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

[Boog]

Bambi, The not-Jeremiah thought to himself, creeping along invisibly, Is bloody scary when you piss her off. The fae cat's pursuit had caused him to panic, and by the time he had caught up with Ketefe she'd already reached the others. From there he listened to those around Mel, finding out what was happening. Poor Mel. And she tries so hard to look after everyone else. The rest of the group knowing what was up was a minor issue; he had his tricks. When Stygian and Keaton went off to locate him he could have crowed with delight as he followed; two of them, seporate from the rest, and fairly powerful. Earlier, Ketefe had been the only one present who hadn't previously shown some manner of immunity to control by the spiders. Keaton was doubly useful; not only was she stronger, but her mental abilities would allow him to locate Mother for further aide and instructions. He thought hard about how to go about this, noting that Stygian knew about his curse. Admittedly, there are points where it wasn't truly lying low, but I only recall informing Cog about this. Most curious...
His shape was still fairly close to normal; Spooky wasn't finished setting up just yet. He cast a quick illusion over himself and stepped out of hiding, already adjusting his voice to what he hoped sounded right...

The canine known as Tough Guy, who had been lost earlier, stepped out from behind a snow drift in the hallway to the ballroom. His suit was torn, although compared to the wounds they had been torn up to bind he looked pristine.
"H-hey..." He staggered forward, arms reaching out toward Stygian and the disguised Keaton, "Where... Where were-?"

[Stygian]

The view out of the ballroom was dark and obscured, the frost that clung to the tall windows distorting and shading the moonlit landscape to the two figures who entered. Drifts of snow lay over the place, and a gentle wind created by the magic that gripped the place sending some glittering sprays up around them.
   Then, there was a rustling, and the creaking of snow under soles. Stygian calmly turned his gaze toward the source of the sound, his ears leaning forward just a bit. He didn't say so much as a word. For a couple of seconds, he didn't move. Then, his eyes narrowed.
   "Tch. And this was even getting fun, somehow. 'Peachy' indeed..." he said, not really getting the manner of speech, but using it anyway. He looked to Keaton. "Well, I guess it's a dissappointment. Do you want the honors, miss? We won't lose sight of him again now, that's for sure." The illusion wasn't bad, but the bat could tell the magic from far away. Not to mention the idea of the wolf showing up again so suddenly was a bit silly.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Bambi had somehow miss that crazy frog, as he back tracked back to the Ballroom.  After a carefull search of side hallways and corridors, she finally makes it to the Mel's sick bedroom.

Seeing Snow, "oooo, Frosty"

Even if she is over-enjoyed to see the Dragon on the mend.  The Fae feline stands with flaming hands and full wings and not much lease in front of Keaton and Gareeku, "Crazy frog be bad, hunting Ketefe and maybe us, Maybe Spiders".  She turns and runs back to the ballroom.

PBH

[Sunblink]

Alerted by the sound of snow being crushed beneath shoes, Keaton-Ketefe casually craned her head over her shoulder in the direction of the disheveled wolf approaching her and Stygian, ears quirked individually and eyes half-lidded. Snow swirled past, carried by a gentle breeze which passed through the hall. She, too, remained utterly silent as she stared at the canine, golden eyes combing over his body and absorbing every detail about him.

At first glance it appeared to be the smartly-garbed canine who had once accompanied them.  From what she remembered, Bambi seemed to have quite a thing for him. According to Stygian the canine before them had to be an imposter. Shame, she had wondered what had happened to the original. Keaton glanced back to Stygian.

"You can handle this one," Keaton said, still using Ketefe's voice. "I'm not in the mood."

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Aisha deCabre]

With a peaceable nod, Rynkura stepped aside to allow Sebastian past her, also sparing a farewell to the one he had called to follow him.  The tigress stood within the room alone for a few moments, thoughtfully digging the point of her staff into the light layer of snow on the floor.  She glanced back to the still-sleeping dragon with a look of thought as to what she had just heard.

A parasitic Mythos.  No wonder there also seemed to be a small amount of damage to her mind.  Good thing she is a strong one, the tigress hummed to herself.  Such a creature was disturbing just to think of as a possibility, no matter how rarely they could even be found.  And if that was one monster the party in the house had encountered, what else was there?  I would have even thought Aisha's curiosity bypasses this place...but then, she is here.  I may have to ask her what has happened thus far.  As Rynkura kicked the snow drifts away from her feet and started towards the door, her ear craned to hear the conversation just beyond, and her head shook slightly with a light smile on her face.  Soon enough.

*     *     *

While listening to Gareeku's reassurances in reply to her childish moodiness, or at least she thought it had sounded as such, Aisha couldn't help but smile...or help as her face became warm.  She looked down at her cloak, stained and darkened with blotches of Mel's azure blood, then looked back to him again.  "Thank you for that," she softly admonished.  At least she knew her efforts were noted.  It was then that she spotted Sebastian and Keaton walking past through the door, paying them little heed and looking as if they had a bigger priority.  She let them go with a nod and without question, tugging her cloak tighter about herself in the slowly ebbing cold.

But at Gareeku's firm insistence on keeping her company, she chuckled and shook her head, moving her hand from his arm up to his shoulder.  Aisha looked as if she was about to speak against him...but instead, as if on a second thought, it was a look of appreciation for the wolf's presence.  "You're a true friend, Gareeku," she smiled.  "But I wouldn't want to trouble you either if..."

She interrupted herself then as Rynkura stepped out of the doorway and into the hall, glancing over the path ahead before turning down to lock her serious and yet warm gaze with Aisha's.  The tigress didn't allow a tense pause...she reached out to give the panthress her bracer back.  "You did well, my child.  Your friend perhaps will need company as she awakens.  Should you or anyone wish to seek me out, I shall be about the castle, more likely in the library."  She smiled, then spared a nod to Gareeku.  "And it was nice meeting you as well, sir Manoko," she said, having remembered to finish her formalities.  Then the tigress turned and stepped through the winter-painted hallway.

Aisha watched her for a moment, holding the bracer briefly in her hand, before placing it back into her belt and turning to the door.  "You heard her," she chuckled softly to Gareeku and stepped back into the room, curiously turning her gaze to the dragon in the bed.

[Angel]

Ketefe caught the mask, uttering "Thanks" to Aisha as the panthress left the room. She appeared not to notice. The cat turned her attention to Rynkura, surprised to learn that Mel was causing the snowstorm. Was she doing that unconsciously? Cool, Ketefe thought and purred to herself. This was even more fun than she'd thought.

She listened patiently and attentively to Rynkura's explanation of magic, then contemplated what the tigress had said. Years and years of work, just for extra power? Ketefe decided to put learning magic aside for later. It sounded very interesting and rewarding, but there was no telling whether she'd even have a natural knack for it. Then when Stygian (Sebastian, she reminded herself)mentioned Jeremiah, she suddenly remembered the original reason why she had gone into this room. She started to follow Sebastian and Keaton after a few minutes, but when she paused in the doorframe to see how far ahead they were, she could barely hear them talking about something. She strained, trying to tune out her other senses in favor for hearing, as Jarevei had taught her.

"cat in the mask...look like her...lure him out..."

Of course. Keaton could shapeshift; Sebastian was going to use her as bait. Well, more accurately, use me as bait, Ketefe mused. She decided to stay put, so as not to wreck the charade. She sat on the edge of the bed, wringing her mask in her hands. She noticed it was still a little grimy with the dragon's blood, so she tied it around her wrist rather than wrapping it around her head again. Then Aisha and Gareeku entered, and she gave them a pleasant smile.

"Is this what caused the cold last night?" she asked quietly, scooping up a handful of snow. "Why'd she do it then?"

[Mel Dragonkitty]

The first sign of a change in Mel's consciousness was a fading out of the furthest away illusions and the cold winds calming. Mel began to hear voices and tried to listen and make sense of them. As she became aware of the real world even more of the false one disappeared.

Slowly Mel realized she felt horrible. Just as slowly she remembered that horrible was much better than before. The illusions faded away entirely, leaving just the real snow behind in the sickroom as she regained the memory of the attack and being torn up. She forced her eyes open and managed to rasp, "What happened?"

[Gareeku]

Listening to Aisha speak, Gareeku smiled softly. Keeping his hand on her shoulder and leaving it to gently rest there, the wolf then looked up as he noticed Sebastian and Keaton walk past, heading off to attend to some business, it seemed. Pondering this, the wolf then turned back to the pantheress as he felt her hand on his shoulder. Listening to what she said, Gareeku chuckled, and was just about to reply when he turned to see that Rynkura had emerged from the room.

Observing the encounter between the two felines, Gareeku bowed politely when Rynkura addressed him.
"It was a pleasure, Ms. Msh'taan." the wolf replied as he bowed, watching her leave before turning back to Aisha. However, just when he was about to speak, the pantheress gave the other to go back into the room.
"Yes Ma'am." Gareeku replied with a chuckle, before walking back into the room with Aisha.

As they walked back through the doorway, it was then that Ketefe asked them of last night's cold.
"We had a little problem with spiders, and we found that the only way to get rid of them was by freezing them." the wolf replied, assuming that the feline probably would have wanted a straight answer. Walking up to where Mel was laying, Gareeku watched her for a few seconds before glancing at Aisha from the corner of his eye. He was worried about her; she seemed so down. Wishing that there was something he could do to help, the wolf then realised how he had been acting. He wasn't normally this...well...soft, was he? Aisha was a great friend, probably his best friend, but to be acting so gentle...that was like him...was it?

Before he could ponder this any more, however, Gareeku noticed that Mel was stirring. See her wearily open her and ask what had happened, the wolf chuckled softly.
"Well lucky for you we had a healer on hand to help." he replied with a smile, before looking at Aisha, smiling softly. "But I think there is a certain pantheress who did more than enough to make sure you were ok."

[Stygian]

It was all getting irritating very fast. And when Keaton passed, Stygian just shrugged, and then turned against the approaching man, doubtlessly Jeremiah in disguise.
   "This might hurt. I just want you to know... I don't care the slightest," he said, and took a step.
   The sudden motion was too quick to see clearly, and with the darkness to conceal him and the moonlight to play tricks, Stygian seemed to dissappear entirely. Then came the gleam of claws, making a streak that seemed to last in the air for just a moment, before the man felt the skin on his upper back, right between his shoulder blades, being slashed up neatly, and the spider residing there cut to pieces. That wasn't the end of it though. The others on him had to be taken care of. It was why he had gone close in the first place.
   Pausing, standing still for just a brief second, Stygian breathed. Then he spun a bit, his elbow cracking right up into the back of Jeremiah's head. And then he moved in a blur again, around in front of the man, gripping him and swinging him up through the air like a toy, and over into a huge snowdrift piled up over a sofa, placing him deep in it on his back.
   Once more, Stygian stopped. That would keep the spiders from taking the man again immediately. He took three brisk steps over against the frog, reaching down.
   Spiders skittered, and there was another pair of slashing motions, wetness spilling on the snow. Then the bat stepped back, wiping his hands in the whiteness and then flicking his fingers to clean his claws. He still watched Jeremiah, suspiciously. When the man didn't get up after a few seconds though, he turned away, and paced back in the opposite direction again.

   "Let's go, Keats," he said, almost nonchalantly. "I think we should deal with this snow."
   Leaving so immediately might have been confusing, but Stygian had reasons. The first was that he didn't want to spare the frog more attention than that. The second was that if there were more spiders, they could use Jeremiah as another bait. And the third was that he had much, much more important things on his mind.
   As quickly as he had made his way to the ballroom, the bat was back by Aisha and Gareeku. He didn't catch Rynkura walking away. However, he did step in just in time with the illusions fading, and the only snow left being the one in the room where they had put Mel. Without knocking, he cracked the door open just slightly, and peered in. When he saw her stirring, he opened it slightly more, and slipped in, almost closing it behind him.
   "There was a fight. You got bitten. You bled pretty badly," he said, more clearly than he felt, and walked over next to the bed, giving the dragoness a very slight smile, in spite of the other things on his mind. "Things turned out fortunately though. An old a... tigress showed up." He almost bit his tongue at that one. He had to calm down. "An acquaintance of Aisha, it would seem."

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel looked confusedly from face to face. A healer? A tiger? She paused on the new feline who had showed up just as the fight with the mythos began. But she wasn't a tiger, or old. She felt too exhausted to think, she'd figure it out later. "The mythos. Is Keaton okay?"  She counted faces, "Cog, Jeremiah, Bam too?"

[Aisha deCabre]

As Mel started to stir among the bedsheets, Aisha breathed a sigh of relief, having felt a little better than she had been before.  The tense feeling that had come when trying to keep the dragon's thin life holding on had vanished as a result.  In a way, the panthress did feel somewhat proud about the fact her own mentor had stepped in to help.

Listening to Gareeku answer Mel's inquiry, her ears pricked with a bit of surprise as he mentioned her efforts to help.  She chuckled shyly and shook her head, laying the bloodstained cloak to the side.  "It was all I could do to keep you alive," she answered honestly.  "All that anyone could have done."  She glanced back to the wolf with a smile of thanks for his compliment.  She briefly wondered if the reason she felt better was due in part to his reassuring words...

Then she turned to notice Sebastian walking back into the room, adding to supplying the information to Mel.  That's about as clear as anyone could get, the panthress thought with a slight roll of her eyes as she watched him move to the edge of the bed.  She quirked an eyebrow at the way he mentioned Rynkura though, as if it sounded somewhat off.

Dismissing the feeling, she shrugged with a slight chuckle directed at the bat.  "More than an acquaintance.  Rynkura is my teacher and my guardian.  I owe her my very life, when it would have been lost."  Her look darkened briefly, then she smiled again with a glance back to Mel.  "She fortunately arrived to help.  You'll meet her soon I think.  The important thing is that you feel back to yourself again.  And I think the others are okay...they were when we left the ballroom."

[Stygian]

Of course Mel was exhausted, and confused. But worrying so much and so quickly...
   "There's no need to worry," Stygian said, leaning down and gently putting his hand on her brow. "It's all covered. What you need to do now is sleep. I'd appreciate it if you took away the snow before it damages things, but that can wait too." He tilted his head just a little. "If you're cold as ice, I guess things are fine with you. So then you just have to rest up. I'll see to it that you get something to eat later."
   Still smiling gently, he stood straight again, and turned, though he made sure to keep that smile on as he looked over to Aisha and Gareeku.
   "Well then. I guess the situation's over," he said. And he stopped, before he said anything further. He had caught a whiff of some familiar smell, and looked between the two of them for a second, before his eyes steadied on Aisha.
   "I was thinking of heading off. I will be taking supper, if someone wants to join in later. But that's not until in a couple of hours. What happened to our other guest? Didn't get a chance to speak properly with her." It would be better to start there.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

In the Ballroom

Bambi was not as fast as Stygian can be with his shadows, but she was getting the hang of flying... She just thought of fast and suddenly her feet off the floor and she zipped down the hallways and stairs.  She reached the Ballroom again to see that the frog was again out cold on a sofa this time.  The snow was starting melting around the room. 

Bam checks him over again this time with magic-detection sight, and found that he was without any spiders on his neck or arms... With the excitement over, she started feeling the cold through tore her dress, and she longed for a bath.  She shivers in the cold as she powers down and then she turns to see that Keaton/Ketefe.

"Hello, You OKAY?" Bambi asks the Keaton, but she was gone.  She hears some noise of Jeremiah's transformation. 

PBH

[Boog]

Meanwhile, on the couch, the not-Jeremiah felt itself panic. With the spiders removed, some of the additional parts used in its construction would fade soon and it would return to normal. It only had so long to complete things...
No longwinded cackling this time; he lit up with white flames like a bar of magnesium. He stood up, shrugging out of his tweed coat as a grey substance poured down his face and shoulders and hardened into a mask. His teeth grew jagged and sharpened, two of them becoming huge, venomous pincers. His skin changed from green to splashed patterns of black and orange. His eyes became like those of a drowned man, black and jellylike, and more eyes opened up in a seemingly random pattern on his already severely altered face.
A cubi's shapeshifting is a fairly elegant process of wings twisting and flowing together over the body. This was a disturbingly organic procedure, gristly crackles and pops accompanying the bulge growing on the back of his neck, and the eight chitainous legs that grew from that bulge and reached to the floor. His arms and legs were longer, yes, but supported by these spiders legs they still dangled over the cold stone of the castle. The beast opened its mouth and cackled like gunfire, following after Stygian along the wall. As Mother ordered...

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel's gaze drifted to the room as Sebastian mentioned snow. Why was the room full of snow? She ran a hand through the snow on the bed. Even at home where it was consistently cold they didn't keep snow indoors. She'd be wet very shortly if it wasn't removed. A wind came up within the room. It twirled around the space pushing snow ahead of it like a dog herding sheep. Soon it ended up against the long window facing the balcony. One hard push and the door swung open, snow flying out like a mini blizzard. With all the snow gone and assured that she would stay dry, Mel took Sebastian's other piece of advice and let herself drift into sleep.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

In the Ballroom

Bambi watches and then following Keaton's stare at her back and turns again at the sleeping ah Frog?

"Bad Bad Froggy... No cookie!!!" Shouts Bambi as fires off magical attrack at the escaping  Spider-morphied frog.  Bambi is not about to let him leave this time.  Flying to the spider, and attack it to knock it out.

"NO Cookie No cookie!" she yells with each fist-size fireball at the big spider. The explosions of her attack echoes through the castle. and knocks the spider to the ballroom floor.

PBH

[Sunblink]

All Keaton could do was watch in increasing shock as Stygian unleashed his fury on the disguised canine.

In a flurry of fists and arms the canine was flung back and forth, knocked about like a pingpong ball until he was lying face-flat in the snow, bruised and battered. Things moved far too fast for Keaton to keep up with, almost with a brutal grace, but the results were a testament to what had happened enough.

"Oh Jesus," was all Keaton could say as she stared at the crumpled remains of the canine. Noticing that Stygian was leaving, she whirled around to face him and quickly dashed after him. "Hey, wait for me!"

--

Keaton followed Stygian, quickly dissolving her meticulous shapeshifting so that way she would return to normal. As her normal characteristics leaked back in, she skidded to a halt outside the door to Mel's room, allowing the remnants of the shapeshifting to fade. Once she was completely back to normal she started to open the door.

"Is Keaton okay?" Keaton heard Mel say, much to her infinite shock.

She came in simultaneous to the moment Stygian was reassuring Mel and explaining the situation to her. "Hey Mel," Keaton said with an uncharacteristic amount of shyness, ears laid flat and head-wings lowered in an almost submissive gesture. Even if Mel felt no ill will, she still felt personally responsible. "Are you doing alright?"

She realized that Mel had fallen asleep. Biting her lower lip, Keaton slipped completely into the room.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Angel]

Ketefe raised an eyebrow at the farfetched explanation Gareeku gave for the already confusing situation. "It'd probably take me a couple days to make sense of anything that goes on here," she muttered.

That was when Mel began to stir at last, and relief washed over the cat. She sighed a little in satisfaction, then perked her ears at Stygian's tongue-slip. What was he gonna say? 'Acquaintance?' Does he know Rynkura? That would explain why he gave his other name, but Ketefe didn't know why he used two names in the first place, so it may have just been a preference. She needed to figure out who she could ask about all this and get a reliable answer.

As the others chatted with Mel, Ketefe stood up and examined her mask - which was still tied around her wrist. Then she looked at the snow in her other hand. Back to the mask. The snow. The mask. Well, she did need to get the blood off of it, however little there was.

She walked over to one of the chairs, which was now snow-free thanks to Mel, and perched on it with her feet tucked under her. Then she untied the mask and experimentally rubbed melted snow on it, trying to wash off the blood. When Stygian asked where "the other newcomer" was, Ketefe looked up, unsure whether he was speaking of Rynkura or herself. Something occurred to her. Rynkura had been traveling a little ways, right? So she might have seen...

"Did you mean me, or Rynkura?" Ketefe spoke, standing. "Because I need to ask Rynkura something, too." For that matter, she might as well ask the others at some point. If they had seen anyone who looked like her, they'd remember. We're kinda hard to miss, Ketefe thought with a smirk.

Then Keaton walked in, and Ketefe's train of thought was momentarily interrupted.  Dropping the remaining snow and balling up the mask in her hands, she walked over to Keaton.

"Did you see Jeremiah? What's wrong with him?"

[Aisha deCabre]

Hearing Ketefe speak her opinion of the situation in the castle as well, the panther couldn't help but chuckle...that is after all what everyone had thought after coming.  "You will get a story on the spiders later," she assured the felid.  "It was much more of a situation than it seems."  She waved to Keaton as the jackal entered the room behind Sebastian.  At least she hoped that the others were as safe after their ordeal.

With another hum of relief, Aisha watched as Mel heeded Sebastian's words and fell asleep with relative ease, after ridding the room of the snow that had gathered on the furniture.  She could not imagine the pain the dragon had been in just earlier, but she could certainly imagine her elation at being alive and healed, and therefore able to sleep without the hindrance of extreme pain.

When the bat faced herself and Gareeku, she tilted her head with a bit of curiosity.  She too had caught something amiss with his presence with Rynkura...however she figured it was little of her own business.  Her mentor could very well take care of herself.  After craning an ear back to hear Ketefe replying, she sighed, wondering if the tiger would really enjoy taking much company at once.  Still, with a bit of reluctance, she nodded back to him.  "If you mean Señora Msh'taan, she said that she might be headed towards the library."

With a sigh, she stood again and hummed, glancing around the others and back at Mel.  "We should let her get some sleep," she informed.  Now that the situation was over, getting something to eat later did sound like a good idea.

*     *     *

Rynkura made her way through the halls and corridors of the castle, easily finding the stairs that she had used to get to the room.  While traversing, she watched with still fascination as the illusory snowscape returned to its true guise as the interior of an abandoned and foreboding palace, though still a palace it certainly was.

Much like Aisha, it hadn't taken the tigress long after the little exploring she had done to map out where she had been and where she still had to go.  With the cold dispelling, it was little trouble to find the library on the first floor.  She bypassed various familiar scents, that of blood and very faint scenes of death, events that she could only imagine have passed in the time before arriving.

Her staff clacking gently on the floor and echoing across the vast hall, the healer's gaze swept from far and wide and from low to high every detail encompassing the library's corners.  Dusty tomes lined the shelves, many if not all of them having not been opened for too many years to count.  Hm.  A good place to be, she thought and stepped further into the room.

[Boog]

The only warning the not-Jeremiah had was Bambi's cry of 'No cookie!' It snickered to itself as it twisted out of the way, picking itself up after the blast knocked it to the floor. "God bless fae airheadedness, eh love?" a confused expression briefly crossed his face as something occured to him, "That even a word?" He crossed his legs and propped up his head on one hand as his spider legs inched him back up along the wall. Gotta get into position, but not spook her, "Airheadishness? Airheadossity? Damn, what's the term for that anyway..." With a shrug, it launched itself from the higher ground it had gained toward the cat, aiming to strike her feet first. Get her out of the air, and out of his hair, and then a few poisoned bites and blows will finish it from there.
"Either way, thank god the lab coat was probably for show."

[Stygian]

Señora Msh'Taan. The girl had quite some respect for the tigress, thus. It was just a minor intonation, but that and her behavior told him what he needed to know. Stygian wondered for a second whether she was a harsh teacher or not. With what she must have seen, that wouldn't be out of the question. She had seemed rather gentle outward though.
   "Thank you," he said, with a nod to the panthress. Eating would come later. "I'll see you in the library then. I think I should take a few minutes just to see to that she is welcomed properly."
   He gave Mel a final glance, and then turned, walking out through the door and slipping away, for all intents and purposes vanishing.

   "Looking for something specific?" Stygian's voice came from the end of the row of shelves that Rynkura had just passed, perhaps a dozen steps behind her. She hadn't heard him entering though.
   The bat looked up at the books, and stroked the smooth wood of the shelf as he leaned on it, getting a reminiscing look in his eyes.
   "The first time I was here was with my mother. The only time, really. The second visit, I didn't really stop to admire the books. I think it looked different then. Bigger, somehow." Slowly, he turned his gaze toward the tigress.
   "I don't think I recall your face either. A relative, perhaps? The Caerules were solitary, but the family branches. Or maybe it is just business. I shouldn't assume you're here because of personal matters. But if you are here concerning business, I think I must dissappoint. I am of the family, but..."
   He shrugged, and smiled. Just that.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

The spider's eight legged attack down on her, causes Bambi to freezes with fear... And she wishes to be smaller.... Non-Jeremiah attack stabs Bambi's torn but empty Lab-coat and clothes into floor.   Has the Fae disappeared?...The spider just see a small green ball of light floating up.  Then a full blast of green hit the spider again from it.   Bambi as 10 cm tall green pixie blasts the spider again and again, and her attacks seem more pinpointed but still the same force, as they started burning off the magical morphic addition to the frog. 

"AIRHEAD AIRHEAD, BAD BAD MEAAN FROGGY!  NO FLY Cookies for you." SHOUTED PBH

PBH

[Boog]

Wasting no time, the not-Jeremiah picked up the shredded lab coat off the floor and hurled it in the now minimized fae's direction, letting it catch her attacks rather than itself as it skittered around to blindside her. "Fly cookies? I'll admit I'm being hurtful, yeah, but that's blatant speciesism," it reached out with hands splashed with orange and black like the rest of his body, webbed fingers cutting off all escape as they curled around the fae cat.
IMMOBILITY!
CONFUSION!
PAIN!
The not-Jeremiah held tightly, letting the toxins its slick skin was now coated with do their work.
"Heheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheh..."

[Prof B Hunnydew]

PBH burns a hole through her lab coat quickly, but flies through the hole and into the webbing in the hands... "Immobility, Confusion, and Pain" hits her but not as the spider would wanted.  With the pain, Bambi starts losing concentration her size starts to increase, but her fae fire also burns brighter torches and burns the hand that holding her.  She is still confused when she falls to the floor at her full size.   She rolls up onto her hands and feet away from the spider, but looking in the wrong direct to see him.

PBH
   

[Aisha deCabre]

Rynkura had not lost herself for too long in the silence and reverence to be kept in the grand room, idly taking her time in searching through the different book titles.  She neither looked for a specific title nor lingered on any particular one.  It was often how she managed to pass time, only passing her gaze across the dusty bindings until something seemed to catch her eye...and so far none had done so.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, having suddenly heard a voice as if out of nowhere.  She lifted her staff out of caution and glanced to where she heard it, and put it down again on the floor with a soft clack when the tigress saw that it was only Sebastian.  Again he came as something of a curiosity.  Rare was it that anyone would sneak up on her.  She chuckled lightly and shook her head, composing herself to listen to the bat's statements.

"Mm...this place as a whole seems that way," she calmly replied in agreement, feeling perhaps as intrigued with the castle as she had been when arriving.  The tigress paced slowly across another row, eye contact flickering between him and the shelves.  "To be quite honest I haven't much of an idea as to what I am looking for."

She turned back around to face the bat with an apologetic smile on her seemingly aged features.  "I am in no relation of blood to the Caerules, as far as I am aware.  But the lineage is known to me, as is this place...and as was some of their dealings."  Her voice became solemn and her gaze averted to the intricate ceiling.  "All too long ago for any business to probably be of significance now, perhaps.  In a way a part of the reason I came was to see for myself if the stories told were true.  Including that about its abandonment."

Rynkura's head lowered, and she caught his gaze again, silent for a moment as she contemplated his previous sentence.  "I cannot help but note that you said 'were', considering the Caerules.  They are gone but for you?"  Her head tilted curiously, but her emerald gaze was piercing, little shown of an innocent inquiry as much as searching for the truth.  "If I may be permitted to ask."

[Stygian]

To Rynkura's inquiry, Stygian just chuckled, and looked down for a bit.
   "They're gone, y es todo," he said, and then looked up again, facing the intensity of her green eyes head on. "I'm of the blood, but I think they would hardly have counted me as an honored son. Wasn't raised in a way they would have approved of." His smile was rather meaningful, right on the borderline of becoming a smirk. "But that business would have grown old, I have a hard time to believe. For a family who kept so many secrets, they sure had a habit of meddling in things."
   She had to be there because of what had happened between them and the Don'Chels. There was no question. And that the panthress would turn up too... And he was right at the heart of it. Did she know about his imprisonment?
   The bat's ears twitched just a bit as he heard noise from somewhere off in the castle, coming from the direction of the ballroom. And as it did, he just ignored it. Whatever happened there, he would let happen so that it would be easier to clean up later.
   "One might actually call it fortituous that they came to an end. Along with so many others. Well, all their 'business' at least..."

[Boog]

The not-Jeremiah snarled. It didn't have time for this, or it would fade away before it accomplished anything. It hurled a gob of stringy slime with a sweep of its arm, pinning Bambi to the ground. It skittered off in the direction of the damaged dragon while the lump of slime solidified into a tangle not unlike spider silk. Either hostages, or hosts if mother can be found, or possibly just easier prey. Either way, that's where I'll find members of the group in worse shape than this fae with seemingly unending stamina... It chuckled to itself, casting an illusion to blend in with the ceiling it snuck along. Oh, the fun to be had!

[Prof B Hunnydew]

"ME BE STICKY"..... A confused Bambi wonder why Why Is she stuck to the floor?    Her fae fire burns away the webbing mess from around her...quickly but she is still too confused to see what to do next.

"Spidy Froggy attack me why?" the confusion spell makes it hard for Bambi to think. Why Jeremiah is was attacking me... Is it Jeremiah attacking me?  A few moments pass, and she realizes that the ballroom is now empty  What was going on?

"Frog hurt, Mel bad, and Healer come and then..and then" remarks Bambi as she collects her thoughts and the confuse spell fades...
"must ASK MEL" said Bam and she get up and rushes up to the stairs to Mel's room. 


PBH

[Sunblink]

"Hmm?" Keaton barely registered Ketefe's question from where she was standing, her arms folded before her bosom and hips tilted. "Jeremiah?"

Oh, the irony of timing. Stifling a chuckle behind her hand, Keaton leaned against the wall, inclining her head in Ketefe's direction. "He'll be fine," she said, arranging her arms behind her head. "In fact--"

Before she could say much else, she heard a loud thud resonating from outside the door. Blinking curiously, Keaton lifted her finger to signal "one moment" to Ketefe, then walked to the door rather hesitantly. With a twist of her wrist she opened the door, then peeked outside.

Her hesitancy was certainly justified. The first thing she saw was Jeremiah, mutated and warped beyond recognition into a nightmarishly grotesque beast, and a very naked (what the fuck?) Bambi Hunnydew, pursuing the crambling, crawling beast.

For a moment, Keaton thought she was hallucinating, up until she was unceremoniously jolted from her stupor by the realization that Jeremiah was barreling right towards her.

"Oh SHIT!" Keaton exclaimed, rushing away from the threshold of the door.

Something to fight with. Something to fight with. She needed something to fight with. Stupid Sebastian, taking my mace... Keaton cursed her circumstances thrice over as she scrambled about the room in search of a properly heavy, weighty projectile weapon. Within a few seconds, something suitable landed in her field of vision: the wardrobe. Wings flaring, her wing-tentacles elongated and unraveled until they were sporting enormous, three-fingered claws with tapered, muscular digits. Each clawed finger of the wing-tentacles sunk into the wooden hide of the wardrobe as she hefted it upright, straining visibly as she carried it across the room.

Keaton transfered as much energy as she could into one swing as she flung the wardrobe at Jeremiah.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Aisha deCabre]

Aisha stood for a moment after Sebastian had left the room, watching Ketefe question Keaton about Jeremiah.  Her head tilted slightly in curiosity, wondering if something had happened in the ballroom while everyone was upstairs observing Mel's healing.  The masked felid had come originally to tell them of the frog's condition, after all...

With a last glance to the sleeping Mel, the panther sighed and briefly turned to Gareeku with a smile.  "We've done all we can here...we should see what's going on downstairs."  As Aisha grabbed her cape and tied it around her neck, she started for the door, where Keaton suddenly looked to be peering through the crack of it with caution.  After a moment, the panther could hear a few different sounds as well...scrabbling and running, respectively.

"What the heck...?" Aisha had started to ask, but she was cut off as Keaton reeled from the door, opening it to reveal a very disfigured Jeremiah, whom she only barely recognized as a result.  She grabbed her boomerang out of her belt just as the succubus flung the heavy wardrobe at the crazed spider-like beast, and she hung back, waiting to see what would happpen next while also glancing with obvious distaste at Bam's appearance.  "Stay out!" she snarled to both of them, standing near the doorway.

Needless to say, they probably weren't going anywhere if Mel was in danger of being disturbed.

*     *     *

Rynkura regarded the bat with a solemn and yet inquisitive gaze as he again spoke his piece.  In particular she noted the expressions he had shown when speaking about the Caerules, as if he had a particularly unpleasant history with them, or perhaps other than he had made his name sound wanted little in connection with them either.  The tiger's ears even quirked slightly as he used a bit of a forgotten tongue.

Still she had to nod with agreement when he spoke of their business.  "Es verdad?  Indeed, I guess a few things regarding them would have lingered even when their line did not."  She smiled slightly and turned to the shelf next to her, running her fingers and eyes along the spines of various books.

Her eyes then fell on a title and she carefully picked it out, curiously and thoughtfully flicking the pages back as she continued to speak and walk towards a table in the epicenter of the library.  "I humbly admit that I could not help but hear their name sometimes in my long travels, especially when I served advisor and a sort of...guardian to a dwindling line of adventurers.  Or the name of a certain lineage of demons in parallel, and even a few differing ones of angelic blood," she added with a hum and set the book on the table.

"I have been following connections for some time...not as a personal favor, but as a favor to those who have ended up unfortunate as to end up on the wrong end," she added with honesty, or as much honesty as she could while hiding names...after all she saw nothing to be lost.  "Often leading to dead ends.  Secretive, yes, I'll give them that," she chuckled and set her staff on the table where she sat down, then glanced back at the bat inquisitively.  "But perhaps it is fortuitous that they have gone.  You've lived here for long enough to know, I guess?"

Rynkura paused however to glimpse upward, where even through the stone foundations she thought that she had heard a somewhat heavy impact.  "Mmh, I hope that whatever is happening up there, it won't have to end up with someone hurt again.  Somehow I always imagine such a thing with Aisha," she muttered with a chuckle.