“Alright er... Marianne... D'ya know where we are? 'Cause we woke up here and... Well, we don't have any idea what happened..."

The black-dressed girl sighed, shaking her head in slight apology. Her gesture was that of a kindly mother lightly scolding a child. She didn’t want to, but she had to inform them that, unfortunately, her services would not to be free or even required.

“I’m afraid there’s not much to say Doctor Sharpp,” she said calmly.

Something was off. She had correctly guessed the man’s name. Either that or she somehow knew from prior meeting. Did that mean that she knew everyone’s names? That she knew everyone’s background too? But wait, that didn’t make any sense. No one was powerful or even talented enough to be omniscient. Just who was this girl?

No. It had to be a luck guess.

“Ah, but I can at least shed some light on this place. It’s the best I can do for you now I’m afraid. This manor is constantly changing its interior space; as such, you will all have to move quickly and consistently if you want to get out alive. Right now, you’re all up for the Collector’s amusement and research. Something about finding extraordinary beings. That’s all I have to say on the matter now.”

Marianne’s smile softened as she glanced at Lucinda’s wary expression towards her.

“Do not be so concerned Lucinda Grey. I don’t think you have anything to worry about yet…oh you’re a shape shifter, aren’t you? How interesting…I would recommend you not leading this group the group too far into danger now.”

The girl’s single red eye flickered once.

“I am neither an enemy or an ally but…well, I can at least warn you about the Fauns. They get so rowdy at this time of day.”

Fauns? What Fauns?

As if summoned by her mere words, several conglomerations began to emerge from the very walls. Dark arms lashed out to towards Lucinda first to hold her in place as still more shadows leaked out onto the ballroom floor.

Each patch of gray matter soon formed into a tall Faun, their goat-like legs being a creepy contrast to their distinctively human torsos. Shackles seemed to be locked around their ankles and wrists, and a large collar lay dormant around each of their necks. The creatures soon held out large crossbows, loading sharp arrows with a wet, green tipping to them.

But what was perhaps most haunting were their faces. Featureless gray masks that complimented their equally monochromic bodies stared back at the group, lying still just below their goat horns. Moving in packs, the mass of Fauns surrounded the group rather quickly, each taking aim and beginning to fire off their volley of arrows.

However, each and every one of them seemed to be ignoring Marianne. Could they not see her? No…by the way their body movements registered and tensed up, it almost seemed like…they dared not approach her at all.

Marianne did a graceful twirl as the sounds of conflict soon rang in her ears, giggling sweetly.

“Oh my! How interesting…those arrows do look pretty nasty. Why don’t you show us all the power of your potential Mr. Anari? I’m sure you want to kill something soon, right?”

The room changed to a large ballroom. Not really a place where Anari normally found battles, but he was in attendance of a few duels in such places. Twas a shame that he was never part of those battles. Here in this strange place a woman Marianne was sitting casually. Anari immediately pegged her as an opponent, or at least a person who will be causing them much trouble in the future. Her femme fatale persona made Anari edgy. It would be people like the doctor who would fall for her willies, Anari figured. Marianne than started talking about things that were already immediately obvious, like the mansion changing shapes. Though this "Collector" fellow seemed to be the final boss of this place, so Anari made a note to have the group slay this person at some point in their future.

And that's when the goat men arrived. Armed with what looked to be poison tipped crossbows Anari reacted defensively. He transformed himself into a large tower shield with a rifle mount, which will allow the Doctor protection from the arrows as well as a means to fire back at the enemies. "Finally! I hope you can kill just as well as you can heal Doctor! Don't fear those bleated goatmen though, they aren't line firing. Once they shoot their second volley, engage them in melee and I'll cut them down!"

For now Anari was still going to remain in his Shield and Rifle form, to give the Doctor some protection and to counter fire. Once the doctor would attack however, Anari was ready to transform into a sword, mostly so the doctor wouldn't need to lug around the ten pound tower shield, but also so the doctor had a more appropriate melee weapon to fight with.

”I don’t think you have anything to worry about yet…oh you’re a shape shifter, aren’t you? How interesting…I would recommend you not leading this group the group too far into danger now.”

What did she mean by that…. Lucinda pondered but shook it off at the woman’s next warning. It came too late, the shape-shifter quickly finding that she was being restrained by a pair of the fauns. The woman struggled against their hold, eyeing their weapons carefully but not showing any detectable traces of fear. Merely thrashing would not do the trick and so Lucinda let her arms shift, bone and flesh becoming cold and unfeeling steel as her arms turned into a pair of blades.

In a swift motion the two fauns were cut down, blood gushing in pools around Lucinda’s feet. Now that she was free she turned to see how the other’s fared. “Shit.” She cursed, realizing how outnumbered they were. In a flash of silver motion Lucy turned back to their attackers, a fire of determination and a spark of insanity in her eyes. Then with a yell of fury she took off at inhuman speeds, her blade-like arms cutting any arrow out of the air that descended on her.

The first faun she came across did not even have time to blink before her arm came across it in an arc, slicing it in half before twirling and cutting into the flesh of the handful around it. Blood coated her as she fought, her blades swirling with deadly accuracy, and even through the death she smiled widely like a madwoman.

Acting quickly, Doc kept the huge shield in front of him, taking the gun in his free hand. The shield was heavy, definitely not a normal shield. As the fauns got closer, Doc pulled the trigger. He watched as the goat-man broke in to several pieces of flesh. Luckily, the shield protected him from blood as well.

"Jesus... You way an awful lot..." he muttered as he moved to the side, lugging the shield with him. He fired the gun a few more times, flinching each time a faun got close. One faun got right up to the shield, and Doc shoved the shotgun right into it's stomach, letting the bullets propel it back. He didn't quite understand what was happening, aside from the fact that he was fighting for his life right now.

"Alright, now'd be a good time to change!" he shouted at Anari. The fauns had been getting much closer, and though a shotgun was good for closer-range, a melee weapon would be far more helpful. As they got closer, he dropped the gun for a moment, lifting the shield, and swinging it at the goat-men with all his might. They didn't die or anything, but he could tell it scared them. He picked up the gun again and backed away.

Those who were unfortunate or simply too slow to avoid the volley of bullets were soon consumed into a sea of spraying blood. Throughout it all, Marianne continued dancing to the sounds of battle and conflict, the gunfire itself seeming to have avoided the black dressed girl. And when the onslaught did almost reach her, they recoiled at the last moment, as if being repelled by some unseen force.

Noticing the human and sentient weapon now retaliating against them, the Fauns soon turned their sights onto the shape-shifting girl. The biggest threat right now seemed to be the girl, and so that was their intended target. Taking the living weapon’s glee of destruction as its sign of distraction, two fired off arrows in rapid succession towards Lucinda.

By now, the girl had since freed herself from the shadows that binded her and both wooden projectiles were sliced apart in mid-flight. Startled, they soon backed off but it was too late. Death took them as they were sliced to bits under the attack. Realizing that this group was to be taken seriously, the masked menaces soon backed away from the battle scene, melting back into the walls of which they came.

Soon, all of them had fled and retreated. Apparently they were not out for blood, merely to startle and stun their prey. After all, it couldn’t have been that easy now could it? As the battle soon came to a close, Marianne giggled as she looked around at the captured group’s expressions.

“Well? Wasn’t that fun? At least its all over, right?”

A sudden roar soon shook the ballroom, as the sound of thunderous footsteps suddenly became much closer than they all realized.

“Opps! Never mind. Guess this is where you start running. Or fighting.”

Walking over to the corpses of the dead Fauns, Marianne paid no heed to the monstrous growls that filled her ballroom. Instead, she snapped her fingers and summoned forth a pool of dark orange beneath each and every body. Pale arms crawled out and took a hold of the lifeless creatures, soon dragging them into the depths below. All of it only took a few seconds before Marianne snapped again and it was over.

Gone with no trace.

“Yes, those will prove to be very interesting…” she muttered to herself.

The roar continued to bellow throughout massive ballroom, ringing out into a hollowed snarl. Marianne only chuckled once before something large slithered into the chamber. Something…what was it? Where was it? It could be heard but it was not visible to the eye…

Suddenly, it lashed out. With a might heave, it grabbed Lucinda in its mighty claws, heaving back and tossing the machine onto the ground roughly. From hearing, it sounded like the unseen creature was now charging right for Doc and Anari.

Marianne giggled at it all, her single seen crimson eye glowing eerily as she saw what they could not.

“How interesting…an invisible creature? Dear me, but that sounds rather bad."

"Ah yes... This feels nice. Feels right."

Anari said as he returned to his favored hobby killing. The doctor was a bit clumsy, but since he wasn't dead yet Anari supposed he'll have to do for now. When those Fuans got too close Anari did as promised and changed into a sword. it was much more catharsis to feel himself sink into the flesh of these goat men, but unfortunately the doctor only managed to cut down a few before they retreate.

"Bah! What a pity. We were about to show them what it felt like to be lambs led to a slaughter!"

But the fight wasn't over yet. A roar shook the room, first grabbing one of the others and tossing her aside. Anari could heard it's mighty footsteps head in his and the doctor's general direction, and Anari could not see what it was. Even as bloodthirsty as he was, he knew a battle that could not be won when he saw one. But he had an idea. "Doctor, throw me in the general direction of that noise! Do it quickly, and run!"

Doc shifted his weight, the roar of the creature filling his ears. He heard Anari's idea, but if he missed, it would all be over. For him, at least. And he wasn't going to die today. But Marianne seemed to know a ton of information, that of which they could all do with knowing. He heard the creature get closer, and took Anari's idea and made it reality. He tossed the sword up a bit, caught it by the blade, and threw it like a spear, hoping that he through it in the right direction.

"You better be right Anari..." he muttered in a gruff, deep voice.

Without waiting to see the results, Doc shouted to Marianne. "If-When this is over, you have a helluva lot of explaining to do, lady!"

Lucinda slowed to a stop, watching with confused eyes as the fauns disappeared and retreated. “Go ahead and run!!” she yells victoriously. Her victory was short lived though as a rumbling roar vibrated through the room. Something was coming and whatever it was didn’t sound good. The shape shifter braced herself for an attack, eyes locked on the door that was mere feet away. She hadn’t expected to be thrown across the room however.

A scream left her lips as she fell through the air, her breath catching in her throat as she collided with the marble. Lucy’s body convulsed, her lungs forcing up a mouthful of blood which, if she hadn’t rolled over, most likely would have choked her. For a few moments the woman merely heaved up blood, the iron taste coating her tongue as she tried to get herself together.

What the hell was that? she questioned, finally getting back on her feet. Her eyes roamed the room, locking onto man and his weapon. It seemed the creature was going after Doc.

Lucinda forced herself to move, wanting to stop the creature before it could strike again, but as she ran towards them the pain from her previous landing started to rear its ugly head. She kept moving though, only to blink in confusion as Doc threw the sword like a spear. A vicious and angry roar sounded as the sword hit the ground, the blade now dripping with a small amount of blood. It seemed they nicked it and when she looked over at where the creature had been she could make out a faint gash of red floating in the air. In seconds it disappeared, becoming invisible like the creature itself. From the looks of it the creature only paused for a moment before again slithering towards Doc, leaving the sword forgotten behind it.

The shape-shifter let her right arm go back to her usual flesh covered limb and as she passed the blade she pulled it out of the marble and kept running with its hilt tightly gripped in her hands. I should probably get this back to Doc. she thought, meaning to do just that once he was close enough to catch it. Then she’d help him fight the beast.

"If-When this is over, you have a helluva lot of explaining to do, lady!"

Marianne watched the struggle in wonder, giggling at the man’s sudden promise for answers. Of course, she would only reveal secrets if the ended up surviving this first encounter.

“Yes…this is really quite interesting…”

The enigmatic girl watched in excitement as Lucinda was sent flying. First the girl, then the man…no wait! He’s throwing the sword! The creature’s been injured! Oh, but they’re no closer to killing it. A shame. Suddenly this whole dance was starting to become boring.

Sighing, she walked over to where the invisible creature was presumably at. Just like the Fauns, the large thing payed no heed to her presence, instead choosing to direct its offenses solely on Doc alone.

“You seem to be having some trouble there Doctor Shrapp,” she said casually, smirking at the frustration the human must be experiencing no doubt. Resting one hand on the bottom of her elbow and the other on her pale chin, the black dressed girl looked over at the still fighting form of Lucinda, now wielding the sentient weapon in hand.

How amusing.

“Dear me, your companions seem to be rusty when it comes to survival situations like these. Perhaps it was a good thing you were all kidnapped so indifferently? I mean, what do your lives matter anyway? If you can’t even handle something like this…oh well. Maybe next time.”

Marianne turned to go but paused, looking back at the Doc with shining eyes now.

“On the other hand…I could help you right now for a…relatively small fee.”

Doc was not phased by the semi-failure of the attempt to kill the invisible creature. Now he was mad. Really mad. When Marianne offered help, Doc scowled at her.

"A normal person would give us the help without payment. Go to hell!" he yelled angrily.

With only seconds to come up with an attack, he suddenly got an idea. Maybe he could temporarily blind the beast. Yes, yes that might work. He raised his hands high above his head, shutting his eyes tightly. His hands began to glow. Either this would heal the beast, or blind it. The spell was usually used for healing, but if he concentrated hard enough, he might just be able to just summon the light of it.

Without any more hesitation, his hands began to glow extremely bright, as a small ball formed inside of them.