There was almost no sign left of the monster that attacked them. Kvasir grew impatient and angry when he had nothing to crush under the weight of his foot. His senses were still heightened as he didn’t trust this was all that was left of the beast who challenged him for authority. The words in the background were inaudible to him but not the sound of tendrils smacking the marsh runner’s skull into the ground. Kvasir almost snarled in reaction until his vision was interrupted and forced to cut to underneath him. Blobs similar to that of the creature formed underneath them sprouting tendrils of their own. Had he simply stayed there the tendrils would sure enough pull him into the caustic center.

In one swift action his chest puffed out and the veins from his body expanded through the skin. A deep howl left his lungs before blood shot out from his body in what seemed to be a concession of blades. Tendrils were cut and sliced like pieces of squid. He had to put some distance between him and the blobs and closer to the monster at the center of this. Propelling himself off the goo monster he touched solid earth once more and took off behind it and the marsh runner. Whatever the dog and the red headed woman chose to do was up to them.

---

Ah, that makes it easy then, Cade thought to himself with a light chuckle as the mage passed out almost immediately after disembarking from his rowboat. "Alrighty then, the boat's yours Will. I'll keep an eye on Sleeping Beauty here." Since the guy passed out pretty hard Cade couldn't help but wonder how exhausting it was to hold up that barrier. Of course it would be way easier for him, because he's a badass with plenty of strength to spare. But the curiosity still lingered as he crouched down next to Kaito, making sure to turn the unconscious mage on his side. "I'd appreciate if you could get off the dock though..." he muttered to himself. "That barrier of yours ain't gonna last if this goes how I think it will..."

With no further risk of the mage choking on his own tongue or vomit in case his condition got worse, Caderyn returned to his feet and looked back towards Ria and Will as they finished their final preparations before diving in. Literally, in Ria's case as she pointed out. Cade smirked at her joke and held out his left hand towards his partners, palm open and facing the sky. A bright glow could be seen radiating from underneath his sleeve, a white light as the magic seal on his arm activated. The light ceased to glow from his arm and instead a new glowing form manifested in the air above his open hand, quickly growing in size and taking the shape of a large bow. Once fully formed the glowing ceased, revealing that Cade had summoned his magic weapon, Eurytus. After he gripped the floating weapon he brought it back down to his side to take a distinctively non-combative stance. "I'm ready to save your asses if I'm right," he told Will and Ria, smirking confidently all the while. "Let's kick Bessie out now."

---

---

There was a half moment of hesitation, a moment that Ria debated going over and casting one of her restorative spells on Kaito, when she saw him collapse. She figured it was going to happen; she should have just done it when she was right beside him. But Cade seemed to have things well in hand. Chewing lightly on the inside of her cheek, she shook the thought from her head. Cade wouldn't let someone die. He'd get someone to help if Kaito is in real trouble.

Her attention turned to the one-eyed (as far as she knew) mage. The concern and indecision vanished as she nodded. Her usual smile spread back on her face. "Don't be overeager and hurt her unless she is about to hurt one of us, please." She turned, but stopped and looked over her shoulder at Cade once more. "I'm counting on you to give signal if she's getting out of control. I don't want any more of my friends dropping off the barrier; I'll take it over if it starts to drop." She knew the spell from before she even moved here, they'd needed it from her before, but she had other barriers in mind. Stronger ones that relied on the force a dragon slayer could wield.

The dragon slayer turned back to the sea, taking stock of the next wave to crash against the barrier simply from Big Bessie moving beneath the waves. She's just a giant lizard. Not even a dragon. This will be easy. She's just lost. Time to help her find her way out of here. Setting her feet like a sprinter, she ran for the edge and dove into the water. Her skin shimmered like light against water as she used the water around her to propel herself; she knew the water was frigid, hypothermia inducing, but her spell held both the cold and its dangers at bay.

"Hey kiddo," Arcturus greeted with a smile and a curt wave of the hand. Just because Sebastien's daughter had no business being in this very kid-unfriendly place, it didn't mean it was okay to be impolite! Unlike the reporter, he refrained from questioning Sebastien's actions; if was willing to accept the consequences, clearly he had some kind of hidden parental wisdom that Arcturus was lacking.

The blond wizard just shrugged his worries away. There were other things he could and should think about. According to Claire, the symbol was a warning of dangers hidden within. Arcturus opened his mouth and said insightfully: "Well that's not very nice."

This was, of course, not incorrect.

As the rest of the group strategized (sort of), Arcturus kept quiet for the most part. This was because his own plan started and ended with "run into the forest" with a contingent "and punch something". To avoid looking out of place, he stared at the symbol like he was thinking of something relevant, which he wasn't.

"I guess that means you two're with me then," the wizard piped up now that he had something worth saying. He looked over his shoulder at the father and daughter, and gestured for them to cross the invisible line delineating the two groups.

"Oh! Thanks," Arcturus accepted the magic mirror from Nia and joked, "Here's to hoping these are completely useless."

"...Well, maybe not completely," Arc squinted into the reflective surface and quickly fixed his hair. He then tucked the object somewhere inside his cape. Being in a haunted forest full of occult warning signs was no excuse not to look bad in front of any hypothetical ghosts or spirits--and certainly not in front of the media!

"We'll take left, you guys take right. Good luck, and stay safe!"

And with those words, Arc led his group into the forest.

---

---

No sooner had his ordeal with the formidable Mrs Bloomenburg ended when Kim found himself facing another questioning, though not quite as intimidating, adult - the Guildmaster. He didn’t quite know what to make of Aiden Cross. Sure enough, the man’s deeds spoke loud enough for him. Yet when Kim envisioned the S Class Slayer who took down the infamous Dark Guild, Demon’s Maw, the guildmaster didn’t exactly come to mind. Perhaps if Kim was allowed to attend missions he might one day get the chance to see Aiden in action. Though for the moment he had bigger concerns.

Squirming under Aiden’s gaze, Kim instinctively averted his eyes to the ground and put on a sour pout - a habit he’d picked up over years of being talked down to for some form of mischievous behaviour or another.
“S’nothing. Just a friend of Pa’s” He hesitated to say much more, but knew the guildmaster wouldn’t buy such a flimsy explanation.

“Actually, Mrs Bloomenburg was wondering why I wasn’t at school.” Kim rubbed the back of his head, trying to cover up the awkward tint of red growing on his cheeks. He didn’t expect it to be this hard to talk to Aiden, but the anxiousness of what he might do once the truth came out was extremely unnerving. “Truth is, my old man doesn’t exactly know that I’ve been coming here. I think the old bat is on her way to rat me out.”

Kim slumped forward with a defeated sigh. He slowly peered up at the Guildmaster, expecting to see the disappointment and anger etched upon his face.

Bludmach: Outskirts

Kvasir attack drew a screech from the smokey creature holding him, the blades of crimson ichor cutting through it’s weakened form with no issue. Unlike the main creature, this one seemed to struggle to pull it’s body together, following after the Godslayer even as its body struggled to remained connected to the dull red stone at it core. Klaus, meanwhile, would struggle to stand as the creature attacking him sought to drag him deep into the toxic muck. Luckily, his size and strength proved enough to keep him upright for the moment. As a result, the creature changed tactics, forming two ethereal looking tendrils over Klaus’ head which took the form of blades as they prepped to plunge into the wolfman’s back.

At Kvasir’s current pace, he would likely be unable to catch up with the flying monster despite his efforts, as the treacherous ground of the Marsh sabotaged his every step. However, the matter of catching the creature was soon handled as the sound of an explosion sounded from behind him, followed soon by the streaking jet of flame that was Eldrid as the Dragonslayer launched herself at the beast.

Right before impact, Eldrid would see the creature look first behind it then follow the trail of smoke up until it saw her much too late. As she crashed into the mass of writhing shadow, it quickly lost altitude as all three tumbled end over end in a screeching mess of tendrils and body parts as she bit, clawed, and burned the thing. Before long, they would make impact with the ground with an eruption of mud and loose rocks. Luckily for Eldrid and the guide she came to save, the crash was in a relatively stable section of the marsh.

Unluckily, however, the creature was still very much alive. With a final screech, it shifted its formless body in such a way that the masked face of the creature was before her, it’s rubbery mass opening wide to show a maw of shadowy teeth as it surged forward to consume her entire upper body in a mass of shadows. Within the darkness, she’d feel herself being subjected to what felt like hundreds of pinpricks and slashes as the shadows attempted to cut her to ribbons.

---

---

As Ria life she was used to. Before her being banned from taking a swim, the sea was often filled with fish both big and small, darting about the brief section of shallows that the docks rested upon. . . and the yawning abyss into the ocean depths that stretched out before the town of White Harbour.

Now, it was only home to soft silence broken by the keening call of her target. From her vantage beneath the waves, she could see Bessie’s large form swimming through the ocean depths, diving down towards the depths as she completed another breaching of the ocean’s surfaces, likely having snagged another snack from the betting fisherman up above.

On the dock, some of the other fishermen noted Vectis and Cade getting ready to set out and, as bored fishermen were like to do, soon started taking bets on the group. The exactitudes of the wager were likely easy to figure out, especially as one man started to make a gesture of prayer before bursting into laughter as he slammed his money down. Clearly, they were the underdogs in this instance.
@j8cob@Sanguine Rose@pkken

Aiden

Aiden’s face didn’t express much of anything at first as Kim came clean, only a slight raise of his head as he scratched as his chin in absent thought.

“Well. . . looks like we’ll need to work out a reason for him to not be too with us both, huh?” Aiden’s cold stare turned into a grin as he reached knelt down to russle the young lad’s hair. “Also, you shouldn’t call your elder’s rude names like ‘Old bat’. Mrs. Bloomberg is a nagging sort, but she only does so because she cares. . . well, that and because her husband doesn’t listen otherwise.”

Rising up, the Guild Master shrugged his shoulders, dispersing his ice-make creations with a grand swing of his arm, each bursting into an array of fine ice particles and sending another rush of cold air through the guild as he walked towards the doors.

“Now then, I hope you’ve taken what Serena’s been helping you with to heart because this is going to be a tad bit harder to pull off if we can’t convince him that you being here is still good for your education. Not impossible, mind, but much harder.”
@Leslie Hall



After exchanging the mirror and Claire doing a final check through her archives to see if she could pull anything up about the runes at all, the group entered the forest in search of their kidnapped suspect. Arc and Claire searched towards the western half of the Glade, while Karna and Nia exploring the eastern half. However, it would only be after a moment into the wood that something rather strange occurred.

One moment the wood was, if eerie, well-lit by the early morning sun with trees barely taller than any of the houses back in White Harbour. The next. . . the sun had vanished behind the leafy boughs of trees so tall you couldn’t even see the tops of them, the only illumination coming from a number of dim glowing orbs of light that floated overhead as if carried by the breeze. Mist pooled around their feet and, deep within the wood, one could hear the creaking snap of something moving. Multiple somethings. Nothing could be seen of the other group either, despite them only just having stepped passed the threshold of the forest.



“Ooooookay. . . should I be, like, concerned about this?” Claire did her best to keep a straight face as she looked around the sudden gloom, trying her best to ignore all the sounds of shuffling that echoed around her in the gloom. “You’ve dealt with stuff like this before, right? It’s just a common trick or something. . . . right?”
@Grey



For Nia and Karna, the wood would soon seem to wake as , off in the distance, a light started to flicker to life. It bounced on the winds for a few seconds, before flickering off and reappearing a little further into the forest, bobbing once more. Wanting them to follow after.
@Hero@Inkarnate

Following Arc and Claire, Lee was quieter than normal. If the air was already cold, Lee and Violet were positively frozen as the two went on guard immediately. The dim lights were concerning admittedly, but they did not seem attached to any spirit Lee could recognize. "I'll admit, it could be worse, though I would be lying if I said I knew what is going on here. Just try not to stray from the group just in case us losing sight of the others immediately and the unnatural darkness didn't catch your attention." If this was anything like what the child experienced, there was no doubt they would have been lost almost immediately.

Much like her father the air around her was cold, but filled with the familiar warmth of life that the small lights that oft accompanied the the two mages gave off in their presence "I don't feel anything yet, is that bad?" The lights danced around the Necromancers, even going as far as darting closer to the other two in the group, as if they were protective of the living mages they could recognize.

---

The sea wolf had been too preoccupied with watching his two compatriots. Aye, he came along to ensure they wouldn't face permanent injury from the quest (and to ensure that a certain two people wouldn't ruin the reputation of the guild). To watch those kids (though they were at most 10 years his younger) scrap it out and try to help others filled him with a certain sense of pride.

Wait, Malon was still being carted off by monster. Now wasn't the time for him to watch in pride. His thick fur that often protected him worked against him. It hid the feeling of him being sunk into the earth; he only realized once he was ankle deep. With all his strength, he resisted the creature's pull.

He wasn't one to be beaten by his youngers, nor would he die in a place that wasn't the sea. No, he would sink with his ship in a blaze of glory. That was his chosen fate. A simple smoke monster that he could barely see thanks to his horrid dog vision? Not a chance. A ghostly green shape began to form on his back; a cannon's barrel pointed directly at the monster both above and below. With his back protected, the creature's bladed thrust had been redirected away from his broad back. At the same time, the cannon fired with a loud explosion. A flaming orb of spirits crashed through the smoky monster above and dragged their air with it. The pressure of the ball dragged what mud had been on his fur with it. The cannon itself, however, felt the recoil. The large frame smashed into the mud, erupting in an explosion of muck that was definitely felt by whatever was below. Klaus felt the recoil too, his body being sent even further into the ground. It wasn't far enough to trap him, though.

With power in each step, he dragged himself out of the mud. How was he going to catch up with the flying Eldrid and help Malon? By stealing her idea of course. Aye, this wasn't something he would have wanted to done, but the situation called for it. He'd have to steal that technique that she used. With another cannon forming in front of him, he quickly clambered inside of the chamber. With another explosion, he was launched forward toward Eldrid. He'd make it, probably. His feet were in absolute pain and his hearing was shot from the two point-blank blasts, though.

On the way overhead, he stuck out his hand for Ksavir. "Grab on, kid!" He yelled at the blood mage. For only a brief moment, the air dog's hand was reachable for the blood mage. Whether he came along or not was depending on how fast he could react to a wolf that was no longer restrained to land and sea.

---

---

A shiver ran up Ria's spine when she finally gave herself a moment to focus on her surroundings. It had nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with how eerily empty the bay was. She didn't like it one bit. The bay, the sea, the ocean were supposed to be more lively than this. Even for a bit of fishing trouble, she expected to see more than just Bessie. She shook the thought from her head as she propelled onward.

She dove a bit deeper, circling wide to keep Bessie fully in her sights. Big as Bessie was, she wasn't about to assume the beast couldn't maneuver fast. There were plenty of creatures that were large and seemingly slow, but could move when they wanted to. Her head tilted slightly as she observed Bessie for a long moment. The more she watched the creature before her, the more she was reminded of swimming with Cormenila. She had to shake her head to refocus.

All right. Let's get you out of here. The dragon slayer stopped, treading water where she was, before finally summoning a current and pushing it toward Bessie to get the beast's attention. She would only wait long enough to figure out if it worked before taking off further out to sea - should Big Bessie respond to the prod.