton's bloodstream and seeped into her cells, along with the magic, so deeply that it really could not be drained, that 'Sebastainette' shook her head and walked up to the jackal.
   The bat's eyes were narrow and her hands hesitant as she placed them on Keaton and began sensing her through.
   "There is nothing to be done... It's..." she began, showing teeth a bit, still with that same wariness toward the jackal. The girl acted as if she were herself, but who knew what her senses and feelings might be telling her now? "It's... something like semi-permanent. It's made a complete switch, like with me... But this is... Can you change your wings?" the bat asked, looking at her worriedly. It was not quite as if she were an Angel in the traditional sense. Not completely. This was more than just that...

   For Keaton, the sensation of Stygian walking up next to her was something of the strangest thing she had ever felt. She realized that there was something telling her, something letting her know, that Stygian himself, or herself, was... similar to her now. But still not. And it also seemed as if she could feel the darkness that hung about the bat. Just like she could feel some in Mel, in Gareeku, in Aisha, in all those around. She realized, without knowing, that she could sense the darkness in the house, in those around her, and almost smell the evil or good. And the presence of Stygian, and what she somehow knew he, or she was, made her want to vomit.

It took a tremendous effort from every corner of her body, but somehow Keaton was able to peel herself away from Mel and allow her to attempt to drain the venom from her bloodstream. Uncontrollable convulses made her body shudder, her beryl pupils tiny in the luminous expansion of the ivory-whites of her eyes, and her teeth clamped into her lip with such ferocity it was nearly remarkable it didn't tear in half like damp paper. What little self-restraint Keaton had left in her body kept her from ripping her cursed wings to shreds, so instead she settled for wringing her tail despite the disturbed scrutinization of those around her.

An immediate, encroaching presence advancing on her alerted Keaton to Stygian's arrival, one which made the jackal-turned-Angelic-entity feel unfathomably ill. For one who was so attuned to the inner workings of Dark-oriented magic and the wicked art of the darkness itself, Keaton couldn't help but feel irrepressibly disturbed by the palpable, malevolent radiation crawling along his--or her--form.

Clutching her tail a little tighter and shifting her unsually iridescent eyes over towards the advancing bat, Keaton waited for him to finish his sentence before her heart sank and complete horror took over her expression. It should've come as no surprise that Stygian's words wouldn't be as edifying as she hoped they would be. But it didn't make the impact less staggering.

"You..." she choked, "You have to be kidding me. I can't stay like this. I don't want to BE like this. I can NOT be like this. I don't want to be on--"

She nearly said 'one of them', but she didn't want to make her abhorrence for Angels more obvious than it already was. Instead, Keaton let her gaze sink to the floor, lip vibrating and ears flat, wings drooping like dying willows in their sockets--yet somehow the feathers coating them remained as resplendent as before, much to Keaton's everlasting HATE.

A thousand different protests and curses welled up in Keaton's throat, threatening to leave her mouth as her quickly-evolving expression attested, but somehow the jackal endured her rising hatred and frustration. If Keaton weren't so critical of her own weaknesses, she probably would've burst into tears. Better yet, she would've plucked the feathers off her wings one by one, just to see how pure and virtuous they would look as a rotting skeleton--after all, for her, violence was the solution to every problem that life presented her with.

She had yet to encounter one which she hadn't overcome with sheer barbarism before.

"I can't change my wings," Keaton said succinctly, "I just... can't. I don't know... why, I..."

Once more, Keaton's words deteriorated into mindless murmurings, color retreating from her face beneath her already alabaster fur. The fact her markings remained as monochromatic as before provided some form of comfort: it was good to see at least SOME trace of darkness hadn't been chased away.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

Cog walked softly towards Keaton and sat, his face a mask of sadness. He felt for the girl, he really did: his mouth quirked in a sorrowful half-smile as he turned towards her. He didn't know the former 'cubi very well, but he felt for her a sort of kinship now - unwanted and detested change was the arena of lychanthropes, after all, and Cog had felt that pain before.
"Change isn't always forever, dear girl." he said, his voice soft. "And bad changes sometimes help us be strong, without needing what we did before." As he said so, he stood and pushed his shades over his eyes, walking towards the bench again. "Won't make you feel better. But a body is the least part of a person, and no moon or spider changes that."
As he said so, he sat back down on the bench, his face blank and his eyes hidden beneath black lenses.

Stygian eyed Cogidubnus very meaningfully, as if trying to tell him; 'Sometimes change isn't for the better, no matter what sort of power it imparts.' Or, as in his case, it didn't change knowledge or power, just your situation in life.
   "Regardless," the bat said, backing away from the jackal whilst feeling a part of the same feelings she was, "we have to move right now. Everyone's about recovered. And I know precisely where to head." She stepped to the side, leaning against a pillair and looking them all over intently. "So, at your leave?"

Keaton absorbed Cogidubnus's consoling words with minimal signs of response, her hands having moved away from twisting her tail to grasp at her body, embracing herself tightly. Free from its owner's mutilating grip, her bedraggled tail whipped away from her, coiling in a disheveled tangle behind her. Keaton's expression was unreadable, but could easily be described as "deadpan" from the unmoved look on her face, even blank from how she vacantly stared at the ground. Unfortunately, it appeared as though Cogidubnus's sentiments had been wasted. She was never one for kind words or philosophy and probably never would be, as she simply did not have the emotional capacity for it. Especially not in this crestfallen state.

'Easy for you to say,' Keaton wanted to say bitterly. Her tongue refused to budge, however; it was as though it were petrified in her mouth. 'YOU don't have to spend god-knows-how-long as a fucking ANGEL.'

As devastating as her predicament was, Keaton had no other option but to depart from her little mental soliloquy. Turning numbly toward Stygian and nodding her head slowly, the jackal tried to avert her gaze as far away from her wings as possible, as though denying their existence altogether, or trying to exile them from her mind.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

Aisha sighed, staying to the side with Gareeku, her arms crossed as she watched Keaton and her responses to the now-female Sebastian's words.  Again there was some pity for her, and thinking of what everyone had gone through so far in the castle, it was about time that these things would start to get resolved.  Her head hung as she watched the jackal basically retreating within herself.  They'd better be.

Then, as the bat spoke again, her ears quirked and she pushed herself away from the fallen bench that she was leaning on.  "S'alright with me," she replied, only taking a moment to adjust the weapons on her belt before getting ready to move, eyes falling over the rest of the group.

"Hey..." a voice said from behind Keaton as a red gloved hand rested on her shoulder. "...keep your wits about you. I know you don't like angels, that must is evident from your reaction, but your time would be better spent keeping your wits about you for the time being."

Turning to Sebastian, or what was now the female equivalent, Gareeku spoke once more, the same calm yet hard expression on his face.
"Lead the way." he said, his voice equally as calm, yet serious, as his facial expression.

Mel looked around at everyone at Sebastian's request to move out. Half the company were walking wounded in one way or another but it wasn't going to get better in the next few minutes. Now was as good, or as bad, a time as any. She nodded and began moving towards the door.

The bat didn't nod, or speak, or do anything in particular. She just grabbed the now crying ferret, and walked up next to Mel and led away. They went forward, to the left, then a right...
   They arrived at a hall some way down the corridor into the library. It was a large one, quite important by the looks of it, with stairs to both sides of the walls. None of them led down though.
   "That's..." Sebastainette began, looking around. Then, her eyes stopped, and she smirked. Against the wall on one side was set perhaps the largest single picture they had ever seen, framed with ornate black and gold. In it, a white marble hall of pillairs that towered into a barely visible ceiling were shrouded in darkness, with just some heavenly light trickling in from above to the side and illuminating a grand floor, to the back of which was a stairway, leading down. The painting covered the entire wall between the two stairways up, an enormous, intricately detailed piece that made all the others they had seen hitherto look drab. It was so vivid, in fact, looked so alive and so perfect in perspective there in the dark that one could almost imagining just walking into it and touching the columns...
   That seemed to be exactly what Stygian had in mind. Slowly, the bat walked up to the front of the painting, placing a smooth hand on its surface, trailing claws over it and eyeing it with curiosity.
   Then, she stepped in.

Following "Sebastianette", Gareeku looked up at the painting with widened eyes. It looked so beautiful...so real...like one could step right into it. The wolf's eyes then widened again, however, when the bat actually did step into it.
"I've heard of realistic, but..." Gareeku commented, before taking a breath, and stepping in after the bat.

Aisha's eyes wandered the dark halls once again as the group went on the move.  All in all she was certainly grateful to be walking again, as after the previous battles, staying in one place proved to be a very deadly idea.  She hoped that no other strangers would want to enter the castle until the angel was destroyed, only for them otherwise to face the fate of getting lost in an ever-changing labyrinth.

Coming up to the large hall, she traced the columns and the stairways with her gaze, until they fell upon the large painting, she let her crossed arms fall to her side in awe at the magnificence and the size of it.  The panther approached it with such reverence as she had done with setting eyes on the chapel for the first time, only to step back with surprise as Sebasianette actually stepped into the painting, followed by an awestruck Gareeku.

Will the wonders never cease?  She thought, before stepping up to it and cautiously placing her hand on its surface and through it, followed by a cautious step inside, the rest of herself coming after.

Mel paused to stare at the elaborate gate. It was a magnificent piece of magic that she would have loved to stop and analyze. She could do small gates but this was the type of thing that left most magic-users breathless in awe. But she couldn't dawdle to admire the fancy toy and quickly followed the others through.

Cog padded softly behind the others, his mind a distant place of old, unhappy and far off things, and battles he'd fought long, long ago. His face was somber as he gazed at the portrait, and he didn't even flinch as Sebastian walked into the oil and canvas. Instead he merely adjusted his sword so the hilt hung within easy reach, and stepped through the artwork.

The canine hoisted himself to his feet, grunting at the effort requiring him to press down on the bench as leverage.  Buttoning his shirt as the group moved out, purposefully taking enough time to let them leave the room first. Slowly following them down the hallway, he kept a few yards between himself and the back of the group, he wanted them where he could see them.
                                   Stopping to gaze in awe at the tall painting above, he watched the girl step through the painting.  He arched a brow in confusion, watching the others begin to step through, he hung back. ..Here we go again Standing still outside the painting in hesitation.

** PBH travels just ahead of the canine, keeping an one eye on him for his sake and lost in her thoughts.   **

  I hope that new fireball spell will works,
  Murf, I feel exhausted,
  yet my emerald has stop flashing 

**PBH could see the aura of magic around the paint, but couldn't fathom Mel's awe.  It must be extreme differicult to master the workmanship of this articfact , she thought.

At the painting, she waits for the Canine with her hand out to him, **

"Com'n Tough Guy, take my hand and we'll walk through, and save the day" says PBH 

PBH

Jeremiah had followed with the rest of the group, tsking a little at Sebastina's treatment of Gina. No call for that, really. As for Keaton, while her shrieking had been a little unnerving, he wasn't too concerned. So she didn't like angels. With they reputation they'd set themselves up with by manipulating those around them for their own ends, few people did. The cubi reputation wasn't too complementary either, however, so it was hard to work up the will to care all that much. His recent funk had translated into an overall mood of Fuck insanity, fuck curses, and fuck the bloody creatures who use them!
When their charming hostess stepped into the painting, however, he was happy to hang back. He didn't trust magic that powerful any more than he'd trust someone wielding that sort of power.

The hall looked as impressive from within the painting as it did from without. It was enormous, easily large enough to occupy nearly all of the castle if it had really been set in it. The perfect white marble, lined only intermittently with grey streaks, glistened in the light that came from several spans above through an opening in the roof, through which a heavenly sky could be seen, clouds shifting and flowing over a pure, light blue. There was a sound in their ears that permeated the place, an aura or an air of music, as if a choir and a pipe organ were playing somewhere far off into the marble forest, celestial tones frisking about everywhere.
   Still though, there was something about the place that emitted a completely different kind of emotion. The broad stairs leading down into the floor at the end of the open part of the hall, down into a dark archway beyond which little could be seen at all, and the darkness to the sides among some of the columns gave the place the impression of a crossroads of sorts, a place where both Heaven and Hell were close, right on the borderline between the elysian and the abyssal.
   "The Hall of the Summit," Stygian said, not without a sense of awe. "This is... If I'm guessing right, they have created a symbolic representation of purgatory for us to traverse. Stay close." She slowly began walking over the floor, squinting in the light and heading for those stairs...

Closing his eyes, Jeremiah finally worked up the nerve to follow the others through the painting. Just in time to hear Sebastina's comment about purgatory.
"Great. Just what this day needed. A scenic romp through someplace only slightly removed from hell," he winced suddenly, a horrible thought occuring to him, "This Dante's purgatory we're talking about or someone's idea of a celestial drawer in the same cabinet as heaven and hell marked 'none of the above'? Dante had some very unsettling ideas about purgatory, and his weren't even the worst."

A bit annoyed with the frog's tone, the bat nevertheless turned her head against him and replied levelly.
   "I would say that it's much like Dante's interpretation, but not for all intents and purpouses. This is, after all, only a representation of the crossroads. Not the real thing. It's like a smaller model, built on the same blueprint, with some variations for function's sake," she said. It seemed an awfully accurate analysis. But then, she seemed like she had the knowledge to tell.

To put it simply, Aisha was awestruck, after stepping through the painting and gazing up at the beauty of the surroundings that lay before them.  The last thing she remembered, it was storming on the outside of the castle...but where they were, the heavens were in perfection, or would have been were it not for the feeling that the place emanated.

And then she gazed out on the path in front of them and could see why it was like that.  Listening to Sebastianette and Jeremiah speak about the painting's relevance, a path between an eternal paradise and an eternal abyss, she couldn't help but feel somewhat intimidated even though it was only as real as their eyes could percieve.

"Creative," she muttered as they made their way toward the stairs.  Were they to end up out of the castle in one piece, Aisha had the thought to write all of this down in a travel journal someday.

Looking up at the beauty of the surroundings, Gareeku was awestruck like Aisha was. Listening to the others speak, the wolf smirked slightly.
"This place just gets more interesting by the minute..." he muttered as he continued to look around at the surroundings. Heeding the bats words, the wolf stayed close as they walked through the hall.

Mirth seemed to have left Cog as he walked through the deceivingly beautiful hallway, and he studiously ignored the music flowing throughout. He merely rested a hand on his blade and stepped as softly and lightly as he could.
"Let's hope this isn't the second terrace, then." he murmured.

The bat laughed and looked around for a second, almost at the first steps of the stairs.
   "Have we been blinded yet? I don't think so. And you've still got your clothes on, wolf. I'd say that's as good an indication as any. Now, let's get going," she said, and began descending the stairs, against and into that dark archway...
   The stairway was broad, going around in wide and deep circles like a corkscrew, and while at first made of the same flawless marble as the hall, it quickly became rougher and cracked, the darkness beginning to stain it and the surrounding walls equally. Down ahead hinted the first level, the walls opening up, and the stairs and stones beginning to show withered images...

The canine frowned at Bambi's guesture, then arching a brow he lets an inaudible sigh of submission pass his lips.  Raising a paw he places it in her hand, following her through.  
                His eyes widened at the magnificence of the scene before him, the room was very much alive with colour.  The light shimmering in through the ceiling cascaded down around the group ahead of him, alluminating them.  He forced a crooked smile to Bambi and nodded in approval, releasing her hand he slowly moved off to the side as the group advanced, flanking a pillar and staying outside of the centre path.
            I'll watch them from back here, and if anything gets the drop on them I'll be safe to flank it and maybe get past it.. he selfishly thought to himself, scanning side to side around the room.  Looking ahead at the group, he eyed Bambi and Mel, his eyebrows arched softly and he looked down his body, then back up at them.  His shoulders slumped as he moved and he sighed softly. Well... maybe if something does jump them, I can help out if I'm over here the canine reassured his conscience.

Unsurprisingly, despite the sympathies of the others, especially the condolences of Gareeku, Keaton was utterly and uncharacteristically silent throughout the short trek across the hallway and into the room that held the painting. Hands remained where they were, grasping at her upper arms in an uncomfortable, awkward embrace, one not for comfort but to keep her from mutilating her wings in an unexpected, sporadic surge of rage. Other than some resentful bitterness lurking behind the glaze in her newly-crystallized eyes, Keaton seemed quite chastened.

Opting to remain in the back of the group, as far away from the others as possible, Keaton retained a slow, ambling pace, scraping her heels against the splintery floor with each trudging stride. For someone who's eyes were so adamantly glued to the floor, it seemed as though she had no regard as to what she was stepping on or whether or not she would bump into someone. Though at the speed she was going, there was little to no threat of the latter ever happening.

Keaton gladly kept up her despondent demeanor even as they arrived at the foot of a magnificently designed, elaborate painting, perhaps the finest and most realistic piece of art Keaton had ever seen in her five hundred-year-long existence. Glassy aquamarine globes raking over and saturating every insignificant detail in the picturesque canvas, Keaton stood there, entranced, happily letting this spectacle reign over her more hateful thoughts, until her eyes darted to the side just in time to watch Stygian melt through the surface of the painting and materialize on the other side like one would enter a portal.

Jaw dropping open, Keaton had no time to further gape at the scene, as everyone else was following suit, leaving only her standing outside of the painting-portal. Sighing in resignation, Keaton held out her hand tentatively, allowing her fingers to slip through the barrier separating the painting from the rest of reality. Withdrawing her hand and ceasing her experimentation, Keaton finally bounded through, staggering somewhere behind the canine and the blue-haired feline.

Keaton checked her body once, making sure that no part of her had somehow come loose during the transition (though some part of her would've been grateful if her wings had been excluded from her transportation), while deliberately avoiding the feathery wings that, she had to concede, were NOT a nightmarish figment of her imagination. Thrusting aside her depression for the time being, Keaton examined her surroundings, finding them even more heavenly and breathtaking as they were as a painting.

It all seemed real enough and not some elaborate illusion. Considering the events that had transpired beforehand, Keaton wouldn't have been too surprised if it WERE a mirage.

Stygian started to descend the stairs, accompanied by the rest of the group, giving Keaton no other choice but to follow, but with a notable amount of acceleration in her step. She didn't want to be too far behind in this surreal, fantasy world. Even in her detached state, however, Keaton was able to notice how the once-ambrosial walls and patterns around them were taking on a wretched, corroded state, and was exacerbating as they steadily approached the first tier...

~Keaton the Black Jackal

The moment that the bat set her foot on the step where the symbols and images began, a fire moved up it and across her body. She kept on walking though, trembling silently, before the fire slowly died down on her skin. Slowly, she moved down into the darkness of a chamber of black and white, where darkness sizzled with flames that spewed out in tongues through glowing cracks in the floor. Ghastly shapes, whipped by the flames, their eyes averted downward, could be seen moving like shadows around the winding stairway.
   "Just keep walking. It will be allright if you keep walking..." she said, keeping on stepping ever downward...

"Right, walking..." Jeremiah muttered nervously, eyes darting back and forth as he resisted the urge to add any more sage wisdom? It was rather easier than usual; probably had something to do with his as of late overstimulated sense of paranoia.

PBH was also awe by the stairways and the music. but she was sadden to leave the Heavenly stairs and follow the group into the darkness.  I felt like alone star falling into a sea of blackness.  PBH stay close to Mel and  the rest of the group, as they continued down the stairs and slowly lost track of the canine.  She try to stay focus on the female bat, but she pulled into herself as they went down.

PBH  

As the path moved ever further through the realistic atmosphere, the appearance of the scope through the stairway becoming a little more tainted and morbid by the passing moments, Aisha's eyes were drawn to the patterns that the darkness before them had taken, withered and drawn of life.  She idly glanced back around the others, who seemed to have these same thoughts of foreboding as they had seen now so many times before.  Even Keaton seemed attentive to it, whence she had directed from what looked like self-repulsion.

Aisha crossed her arms and kept walking, following the bat ever downward into what seemed to be close to the bowls of the earth, or the castle...or the image, whatever they were coming upon.  There was a quick pause however as she observed her literally walking across cracks where fire attempted to eat at her.  "You sure?" she had to retort upon seeing that, and upon viewing the shapes taking place beyond that threshold.  The panthress gulped and followed suit with light steps, closing her eyes in passing for the brief moment that she did.

Cog walked silently through the runed floor just as he had walked through the stones of purgatory, but his ear twitched and he grinned for the first time since he had entered the painted world. He could hear it, distant and yet there, the soft music of the purgatory being replaced by a dirge, deep within the darkness.
His grin soon faded, however, and under his breath he sang softly with the dirge, simply letting the flames lick over him.

Mel followed along with a fairly good show of bravery, distracting herself by analyzing the hints of magic she saw until they got to the flames. She froze as her heartrate and breathing doubled. Her heritage of ice made her particularly vulnerable to flame. Even when Sebastian told them to keep walking her feet were stuck in place. She watched as the other's preceded her. With a deep breath and wide-wild eyes she skittered forward like a bug.

Stygian knew that dirge. She kept silent though, descending ahead of the groups through the torment of fire, and down the rings of stairway winding into the depths. The second lap they made went through chilly water and gardens, where voiced whispered for them to relax and sit down, to have a taste of the fruit and stay. Stygian urged them on, with the knowledge they would never leave if they decided to stop there. The bat whipped out a bit of her darkness even, to snag anyone who would dare stray.
   The third lap was immensely hard. The second they began to walk down the first few steps of it, their bodies became heavier and heavier, their limbs weak and harder to move. Again, Stygian was determined to keep them going, even if force would be needed. But they were adventurers, after all. However much tavern-frequenters they might have been, effort was something they were used to when it was needed.
   They began the fourth lap, and suddenly they were fighting through a crowd of shadowy, greedy-faced shapes, trying to push them upward with their sheer numbers as they ran past them up the stairs, while the adventurers themselves began feeling tired and fatigued.
   The fifth lap was covered in thick, acrid and acidic smog, which numbed their senses and clouded their minds. Faint, panicked screams and distant faced could be hinted in the dark, far away, between the smoke that poured out through fissures in the floor and walls...
   "Keep going!" the bat kept saying. "Whatever you do, don't stop!" Her words were the guideline. Down here, they could feel a malicious presence from all around, like eyes staring at them from the shadows, watching for the slightest hesitation...

Narrowing his eyes and he observed the flame that the female Sebastian went through, Gareeku then turned to Mel with a reassuring smile. Watching her skitter through the flame, the wolf followed; walking calmly as he kep his eyes and his attention on the path ahead. Following the bat as they descended the stairs, Gareeku heeded her words, focussing on the path and the female bat ahead as he refused to hesitate.

** PBH runs into Mel, which wakes PBH out of her gloom,  She sees the others going through the fire **

"Mel Come on Mel  The fire is just an illustion If it does not burn me it should hurt you, "  Says PBH as she stands halfway through the fire wall.

** Gently and firmly, PBH trys leading Mel through the flames and on down pass them**

PBH

Aisha opened her eyes after a while when she crossed the threshold of fire with the others, if only really to make sure she didn't trip on the stairs.  She had almost figured that as they were descending, things would only get darker, but that it had piqued her curiosity was a sign that it certainly wasn't the case.  As the group seemed to go further downward, it had started to become a test of their very will.  Aisha wasn't hesitant to pass through them...she didn't trust anything that the castle had at this point.

For each lap down the stairs, Aisha had her ears pinned straight against her skull to keep out the powers of suggestion flowing around them, focusing only on those in front of her...the bat at the head of them, and her voice and shadows urging them onwards.  She didn't stop even when she really wanted to, taking it as a challenge...how easily could she keep up with the others?  If the panther fell behind, she took trotting steps ahead to see how far she could go, even with the illusion of the burden of weight and that of the shadowy figures, she gritted her teeth and trudged on, even threatened to draw her sword when it started to get annoying.

By the time the fifth lap came around though, Aisha wondered if everyone else was starting to be drained of their toleration, as she was.  The darkness enveloped them, and it felt like they were trudging beyond the point of no return...if they hadn't already.  "How much further?" she inquired, her voice soft compared to those of the spectral ones around them, while she held her mouth against the air.  At the insistence of Stygian, her bare paws trudged onward.

Well, this just keeps getting more and more pleasant, Jeremiah thought to himself as he was jostled by crowds of specters much like the flow of a stream. He knew enough not to stop in the garden; anything that pleasant in  this house was obviously a very unkind prank, at best. The further laps made it much more tempting to just sit down, even for a little while.  But that was a bad idea, according to the only person who actually knew what this place was likely to throw at them. Grumbling, Jeremiah followed...

Mel kept reminding herself they had a goal and everything around them was just distractions from the goal. They were built to be distractions from the goal. Keep ignoring, keep descending, keep humming in her irritating, off-key, tuneless way to counteract the hypnotic sounds trying to lure or frighten her from path.

The oppressions of hell left their marks on Cog, although he managed to stride through them without breaking step. He began to prepare his various charms about his neck and wrist, ready to fortify himself with holy magics at a moment's notice.
This abyss was infernal, it was plain to see, but not so much that it was beyond endurance. Anybody with a spirit could tell that there was malevolence here, that hell was afoot. The various curses flung upon them stunk of infernal origins. Sirens upon a glassy sea, a physical impediment of weight and lethargy, hordes of the dreadful wretches of hell blocking the path, stinging, biting smoke, and now the shades of things most terrible to see. Whatever had placed these here was trying to soften them up, he knew. Cog merely steeled himself and wrapped his torn coat about him, keeping smoke at bay with the cloth and shade at bay with a minor flick of holy energies.
"...and with flutes of fear they filled the ear, as their grisly masque they lead," Cog sung along, the surreal surroundings cracking his stoic face into a smile. "And loud they sang, and long they sang, for they sang to wake the dead..."

" And Whisper a happy tune, and no one will spectic I'm ..mmmm"  giggles PBH which quickly turn to tears and sob..."nono I am alright I can do this, by god and goddess..."

  PBH shuts her eyes but continues on breathing calming deep breaths and then opens her eyes  with mask of detachment and profession matter. She continues down the stairs...

PBH

"Just two more laps now..." the bat called back to them from within the dull fog. She pushed deeper through it and arrived at the end of the lap, into the sixth trial. And almost stopped. The path seemed to divert here, the surroundings becoming cleaner and more tidy, and Sebastainette found herself wearing a proper, trim and fine skirt and blouse to fit the place, which slowly seemed to turn into some sort of ballroom or meetingplace. The shapes here were dressed finely, their faces joyful. They stood talking to each other, or sat down reading, or were doing some small work or just simply sociable things. And they were watched over from the far side of the hall by some beautiful, blessed being, which one could somehow immediately sense held incredible wisdom and power. It seemed a pleasant place, restful, quiet, peaceful and with everything one could wish.
   But Stygian would hardly let herself be fooled by that. For it was plain to see what was wrong with the place, once she just remembered and decided to push on. The people, smiling and cheerful, were indistinguishable from each other, their faces blurred and without personality or real thought or emotion. The all-powerful being at the end of the hall was supposed to represent God, or God's holy order. But however all-wise and powerful and supposedly good-natured, it was a devil behind a mask for its intentions; it dulled the minds of the people there, and there were thin glimmering trails through the air as if from silk, threads by which it played them like puppets. Omnipotent and omniscient, it still did not care for them so long as it had them in its grip.
   "Curse you, and your order!" Stygian shouted, and spat over her shoulder, as she walked through the imagined floor and her appearance returned to its normal state, the surroundings once again becoming dark when revealed for what they were.
   When they reached the seventh lap, suddenly there was as if a weight on their back, huge and pressing their heads down, forcing them to keep walking while looking down at the steps themselves. And there, painted in slightly withered colors but in incredibly detailed relief, were their fates. The images told of how they would fail; how they would be ripped apart, forced on their knees and into servitude, burned alive or cast into the abyss; how the house would collapse on top of them, or the crossroads itself would crumble and trap them inside, or how they would be simply let up and join the Angel willingly. And all around there were whispers again, playing in their ears, tugging at their minds, telling them what fools they were and how they should stop and let it be, and try and keep order instead by helping the Angel that held the place together, and how she would understand and release them once things were restored to balance. The whispers themselves seemed to come from voices that they all recognized; from friends, family, loved ones...
   "WE'RE THERE! DON'T STOP!" Stygian shouted under the strain of the weight, and took the last step...

Looking at the pleasant scene they stumbled upon, Gareeku raised an eyebrow. How could somewhere so peaceful be located in a hellish place like this? The answer would soon come to him, however, when he saw the expressions on the people's faces. They were essentially puppets, causing a look of disgust to make itself present on the wolf's face.

Following Stygian further down the stairs, Gareeku immediately felt the weight come down on him as he arrived at the seventh lap, forcing him to look down at the steps. It was then, however, that with widened eyes, Gareeku faw his "fate" depicted. It showed himself being mercilessly torn apart by some sort of shadowed figure. The wolf would be filled with even more shock, however, when he suddenly heard whispering voices in his ear.
"Don't be a fool, Gareeku...just turn back...you'll be alright if you just turn back..." the voices whispered. What was most shocking, however, was the fact that these voices were the ones of his family...his mother...his uncle...and even his father.

Snapping out of it as he heard Stygian's shout, Gareeku realised what it was; it was a dirty trick to get him to turn back. Filled with anger and hatred for the person who was responsible, a new wave of determination and resolve welled up within the wolf as he followed Stygian, a snarling grimace of rage on his face as he itched to get his hands on the person responsible for having the indecency to use his family's voices, especially his deceased father's...

Cog took care not to look too closely at the psuedo-heaven, unswayed. For one, the notes of that dark song still echoed in his ear, and it would take more than fine clothes and a bit of light to fool him into thinking the house was really good. At the very least, his ragged jacket spoke to the place's true nature.
He continued to walk through, unimpressed. As he stepped into the seventh layer of the circle, however, he stopped and gasped for air a moment before catching himself right before he faceplanted into the ground. To his dismay, he found he couldn't straighten again, and his eyes focused on the stone beneath him.
Carved into it was him...and a wolf. His own body was twisting, writhing beyond his control, and was itself becoming the werewolf. But the other wolf in the picture had eyes of inlaid Jacinth, and had sunk his teeth into Cog's neck. A red ink trailed down from where the teeth met his throat. Wreathed around the whole engraving was a full moon, immaculately carved and inlaid with silver, and Cog knew that it wasn't a moon that would ever set.
And whispering into his ear was the voice of his family, his mother and his father, and his teachers of old, all telling him what a fool he was for opposing this Angel. It had the opposite of the intended effect. Cog snarled at the picture, and instead lurched forward as best he could with the weight on his back.
  Unseen or felt by Cog, small, bright arcs of lightning produced by the rage he felt were snapping between the fingers of his right hand...

The canine had awaited the arrival of the angel to the stairs before proceeding down himself, putting several feet between themselves and the rest of the group.  He had feared that the depression she had been forced to suffer through would make her most likely to break under what lay ahead, it would be in his best interest to keep her ahead of him.
              Proceeding down the stairs following the group, as each trial of each level assailed him, he grimaced yet bared his teeth in determination and moved on.  Each level's ascending difficulty forcing him to clench his eyes shut and use the rail to guide his descent.  He did not notice the ballroom scene, he could hear it however he would not open his eyes, lest he fall foul of the Angel's tricks.
             Upon reaching the bottom level he felt the great weight upon his shoulders, straining to keep his balance he slowly shuffled foward.  Pressing a hand to the wall to guide him, he was forced to open his eyes only to see everything was black, the adventurers gone, everything except the blackness... and a man.
             The man had a pretentious sneer across his face, in a suit similar to the canine's.  He stood over him and said in an unwavering, unsympathetic voice; "Hello, 75. Here we are again."  The canine grimaced, clenching his eyes shut. Saying aloud in his hallucination that the others would here; "..Don't.. Don't call me that Sir.. please..."  The man snarled and turned to face away from the canine. "That is what you are 75, don't deny what you are."  The canine stammered, speaking to the floor upon his knees; "I'm.. I'm not-" The man hissed at the canines impertinence "You are nothing! You are number 75! You exist only because it benefits us! Don't prove otherwise with your lip!"  The canine bowed his head and looked to the floor, he noticed his hands were red, so was the floor. Raising his hands he saw they were drenched in blood, looking around to see hundreds of slain bodies, his mouth hung ajar in horror.  The man smirked "See? This is what you are 75, you don't have to accept guilt for all this, a man would.  It can all end you know, like we always said from the start, the killing can end. But you know the price that would entail.."  The canine opened his eyes and looked up at the Man, he felt his heart suddenly feel cold and heavy.  sinking into a ball upon his knees in reality, he buried his head in his hands and succumbed. "..Yes..let it end..."  The man grinned in sinister triumph and turned, walking away into the black, his voice fading as he dissapeared. "Pleasure doing business with you 75."  As he faded, the canine felt himself slipping away into the black.

Aisha was becoming somewhat winded and discouraged now throughout these trials across the levels, each one a little more harrowing and playing on different aspects of their minds.  So tired was the group by now, that the sixth lap looked so very enticing, and yet the panther knew as the rest of them that such a scene didn't belong in such hellish conditions.  She ignored it.  And then it passed...only one lap to go.  Just one.  Just one... her mind chanted, over and over again, as darkness enveloped the stairway again.

And that's when she felt such a great weight on her shoulders, the tired panthress couldn't hold her head up any more than the others...as if the spectral entities in the chamber were forcing them to walk as if in shame, eyes diverted to their feet.  But the things that Aisha saw on those steps made her want to close her eyes again, or at least squint to make them look blurry and undefined.  She saw demons and shadows slowly tearing her apart, mocking her, forcing her into submission, wearing the faces of the ones who had before destroyed her home and her life.  When she did close her eyes, there were the voices again...in Aisha's ears, easily recognizable, the voices of her loved ones...mother, father, brother, and even her friends from the Healer monastery and her mentor...urging her to go back.  "What are you here for?  Why do you let this torture keep you?  You aren't strong enough.  Don't be foolish!  Your headstrong nature will kill you.  It's okay if you go back...just stop..."

But again it was the female Sebastian's voice that snapped her out of it, just as her will was starting to become bent.  The panthress had a snarl on her face that would have even made a demon recoil, upon recognizing what this was.  Aisha mentally tossed the voices aside...she knew her family better...coming from the blood of adventurers, none of them would have told her to turn back.  Her friends would have been right there with her.  As for the shadows in her own images, she forced a smirk on her face, imagining them being ripped apart and burnt to the core, until the final step was reached.

PBH walk past the beautiful garden with it's millions of books and infinite knowledge, because the people become to her as cyborgs and then robots that dance an dance of programmed beauty without joy or feeling.  She continues on.

With her next step, she gets her all the knowledge of the universe, the weight of knowing all there is to know, but unable to tell anyone or to help anyone from their blind mistakes.

 PHB finds herself on the platform in LAB #3 at the university where her uncle and she worked...  beyond the platform is just darkness, yet she can see spotlights on each of the other adventures, each caught in their own private dramas or tests.  She knows that each is a test, that they must break free from.  But how can she talk to the others, Will they hear her? How can she communicate them?  

PBH stands alone on her platform with her greatest invention and failure, the Tesser Gate, a huge metal arch with six spheres around it.  The first test of the gate was under the direction of Dr Morgan who created a hell gate to her world, which she had barely stopped.   And, with the thought of Dr Morganna, the old female Badger appears and step out of the tesser gate,

"So the little Hunnydew is still playing around with my invention, you never got it work did you?  I made it work!" says Dr Morganna

"it wwas MY theory, my project, and my invention, so the Science Council want it to speed up the project, and put you in charge.  But it wasn't going any fast with you in charge, and When things won't going any faster for you, you had to force your algorithms into my graviton generator and throw the switch.  Yea it worked.  You had to open the door to the Hell.  Your pride would not shutdown the Tesser gate even when it going to explode and take most of the tristate area with it."  shout PBH back..."You wouldn't listen to me... and I don't need to listen to you.  you are dead.  you went up in a cloud of smoke try to stop me from shutoff the power override."

"Ah That is right, but for your first experiment, it got you dumped into Lost Lake, and Pyroduck had to fish you out of the water" laughed Morganna, "And now no one back home knows if your gate to the stars will work at all"  She Laughed and laugh....

With sadness and depression, PBH turns from her own past and watches helplessly as "Tough Guy"'s past plays out.   She could see and hear the drama with man in black and 75 curls into a little puppy ball in his Spotlight.
"Come On TOUGH GUY,  You Don't have to be a Gun, you can choose not to kill others or yourself for no reason. I love ya, I Believe in you." screams PBH into the darkness at the Canine.  Did he hear her?  Can any of others hear her?  Can she cross the darkness to her friends?  Just one more step ...Just step off the platform and run to the canine, Bam.
As her old enemy laughs at her attemps, PBH stays and watches helpless as each adventurer goes thru their trails and she is unable to help them. 

PBH

Trying to shove the mental image of Stygian set ablaze by the illusory flames into the deepest, most wretched wastelands of her mind, Keaton wordlessly proceeded with the rest of the group, opting to remain surrounded by her companions rather than limply shuffling in the back.

The next trial consisted of a monochromatic chamber, the ground pitted and cracked, flames escaping from each snaking laceration in the stone. Specters swarmed the room, sweeping about the room, carried by the flame, with translucent eyes directed down towards the ground. Watching one of these ghostly apparitions fly dangerously close to her body, Keaton took a few, protective steps to the side, grasping her now very ruffled tail in both, white-knuckled hands. Unnerving, yes, but it was bearable.

Just barely.

All throughout it, Keaton kept lingering among the others, her pace quick, her beryl eyes darting back and forth at every minor change the backgrounds shifted to. Persevering through most of the trials, it was no surprise that by the time they had dashed through the acrimonious smoke that had permeated the air that Keaton looked like she had run through a hundred-mile lap, sweat leaking from her pores. Unsurprisingly, her wings seemed to be immune to such lethargy, having been conjured from unnatural means, and remained as pristine as before, albeit with some slight dishevel to the luminous plumage.

One of these levels even resembled a sacrosanct ballroom of sorts, entrancing, a pure salvation from the nightmares of the castle that awaited them beyond that point. Some part of Keaton desperately wanted to join them, but she kept her head resolute, trying to keep her eyes averted as far away from the divine gathering. Two more laps. That was all.

As unpleasant as the previous trials were, they would be nothing more than a leisurely stroll in a butterfly-filled meadow in comparison to what was to occur. Nothing would've prepared her for what was to happen next.

Suddenly, an immense, crippling weight slammed down on Keaton's back, nearly making the jackal drop instantaneously to her knees. Suppressing a yelp of shock, Keaton tried to lift her head, but every muscle in her neck resisted, too labored by the invisible restraints that confined her movements, even the shifting of her eyes down to the corroding steps. Struggling, trying to flare her wings behind her but failing at every attempt, Keaton growled and took one step forward—

--and withdrew her foot immediately once what appeared to be a face materialized, emblazoned in filthy paint, on the steps before her.

It was a familiar face, one she had easily identified as her own, of course. Although something seemed terribly amiss. It took her a moment to decipher it, to piece together every detail which started to flesh themselves out in this macabre portrait, but Keaton was able to absorb every meticulous change to the image. Rivulets of what she assumed was blood was pouring from her left eyesocket, spilling down the mirror image's neck, her tattered chest...

..All the way down to a massive, gaping gash in her midsection.

Now where had she seen this before?

A trembling hand, pushing against the insurmountable gravity weighing down on it, gingerly touched her midsection, fingers splaying over the gnarled scar etched into her flesh.

Oh no.

Oh GOD, no.

Around this macabre depiction of her mutilated being, collapsed on all sides, were hundreds of corpses, each severed or damaged in one way or another, each marred with an archaic symbol, vaguely resembling a white '7' flanked with roughly-carved triangular shapes...

Without realizing it, Keaton felt giant, salty gouts of tears slip from the corners of her eyes, raining down her cheeks in cleaving, bitter trails. An irresistible gasp wormed its way out of the jackal's throat, which reflexively tightened, barring any air from fleeing into her throat. Hands leaping to her neck, clawing at the strangling grip, Keaton could clearly hear her own, pulsating palpitations in her ears, pounding away like thousands of hammers against rigid, cracked stone...

Memories that Keaton had long-suppressed, had long worked to bury, had long abandoned and left to rot, flooded her mind like a tempestuous whirlwind. Memories of a clan massacred, of a family destroyed, of seventy years of servitude under the creature that Keaton loathed the most.

Neglecting her rapidly constricting throat, Keaton's hands leapt to her hair, fingers gluing themselves against her scalp beneath her bedraggled, pallid locks. The jackal was resisting the urge to scream with all her might, tiny whimpers exuding past the straining muscles of her esophagus. Wraithlike voices were crooning to her on all angles, beckoning to her, pleading to her not to proceed, to just surrender and spare herself the pain.

"Don't end up like us, Katherine."

"I didn't want to die, Katherine."

"We love you, Katherine."

Keaton was close to sobbing at this point, up until the final image warped the picture she couldn't bring herself to look away from, of cranberry eyes and feathered wings, of a leering beak and silvery feathers. Mocking her, encouraging her to listen to her damned family and clansmen with its presence alone.

A lone thought crept into Keaton's mind against all heartbreak.

'I wonder if he would've ended up in Hell?' Keaton idly wondered, maybe out of morbid interest, maybe just to keep those terrible, spectral murmurings at bay, maybe to banish them from her thoughts together. A split second later, she found her question answered, bringing a virulent smirk to her pallid, tearstained lips.

'Ha.

'I've already denied him that salvation.'

Somehow, that managed to bring her a significant amount of comfort.

She took the final step, fueled by this spite, by this hateful bloodlust.

Just as she always had been.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

Mel was tiredly plodding down the stairs, her eyes half-closed against the visions, still humming loudly to drown out the voices when the design in the stairs caught her eye. At first it didn't register what she was seeing as anything more than a pattern inlaid into the marble but she came to a horrified halt as it finally sunk in. It showed the battle to come and everyone ending up worse than dead and it was her fault. She wouldn't be able to hold her part because she was too little and too weak. And her failure would endanger the others. As soon as she stopped humming the voices came, reminding her of every time she'd failed due to her size, her poor health, or her vision problem, telling her that she had now endangered others besides herself. She had to stop, to stay right here so that the others had a chance to make the plan work.

A new voice, Sebastian, cut across them, urging her to move. But the other voices had 150,000 years of familiarity that were hard to ignore. One voice came through more shrill and hostile than the others and Mel concentrated on it. Her cousin, her hateful tormenting cousin. Mel clung to the affronts for strength and took a few more steps. Proving Belle wrong had been a chief motivator for much of her life and it would be again today. She began talking back to the voice, insulting the phantom in return, until she remembered that she was supposed to be a leopard and cursing in draconian wasn't in character.

Stygian crossed that last, hardest step, her clawed foot stepping from rough and sole-wearing painted stone onto a dirty marble floor, not much unlike that of the great chamber above, except...
   This hall was no hall. It was a vault. A cavern. Chains and blackened metal bars hung between cracked columns between and behind which hinted a darkness that the bat's own senses could not penetrate, against all rhyme and reason. At least, against what was rhyme and reason to her. The canopy was dark, the pillairs that loomed losing themselves in shadows many, many spans above, through which hinted a cracked and rough roof, as if the hall were submerged or dug out from under a mountain. And to the sides there was nothing; they were standing on a platform elevated in endless darkness on all sides, the floor coming to an abrupt end behind the second row of pillairs. They felt at the same time a horrible acrophobia, and as if an enormous weight was threatening to crumble down onto them, the roof perilously close to collapsing down and reducing the gargantuan cavern to a sealed tomb forever, with them at its heart. And there would be a worse fate for them than being crushed or asphyxiated if it did. For as the bat could already tell, the darkness down here was alive; it was what had slowly seeped into the castle they had come from and poisoned it over the years. Down here though, the darkness was still much stronger...
   In his, or her, heart, for the first time in a very long time, Stygian was truly, deeply afraid.
   Still though, the adventurers were not at the real heart of it. Something else was. Someone else who had been chained up there for much longer than the bat himself, and who now awaited them down in the shadows. A hundred metres down the vault or so, in the light of a few braziers burning with unearthly flames, they could see a stone coffin, chained up and hanging between a pair of pillairs. The front of it was carved out in a relief of a woman's body, her back winged and her face with dark, empty eyes. Eyes that nevertheless seemed to gaze at them.
   "Hello, cousin..." Stygian said in a very low voice, slowly beginning to walk around the large round opening in the floor of the platform before them while holding the now catatonic yet still crying ferret by the neck, around that well as dark and deep as the chasm that surrounded their tiny shapes.

With as much effort as he could possibly muster, Gareeku took the last step down into the vault after Stygian had done so. Observing the dirty marble floor that his sandal-sporting feet had just stepped on to, the wolf then lifted his head to look at his new surroundings. The vault he was now stepping into was dark and gloomy, like much of the rest of the house had been. However, this darkness seemed to be more alive than ever. It reeked of ill intention; a sinister aura around him that seemed to want to swallow him up.

Looking up at the ceiling, Gareeku observed the style of the cracked architecture. It looked as if this chamber had been dug out of the very mountain the house stood upon. Lowering his head and looking around, the wolf saw that there seemed to be no walls around; only the same sinister darkness that hung around the group like a canopy of evil.

It was then, however, that Gareeku looked ahead, and with narrowed eyes saw a figure; chained up in a stone coffin between a pair of pillars, visible in the dim light the unearthy flames produced from the braziers nearby. From the shape of the figure, it could be seen that it was female; a winged creature, with an empty gaze on her face that seemed to be staring right at them. The wolf stared right back; a grim stare, tinted with slight anger.

Cousin, hmm...? Gareeku thought to himself upon hearing Stygian's low-voiced comment, igorning the ferret's cries as his hand gripped the hilt of his sheathed blade firmly, his eyes continuing to stare at the figure before them as he moved calmly to stand beside Stygian. Blood runs thicker than water...

The canine heard a voice shouting out to him admist the gloom. It was somewhat familiar, female.. he couldn't tell.  As her voice grew in volume, the black around him began to fade, revealing the room around him.  He blinks and looks around, sitting up to feel his body, in disbelief of what had happened. 
                        He looked up to see the catgirl ahead of him, unsure if what he'd seen was manifest or some hallucination, he couldn't tell. However, he regained his composure and brought himself to his feet.  Looking down at the catgirl, he looked ahead at the rest of the group and began to move foward, following them into the cavernous room.  The heavy cold that surrounded his chest remaining yet supressed for now, turning to look at her and jerked his head in guesture for her to follow. Whatever just happened, I can't let emotional c*** like that intefere again.  Gotta focus on the mission...

She should've felt some form of comfort or security after she escaped the threshold separating the accursed level from their destination. She should've felt relieved. She should've been even, dare she say it, somewhat HAPPY that she had been liberated from that hateful, manipulative Hell.

This couldn't be further from the cold, cruel reality.

Heart still throbbing erratically in her plastered, aching ears, Keaton's steps continued to drag  hopelessly against the ground, dirt and grime clinging in thick layers of soil to the pads of her bare, clawed feet. It was as though the weight that crippled the travelers mere moments ago had stubbornly remained latched to her back, leeching off of her misery like a fiery parasite. Tears still oozed from the tumescent corners of Keaton's bloodshot eyes in tenuous trails, the branches of sanguine snaking through the whites of her eyes a stark contrast to the lustrous blue of her pupils. The alabaster fur around Keaton's face had become more exsanguinous than beautifully pearlescent.

Thankfully, Keaton's once-constricted throat had begun to open somewhat, allowing fresh air—heady, salty, but fresh and gratefully accepted nonetheless—to trickle back into her reticent lungs, which had exhausted themselves from her frantic gasping. Pants eased back down to shaky, carefully-calculated breaths.

It was when the agonizing pain in her chest started to fade that Keaton realized what it was.

Panic attacks. Fucking hated them. She had been afflicted by them most prominently after her first kill, but after many tribulations, they had been reigned in and suppressed. Occasionally they would surface in times of extreme stress, especially after the death of her family and when particularly pressured by her ex-fellow subordinates back when she worked under her former 'lord', but it had been a long while since she had suffered from one of this magnitude.

Burying her head in her hands briefly, it took her a joined effort from her abused neck muscles, but Keaton managed to peel her face away from her palms shortly after wiping her cheeks relatively free of moisture. The voices of her family were still echoing irreversibly in her head, like how the chimes of a bell would resonate through a tower's chambers. Goddamn it. Goddamn it all. Keaton could easily orchestrate one's deepest fears and worst memories to her advantage, but when someone does the same she breaks down like a helpless child! It was pathetic. Self-revulsion started to well up in Keaton again, teeth gritting angrily against one another like an ivory bear-trap.

She would find whoever had done this and kill them with her bare hands, devoid of Cubi abilities and her weapon or not. She would ensure that the final moments of their life would be wrought with nothing but pure suffering.

She promised herself this.

Keaton didn't have to wait long for them to reach the archangel's lair, however--a wretched place permeated with atramentous darkness. The stench of stagnation hung heavily in the air like a rotting tapestry, swirling around every shackle that draped from the aging, buckling roof or shard of rusting metal. Furious resolution in Keaton's blazing eyes, the jackal stormed among the adventurers, quaking fists clenched and milky fur bristling. It was obvious from the fiery waves of burning hate that radiated off of her that she was dead set on vengeance, on ripping whoever was responsible for the afore-experienced atrocities to pieces and devouring their soul. If Keaton were acrophobic, she probably would've broken out into another panic attack once they reached the spot where the floor gave away, but it was enough—along with the intensifying strength of the darkness engulfing them—to make her very, very afraid.

Fear was not something Keaton frequently experienced until she entered this palace, this nest of despicable nightmares and creatures. Another reason among a quickly-growing list of a thousand to hate it.

Down below, Keaton could see, withering in the nearly endless pit of shadows, an ancient coffin fettered to a flanking set of stone pillars. Engraved on the front was a woman, an angelic creature, with obsidian eyes that vacantly stared out into space, boring through black darkness to penetrate right into Keaton's being.

They were here.

An insane smile slowly spread along Keaton's cadaverous lips.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

Cog did not clap, nor did he speak, but merely gazed at the tomb of stone before holding the Broken Moon in his hand. It began to glow, infusing him with holy light and energy, and within the scabbard his sword glowed as well. He grabbed the sheath with his left hand, and simply waited.

Aisha wasn't too far behind the leaders of the group, having been drawn back a little with her own distractions on the illusory stairway.  The weight seemed to cling to her back during those last few steps, the voices pleading louder than ever.  She ignored them with a wrenching heart until she saw Stygian traverse the last step, and with infinite relief she followed suit with the others, easily catching up again.

But the chamber they were in sent a shudder crawling up her back.  The panthress gazed at the appearance of morbidity, the intimidating columns and encompassing shadows that gave the place a dungeon-like air and feel.  Moving through, her tail ring didn't need to glow with such an emerald intensity as it did for the huntress to know of the dark presence the adventurers were coming upon.  She only stole one glance at the ceiling and shot her gaze back ahead, her teeth clenching with the outright concern...no, fear...that should the adventurers fail they would be buried alive, lost to eternity.

Aisha had to distract herself from the thoughts that were still threatening to make her just turn and run.  She stole glances at the others, each with virtually the same haggard expressions emanating anger and a deep inner wish to just let everything end as soon as possible.  She too was angry, and as they finally came upon the coffin, the panther was gazing straight back into the figure's dark countenace with such ferocity behind her mind that even the light-magic relics she carried were pulsating at her belt.  Jeremiah probably would have seen the bracer glowing brighter.  So there we might find the one with the power over the castle.  Couldn't make US run.

Then she remembered the holy sword she was carrying.  Aisha laid her hand on the pommel thoughtfully, then drew the sword out of caution and tied her blood-drenched cape back around her neck, moreover for its comfort in the dingy chamber than anything.  She felt a need to make a comment out of humor about what they were facing, but after what the adventurers went through to get there she couldn't bring herself to break the silence, and instead waited for what would happen next.

Stygian kept pacing over the cracked floor, stepping over splinters of stone that had fallen from the darkness above or been broken right out of it, as if something had wrecked and shaken the place long ago. Considering how the chains hung, and the state of the place, it was obvious what creature had thrashed to get loose...
   "You have something that belongs to me, cousin. And I'm here to reclaim it. And kill you," the bat said, completely ignoring the arrival of the others behind her. She tossed the ferret to the side, and reached into her pocket, pulling out the glowing pieces of cinders from before, those that they had pulled from the flesh of the wyrm and the spider-woman. As the bat spoke again, her voice began to change, darkening and growing chillier until they could all recognize Stygian's voice as it had been before, during the fight outside the library.
   "You tore out my heart, and I shall take pleasure in doing thesame to you..." she said, darkness beginning to spread around her as she slowly walked closer.
   A tremor shook the hall, and the chains surrounding them rattled. Dust fell from above, slowly drifting to the floor, glittering in the cruel light.
   "It's too late for that now, Sathariel. You have lost. And we will not be dying for your freedom!" Stygian snarled, stepping closer to the coffin, while another thrash caused some rocks to fall from the great roof, dropping to the floor with an echoing clatter. It sounded as if someone was screaming from far off.

Jeremiah followed, his face grim. The huge, cavernous vault looked as though it could fall in at any second, and the crashes that could be heard in the distance didn't help. It seemed that they had reached this mad angel, relative to Sebastionette, and here they would fight her amidst the crumbling masonry. The bracer shone brighter as it sensed the almost palpable darkness in the air and the wraith, sensing its source, fought for freedom. His curse clamored to act, he could barely keep them from doing so. Bal, taking his body and fleeing, maybe turning up later to rot all of this away. In, smashing everything in this chamber to remove this oppressive feeling. Plic, stealing the soul in the grim angel's sarcophagus or the hearts thrumming with power that Sebastionette held. Nex, isolating him from everyone and everything forever in her panic to keep him alive. Cab, who would try to bargain with this angel. And Jeremiah, whose thoughts were not nearly so focused on his goals, simply wished to get out alive and briefly wondered if he'd left the gas on at home.
It was really, really driving him nuts. The funny smile that the cubi wore didn't help his mounting paranoia any. "You alright?" He turned toward her and quirked an eyebrow. However, it was then that the angel replied to the party's worrisome guide through the Castle.
"Fucking hell," The statement was oddly resigned. Was he making a statement about hell, or merely cursing the situation?

Following Stygian as he observed the splinters of stone on the floor, Gareeku raised an eyebrow at Stygian's words as he watched him begin to reveal his darkness. Watching the dust fall from the ceiling as the room shook, the wolf narrowed his eyes as his gaze turned back ahead, his hand firmly gripped on the hilt of the katana at his side. A scream could heard. It sounded far off, but could definitely be heard by him as he walked. Mentally preparing himself for what he presumed would be an evitable, not to mention hard, battle, Gareeku tensed his muscled slightly. If anything should suddenly happen, he would be ready.

As Mel took the last step off the stairway the voices stopped, but it was as if their silence was more of a condemnation than their words. Without the voices to fight she felt a bit lost for a moment. She looked around at the space that was at once vast and claustrophobic. As a flying creature she had no fear of heights but this wasn't proper flying air, it was alive and malevolent. The magic had an almost spoiled feel. Mel felt dirty just from being near it. Of course the lovely decor of rusted chains and a sarcophagus could only make the imagination run to feelings of despair.

With a deep breath, and a brief pep talk she gathered her shredded confidence and her magic to herself and took another step onto the platform.

PBH jumps up when 75 moves and gets up..."He heard me" whisper PBH with tears in her eyes.  She steps from her platform and the Tesser gate disappeared and then the cavern appeared as PBH step towards Tough Guy.  She smiled at him and the rest of the others.  PBH could see the Cavern, but the darkness seem to remote to her.  Until the room started to shake.

PBH pull back from the center of the cavern and prepare her magic.  PBH look around slowly, and trys to make out any symbols or text around the coffin or walls or the floor, as she scanned the room movement.

PBH

The canine followed the group, passing the catgirl, his eyes scanned around the room and fell upon stygian, talking down to a coffin.  The canine frowned and narrowed his eyes, trying to make out the details of the crypt. This is it.. he told himself.  He hung a few yards back from the gathering, lest they were somehow caught by suprised, he might be able to slip away... he grunted again and shook his head.  He might be able to provide "backup"

Aisha kept a steady grip on her weapon as she watched Stygian pace across the angelic figure's line of vision, quirking an eyebrow when the bat started speaking again in a voice that radiated hatred and darkness.  So, cousins, she thought with a curious quirk, assessing the situation only mostly to draw her distraction from the fact that the room seemed to be taking on a life of its own.

She watched as dust fell from the roof high above them, ears pinned.  It was as if the castle above them was alive...and it always seemed that way.  Screaming and squirming as if the adventurers were parasites aiming to cease the pulse of its life.  That was most likely the exact case.

"Okay, what's going on...?" Aisha almost whimpered beneath her breath as more rocks fell across the floor and to their feet, before straightening up and bringing her sword in front of her.  Easy to see, she really didn't like the idea of being right beneath a crumbling roof.

The distant screams grew in strength, and something pulled on the chains again, hard. The coffin suspended in them shook once, then twice. A crack appeared in the face on its front, as it writhed and seemed to scream.
   Then the coffin smashed asunder, pieces of it flying in different directions, and a ghastly light of blue and green hues emerged from between the columns, like light reflecting on clear water in a pool. It all emanated from one point; the shape of a winged woman.
   She was white as snow, her shape surrounded by swirling wisps of white, her form robed and swathed loosely in long, billowing pieces of white cloth, hung with chains. Her eyes were black around a blue-green, almost teal iris, glowing with a light that enhanced her piercing gaze. Her feline face was immensely beautiful, yet filled with rage, an anger and hatred that seemed to seethe and flow out toward them in waves. Her hands held the chains that bound her, and both their black fingertips and the chains themselves seemed to flow out and unify with the surrounding darkness, pulling on and guiding it. In her right hand, she held something glowing and sizzling. She spoke, in a voice like a hundred whispering and hissing people in a state of panic, confusion, despair...
   "You miserable, despicable creature!" she roared in anger, her eyes locked on Stygian. "You deserved to perish from the start! This time, you will not be sealed away...!" She began flowing against them, her pure white wings of flowing, fuming white trailing light through the air.
   "You couldn't kill me before, and you can't kill me now..." Stygian said, standing fast and looking up at the ghostlike angel.

As though completely immune, or utterly desensitized to the escalating exacerbation of the screaming echoing through the chamber from the coffin, Keaton watched the tomb shake and writhe in its rusted bonds, too angry--as was indicated by a distant, muted gleam of hatred in the back of her cobalt eyes--to be fascinated. Something was clearly inside of that thing, and it was desperate to get out, even infuriated at Stygian's words. So this was the archangel they were talking about.

Jeremiah, the frog, who had drifted down from his transformation, was asking her something, she realized. Turning her head toward him, the smile on Keaton's lips became all the more malifcent, even though she knew perfectly well that this exposed the swelling in the corners of her bloodshot eyes and the vestiges of moisture that had collected there to his view.

"Never been better," she said vindictively.

Meanwhile, below the adventurer's, the coffin's surface quaked erratically as though resisting the irresistable grip of the bonds lashing it to the pillars, just before its surface broke apart in a shower of razor-sharp splinters and chunks of masonry. Before Keaton could comprehend the destruction of the archangel's prison, a celestial silhouette broke free, swimming into the air, surrounded by a distorted, volatile halo of transclucent greens and blues. Swirling in the center of a majestic ring of diaphanous mist, garbed in gossamer sheets, was a vaguely feline woman, still sporting the shackles on her wrists--she was incredibly beautiful, although the rage that diffused from every ethereal pore of her body was enough to nearly evaporate Keaton's initial eagerness on the spot.

Hard to believe something so gorgeous could be so angry.

The chains locked around her arms amalgamated with the tangible darkness surrounding her, one hand holding aloft an indistinguishable, glowing object that Keaton couldn't make out readily. Alabaster, light-suffused wings emerged from her back, flaring out like feathered, glowing fans.

At the sight of the heavenly woman, even as Keaton backed away as the angelic apparition approached, the jackal could only think one thing:

...All glory be to God on high...

~Keaton the Black Jackal

"BY the Lords of Light!, By God and Goddess!,  MEL Who is the True evil, Mel?  Is the malice of the angel still enough to bout her?  What of The Bat?  Are we here to save the angel  and/or to close the gate to this hell.?"  PBH said s and wonders if the canine attitude of neutrality maybe better than her trust of the others.  PBH moves closer to Mel and stands behind her on her guard toward the coffin and the angel.

PBH uses her magic to try to see the Truth of this.  And she can see that the angel is dead and that this is a ghost that stood before them. It's a very powerful creature...  But what of the bat?  Is she dead?  Is she trapped?  What binds her here?  The only true, PBH knew was that the bat wanted to close the gate.  Whatever other great truth or crime must wait for later once the greater danger has been stop.

Yet, Was the angel only able to stop the bat by sealing him in the castle, while bat trapped the angel here in this cavern which is stuck between the mortal realm and Hell itself.?

PBH

Mel hears Bambi's questions regarding which side they should take. "I don't think we have time for a philosophy debate but if you want to measure who has done us ill and who hasn't, look at the magic. Follow the strands from her hands outward. She is the taint in the castle. She controls the castle, she controls the monsters, she has been trying to make us worse than dead since we arrived."

From the angel's fingers, to the chains, to the darkness of the pit and outward Mel could see the web of magic. She couldn't describe it as dark magic, this was disturbing somehow. Was it possible for magic itself to go mad? Mel didn't voice aloud her worry that neutralizing the angel might cause the castle, and this chamber, to collapse onto them. It appeared that on many levels the angel and the castle were one and the same.

Cog growled deep in his throat, a snarl that slowly took over all his features and colored his demenor, ugly. His face was twisted in what could only be described as utter loathing.
"Falsehood! Abomination!" he said, his eyes glowing again with yellow light. "Hell is calling, demon in white robes!" he said, his fingers closing hard around the hilt of his sword. "Hell calls! O hasten thither! Let life no more separate what death joins together!" he screamed, throwing one hand behind him in preparation for a blast of force.

"Well, that's..." Jeremiah replied to Keaton, unnerved both by her growing smile and the signs of crying proving her words false, "That's good..." His eyes continued flicking back and forth between the cubi, who he doubted was in the most mentally stable of states, and the recently emerged angel below. He was sort of with Bambi, but with one added aspect; was either of them worth helping? In this case, it was probably wise to side with Sebastionette, seeing as it was alledgedly the other who wouldn't release them, but could the bat really be trusted? Would he take her place? He could see the energies tying Sathariel to the curse or haunting that permiated the castle down to the bedrock, but how far could eyes be trusted? How far can I be tru- Gah, no time for that. He blinked and squinted his eyes shut; his head was starting to hurt. Plic and In were both becoming really insistant that they act, and he probably wouldn't be able to just keep mentally yelling at them forever.

Aisha winced as the ceiling's quake had grown worse, thinking that the chains would snap under the immense weight and pressure from the coffin and the thrashing of its contents.  The panthress straightened herself, holding her grip on the sword tightly as she felt it sting her palms again like a powerful static, only briefly as the metallic blade started to glow.  Whether or not it started to of her will, she didn't know.

She couldn't tear her eyes away from the coffin when it started to stir, the figure's cracking face keeping an unwavering hold upon the group, until the creature's prison shattered around them.  The light resulting was blinding, and for a second, Aisha held a hand over her eyes to shade them until they were used to it.  And when they where, what she saw certainly wasn't what she expected.

The angel still appeared ethereal and brilliant, yet marred by anger and the chains that hung from her form.  There was of course much darkness from this fallen, picked up by any various light-magic artifacts in the room and giving her tail ring an almost electrifying green glow.  The panther wasn't at all fooled by the appearance of the one called Sathariel.  She was pretty much as prepared as Cogi was, and the others who couldn't wait to put a blade into her after what they have been through.  The fire around Aisha's sword seemed to intensify as she side-stepped around, trying to keep out of Sebastian's way, and hopefully being prepared for anything.

Bambi can now see what Mel was talking about.  The angel seem to be connect to the Castle and control everything within...
"We need to look and see if we break her hold on the castle without letting her go" Bambi whispers to Mel.  "Maybe remove the chains for the key supports to the Castle's wallls, but leave the other in place? "

** Using her magic sight and her scientific knowledge, Bambi works out which chains go to the main structural supports to castle. Hoping that they aren't also the main bonds that keep the angel in her coffin. **

PBH

As the violent shaking increased, Gareeku continued to look at the chained prison the angel was in, beginning to unsheathe his sword as the prison cracked, and was then destroyed as the angel finally revealed herself to them. The wolf saw how beautiful she was, but he also took into account the rage and hatred the creature displayed.

Hearing the others speak, Gareeku grimaced in annoyance.
"When you're all quite done with the dramatic ourcries..." he growled, unsheathing his sword as he looked back at the beautiful, yet wrathful, form of the angel. She had been the one; the one who had unleashed the monsters that had attacked them. True, he didn't entirely trust Sebastian, yet he had not been the one who had set out to kill them all.

"You may look like an angel, but in my experience, angels can be quite evil, and it seems you are no exception." the wolf growled. He knew the battle was about to begin, and he was fully prepared, a flame of soul energy bursting into life in his free hand as he kept his eyes locked onto the creature now in front of them...

Sathariel's eyes just glanced up from her viewing Stygian, hissing quickly at the adventurers with a look of loathing to her face.
   "Wretches. Go away!" she shouted, and threw out her hand as of swatting at a bothersome fly. A wave of aetherial energy, like fire shifting sharply between hues of incandescent white and dense, dismal black, swept out in a storm against them, tearing at their limbs and garbs and throwing itself against them with a force to knock them all back several yards.

   The angel flowed over the floor against Stygian, practically snarling at her, ignoring the foaming and crying ferret who had been knocked aside and nearly thrown down into the opening central to the platform, clinging to a crack in the floor and trying to pull herself up. Her eyes shone with venomous light, crackling with hatred as much as her face showed it.
   "All our family for you. A monster." She showed her teeth and growled, stretching out her clawlike fingers for the bat. "I will see them avenged!" she screamed, diving for her.

Jeremiah was thrown backwards to crack his head against the wall. groaning, he pushed himself to his feet as bright red flames started to form a figure in the air nearby.
In...

Not initially anticipating the ephemeral assault, especially after so little provocation and when the archangel's attention was on Stygian, Keaton was completely caught off-guard by the wave of energy that Sathariel sent their way. Under normal circumstances, Keaton would've tried to throw up a barrier to absorb the incoming blast, but her instinctual attempt to pull such a maneuver failed miserably--it was as though the shadows were neglecting her spiritual commands entirely.

Instead, Keaton was tossed backwards by the crescent of fiery light, the energy sawing through her ebony clothing and skin. Landing painfully on her back, she struggled to get back to her feet, wiping away a rivulet of blood that had dribbled down her chin from where she bit her lip. Goddamn it. She didn't stand a chance in her current state, where she couldn't manipulate the darkness around her. She could rely on tooth and claw, but that would be nearly useless against this celestial creature, despite her physical prowess.

Unbeknown to her, the pool of shadow beneath her crumpled form seemed to take a life of its own, bubbling and emitting acrid fumes as something seemed to rise from the surface, taking the form of a very familiar weapon...

~Keaton the Black Jackal

PBH had magically ground herself and she stay root to the floor as the wave attack hit them.  Hair and clothes whirled and tore from the wind blast. 

"Aisha, anyone, the Ferret needs help" PBH says and point to Gina as she hangs on the edge.

She is busy watching the play of power along the Leylines to the angel.  Sathariel have send a wave of energies out along all them but two lines.  These had brighten but didn't pulse with her wave attack.  These two lines feed the Angel and were no longer part of her imprisonment.  It would be foolness if PBH try to cut all the ley lines, but cutting these lines would weaken the angel, and maybe just maybe prevent this one corner of the cavern from collaping.

"Mel, Can we cut or remove these leyline from the angel's power tie point.?" says PBH as points out the leylines that are feed the angel. 

**PBH magically touchs one of the feeding leylines by accident and she is suddenly part of the magically stream to ground.  This fully recharges her magical battery, and then briefly overloads it, causing a magical backlash wave down the leyline to the angel and then snaps the leyline.  PBH is sent flying to a back wall by the explosion but most the overload is send to magical ground.  The angel burned by the magical energies that whip back at her.   Sathariel is hurt but not very, yet her magical energies are not being recharged very well.  The anger Angel turns to slap another wave attack directly at the pesty little cat-girl, who laying against the cavern wall.  **

PBH

Cog bared his teeth against the fell wind, but was yet pushed back several feet, his coat flying behind him like a cape and his heels leaving lines in the dusty floor. The holy aura permeating his body kept the energies from harming him directly, but they were still powerful indeed, and brought great physical force to bear.
He was sick of waiting. He didn't care if the angel could kill them all, as he had suspected from the first. Damn demon. He would die trying, in any case. Throwing a fist forward, he launched a wave of holy-imbued force at the creature - and despite his deep instilled focus, stumbled. Along the wave were ropes of crackling electricity, blue and white, thunderous ropes of lightning that traveled in webs. He'd never been able to do such things, and he knew it was by no facet of his own nature. His anger seemed to dissipate into horror for a moment. Arcane. he thought, and gazed at his own trembling hand.
He sucked in a breath and steadied his hand. He had no time. Grasping his sword with his now-sparking appendage, he rushed forward and charged the angel.

Aisha's eyes widened as soon as the angel made her assault against the adventurers, which was more like a gesture to swat them away like vermin if anything.  She was taken by surprise at the rush of energy, actually flying off her feet for a brief moment before anchoring her claws to the ground and holding her clothing in place, having landed hard a few yards away.  When it calmed, the panther carried an annoyed look of her own, coupled with the fierce adrenaline rush that comes before a fight.

Nothing but nuisances, are we?  She thought and brought up her blade, watching as the others started making a move.  Suddenly hearing Bam, Aisha darted her head over to where the ferret was hanging on for her life...or at least the life of a body that had long since lost its true owner.  Cursing inwardly, Aisha rushed across the floor and dove, grabbing a hold of the ferret and pulling her up with a bit of effort.  "Either get to a safe place or just hide," she advised hurriedly, and then turned around.

Her blade ablaze, she started rushing for the angel herself, despite the power she wielded against them, while trying to avoid hitting anyone nearby.  If I could just get her wings.  She swung the sword...

Watching the angel attack, Gareeku was nearly knocked off of his feet as the wave of fiery light struck, growling at the burning pain it caused as he was sent skidding back a few yards.
Wretches, hmmm? the wolf thought to himself, a look of anger on his face. We'll see who is the wretch here...

Watching the others attack, Gareeku decided to make his own move.  Dashing forward as Cogi did, Gareeku suddenly darted to the side, swinging his right forward and sending a surge of soul energy roaring along the ground towards the angel. As soon as he did this, the wolf moved again, swerving around to the back of the creature as he brought his glowing sword upwards in a powerful upwards sword strike aimed at the angel's spine, knowing that multiple targets in different locations were much harder to battle against than targets who were bunched together.

Mel found herself blown backwards by the magically poisonous wind, just as the others were, despite toe claws making dramatic gouges in the marble. The plain of stone was too open, too visible. She cast an illusion to blur the outlines of her allies, like visions through rain streaked glass. It wouldn't help with an attack such as the blast but if the angel took time to aim it might buy someone a few precious inches.

As the angel met the bat head on, the chiropteran turned female was thrown back, despite her having drawn out what darkness she could and facing the accursed celestial's assault with strength. There was something decidedly wrong with the place, something that kept her powers back and restricted, making them vastly inferior to those of the angel herself despite all natural alignment and power. Up in the house Stygian had been able to make use of his own darkness in about half proper form, the shackles that the vile cherubim still had on him loose becasue of reach and interference. Here, they were nearly so tight they strangled him.
   Then came the assault from Cogidubnus, swiftly followed by that of Aisha and Gareeku. With graceful and elusive moves, the angel parried the werewolf's wave of force, sparks and dark fire flowing in showers. His blade was quick, but she was too fast to move out of reach, and his form wasn't the best to strike at a foe who came at him with both range and power superior. Still, the intensity of his attack seemed to keep the angel busy, for the next moment, Gareeku, whose soul energy had been faced with an almost similar but blackened torrent of fiery power, came up with a strike that seemed to hit true.
   It was all for naught though; the blade that should have cleft the apparition's back went clean through with barely so much as resistance, and the angel rewarded his effort with a hasty grin and a swipe against his midriff strong enough to send him flying hard against one of the columns. That problem dealt with, the angel turned against Aisha.
   The panthress seemed more successful, to start with. Speeding past the recovering bat, she made one of her trademark dodgy maneuvers, depending on her speed and agility as always, and then made a sweep with that fiery lash that had split the ghosts in the mansion clean in twain. But, like all angels, this one seemed to think and move viperously fast. She caught the blade in her hand with a metallic chink, not unlike Stygian had snatched Cog's sword from its path some time before.
   "Whose sword do you think that is, girl!?" the angel spat, pulling the panthress in close by the blade, and then making a powerful punch to her face and a sweep that took the air from her lungs, sending her flying like the wolf and the bat, and the sword clattering to the ground someway to the side.