@Terminal@Holmishire

Groaning with exasperation, Donny walked ovet to Arriet and held out his hand. In it was an incendiary grenade.

"Yah nevah know when yah maght needah set somethin' on fiyah. Go awn, take it."

After interacting with Ariett, Donny glanced over his shoulder to count how many folks were watching the trio.

@Terminal

Kael yelps in pain and ends his enchantment, holding his eyes. It felt like they'd been hit with precise taps by a red-hot hammer... "Gaaah...ok then, none of that I guess..." He blinks rapidly, making sure they were still in working order. And on top of that, their mission was as clear as mud and their chances of survival apparently nil. Lovely. He heads toward where the others are going, being sure to take a pass by the paviseless knight while he was at it...were his eyes golden now? Not Ethereal sight, judging by his own experience...whatever. He holds out the shield he had salvaged before to the knight. "Here. If you're accompanying us, you might want a full kit." Since after all, his last shield had been turned into doom incarnate...

"Here. If you're accompanying us, you might want a full kit." Since after all, his last shield had been turned into doom incarnate...

@Cruallassar
"Oh. Thanks." The knight replied, gingerly taking the pavise by its sides in both hands. "Uh. Sorry for trying to kill you earlier. We were pretty sure - Hiecro and me that is - that you and that girl were proxies. This whole situation is just..." He shook his head, the golden light pouring from his eyes blooming with intensity for a moment. "...we thought that just because we weren't told about you that you were a suspect - and then that gearhead turns out to be a proxy all along despite being one of the people we really were supposed to retrieve? Madness." He moved the pavise to his left hand, sliding his arm into the mounted straps on its back before straightening up. "I guess if nothing else we don't need to worry about them turning on us anymore. Maybe it thought it would kill more of us in the sphere by gibbing itself like that. Uh." He coughed, turning his head to glance between Donny and the open door leading into the university proper.

"If any of you find weapons on one of the bodies, bring it to me, please. I'll probably need something to break any security systems acting weird."

@Doc Doctor@Holmishire@WiseDragonGirl
"About that. I know this will sound really stupid, but maybe we should consider splitting up in there? I mean, what Aesch told you does not really cover just how freaky Leona is, from what I heard just before the lockdown. If Donny and I and Sir Fortune can't handle her, at least the rest of you might be able to get the Duke or some of the others out safely. Let Aesch burn the whole place down with her trapped inside." He looked around warily. "Where is Sir Fortune, by the way? He sort of vanished on us..."

@Bright_Ops
The tongue-mounted centipede wriggling out from the widened maw of the man who choked on his own mettle chittered sardonically, a note of scorn somehow permeating the echoing, cohesive voice it conjured with its rubbing legs as it addressed Fortune. "You seem out of place. If it is the Coward's Heart you seek, it may be found yonder; trail but back out. Perhaps this task is too much for you, little mote?" The small centipede uttered a rattling laugh. The husk it extended from raised one shaking arm to point with a wobbling digit towards the void behind Fortune, out across the landing pad and its current carpet of viscera, bodies, and shattered gears. One by one, without any fuss, the miscellaneous bits and pieces of debris were turning to black and bleeding out of the air, soon to leave nothing behind. It seemed mere remnants could not survive in this place. What precisely the husk of the man who choked on his own mettle was gesturing out remained out of sight, obscuring by oblivion - perhaps it could see what he could not?

Fortune reached up to attempt to clasp at his head through his plated helm; One moment he had been fine, but all he could seem to feel was a molten spike of pain ramming itself into his brain. The pain was blinding, causing him to stumble a little on uneasy feet as he fought to remain standing while being blind and ignorant to the world around him and what was going on within it.

Like all things through the pain started to pass and ebb away, his vision clearing in turn... to revel the rather horrific sight of a speaking demonic centipede like creature poking out of a man's mouth, choking the poor bastard with its presence. Unfortunately for it, it made one critical mistake; Among its insults, taunts and 'helpful advice' it implied that Fortune was a coward.

He didn't even bother listening to whatever filth it was spewing, reaching down to pick up the blade that he had dropped when his head felt like it was melting in order to aim a swing to decapitate the monstrous centipede. "Burn in whatever pit spawned you vile creature!"

While not exactly what she would have hoped for, Ariett accepted the proffered grenade graciously before addressing the pavise knight. "We're just as likely to run into Leona as you are; I'd say we're safer together, for now. Once we have a better understanding of the inside, we can split up then."

As she spoke, she saw Fortune prepare to attack Aesch—but he struck faster than she had time to react to.

Andy made an agreeing sound at Arriet's suggestion. "The only thing I can do to protect myself when I stumble upon this Leona is flirt," he stated a small smile. "While that can be effective, I wouldn't want to be my only option. And Aesch did say it was Arriet's task to open the locked doors for us. If she'll go with one team the other team will be stuck at the first door with one of those fancy locks. Unless Donny will throw a grenade at it, which I don't believe is the best way to go through the doors." He noticed how Arriet looked back and when he turned to see what she looked at, he saw Fortune swing his sword.

He didn't even bother listening to whatever filth it was spewing, reaching down to pick up the blade that he had dropped when his head felt like it was melting in order to aim a swing to decapitate the monstrous centipede. "Burn in whatever pit spawned you vile creature!"

The blade's tip sliced cleanly through the hideous, writhing creature - its head separating from the rest of its body. The man who choked on his own mettle was oddly still despite the injury, unmoving as the centipede's head drifted off into the void, leaking a trail of black ichor globules.

A moment later, the husk of the man who choked on his own mettle took on the texture of soot, cracks growing across his form before it simply came apart and blew away in every direction, a brief flurry of its ashes vanishing into the darkness without trace. The centipede's head likewise disintegrated, leaving naught but the visceral shadow of the man who choked on his own mettle. It began to shrink, imploding in upon its own iridescent heart - soon reduced to naught but a single frail mote of light, casting the faintest pool of detail across the cobblestone path it stood upon.

The remainder of those who were fated to die and the one who felt no loss experienced their own uncoiling - the surrounding burnt hall took on a texture less burnt and more stonelike, akin to petrified wood - and then they were all buried in a flurry of disintegrating ashes as the world came apart around them, leaving nothing behind.

To punctuate their loss, the cold sun then blinked off. One moment it was there. The next it was gone.

Much like the ground, which gave beneath their feet, shuddering like a layer of tar before giving way like a snapping plastic lid. Nobody fell - merely drifting in the darkness.

Quivering in that dark, the faint mote - all that was left of the man who choked on his own mettle - uttered its last words.

"If they do not come, why build?"

Then it, too, was gone - leaving those who were fated to die and the one who felt no loss drifting, relatively helpless and without direction in the hideous, empty world.

"My my. They must really want you dead."

A feminine figure bled out of nothingness, its form edging into what little was left of reality like ink staining paper. She stood perhaps 1.8 meters tall, with a somewhat full and unathletic build. Her face was pleasantly rounded about the checks, but angular and narrow from her forehead to her chin. Her hair was wavering jet, drifting loosely and freely in this world absent of any kind of cohesive force. She wore a black coat with light gold trimming over a red shirt, along with khakies and a pair of long black boots. Her eyes were a hard metallic gold in coloration, and she was giving those who were fated to die a predatory smile - revealing her notably pointed canines.

"I was not expecting you for...at least a little while longer. I suppose their patience could not be contained." Her voice was somewhat bemused, containing a trace of surprise heavily buried under layers of smug contempt. She drifted freely, seemingly with full control over her motion despite the absence of anything to propel her, until she was roughly halfway between both Fortune and those who were fated to die - approximately three meters out from both parties.

"Well, you were tasked to slay me, yes? Go ahead. Here is your chance. Try." She turned to lock her gaze with Donny explicitly, granting him a softer and seemingly apologetic smile.

Somewhere in the darkness, a soft sound had emerged. A faint humming. Rather than coming from all about, it seemed to originate from a particular direction - somewhere below them all, poised a ways beneath the golden-eyed woman's feet - though what it was coming from could not be discerned. Whatever it was, it was completely hidden in the darkness of the world.

Apparently he was wrong, the world could get weirder. Even better, it seemed to have completely vanished now. He hung in the nothingness, trying to comprehend what had happened here, when a figure appeared. Judging by what this woman said, there was a fair chance this was Leona. Of course she hadn't vanished, why would the one dangerous thing disappear with everything else?

"Oh, I wasn't tasked to slay you," Andy said, his voice almost casual, but he had a tired look in his eyes. "I was asked to come so I could take care of a Kanuri boy, all the other things were more or less added afterwards, in a 'since you're here, could you do this too?' kind of way." A resigned smile appeared on his face and he sighed. "Quite frankly, the one who gave that task vanished. I don't see any of the wounded I was supposed take care of, so I'm going to see if I can work my way down and see what that humming sound is. For the slaying part you have to be with the armed people."

As the... thing faded away, Fortune was surprised to quickly discover that the world itself seemed to disappear with it. There were no doubt writers or artists that might have been able to properly capture what it felt like to watch the world disappear into nothingness in front of your very eyes, but Fortune wasn't one of them.

As he drifted weightlessly in the void with far fewer people then whom he had started this twisted journey with, a part of him wondered if he could have done something differently... to have acted in such a way as to save at least one more life before this whole facade had fallen apart. He suspected... In an instant he caught himself, blinking in surprise as a revelation reveled itself to him in this moment of nothingness. The world he had just been in had been designed to make those apart of it suffer... and there was no greater question that caused suffering then to ask oneself 'What if?'

However, they weren't alone for long. A figure soon joined them; Her figure suggested a woman who had either been born or married into wealth and fine dining, but the way she swam in the nothingness... the fact that she had appeared to them out of the void itself was a dire warning in and of itself.

And it seemed content to let them 'try' to kill it. Was it bluffing or was it merely some kind of game? Rather then strike out and risk it, he decided to ask a pointed question. "Are you done? Are you finished finding amusement out of this twisted game?"

Floating in the ether, Ariett shivered. She no longer deluded herself with the concept of reality—she was either dead, drugged, or dreaming, and none of those brought her much comfort after all that she'd seen.

The humming bore into her, and she felt irrationally drawn to it; whether physically or psychologically she could not tell. Instead, she tried to focus on the woman before her, yet another creature brought either to guide them or lead them astray, likely no more real than the ground upon which they'd previously stood. Nevertheless, she willed herself to float towards the woman. "What good would killing us do you now? We have no way of leaving this place, and nowhere left to go even if we could."

"Oh, I wasn't tasked to slay you," Andy said, his voice almost casual, but he had a tired look in his eyes. "I was asked to come so I could take care of a Kanuri boy, all the other things were more or less added afterwards, in a 'since you're here, could you do this too?' kind of way." A resigned smile appeared on his face and he sighed. "Quite frankly, the one who gave that task vanished. I don't see any of the wounded I was supposed take care of, so I'm going to see if I can work my way down and see what that humming sound is. For the slaying part you have to be with the armed people."

@WiseDragonGirl
"The Kanuri boy...?" The woman repeated with a deadpan expression. A moment later, recognition flashed across her face and she broke into a light laugh - a deep and rumbling sort of sound, completely alien to human vocal cords - it sounded almost strangely like a very low-pitched purr. "Oh yes, the little riddle master..." She abruptly snarled. "I killed that third-world trash. Thinking he was better than me..." She sniffed haughtily, bringing her right hand up to her face and...

She licked the back of her own hand. Four times. It seemed almost like a reflexive habit. Each motion was long and languorous, drawn out deliberate. With the odd woman's mouth fully open, her severely pointed canines were now in full view.

"Are you done? Are you finished finding amusement out of this twisted game?"

"What good would killing us do you now? We have no way of leaving this place, and nowhere left to go even if we could."

"Oh, but you're wrong about that little mote." The woman Ariett a generous smile. A smile that showed nearly all of her teeth. They seemed larger than normal. "All you have to do to leave is to reset the Fractal Analogue Iteration Transistor. It just happens that you will have to kill me before I permit that." She smiled primly at Ariett as the other woman willed herself to drift forward - and began to do just that.

"And of course, this instance is far and long too gone. You silly little morsels never stood a chance - our encounter was preordained, and we share a little something in common..." The golden-eyed woman reached out with a lazy hand, five short but sharp razor claws erupting from the tips of her fingers to dig into Ariett's shirt with a firm grasp, little scathing the belated visitor's skin. "I too was fated to die." She rasped. "I too was sent here to suffer. But you meager little chops did the impossible and turned that right around. I can leave at will now. Her grip tightened, and she drew her face closer to Ariett's, leering all the while. She was breathing deep, heavy, panting breaths - that smelled strongly of rot and refuse. "It is only fair I should reward you...but I am still a creature of its own nature made. Not even Hubris to my benefit deserves such rich privilege. Let us see...if you lot are as good at riddles as that little shred of a brat was." She let go of Ariett, shoving her forcefully back through the air.

@Bright_Ops@Doc Doctor@Holmishire@WiseDragonGirl
"You may each answer separately or as a party with each other. Answer incorrectly, and you will be mine. Answer correctly...and you may leave." The woman grinned again - a predatory expression, punctuated by the lustful manner in which she licked her own chops a scant moment later. "Or, if you're perhaps a touch more curious...instead of leaving...I will answer one question truthfully in turn for each right answer. That is your purpose here, yes? Treacherous little secrets and tender little screams of pain..." She hunched over in the air, her arms rearing back, the fabric of her coat seeming to bulge as hidden cords of muscle impossibly surged just beneath the surface.

"Or maybe you would like to squirm a little more first...?" The woman's voice practically rolled with a continuous, humming purr of a sound, continuously building up in the back of her throat as she spoke.

@Terminal

Kael's impression of this whole situation was, impossibly as it seemed, actually getting a bit clearer now that essentially the whole thing had fallen apart. This reality was actually resembling something a bit closer to what he had expected of dimensional magic now, as opposed to...well...an alternate world entirely. He slowly rotates himself to face this new enemy in an upside-down manner. "Um, not to rain on the party or anything, but if you are now free to leave...and do leave...then what's to stop us from resetting the whatever it was you said afterwards and leave ourselves? Seems like that's a win-win situation."

Andy's eyes became dark and cold when he heard Leona killed Tafans and how she viewed him. While he heard every word Kael said, he paid little attention to it. Almost immediately after Kael finished, Andy spoke up. "If I may interject," he said with a voice as cold as his eyes. "He might be right," he stated, gesturing towards Kael, "and as fun as riddles sound, killing Tafans was a bad idea. Tafans' uncle is a witch doctor and he put a curse on the boy. Not one aimed at him, but at anyone who would do him harm. After all my visits to African tribes I understand a little bit about voodoo. You will die. Evidently it's not an instant death, it's more of a bad luck vibe that will result in your death. Victims may trip and break their neck or get run over by a car, things like that. That's why victims of voodoo are usually marked as 'accidental deaths' rather than 'murdered'." He showed a joyless smile. "I just thought I'd let you know before you begin spewing riddles and make us squirm and stuff."

@Terminal@WiseDragonGirl@Cruallassar@Holmishire

After several moments of silent contemplation, Donny seemed to come to a conclusion. He wafted over to the left of that weird ass woman without hesitating, all the while leveling a sardonic gaze back at the others. At some point he had lit up another cigarette, but it had been done smoothly enough to avoid detection from anybody not paying full attention to the hitman.

"Naw. Yah'll lookin' at it wrawng. Fawckin' Mr. Platter came a lot closah tah killin' me than this female evah did, and naow that he's dead, I ain' gonna be gettin' the second half of mah pay. As of naow, Ah'm unemploy'd. Hencefawth, Ah'm no lawnguh obliged tah keep to mah previous ordahs. Ah'm a professional, aftah awll. What does Ol' Donneh want, then? To get back to Las Vegas free of chawrge, preferably with one of them fancy new guns in tow. Oh, an' you, missus, will fulfill Platter's end of the bargain.

Donny's body turned towards the entity, he looked into her face, into her eyes.

"Iddn't that right?"

A flash, a splitting boom, tatters of Donny's coat spinning in the void. The entire time the group had believed Donny to be on their side, but the only side Donny had ever been on was his own. He was no longer under contract, and so just like that, there was one less party member and one more dangerous foe. He'd have fired across his belly and through the side of his overcoat, drawing his revolver from its leg holster while his flank was hidden to the others. Ariett had been the one Donny considered the most threatening, so he aimed to shoot her down first with a .454 to the heart.

@Doc Doctor@WiseDragonGirl@Cruallassar@Terminal

There was something... off about the whole situation that they were currently in. Granted that wasn't at all surprising given the nature of daemons since riddles and sadistic games were pretty par for the course from what he had overheard the instructors teaching his unofficially adopted brother; Through there was another little gem from what he had overheard them teaching Fortune that might explain some of the cards that were hidden from view.

"You can't leave... not really anyway. You don't have a body in the physical world of your own, so the only ways you can enter the real world is if someone created you a body out of dark, twisted magic or if you possess someone... which is why we're really here, isn't it?" Narrowing his gaze at their 'hostess', he felt more and more confident with his theory as he continued "It's why this world was designed to make us suffer... to try and break our wills to make it easier for you. But you couldn't just take anyone; A weak soul begets a weak body and a weak host wouldn't last long... but while you managed to clear away those with weaker souls, you're not confident that you would win in an outright battle with us, thus this 'game' of yours."

Unfortunately, it was at this moment where his gut instinct proved tragically correct; The insane gunman who had proven himself a danger to those whom had threatened the party had turned on them once he had no obligation to continue working with them, signalling his allegiances with a cowardly gunshot... and regardless of if he knew it or not, selling his soul to the demon itself.

Normally he wouldn't have considered the idea of throwing his sword in order to try and smite a heretic but the strange rules (or as it were, absence of the rule of down) of their current location drove him to pull his sword arm before before shouting a prayer to the one being that he knew might aid him in this dark abyss. "Myrmidia, guide my blade and bring me home!" before throwing it towards the traitorous heretic Donny. Regardless of anything else, the demon would not be given an easy host into the world if he had anything to say about it!

Facing away from Donny, Ariett couldn't have realized she'd be shot until the bullet had already plunged through her back and punctured the once-beating muscle lodged in her chest. And couldn't or not, the thought didn't cross her mind until after the bang: if only she'd been reflected, the bullet would have bounced simply off her metal shoulder.

As it was, the blast twisted her body to the right, so that she no longer faced the woman and Donny but instead the remaining surviving members of the limousine.

Perhaps it was the chill that had overtaken her since they'd crashed on this blasted university, or perhaps it was biological luck—but though she could feel her body weakening, she had not yet succumbed to shock. She knew she had only minutes—or seconds—before she'd be lost. Seeing the doctor, the knight, and the archer, she decided she'd might as well give them a chance.

As she forced herself limp, she surreptitiously armed the grenade, holding it by her belly, and drifting lazily back towards Leona and Donny. Once she drew close, she spin around to protect the others from the blast with her body, and release the grenade.

"Um, not to rain on the party or anything, but if you are now free to leave...and do leave...then what's to stop us from resetting the whatever it was you said afterwards and leave ourselves? Seems like that's a win-win situation."

"I just thought I'd let you know before you begin spewing riddles and make us squirm and stuff."

"You can't leave... not really anyway. You don't have a body in the physical world of your own, so the only ways you can enter the real world is if someone created you a body out of dark, twisted magic or if you possess someone... which is why we're really here, isn't it?" Narrowing his gaze at their 'hostess', he felt more and more confident with his theory as he continued "It's why this world was designed to make us suffer... to try and break our wills to make it easier for you. But you couldn't just take anyone; A weak soul begets a weak body and a weak host wouldn't last long... but while you managed to clear away those with weaker souls, you're not confident that you would win in an outright battle with us, thus this 'game' of yours."

The woman blinked several times rapidly, her smile twisting in bemusement as confusion blossomed across her face.

"...Are you little motes being serious? I am having genuine trouble telling otherwise..."

A flash, a splitting boom, tatters of Donny's coat spinning in the void. The entire time the group had believed Donny to be on their side, but the only side Donny had ever been on was his own. He was no longer under contract, and so just like that, there was one less party member and one more dangerous foe. He'd have fired across his belly and through the side of his overcoat, drawing his revolver from its leg holster while his flank was hidden to the others. Ariett had been the one Donny considered the most threatening, so he aimed to shoot her down first with a .454 to the heart.

"How...very bold of you." The woman practically purred as she straightened again, neatly folding her hands together - the claws extending from her fingers silently retracting. Her eyes narrowed ever-so-faintly as she gave Donny a lazy, contemptuous smile. "...and how very conceited. Hubris within hubris. Though the audacity does-"

As she forced herself limp, she surreptitiously armed the grenade, holding it by her belly, and drifting lazily back towards Leona and Donny. Once she drew close, she spin around to protect the others from the blast with her body, and release the grenade.

"Oh my." The woman said faintly, her voice slightly raised and distant. The maneuver had apparently caught her entirely off-guard. "That's troublesome-"

Like most other incendiary grenades, the M-14 napalm grenade was not strictly intended as a lethal weapon, but rather to burn through fortifications or to destroy troublesome objects. Its effective range upon detonation was quite limited, though it was likely to be quite unpleasant to anything it made contact with. Like other incendiary grenades, it also possessed an exceedingly short fuse, and started to burn a mere second after Ariett released it - combusting with a blinding light, sending sparks and embers flying in every direction throughout the void as a second star was born in the darkness followed immediately thereafter by a billowing cloud of obscuring smoke, obstructing both the woman and Donny from view - as well as the sword that Fortune saw fit to throw, which plunged straight into the fog tip-first, and flying eerily straight. Straighter than it had any business being, considering the angle Fortune had hurled it at. If Donny did not move away from his position, the weapon would hurtle through the cloud of smoke and impale him right through the chest - though he would have faint warning of its approach, only in that he could have seen Fortune throw it before Ariett had released the grenade.

The haphazardly flying sparks and cinders erupting from within the cloud of smoke shot through every direction in the surrounding darkness - and directly below them, approximately three meters down, they hit something before snuffing out. The darkness below them shivered, and gave way.

The source of the audible humming was revealed. It was a machine - insomuch as such a curious assembly could have been called mechanical. Resembling a large stone cairn, with twelve layers of monolithic stones layered atop each other, separated by thin films of cerulean static energies and adorned with strings of carved bones and chunks of obsidian. A series of precision linework arranged in fractal geometric patterns covered the surface of each stone, and set into the face of the sixth from the bottom was a computer screen gilded in brass, with a pewter case seated within the monolith's body. A fine mechanical keyboard with extremely robust but ornate pewter keys with pearl-coated surfaces and emerald typeface extended from below it, along with a messy guts-worth of cables and wiring worming out to trace all around the cairn, secured by clasps of the strung bones and connecting to obtrusive pewter ports in the side of the other eleven monoliths. Twelve small levitating spheres not entirely dissimilar in appearance from the traffic sphere from earlier hung about the top of the cairn, with holes along each of their three axis. A glittering black fluid of sorts circulated in and out of each opening, passing between each sphere in turn as a coursing, levitating river that formed a wavering, triple-layered halo of starlight around the assembly.

"What a hassle." The woman's voice was utterly flat, but Donny could see that her face had twisted into a vicious snarl. As the rapidly approaching cloud of smoke approached them - the incendiary grenade having been flung at some speed - she reached out with her right hand, grasping at the device inside.

She missed, but apparently managed to graze it. The grenade and the cloud of smoke surrounding it pinwheeled a ways above her head, leaving behind a trail of sparks. Though it began to ascend, the woman's gesture had apparently robbed it of most of its velocity, leaving it hanging in space, still burning viciously, rather than flying away into nothingness. The woman hissed angrily, waving her hand as though it had been caught in a mousetrap. A fair amount of smoke clung and wafted from it conspicuously, but it appeared unburnt.

"I'm not positive, but I'm pretty certain that's the Allineator." The pavise knight commented from between Fortune, Kael, and Andreas. "Given none of you are local, I probably have the best chance at deactivating it...and if you know anything about magic, I guess you'd be the next best thing to our technician..." He nodded at Kael. "What do you all say to us two going down and switching it off while the others go and distract Leona and that fucking Proxy?"

Andy smirked when Leona seemed to doubt whether or not he spoke the truth, but that feeling of satisfaction was short-lived when Donny turned sides. After the gunshot he looked at Ariett with both sadness and pain in his eyes. There was no reason for her to die, it was a meaningless death. He wanted to help, he wanted nothing more, but the rational side of him told him any help he could offer would be too late when he reached her. Despite that fact he moved forward as she drifted towards Leona and Donny, he couldn't hang there and do nothing, he at least wanted to try and save her life, but only seconds later an explosion in front of her made him shield his eyes. Her body shielded him from any of the sparks and embers, but it forced him back regardless. It took him a moment to realize what had happened. The grenade, he recalled Ariett had received a grenade from Donny. It gave a certain satisfaction that Donny was targeted with his own weapon, but he wished Ariett wouldn't have died for that to happen. He hoped the divine guidance Fortune had called upon would end the gun-loving threat.

The words of the pavise knight caught his attention and he looked at him. "Okay," he said in a hushed voice, "you people go get that thing, turn it off, I'll see if I can distract Leona for a bit." He winked at the knight. "It'll be fun." It was time for action, he didn't feel like debating over what seemed like a decent plan, that would only give Leona the time she needed.

Right now the smoke worked in their favour, he doubted Donny would be able to take aim at any of them, if he was still there. He still had his fingers crossed for that sword doing its work. Or if it missed that the divine guidance would make it turn around somehow and go for his back. He added a little prayer of himself that Tafans would help them, if that boy was still out there somewhere. The news of his death still ached his heart and allowing the others to turn off the device seemed like a decent revenge. Just in case he let the backpack off his back and put it over his chest, it wouldn't hurt to be a bit careful. There was no telling what Leona would do either and he didn't feel comfortable with an exposed chest. He moved away a bit so that Leona would turn her attention to him and not to the others.

"Leona," he called to her, continuing to drift around a bit, "you know I wasn't kidding about that voodoo-curse, right? I can see obvious signs it's already working, bad luck is surrounding you like a dark cloud. But, I can be coerced in sharing what I know about countering it over a cup of coffee. It would be a shame if pretty woman like you would die and you have no idea how much I long for a cup of coffee, I'm close to selling my soul for one decent cup."