"Heh, thanks" said Janus as he sat on the ground, resting. "You never cease to surprise me with your magic as well. A light-reflecting silver lining? That's some impressive quick thinking right there!" he exclaimed. He then nodded in agreement to Shujin's suggestion that they go back to the guild and report on the mission. "I must admit all this sudden use of magic drained me of my strength much faster than i anticipated. Anyway, I don't think there are any more monsters deeper in the cave so I too say we go back; I don't want to make the Master think i left because i was scared or something...although I must say, he is a little scary..." Janus mumbled.

"Oh, alright," Nick said, standing up. He slunk his way back to the entrance behind the others, keeping silent until they made it back to the sunlight. As soon as they got out into the open, he perked up and his tail started wagging.

"I smell rabbits!"

Jayce chuckled slightly at how quickly Celia fell asleep, and continued to keep the fire going as she slept, stoking the fire more to make sure that they'd all be warm. Jayce eventually took a bit of bread from his pack and ate it, they had more than enough food for a few days, but even if they ran out, they had those fish and a flying dog to catch them.

Looking up, Jayce leaned back against the valley walls to look up at the stars. It was a pretty good night...probably a good sign since he'd heard some old fortune telling lady tell him about how the "stars show your fortune" or something. The hours flew by, and Noire had long since fallen asleep. Jayce kept stoking the fire, eventually cracking his back and standing up from his seat. Walking over to Celia as she slept, he lightly nudged her shoulder before saying: "Yo, Celia. You wanna trade off?"

VELOCITY DASH!

The cry of a spell could be heard throughout Middlemist as a green blur passed through the streets. The blue created strong and heavy winds in it's wake, but not enough to cause any severe damage. The user of the spell had used this powered down version of a much more powerful spell because she knew that she was in a populated area.

Nearing the Mystic Ram guild hall, the requip mage used her magic to send away her sword, do that the blur was now simply sliver instead of a mix of greens and whites. Without the sword, she eventually slowed down to a skidding halt in front of the guild hall doors. She smiled at herself and mentally scored her landing before walking into the hall, as happy as ever. "Hello everybody!" She said happily as she took not of who was there and who wasn't.

Celia murmured something about kittens invading Middlemist, before slowly opening her eyes at Jayce's request. Sleepily, she nodded, grabbing her stardust sphere and taking his position. "Sleep tight, Jayce." She smiled taking a seat and making sure not to fall asleep. At least she had the fish to watch.

Jax Theric finally entered the city limits of Middlemist and hefted the giant bag money over his shoulder as he finally returned from his month-long mission as a bodyguard. He smiled as it felt good to finally be home and wondered what everyone had been up to while he was gone which was why he wanted to get back to the guild hall as fast as possible. He short mage of only five foot four inches was carrying a bag of gold nearly as big as himself as he had seen fit to pick up some side jobs on the way back so that he would get enough money so he wouldn't have to go on any jobs for a while.

As he drew near the guild hall he decided that he should make a big appearance and activated his magic so that he grew to the size of fifteen feet tall. He than walked into the guild hall and threw down the bag of gold at the entrance before standing up to his full height. "Looks like I'm back for a while." He said before shrinking back down to his normal size and noticed a female mage standing near the entrance. "Hey there."

Jayce nodded as he took her place on the mat, resting his artificial arm to his side, and placing his other behind his neck, saying: "Good luck. Watch out for any kittens out there...course, you got Noire to take care of that." before closing his eyes. Noire, at the mention of Kittens, perked her ears up in her sleep and whined a little as she kicked her left hind-leg. Jayce fell asleep within a matter of minutes, occasionally snoring slightly as he rolled in his sleep a bit.

Ceryl walked through the town, munching at a corn on the cob. He still had a bit of money, but not enough to last forever. He kept walking till he saw the guild entrance. Mystic Ram. It would be an opportunity to meet new people, and more importantly to earn more money. But would they accept a child to join them? The only way to find out would be to go inside.
Ceryl thought about what impact this decision would have on his life. Sure, he could become close to people again, but what if they were lost too? Could he deal with the trauma again? No regrets, thought Ceryl as he entered the guild hall.

"Aw, I like kittens, though..." Celia whispered dejectedly before returning to gazing out over the stone corridor. If anything did happen, like falling rocks, she'd simply set up Heavenwall around them or, if it was something dangerous, try and scare it off with Nebula Rain.

The night was uneventful for the most part, until a distant shaking and scuffling got Celia's attention. "What the...?" She whispered, before the early morning sun illuminated a large arachnid form coming towards them, shuffling around the walls. "Oh no...oh no... Jayce! JAYCE! WAKEUPTHERE'SAGIANTSPIDERHELP!" Celia screamed, erratically shaking him. The giant beast must have been disturbed by their shouts and Noire's flying around. And it looked rather angry approaching them. Knowing that she'd have to slow it down, Celia got into position as it was closing in. "N-Nebula Razor!" She shouted, as crescent blades of stardust shot out of her sphere, the projectiles scraping the spider's exoskeleton without much effect. In fact, the arachnid was even more agitated now, and was scuffling even faster.

Jayce was having a pretty nice dream before all this happened...involved just cruising through an endless desert in a Magic-Vehicle designed kind of like a Ferrari, racing desert-racers and Noire was poking her head out the window the entire time. Tongue wagging and everything. She even had a little pair of sunglasses on. Of course, the dream came to a screeching halt just before they were going to ramp off of a mountain range out of an exploding volcano when Celia shook him awake. Getting up, he held his forehead with his left hand before muttering: "...Celia...is just a spi-.....Der." ending it off as his eyes went wide at the sight of the giant spider skittering along the wall. Surging up and out of the sleeping roll, his hand dove into his pouch and emerged with three lacrima crystals; One Red, one Blue, and another Red, all held in the openings between his fingers.

"...Of all the things to wake up to..." he said as he quickly shoved the lacrima into the opening and cocking his forearm. Holding his palm up to the approaching spider and saying: "Combination charge...:Steam Vent" before a jet of scalding hot steam erupted from his palm, shooting straight towards it in a cone. Noire snarled at the thing and used her glyph to initiate her spider-form, her appendages wisping behind her as she poised to strike once the steam lifted.

A terrible shrieking emitted from the hot cloud, as it's dermal armor was burned and softened somewhat. It's giant appendages swung in front of it in an attempt to disperse the thick steam, and it eventually succeeded. The spider guardian furiously bared it's fangs to the trio, viscous venom dripping to the stone below and causing it to sizzle. "Acidic venom..." Celia muttered, trying to formulate what to do. The acid would probably melt through her Heavenwall after a second hit. The magic would only be able to repel so much of that stuff. Nebula Razor might work, but after the first try she didn't feel too confident. Maybe the underside...

"Jayce, Noire...I'm gonna try something. Keep it busy for me!" Celia winked before dashing off. "Starboost!" She said as her feet became encased in a bit more stardust from her orb, allowing her to glide speedily towards the spider. Before it could lunge forward, Celia dashed up the wall and was able to ride the wall to the back side of the spider. On it's back were large, webby pod, writhing and squirming. She swore she heard calls for help... "The travelers?!" Celia exclaimed, before refocusing and charging up a Nebula Razor. If that were true, she needed to wait for an opening to cut them down and get them to safety.

Jayce squinted slightly as the arachnid cleared the mist, muttering: "...Just go down already!" before looking at Celia as she told them to keep it busy. Smirking slightly, Jayce simply gave her a thumbs-up, saying:"Alright, you got it Celia!" Looking over to Noire, she instantly understood what to do, and began running towards the thing, shifting through a glyph to enter her beetle-form. Her muzzle extended out into a massive chitinous horn, and her legs grew sturdier, her torso getting bulkier as she ran towards it.

As Noire collided with it, the thing's entire body was pushed into the cavern wall, Jayce began running towards it, his right arm lowered as he stuffed two lacrima, one brown, and one green, and, once he came upon the pinned spider, he punched it square in the mouth and said: "Combination Charge: SANDSTORM!". As he cocked the forearm back with his free-hand, rubble from the canyon started to lift and draw itself to his arm, spinning rapidly around it and grinding against the face of the spider at high-speeds, like a sand belt.

[Been a lot of double posts lately...]

The spider writhed in pain as the metal gauntlet, sharp stones, and the beetle-like Noire assaulted it's form. It struggled and cried out, but was unable to fight back from the daze. Celia took her chance and launched her blade, curving it to cut all of the webbed bundles down. Using the remaining stardust, she used Starboost to move them out of the way. She was starting to feel her magic waning, and she knew that this would have to be dealt with fast.

However, the spider had recovered, and was no longer willing to take a beating. It reared up, and used it's front legs to swing at Noire and Jayce, even with the sand blinding it slightly. Celia was busy charging more earth with magic, gathering as much as she could. The spider took notice, and used it's spinner to ensnare Celia's leg in web. 'What the...WOAH!!" Celia shouted as, with one jerk of it's thorax, Celia and her cloud of stardust were sent over it's back and dangling in front of it's face. It's dark eyes and fangs were restless, and about to devour her, before she whispered, "Sorry...Nebula Razor!"

With that command, multiple small blades were sent into it's eyes, causing it to let out a horrendous noise and fling Celia into a wall. She slumped to the ground, the world spinning and beginning to fade. "Fi...nish it...Jayce..." The girl whispered once more, before falling over. While she had considerable magical energy, enough to shield her from broken bones and serious damage, the force combined with exhaustion of magic were enough to make her fall unconscious.

Jayce leapt back once the spider started swinging its front legs around in a blind attempt to get them away, though Noire backed off, she reared herself up again for another strike. Then, before the two could even react, Celia was caught, and managed to escape by cutting the thing's eyes to shit, but it looked like she slammed into the wall pretty hard. Looking somewhat shocked that she took the blow suddenly, Jayce stared at her for a moment before his expression turned angered. Opening the slot in his forearm, he pulled out 5 brown lacrima and shoved them in. The dust and debris from his sandstorm attack all converged back to his arm, and then some. In fact, chunks of the wall were coming off, and by the end of it, Jayce's arm was coated in thick, rocky armor that made his arm look ridiculous in comparison to his body, being roughly the size of his torso. Barely able to keep it supported with his other arm, Jayce looked at Noire and shouted: "NOIRE! JUST LIKE WE PRACTICED!"

Noire, none too happy about her friend getting a concussion, didn't waste any time before sprinting over to Jayce, lowering her head and picking him up and tossing him onto her back. Jayce held on for dear life as she shifted into her spider form, and began running up the wall, Jayce's rock encased arm dangling slightly. Once Noire was directly above the giant spider, she wrapped her spidery-appendages around Jayce, and she flung him straight down, as fast as she could. Jayce simply raised his fist above his head and once he was above the Spider, shouted: "LACRIMA CHARGE: ATLAS IMPACT!" as he brought his massive and weighty fist straight down onto the spider's head, smashing it into the ground.

pyroman said
"Hello everybody!" Sasha said happily as she took not of who was there and who wasn't.

Caroline looked up from the sea of papers and writing tools she was using to write out a complicated series of magic equations. "Hello Sasha," She said distractedly before lowering her head back down, tapping the compass she was holding against her neck. A few minutes later she growled in frustration and stood up abruptly, throwing her hands (And the compass) into the air.

"Forget this, I'll just do it and fix the bugs later!" Stepping out into the center of the room, she threw her arms out to her sides and brought her hands back together in front of her, pounding her fist into her open hand. "False Requip! Windrider Cuirass!" She yelled, closing her eyes. Light spread from her hands up her arms, then enveloped her whole body, lingering for a second before bursting into bubbles, leaving Caroline dressed in a peculiar armor shirt. The garment was made of sky blue leather and adorned with feathers on the pauldrons. The artifact mage twisted to look at the back, and seemed satisfied.

"There, see? It didn't explode." She took a step back towards her table, which is when she discovered that the ground no longer wanted to hold her weight. Her foot never fell back to the floor as she floated upwards, tilting forward slowly in a perpetual front flip.

"No, no, no!" She cried in frustration, "You're not supposed to do that until I jump, and you're definitely not supposed to make it permanent!" As she turned in the air, she started cursing violently in several languages, only a couple of them still used by most people. "It's not disappearing, somebody get me down!"

Ceryl observed the situation. Some idiot playing around with requip magic had got themselves stuck on the ceiling. He thought about how to help her. If the power was coming from the armor, why not requip something else?
"You have to take the armor off! Put something else on!" shouted Ceryl at the person on the ceiling.

Caroline glared at Ceryl. "Oh gee thanks! I never thought of that. You probably missed the part where it's NOT disappearing!" She struggled a bit more in her armor and pushed herself off the ceiling, floating downwards like a balloon before bouncing back up, much to the amusement of her fellow guild members.

"Ceryl, make yourself useful and pass me up the Enchantment notes. That's the one with all the squiggly equations that you can't wrap your head around, much less replicate into a solid, three dimensional object from scratch." The sarcasm in her voice dripped from the ceiling like venom.

Jax watched as Caroline struggled to get off the ceiling and couldn't help put let a laugh escape past his lips. "No need to get hostile Caroline. I could hold you on the ground until you finish what you need to do." As he said this he moved to the right underneath the floating mage and infused titan magic into his arm which he than reach up to the ceiling and grabbed a hold of her leg. He used the elastic property of his arm to drag the mage down to the ground as his arm returned to it's normal length. "Please don't tell me, I have to keep a hand on you until you fix this problem." He said with a sigh as he looked up at Caroline who was floating just a few feet above still being held in place by Jax's hand on her leg.

Caroline smiled at Jack. "At least somebody is being helpful. Just put my feet of the ground, it should recognize that I've "completed my jump" and return me to normal weight."

Once she was planted firmly on the ground, she grabbed her notes (without moving from her spot) and read over them.

"Here it is." She said at last, pulling a pen off the table. "I placed the dismissal command inside an unused loop, so it never checks for that." She erased some of the writing on the page, replacing it with a shorter piece. After commuting the new code to memory, the armor vanished. Caroline sighed in relief and sat down at the table again, immediately absorbed in her work again.