[IC] Elementals: The Scarred World (Semi-Open)

[UnusualStranger]

Raven looked about quickly, trying to make sure that everyone managed to run it out of there, and cursed when he realized not all had made it out. A disaster of larger proportions that he really did not want to deal with at this time. However, as Vana turned to run Raven made to follow, as there was still a chance to catch some of the mages who had escaped the other way. Hopefully he was not too late as he chased Vana, who turned a corner and came upon Nataly and Ling who were dispatching of the shadow.

The shadow that Ling had shoved back, and fired her crossbow met its mark into the shadow, causing the creature to stumble backwards stunned from the sudden outburst. Then the shards of ice slammed into the creature causing it to fade off into dust in front of the mages.

"Not....bad." Raven said as he ran onward to the mages to look about. "Though, where is the mage behind them?" Though after saying that, they were greeted by the wall smashed down by the mages who had still sat inside.

---

Meanwhile, the mages inside had no intention of following the others out the front entrance, considering it a bad idea to chase those who would pose the biggest threat. With her one good hand, an explosive wave of fire was used to blast a hole open in a wall, and the renegade mages began to make their escape. The man of earth kept the tail being likely the slowest and best equipped in keeping any chasing individuals off of them.

As they began moving out of the burning bar, they moved into the back of the bar ripping apart the wall in the meantime. They happened upon the mages Ling and Nataly. The stone mage regarded the mages that they had come upon for a moment, with Raven making his way forward as well.

"Mages, let us....ignore this little transgression. You turn around, forget you saw us, and we do the same. Alright?" The stone mage rumbled, with the fire mage having more fire in her eyes, but having an eye out for apparently someone else, with the ice mage just helping the woman of fire go along. They were intending to get away from the burning bar and wander off into the night.

---

The rest of the town was either in the process of waking up to knowing that the bar was on fire, or was in the process of trying to escape the said fire screaming "MAGICS!" or "WITCHES!" or other such curses. That meant that the mages who had gone out the front entrance were drawing a bit of a crowd.

"Goddamned blazes going on out here? What happened to the bar?" A half awake, slightly armored guard shouted, with an axe pulled out and only wearing a breastplate that had been hastily thrown on. It was obvious that this was not a good time for him, nor most of the town as they came with bows, knives, and whatever else as the bar was already written off as a lost cause with the flames quickly taking over whatever it wanted.

[WriterRaven]

"Not... bad. Though, where is the mage behind them?"

"He ran that way, Commander, through the alleys. We may have lost him by now. He summoned that shadow to cover his escape." Ling pointed behind her as she spoke. No sooner had she spoken than another blast tore through the wall behind the Commander, with the rogue mages stepping out of the wrecked tavern.

"Mages, let us... ignore this little transgression. You turn around, forget you saw us, and we do the same. Alright?"

Transgression? These renegades seemed to think they had some form of authority. They were bullies and thieves, plain and simple. And now they wanted an easy way out? Ling wasn't about to let them go scot-free. That was why she had chased after the Nightshade, after all: she had intended to recover the bag of valuables.

"Not so fast." She reloaded Kei and raised the crossbow to point at the stone mage, him being the most obvious threat. "Before we even think about the possibility of letting you lot just walk away, you guys can call your shadow-mage buddy back here. Once he hands over that bag of gold and gems he prizes so much, then we'll talk about letting you go. Unless someone else thinks we shouldn't take that chance?" She glanced towards each of Nataly, Vanahara and Commander Hayes as she posed that question. If the injured Pyromancer was any indicator, the Academy-trained mages had come out better off in the fight. Now was the time to press the advantage that Ling perceived, and give the rogues the option of negotiating their surrender.

At the same time, though, she wondered if she had stepped a little beyond her station. Commander Hayes was in charge, after all, and Ling was second-guessing herself, thinking that she might have spoken out of turn.

[MrOmega]

Drew stood there and quickly realized what was going on. "Oh hell..." he muttered, holding back a string of swears. But he realized this situation could still be salvaged. It was unlikely, but it wasn't like any of them had seen him performing magic. Ling had gone one way and the other hostile mages had gone the other way. "Okay, okay, think about it..." he muttered. He turned and put on his best imitation of a panicked face. He stood up and shouted as loud as he could so the others could hear him. "YES. THERE WERE HOSTILE MAGES IN THERE. A FIRE ONE, AN EARTH MAGE, A SHADOW USER AND SOME PERSON WHO USED ICE." he knew they would be alerted, but he wanted his companions to know there were unfriendly people outside waiting for them. "THEY WENT THAT WAY!" he said, pointing to the direction the others were escaping in. He knew there were so many ways this could go wrong. But it was that or stand there and risk being chosen as the target of the mob's wrath. Come on guys... show some subtlety. He hoped the others helping Ling were having better luck. If he could just get the mob away from here, they might be able to slip away. "Come on! We can cut them off if we're quick!" he said in a panicked tone to the guard, trying to appeal to his sensibilities as a leader.

[NeoAJ]

"Mages, let us....ignore this little transgression. You turn around, forget you saw us, and we do the same. Alright?"

It sounded like a sweet deal to Nataly. Considering all the destruction and trouble these three caused on this random excursion, letting everyone just walk away from it all was a promising prospect. The fire woman looked like she didn't agree with it, but her fellow ice wielder appeared to want out of the area. She could abide by that.

"Not so fast."

Ling had other thoughts though. She wanted the gold and the goods back from the shadow man who had caused the trouble in the alley way. Fair enough. For the Nightshade to show themselves wasn't an unreasonable proposition. Prevent back stabbings and all that.

Nataly kept her ice gauntlets on and in fist mode. "I'm with my friend here. Shadow man has to show himself first. I don't need to be stabbed in the back today."

[UnusualStranger]

The Earthshaper gave a gruff laugh, and pointed at Nataly. "So, I'm guessing she'll be just like a dog too then. That you have a whistle for her and will give her a treat once you are done here. Silly book rats, no idea how the rest of the world works." The Earthshaper said pointedly, obviously with several insults prepped for Ling.

"If you are not willing to let transgressions slide, then no point in-"

The Earthshaper was cut off as the Fire Mage let loose a torrent of flames, her rage at being injured great fuel for the fires as other nearby buildings were catching the flames which were given no coordination other than outward from the renegades. While the Earthshaper did not seem to have much preparation for such a move, as the flames began to pull away the earth was pulled upward to form at least a fast shield as the mages began to make their way away in the added and now spreading inferno.

Raven Hayes had already been guessing this would not go well with the demand. He had faith in the mages, but unlike the renegades they could not afford such reckless throwing about of power...which meant that if an inferno was thrown about, there wasn't going to be much to do against it. Not until they could likely regroup to have some water or fire control at this point.

---

Meanwhile, the soldier looked at Drew exasperated by being awakened and shouted at already. Shaking his head to try and get it clear of the sleepiness of it being later than he liked, the man began shouting.

"HOLD YER DAMN HORSES! I'M NOT BURNING DOWN THE DAMN TOWN FOR WHOEVER THE HELL IS STARTING IT!" He waved at a bunch of people, who all ran off to start grabbing buckets and whatever else they could to try and contain the somewhat explosive fire as drinks continued to explode from the fires that continued to burn. As that started, he turned to look at Drew who had gotten his attention as one of the few knowing what was going on.

"YOU! Who in blazes-" The man didn't have time to finish the thought as the inferno suddenly just seemed to double, leading to a string of curses, shouts, and pleads to the gods to please make it start raining so they could stop the disaster. "GODS DAMN IT! NEVERMIND, GET THESE DAMN FIRES UNDER CONTROL NOW! WE'LL LOSE THE ENTIRE TOWN IF WE DON'T DRAW A LINE HERE!" With that, everyone broke off now all trying to either throw dirt on the fires to choke them out, water as they could get buckets over to themselves, and just doing anything they could as they fanned out to try and make a defense against the fire from spreading to even more buildings.

[Mictlan93]

Bringing up the rear proved to work in Joey's favor, as the fleet footed Earthshaper slid to an abrupt stop. Slowing to a creep, he could overhear the the rogue mages talking down to Ling and the others. He began taking a few steps back, sizing up a wall of the building not yet effected by the tavern’s inferno. “Sandstone…” He muttered, getting a feel of the wall’s material. Wasn't the tallest structure, wouldn't be too much of a hassle to scale. ”Need to act fast…” He began up, hands grabbing onto ledges and window sills, feet digging into brick folds. Climbing stone came easy to an individual who could subtly reshape the makeup of the earth. His mage-born abilities made it unnaturally simple for Joey to gain a dependable grip on walls such as this one. Add to that a few odd years of rogue-like experiences, and you get a limey fella that could potentially wall crawl with the best of them.

Even then, there was a bit of an incentive to get to the rooftops. The area was heating up, with both the tension between the our two opposing parties, and the actual heat coming from the wild spreading flames. Joey figured he could get to a higher vantage point, and find a way to get the drop on one of the rogue mages to provide his comrades with some form of a bargaining chip. Were this any other situation, he would've been totally fine with just letting the rogues go. But once Ling went all Lawful Good on the situation, he felt the need to pitch in in some sort of way, if only because he was in the vicinity and didn't want to seem like a flake.

Now atop the building’s roof, Joey fell back into old habits as he pulled up his hood, and shrouded himself against the growing shadows of the fires. He could get a great view of the standoff, and thought to strategize accordingly. ”A’right, these buildings are all built pretty close together...I could get behind the rogues, climb back down, and snatch up that fire one, she looks kinda weak-” Speaking far too soon, said fire Mage seemed to had erupted into a AOE of flame. Just the blast of hot air created from attack was enough to make Joey stagger. The fires were doing much to just burning everything flammable...including the buildings Joey was planning on hopping over to in order to surprise the rogues. So his Plan A was effectively scrapped.

”Fffffffuuuuck.” He groaned, mentally. He was slightly disappointed he couldn't be the big damn hero anymore. But, as soon as that plan flew out the window, another one simply replaced it. He brought forth his knife. Least he could do is flick it at the fire Mage. Provide some sort of distraction that could give someone a chance to gain the upper hand. With that in mind, he lined up his shot. “OI!” He yelled as his blade was already barreling towards its target. “YEH DAFT CUNT! YOU’LL BURN DOWN THE WHOLE FUCKIN’ CITY AT THIS RATE!” As Joey yelled, he never stopped to think if that might've been her objective in the first place.

[WriterRaven]

"If you are not willing to let transgressions slide, then no point in-"

The Pyromancer cut off the speaker with a roar and a surge of flame, evidently angry that the shakedown had gone south. And with the fire came a quick wave of heat washing over the scene: Ling flinched, but fired her crossbow on instinct. When she refocused, having reloaded quickly, she found the shot had gone wide. Damn it.

"You could have done this the easy way, idiots!" The rogue Earthshaper had a shield up now, and was leading his fellows away in the blast. Ling briefly considered pursuing them, but she had done so with the Nightshade, and look where that had gotten everyone. She sent a couple of shots at the Earthshaper regardless: that stone barrier hopefully wasn't thick enough to withstand the impact of multiple crossbow bolts.

But rather than jump the gun any further, she believed, now was the time to defer to the actual leader of the crew. So she called out to Hayes. "Commander! What do we do?"

[UnusualStranger]

"How murderous you feeling this eve, mage?" Commander Hayes shouted over the inferno, noting a knife flying overhead towards the rouge mages, hoping it would find something. Looking forward at the earthy wall, he made a split decision that he wasn't going to deal with this, or have to worry about it in the future. Either someone on the other side of that earth would get lucky, or he was going to run a mage through.

"I don't know about you, but I would be happier with some death!" And with that, Raven Hayes charged forward, blade drawn after the retreating mages. Making his way around the wall of earth and sliding around it, he found himself face to face with the earth mage, who had apparently decided that sticking there while the other mages made a run for it was the best plan.

With a swing, the hardened steel slammed into the arm of the earth mage, glancing off, but with the cracks showing in the armor it was obvious that it wasn't quite as tough as when it had been started. With a grin, Raven jumped back at a swing the earth mage took.

Meanwhile, from the upper perspective that Joey had attained, he could see the dagger find a mark, but not the Fire Mage. The Ice Mage who had been helping the fire move ended up taking the knife in the arm, which led to a string of curses as they both began to run away from the fires, the Earth Mage and Commander Hayes, and also Joey and the other mages. They were getting closer to the edge of town now, and would just be a quick sprint away from the forest and obviously very little way to follow them from there.

While this happened, Vanahara had caught up to Ling and the other Mages, just in time to watch Hayes as he charged towards the Earthy opponent who had hid behind the makeshift wall for now, which crumbled some as the bolts slammed into it, not a strong enough wall to stand up to an assault.

In the front of the building, Drew was largely left to his devices along with Alexander, as the rest of the town was now running about finally doing something about the flames. With the town slowly seeming like it wasn't going to burn down, there began to be a more methodical approach to making sure the things that were burning wouldn't burn anything they were close to.