The man smiles at Meryn and helps her get people out of the chimney. The man has jet black hair and intelligent looking green eyes. A playful smirk stays plastered onto his face, like he has a funny joke that he's thinking about telling someone. He has a tall and lanky build and his ribs poke out from his clothing- which seems to be made of potato sacks. He also has a nasty looking scar on his chin- perhaps he had gotten it in a fight?

Suddenly, the man leans over to Meryn and whispers quietly yet rapidly into her ear,



Diego looked at her and shrugged. "Trust me, doesn't make much sense to me either. Reveal the information to them only if absolutely necessary," he whispers, as he hoists the soot covered princess from the chimney. However, he says these last few words loud and late enough for Ian to hear them.

Marzipan carefully got to her feet, continually checking the back of her head with her hand. There was blood yes, and a lot of it, but it was a head wound. Those tended to bleed a lot more than they warranted most times... at least she thought so. Her mind felt muzzily, and although she'd made her way into a standing position the room still bucked and swayed around her and she staggered to the nearest piece of furniture to brace herself against... the couch where the woman sat.

Had sat, rather, as she seemed to have gotten ahold of herself. Which Marzi was very grateful for, as the woman had been caught up in the throws of the most intelligent wailing and it had been rather unbecoming of a woman of her supposed stature. She was high class, Marzipan could tell that much, and whether she was a princess or a lady she should behave like it... Even more so if she was a Queen like she said she was.

But mostly she was grateful that she'd stopped making that awful racket as her head was pounding hard enough to make her nauseous. It was hard enough to focus on what everyone was saying and staying upright at the same time.

Marzipan had just opened her mouth to introduce herself, only to yelp and flinch away as the lady, Queen, lept upon a man with a roar of furious rage, an arrow flying over her head as she ducked and crouched below the arm of the chair.

The lady's mercurial nature was very unsettling, and everyone in the room was understandably jumpy- what with the bodies, blood, and the sound of fighting just outside the door. As if on cue, the sound of the battering ram crashing into the door rocked through the room- making everyone jolt and flinch in alarm and anticipation. Fight or flight.

The group was moving towards their only means of exit, but Marzipan was still crouched on the floor. Frustration seeped into her, she was stronger than this! If only she could regain her senses, and she gave her head a hard shake- only to instantly regret the motion. Okay, no more shaking. Shaking is very very bad.

Slowly crawling back to her feet, Marzipan swallowed and made her way to the chimney- not the last one to do so, but nearly so. Hand upon the cold sooty bricks, she looked up and watched as the flue tunnel weaved about, and felt her stomach drop with dread.

"I um," Marzipan licked her split lip and spoke to those around her, "I don't think I can make it up on my own..."

"Trust me, doesn't make much sense to me either. Reveal the information to them only if absolutely necessary." Ian had just set foot an an uncomfortable roof. The man seemed friendly and so did the woman. The words that the man said bothered Ian a bit though. He would have to ask questions later though, after they were away from this mess. Ian used the inside of his shirt to wipe the black soot off of his face. He would have to take a shower or bath, whatever they did, later on. Ian began to help the two get people out of the chimney. Apparently there was a long line that followed after him. The Queen was helped by the man. Ian reached his hand down as far as he could, waiting for the next person to grab it.

That girl knows something, and I will ask her what she knows later. While Ian didn't often let things get to him, he knew he was in an extremely real situation. Foreign land, foreign people. It sure as hell was nothing like Ireland. He wasn't even sure if all of these people would stick together. He did know that the decision would be made once everyone gets into the woods. He was curious to find out if these rivers had a village of some sort. Of course, with most of everyone's apparel, they would be lucky if they didn't get seized by guards and thrown into a dungeon.

Jacque had begun to sigh in relief as whatever sort of bizarre rage Julia had come under dissipated, however the sigh was interrupted rather quickly by a sharp inhalation as the door that his arrow was embedded in was shattered by someone outside. Jacque hurriedly shouldered his quiver and bow before snatching up the box and scrambling towards the chimney. His ascent would be stopped by one of the others making mention of the fact that they would likely have some difficulty going up the chimney. Normally Jacque would have simply told the woman to either try to or stay behind for whatever was about to enter the room, however he realized that he too would have his own share of difficulty ascending the chimney thanks to the box under his arm. The man quickly glanced back, growing increasingly concerned with the shrinking window of time for an escape. And then, an idea occurred. "I'll help you up. Just hold this over your head." He grunted before roughly shoving the box towards Marzipan's person. A scraping sound could be heard from within the box, followed by a hissing noise, not unlike the sound of dead leaves rustling as the occupant of the box took issue with being roughly moved about..

The first thing that Nikolai felt from his position was the fact that he wasn't wearing pants. Or a shirt. Or, more importantly, a blanket.

Confusion flickered for a moment as Nikolai tried to make sense of the previous night's events. He didn't think that he'd tried to kill himself with the drink, so his wicked headache wasn't explained. Nor was the thick and overpowering scent of blood, and the sound of foreign tongues alongside the din of metal on metal. Those definitely weren't commonplace as he woke up. The only thing that really made sense was the comforting weight of his trusty handgun, which he stuffed down the back of his pants every night before he went to sleep.

The Russian gave up trying to guess where he was, and sat upright. He didn't recognize any of the people or the corpses, and his pants were nowhere in sight. That left only one course of action. He stood, pulling out the pistol from the back of his underwear. His threadbare underwear left nearly nothing to the imagination, and displayed the absolutely massive coils of muscle that ran the entire length of the Russian's legs that bulged and stretched as he stalked up toward the chimney, gun in hand. Piercing blue eyes bored into the back of the woman who appeared to be quavering by the chimney. He spoke three words in a deep, rumbling voice that sounded like it belonged to some sort of great and vengeful beast: "Где мои пушки?"

Over the next few minutes Jason started to have the horrible realization that this was not a dream. Everyone else was far too fleshed out, they were actual people, not just archetypes. He touched the sharp end of a sword and it hurt, you weren't supposed to be able to get hurt in dreams. Jason was only vaguely aware of what was going on around him, that everyone was exiting via climbing the chimney. He took some deep breaths to center himself and not lose his cool. He figured his best option would be to just stay safe and ride this out until....whatever it was the brought him here placed him back home.

Moving himself to the chimney, he grabbed a sword and it's sheath off a dead body and moved it to his waist. In his martial arts classes they used a Bo Staff and Nunchucks sometimes, but never swords. Still, Jason hoped the skills would carry over and he would, at the very least, be mediocre at swordplay. Jason was one of the last people up the chimney, grabbing someone's hand who was helping everyone out. "Thanks man, I'm Jason by the way, from Canada, you?" He figured he'd speak normally now that he knew this wasn't some strange dream. If they were going to get out of this, they'd at the very least have to get to know each other.

Zenia perked up at the mention of these 'crystal rivers' they sounded fascinating and if the queen's cut off statement was correct they could grant some sort of power, having power of some sort would be very helpful in surviving in this strange world. Her eyes quickly scanned the room again keeping track of all those it in, just in case some of them were not as friendly as they appeared. It seemed some of them had the same idea as one girl made her way into the chimney and a man quickly followed. Interesting. One of the 'servants' named Jason spoke up inquiring as to their names. "I'm Zenia R-" she cut off before listing her last name, that information wasn't really needed here for several reasons. One on principle you didn't give out your last name, second; if this was indeed not a dream then being able to fill in her last name as needed could be helpful for forging a new identity.

She continued over her brief pause "Zenia, and this is Julia." Zenia noted Julia staring at someone who had decided to grab a sword and point it rather aggressively at them. Immediately she saw Julia's eyes shift in color to that, probably quite often reoccurring red, and began to take offensive action. Zenia observed worriedly, she couldn't exactly get in the way for fear of getting hit by the queen nor should she do nothing while the queen potentially was harmed. Her inactivity let the action continue without her as an arrow slammed into the wall breaking the queen out of her rage, she noted the wielder of said arrow and bow for future reference. Zenia was surprised by the sudden emotion swap of the queen, interesting, it seemed her emotions where much like the colors themselves, ready to change with the addition of anything new.

It seemed the general idea was to flee up the chimney, Zenia frowned, she wasn't sure she could pull that off in particular with her asthma. Usually it didn't act up but with all the smoke there... She decided to wait until last or close to last to get up. As she waited Zenia was soon greeted by the sight of a ferocious mountain of a man with little more than his underwear on. Which her attention to her own clothes, to her surprise she was wearing little more than spandex and a sports bra, oh well, she could deal with that later. Her Russian was very rusty but she thought he had asked where his guns where. A little confusing since he had a gun. Maybe she could talk to him, "Я не знаю, Мы друзья Пожалуйста, следуйте." Zenia said gesturing up the chimney hoping she was vaguely understandable.

"Thank you," Marzipan said earnestly as she took the box. It was lighter than it looked, although the insides shifted and moved... like there was something living inside. Still, it didn't matter to her what was inside the box, only that she could lift it, and she hefted the small crate with expert care. While her head may still be rattled and her senses addled, her arms were strong and her grip unfailing. Even through the jostling and awkward assent, there would be no chance of her dropping it.

Reaching the opening, with one hand Marzipan cast about for help climbing out of the flue. The other still clutching the box, and she was utterly unperturbed by the hissing sounds coming from within. Of course, there were more pressing matters. Like keeping her balance on the steeply angled roof.

They were free of the room at least. Now what? Would they go leaping from rooftop to rooftop? She sincerely hoped not.

As soon as Ian felt another hand, he pulled with his strength. He lifted the man with ease and looked him over. No facial hair, odd eye color, and black hair. "Thanks man, I'm Jason by the way, from Canada, you?" He seemed like a rather nice fella. But if Ian was taught one thing from his own father, it was that first impressions aren't always everlasting. This is the only lesson that made Ian cautious around others. "Ian, from Ireland..." Ian knew his voice gave it away, but he felt a little comfortable to state where he was from.

There were a few people that were on this roof that he wanted to learn about. In Ian's mind, the woman and the man that whispers too loudly were priorities. He would have to find a good time to confront them as to what they were talking about earlier. Either the woman or the man, maybe even both could have some information to get out of this peculiar land. While Ian always wondered what the time period was like, he was not comfortable with sticking around forever. All he could do was be prepared. If this land were to be where he finished out the rest of his life, it would be that way. For now though, Ian would have to survive.

Meryn started a bit when the man – Diego – was suddenly hovering directly over her, whispering in her ear. His words, an explanation of sorts, only brought more questions than answers. Who was the Alchemist? How did this man know her name or that she couldn't speak? What was this prophecy that rang in her ears, echoing with a clarity that made Meryn certain she'd be unable to forget it? And why couldn't she tell the others? But then the moment was gone, and the man had turned his attention to the chimney like she had, as though he'd never said a word. Meryn was frozen as she stared at him, as though she could read her answers in his face.

But then the presence of another man pulled her from her thoughts. Meryn moved to look at him and help, only to see him staring at her with a too intense expression. He knew. Or at least, he knew that Diego had been whispering to her. A shiver ran down her spine under the weight of this man's gaze. Meryn, a proud little thing, couldn't help but raise a chin a bit, matching his stare before turning back to the chimney to help the others out. There was no time for this. She didn't know this Diego person or if he could be trusted. She didn't know any of these people, or what was going on. All she had to focus on was getting to safety first. She could sort out the rest later.

As the uneven roof grew more and more crowded, Meryn looked to the crumbling ramp again. She told herself again that it was the only option, but panic crept up her throat. At least they knew what dangers lurked in the castle. Who knew what called the woods home? Gritting her teeth, Meryn crept around the other people, careful to keep her balance. The wall that would be their bridge to "safety" seemed… unsteady, to say the least. Meryn knew she was more than capable of crossing it, but still. It was a long way to the bottom. Giving a soft huff through her nose, she placed a foot on the first few bricks, testing them. They were steady enough. Then she kicked off and began her path to the ground.

Bent arms out to her sides for balance, she scurried, light footed and quick, down the ramp. Every now and then a loose brick would wobble or even fall away, but each time she simply hopped to another section of the ramp and continued on. Down, down, down until finally, her boots met grass. Meryn let out a sigh of relief. She turned back up to look at the others behind her. Hopefully they'd manage down just fine. She reached up a hand and waved a few times, hoping they'd take it as a signal to come down. Then she turned and moved to hurry into the woods.

When his blackened head was finally out there under the open sky, a wave of disappointment and confusion struck Habb: he expected at least some freshness of the air, and a light breeze perhaps, but all he got was smoke and fumes rising up and a foul scent of death -- though not as strong as in the room-- in his nostrils. What caused his confusion, and awe too, was the landscape: an alien landscape, strange to his eyes, but peculiarly beautiful... Or so it would have been if the bloodshed below hadn't spoiled the impression it left. Puzzled, Habb rubbed his face with his cloak to remove the soot from his eyes and lips.

Being one of the last people to reach the roof through the dark chimney shaft, Habb had little time to rest before their descend began. The girl who had first seen the chimney route as a means of escape was already down -- How did she...? -- and was waving at them. Habb knew that without his bag of utilities he would have to take the good old way down instead of using more tricks to ease the path; but there was nothing he could do about it, so he went to the ramp, trying to figure out the safest way to reach the bottom.

Carefully, he tested the ramp, knocking down a brick.
"Whew... That is not as safe as it looks," he said and the brick that had fallen shattered as it hit the ground.
"Somewhere between 1500 and 2000 feet, I would say."
Having mustered his courage and collected his thoughts, he warily stepped onto the menacing ramp, and his steady drop began. It certainly took him more time and more sweat than it took the agile girl down below. When his feet finally touched the grass after what to Habb seemed to be hours of playing with his life, he lay down, breathing deeply in relief, enjoying a weak ray of sunshine that penetrated the grayness that almost blotted the sky.

Diego turned to Jason and reached out a hand for him to shake, "I'm Diego Lumumba Vasquesa Lorenzo Montana Respendal Leniendo the Third, but please, just call me Diego," he said. "I come from... erm... Australia..." he said, as if he wasn't quite convinced that's where he actually came from.

*****

Suddenly a man popped out from the edge of the woods. He was holding several... paper grocery bags? He seemed so out of place. He was wearing jeans and black shirt proclaiming he was a fan of The Who. He had earbuds in and scruffy gray hair. He nodded at Meryn, like she was an old friend of his and he was simply acknowledging her presence. "Hey Meryn," he said in a voice loud enough for both her and Habb to hear easily. "I'm the Alchemist. You can call me Nick. Diego told you didn't he? I knew he would. Anyways, take this stuff. You could all use a change of clothes. I don't know why, but sometimes people end up in their underwear. Weird, eh? Also, before you ask, the dresses are necessary for the women, at least until you go swimming... well some of you anyways," he put down the grocery bags- there was nine of them, each with a different person's name written on it in sharpie marker. The males all had simple clothes, but the women were given fancy dresses. "I didn't get anything for Marzipan," he said, "there wasn't enough time."

"Gotta scram. See you around Meryn. Good luck!" said Nick, waving to the rest of the group and then running off into the woods. Suddenly, there was a flash of dark green light and he was gone.

Jackie heaved herself up onto the roof with little apparent effort, noting that she had kept in shape nicely from her time in the military. She glanced down the crumbled section of wall and then out across the landscape. There was a bit of a sense of freedom, Wherever they had ended up her past was far away and she was with a group of strangers that knew none of it.

While not quite running, she took the ramp at a pace higher than those that had gone before. Shortly before reaching the bottom she had the presence of mind to wipe the look of glee from her face and replace it with the look that her most recent colleagues had coined her 'War Face', a cold look that showed absolute focus on the task at hand. She'd quickly learned in the military that people instivly mistrusted those that smiled as they looked at the face of a dying man.

Nikolai's intensely burning gaze shifted over a few feet to look at the second girl as the first one vanished up the chimney. He looked a bit taken aback by the sound of his language being butchered. For about half a second. The massive man snorted, then pointed from the chimney to his broad shoulders with his free hand. The deep rumble of his voice was slow and measured, as if talking to a child. "Я не впишется, девочка." He gestured to the rest of the room, which had rapidly emptied, save for the ridiculous amount of corpses. "Даже дверь мал для меня." He paused, considering his options for a fraction of a second before he restored his pistol to its rightful place down the back of his threadbare underwear.

"Я просто хочу, чтобы подняться по лестнице. Вы выполните. Или нет. Я не волнует." The giant snagged one of the fallen men's helmets as he opened the door, taking his sweet time as he strolled toward the din of battle.

Habb kept silent the entire time while the bizarre man with an even more bizarre shirt came from the forest and disappeared back into it in a flash that reminded Habb of some of his magic trick. He had called himself 'the Alchemist'. Habb knew alchemists, but this man looked nothing like them. It was about that time that Habb started fully accepting the fact that he was either dreaming a very lucid dream, suffering from a horrible mental illness of some sort, or bewitched by some sadistic evil (the theory that seemed most plausible to him). Whatever it was, the fellow from the woods confirmed the reality wasn't the one Habb was used to.

The paper bag with his name on it contained a weird set of black clothes and some fancy looking shoes, as well as an odd plastic bag containing something that was supposed to go around his neck, as the image inside of it suggested. There was a paper tag inside of the bag saying: "Suit up!"

Meryn froze when yet another stranger appeared before her looking… weirdly normal, actually. He smiled, greeted her by name, and promptly shoved a bunch of bags in her arms. When he introduced himself as the Alchemist, Meryn perked up. This was the man Diego said had brought them here. But before she knew it, he was turning around to leave. After a moment, Meryn managed to unfreeze herself. Dropping the bags in a pile on the floor, she dashed over them to follow the Alchemist into the woods. She only ran a few yards though when suddenly there was a flash of green light.

Running to where the man had just been, she turned around, looking for any sign of him. She gave a small huff and slammed the side of her fist into the tree next to her. He was gone. Damnit, she didn't want dresses or prophecies, she wanted answers. She wanted to go home. Meryn dropped her hand back to her side and turned to walk back to the edge of the forest. When she returned she saw one of the men from the room looking through a bag. Meryn just looked down to glare at the pile.

Suddenly, the door burst burst open sending splinters at the only three still in the room (James, Nickolai, and Zenia). Seven men covered in a copper colored armor holding a large battering ram stood in it's place. After getting over the brief surprise of finding two people standing their in their underwear, the men dropped the battering ram and drew swords, except for two who were wielding spears. "I speak on behalf of Voltar, leader of the Claws of Anarchy! Surrender now or you will be killed." The clattering of metal was still there but was now distant. Clearly, most of the fighting was over in this area of the castle. Which meant their was the potential for reinforcements to aid these seven men. Well, if you could even call them "men." Five of them looked like completely normal people, however one swordsman was not only very large (A good two or three inches taller than Nickolai), but also had green skin and a abnormally large lower jaw. One of the individuals holding a spear had the head of a bear and seemed to be Nickolai's height.

After having gotten both himself and Marzipan up onto the roof Jacque reclaimed his box and tied it to his waist before crouching and trying to peer over the edge of the roof. He made a point not to lean over too far however, knowing that all it would take was a strong gust of wind to send him toppling over to his death. He'd seen such a thing happen to many animals in the mountainous regions he occasionally passed through. "What I wouldn't give to be a mountain goat right about now." He muttered as he followed the others downward and onto the ground below and away from the castle.

He would hardly get a reprieve from further weirdness as a fairly mundane looking gentleman wandered out from the tree line to deliver a greeting and, grocery bags? "This day continues to get stranger, no?" He grunted before he picked up the bag that was labelled as his. The contents of the bag where rather nice by Jacque's standards: a cloak, a dark grey wool shirt, similarly grey cotton pants, and a rather nice pair of boots. It was all certainly nicer than the patchwork of poorly sewn together pelts that Jacque normally wore. The man wasted little time stripping down to his boxers to change despite the presence of the others, caring little for anything that could be said of his actions. Once he was fully dressed and had all of his possessions in place Jacque calmly placed the old pelts into the bag and looked to the rag tag group expectantly, "So, where do we go from here? I'm open to suggestions.".

Zenai had to resist the urge to forcibly facepalm, of course that mountain of a man couldn't make it up the chimney without breaking it. He wasn't Santa after all. She was about to say something else when the door was suddenly broken down by the troops outside. Zenai barely stopped herself from looking at the chimney and hinting at where the others had escaped. Really she was being quite stupid today, a glance at the 'Claws' and she saw that she had no chance of winning a fight.

The Russian however did have a gun... The gun most have at least 6 bullets in the chamber if she was luckily 9. Either way if the Russian was some sort of military trained man he just might be able to shoot his way out, but even then they would have to fight their way through the rest of the castle then escape. Technically these 'Claws' didn't know they were enemies, they were just being cautious, Zenia could probably cook up some sort of story that was plausible enough to at least keep her out of some sort of dank prison.

In addition of course she doubted that the Russian would be doing much giving in even if he understood English, lucky she had arrived in a world where english was at least a primary language. Just in case she decided it would be best to attempt to explain, "Of course I will surrender though I have no idea where I am, one moment please while I explain to my friend." She said in a calm voice then said to the Russian, "Um, Они хотят, чтобы отказаться.", of course even she could tell what the big man thought of her Russian, being patronizing was universal after all, but clearly it was understandable which was good enough for her. After all she had only been learning it for around 6 months.

Interesting assembly of races, there seemed to be some sort of orchish creature and simply a large human with a bear head, though that might just be ornamentation. "Though I'd request as terms of my surrender that I'm adequately clothed." She said smiling and gesturing and her lack of decent apparel. Guess there was some value to sleeping in your clothes after all. Zenia hoped the Russian would give it but had a sinking feeling he was more of a fight to the death guy, oh well, if nothing else her calm acceptance should throw the attackers off guard if the giant man did decide to attack.

Ian soon realized there was no one else that would be coming out of the chimney. He looked towards the last step towards escape. The quiet woman went down easily, a few others had a bit of trouble. When no one else went, he did. Ian took his first few steps with caution. He then continued with ease. Unfortunately, a chunk of the makeshift ramp slid off where Ian had stepped. He was still high enough to fall and get seriously injured. He slipped and just grabbed hold of the edge. Ian took a deep breath and lifted himself back onto the ramp. There was no rapid heart beat nor was his adrenaline or breath increased.

As soon as he got to ground level again, he noticed a pile of bags, all labeled with names. Two men were digging through their bags already. One even stripped half naked to put his clothes on. The quiet lady stood there staring at the pile. Ian wasn't exactly sure what to do from here. He stood for a while and then knelt to the ground. Whatever was going on here was probably the weirdest thing that has ever happened in his entire life. The man that stripped half naked, was now wearing medieval clothes. "What the hell do we do...?" Ian whispered these words to himself quietly. He wasn't sure if anyone heard them.

"So, where do we go from here? I'm open to suggestions." Ian wasn't sure about what exactly they should do. After a few moments of silence Ian spoke up. "Do we split into groups?" He knew it probably wasn't the best idea in the world. But he thought if they were all together in a group, it could cause controversy. It could cause suspicion to the locals. In these times, all they needed was suspicion and a though, and it could get you executed. This is what Ian was worried about.