III and IV - Phoenix Wing Hotel
The assentation came from Sadie the Empress, the mothlike woman holed up in the cellar of Phoenix Wing since her comedic display of ineptitude yesterday. For several minutes now she had been the audience of a strange chorus of murmurings from nowhere, and they evidently led her to this conclusion.
Gil gave a dazzling, shark-toothed smile.
”Your move, cupcake.”Rolling her eyes, Sadie wove her magic. This time, she herself transformed into a weapon: a gorgeous scimitar that looked as if it had been made of stained glass and adorned with fur, with brilliant shades of yellow, orange, and green. The sight pleased Gil, who stooped to pick up the extraordinary sword, feeling its familiar, perfect balance and heft. He stood up in the tiny plane offered by the prison lacrima and assumed an expert stance that totally discredited the amateur show he’d put on before. He gathered himself, then attacked the air, slashing this way and that maniacally. While at first it seemed that nothing happened, the dimensional slashes of Gil's blade began to cut holes in the walls of the lacrima. Once the breaking point had been reached, the miniature world popped like a bubble, depositing the Emperor in the cellar. He ascended the cellar steps and approached its door. After a moment, he executed a single diagonal, upward slice, though the blade did not touch the door. A moment later, however, it became clear that
something, some razor-sharp force, had been enacted by the sword, for it slid forward and then fell to the ground with a thundering
clomp, perfectly cut.
Gil stepped out into the main room of Phoenix Wing, and gave a cheeky bow to the shocked members watching.
”So sorry to reject your hospitality…but we have places to be! So long, pillocks!” Waving, he turned and dashed out the door, upon which he spread his wings and fluttered off into the sky. Just like that, the Mystic Beasts were gone.
In the early afternoon, the two Dragon Fang mages standing guard for the cell of lion-headed Imani, captured yesterday by Hunter Jorgenson, began to hear odd whispers coming from inside the chamber. Try as they might, they couldn’t quite grasp what they were saying, and when they looked inside, Imani appeared to be staring off into space. None of it made sense—particularly when the two guards were suddenly and inexplicable drawn towards each other and
into each other. A pulse of light spread through the Dragon Fang hall, and at its epicenter now stood a single woman where two stood before. With some bizarre magic, Imani had fused them together.
There was method to her madness, however. The fused woman, a brute half again as tall as her two components, thrashed around wildly. In her rampage she cracked the cell door, allowing Imani to slip away in the ensuing chaos. By the time the fused woman had been calmed, the Beast was nowhere to be seen.
XI and IIXX – Riders Blade Hotel
From the locked basement, strange noises could be heard. Aside from worrisome, unintelligible speech, the rush of water and the sound of tremendous feet could be heard. Even after accosting Nausica the raven and Koro Kai the bear yesterday, the members of Riders Blade had no idea what to expect from them.
They certainly didn’t expect for a perfectly sturdy and whole cellar door to be there one second and torn off its hinges the next, along with the hotel main entrance door as well. From the looks of it, a lumbering giant had battered his way through, though nobody had seen any such thing happen. When a guard rushed downstairs to see where the prisoners were, they found nothing but ankle-deep water, still swirling hypnotically around and around. Koro Kai and Nausica were nowhere to be seen.
X and IXX – Iron Enigma Hotel
The whispers came subtly. Lightly they swirled through the dry cellar air, elusive and puzzling, but Lockheart listened with rigid, solemn attention. Finally, she broke the suffocating silence with a long, heavy exhalation.
”Sounds like the head honcho’s calling it off. Lakota dear, get us out of here please.”The oversized harpy developed a bloodcurdling grin.
”My pleasure.” With very little difficulty she snapped her ropes and stood upright. Moving to the nearest wall with Lockheart idly in tow, Lakota flexed, and her feathers and clothes burst into flame. She placed her talons on the wall and began to heat up. As the fire kindled within her, the air grew hotter and the underground chamber grew brighter, until a noise of latches from above indicated that the guard posted by Iron Enigma smelled something fishy. He rushed downstairs to see what was going on, just in time to see Lockheart smile and say,
”Wheel of Arthropods: spin!” There was a puff of smoke, and in that instant the guard transformed into a centipede. Lockheart looked at it over her glasses.
”Boring. I like the color pattern, though. It’s no cow-sized, two-headed spider, but not bad. You fired up yet, Lakota?”In response, the Sun unleashed her pent-up flames, completely incinerating the wall and leaving a path out into the street. The two strolled out into the afternoon sunlight, side by side, and the people in their way cleared the path.
Since their capture yesterday, the Lovers had remained deep in the grip of herbal sedation, even as battle and demonic forces raged in perilous proximity. At last it appeared as if things calmed down, with Isla and Argus being given a larger cage to sit in rather than cells in a tent, and the noble Lieutenant Bolganone on guard. All of them not only thought the danger was over—they wanted it to be true, however ‘bored’ Argus imagined he was.
It was not to last. As if jolted by electricity, the boy and the snake came alive. Jann sat bolt upright, while Naomi rose on her coils, hissing at both ends. Without any hesitation whatsoever, the Lovers rounded on Argus and made as if to attack him. Instead, they were blasted by dark energy, meant in self-defense, and not anticipating what it would cause. As one, the Lovers cried out in pain, and the very air seemed to curl and writhe. The impossible reverberation of the awful sound warped the glass cage until it shattered, and every tent nearby was thrown into disarray. Ange, possibly the most stunned out of anyone, collapsed backward off her stool. For a few moment more, the Lovers shrieked in awful harmony, until a dark, smoky shape rose out of the ground behind them.
”Took you long enough,” the Hanged Man laughed before grabbing the Lovers, and all three burst into water and vanished.
I and XIV – Tough Love Hotel
The strange-looking travelers who looked remarkably like a snail and a stag, Mycroft and Numa, checked out of the hotel without incident.
