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[color=#736AFF][b][h1]Ranbu no Izayoi[/h1][/b][/color]
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What fresh hell was this? How, in the name of Dhinas, Imir, and the Mother, had their current situation come to be? 

Why was she even asking herself this? Izayoi had been there for all of it:

[i]The Kirins had parted ways with Grovemaster Isolde once they'd reached Cascona Landing, but not without her giving them precise instructions for how to conduct the ritual to begin the Trial of Tides. 

They'd reached the site of the trial the next day: a cliff overlooking the sea, some ways away from Costa del Sol. At its peak was an ancient altar designated to veneration of Leviathan in olden times, before worship of the Mother and Her Seven became commonplace. While the Eidolons were no longer worshipped directly by most in the current era, they still held a place of reverence in the Mother's light as regulators of the land's aether. 

The party performed the ritual to the exact letter as they had been instructed by Isolde. As if bid by command, Leviathan arose from the ocean in moments, summoned by the call given to her. [url=https://i.imgur.com/GvEJnje.jpeg]The Lady of the Whorl loomed over the cliff, her serpentine head staring down at the Kirins.[/url]

[h3]"You dare offer challenge?!"[/h3]

And then she'd reared back before firing a jet of pressurized water out of her mouth to sweep across the party.[/i]

[center][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtPUx6kzW0U[/youtube][/center]

Izayoi peered out from over the fallen rubble she'd taken shelter behind, reaching down to her sword. [i][b]What the hells?![/b][/i] They'd conducted the ritual [i]precisely[/i] as they were bid to! Was the trial supposed to be a damned deathmatch? Small wonder the Grovemasters didn't wish to risk Neve, then!

[color=#736AFF][b]"The Eidolon leaves us no choice! We fend her off, or we drown in her tides!"[/b][/color] Izayoi hurled her cloak and hat off, glowering all the while. [color=#736AFF][b]"Once we finish here, I am more than inclined to make Eliane's threat to those sanctimonious bastards in Brightlam come true!"[/b][/color]