[IC] Cinder Sickness - A DnD style classic RP

[Dragoknighte]

Kazuo remained silent at both Shela and the gold goblin, Drizzak's words. Not out of a sense of stand-offnish or superiority, but because he had nothing to say. Yeah he could have replied "I try to sneeze quietly so that it doesn't tip off every wild beast within a mile of me," to Shela and, "Cool, I fight too," to Drizzak but it would not really add anything to the conversation. That scream however, would. He could just let a woman, even one he had just kind-of-not-really met die out in the forest. From his sitting position, Kazuo rocked forward, tucked his head in and rolled forward up onto his feet.

"Trombe, now it's time to run." The horse neighed in reply and stood, allowing its master to mount before galloping off in the direction. Shela would probably have a not insignificant lead, so his first goal was to catch up with her.

"Want a lift?" Traveling in twos would reduce the chances of being ambushed like the gypsy woman probably was, but if she chose not to take his off, he was pretty sure Trombe would enjoy not having to run with a heavy dwarf in full plate in tow.

[Goldeagle1221]

Charroux wound through the thick trees. His great hooves pounded the moist mulch of the forest floor, kicking up brown speckles across his muddied white legs.

Derrix scanned every shadow diligently while he rode on top of his horse. Using only his knees to guide Charroux, he held his bow with a notched arrow, ready to shoot any danger that could have caused the ripping scream he had heard bounce off the trees.

Wind rushed past the charging pair, and even though the rain had stopped, their force through the moist air dampened their faces and left dewey beads in Derrix’s otherwise dark hair.

The already lighter cool air suddenly turned thick and humid as the two continued their sprint. The sudden absence of the the rain’s chill brought a strain to Charroux’s muscular legs and the horse slowed. Derrix sympathetically nodded toward his horse, unwilling to part with his bow to pat the animal.

A soft hue of light radiated off of the mounted mans he and his horse continued into the shadows of the forest, eager to find Sana, and the source of why she had screamed. The ground turned muddy, and Derrix slid of of his horse, realizing the opportunity for tracking.

As if heaven sent, the man quickly found the outline of a bare foot pressed into the mud, and another, and another. Derrix looked over at his horse and swung his bow over his shoulder in favor of his sword, which he pulled from it’s scabbard with a shrieking rasp.

Walking along side what prints he could make out of the mud, he continued, Charroux in tow.

[Luminosity]

Fiona

It never ended, it seemed.

Fiona wasn't sure what to do when she heard the scream. She knew she had to help, but she wasn't exactly prepared, being half undressed and unarmored. There was no time, though, leading Fiona to remove the blanket around her and tie a lighter cloth around her hips much like Sana had done, at least letting her move quickly and preserve some amount of modesty. Quickly she scooped her sword belt up from the ground and buckled it around her waist.

Barefoot, Fiona slipped her foot into a stirrup and pulled herself up onto her horse, checking briefly to make sure her weapons were in order, before she wheeled about and held a hand out towards Tobias.

"Coming?"

Zoenya

The adventuring party weren't the only ones drawn to the sound of Sana's scream.

A young woman was mounted atop a trotting horse moving at a steady, relaxed pace down the road. She looked to have avoided the worst of the storm, though her thick, long black hair and her clothes were still damp with the lighter rainfall that was occurring currently. Judging by the look on her face, one of near absent-minded pleasantness, she wasn't bothered by it.

Zoe traveled many nights. Sometimes she just didn't feel tired, and upon learning that the last town didn't have anything for her, she saw no reason to stay after the storm began to let up. She rode for a while, stopping when she noticed that the sun was setting on the wrong side of the world. That was quite odd, and a sure sign of magic. She waited for a while, holding still and wondering if everyone was experiencing this, or just her. When the woman's scream cut through the still night air, she was drawn towards it rather than away. That was her curiosity overpowering any fear, as usual. There were dangerous things out and about at night in the dark woods as always, but Zoe could handle herself. She told herself that, anyway.

"Light leads the way" she said to herself cheerily, holding out a closed fist. When she opened it, palm up, a white magical orb appeared and floated up, settling above Zoe's head and orbiting there, providing impressive illumination for the area immediately around her. She continued on, slowing her horse to a walk, heading towards the source of the scream. Eventually, she found a tree with prints all around it, deep from the soft earth, but they only came from one direction. Someone, probably that woman, had walked up to this tree, stopped, and then...

"Poof?" she said to herself, dismounting and crouching down by the tree. There was a bow here, and one arrow. Setting her spear against the tree, Zoe picked up the bow and arrow, examining them. This was all very odd. Why would a woman be wandering around the woods alone at night? She would have to have some reason...

Zoe tried to think for a moment if the scream sounded familiar, but couldn't decide. Probably not. It was best not to jump to any conclusions. In the meantime, she remained by the tree, taking a closer look at the footprints, the bow, the arrow, using the hovering light of her spell above her to aid her.

[Afina]

"I'm good," Shela retorted to the offer. Though she was short and broad in stature as well as well armored she moved quickly through the forest towards where the scream had come from. Keeping her head down, she built speed as she followed the prints in the mud from the archer that had stormed off in her undies. Slowly her eyes moved forward and up to in front of her, seeing the man that had gifted her the nice piece of ass in the distance as well as someone she had not seen before. Her trudging stopped and she slid forward in the mud a few feet before she came to a stop.

"Bloody hell, you ain't be the one that dun screamed," Shela grunted rather obviously. Taking a wide stance she gripped her hammer as she looked at the woman holding the bow that she had seen Sana point at her earlier the cave.

"What you gone and done to the loud mouth?" Shela asked in a accusatory tone of voice. She didn't know this woman, granted she only knew Sana by name so far but it was a step up from the one before her. "And whatca doing with her bow?"

[TheWizardLizard]

The Thief
The scream entered Tobias's ears and dwelled in his brain, replaying again and again as though in an echo chamber, getting louder and shriller and more annoying each time. Fucking hell.

Sana had wandered off in a hissyfit, and now she had landed herself in hot water. That seemed perfectly fine to Tobias; served her right, in fact. If she managed to skullfuck whatever mist beastie had her in its clutches, she'd be back to bossing them around - if not, the adventure could continue without her, especially now that they had all these new... characters in their lineup.

Only two things gave him pause in this resolution: one, Fiona was obviously primed to go help, and was holding her hand out to him. For some strange reason, the thief was loathe to disappoint her... and to let the girl go out there without his help. An interesting sensation, one that would require examination.

Secondly and (he told himself) more importantly, he could not pass up the shit-eating smugness he could get away with if he helped rescue Sana. It was good to be a hero.

Tobias calculated all that in the blink of an eye as he strapped his daggers to his belt and grabbed Fiona's hand, allowing her to pull him up onto her horse. "Alright team, let's go stab something different from us!"

The Corpse
Oscar was standing stock still by the fire, dead to the world, when the sound penetrated the thick veil of his senses. It was a sound he'd heard before, many times, when the red came on him, when he had to rip and hurt and break. Screaming. But this sound exactly, faint and hollow as it was by the time it penetrated his rotted mind, reminded him of something else. A memory, a specific memory. From when he was alive.

He went from a stop to a dead run almost instantly, charging off in the direction of the noise, building speed, his arms trailing and dangling behind him. A great rumbling came from behind his broken teeth as he ran, his throaty, strange voice crying out into the darkness. "Katherine! Katherine, I'm coming! Hold on!"

He wasn't sure where he was going, what he was saying, or what his plan was. He was gaining speed, good footholds getting harder and harder to find. He shouldn't be going this fast. Something was happening. He would stop it. He would stop it.

[Dragoknighte]

No skin off my bones, thought Kazuo. Trombe was a sleek horse who found little trouble slipping through the forest and when he thought about it, having Shela on would not only piss off the horse, but also dramatically reduce his maneuverability. He followed just behind Shela and in the distance could spot the scarred guy with a big-ass white horse and some new girl. Behind him was the zombie guy shouting about some Katherine but barreling forward like an untended fruit cart on a hilltop and the red-headed girl would probably not be far behind. Kazuo rode up to the scene beside Shela. Although he did not draw his sword , he kept his hands firmly gripped on the sheath and hilt, ready to draw at a moment's notice if he needed.

"Yeah, what she said." Kazuo nearly facepalmed at himself for saying that. He could have said anything, and he chose that of all things.

[Luminosity]

Fiona arrived at the scene of Sana's disappearance shortly after Shela and the other newcomer, Kazuo, did. Derrix wasn't far behind, she knew, but for the moment, there didn't appear to be a fight on hand, which was both good and bad. On on the one side, it meant that they didn't need to battle anything while hardly prepared, exhausted, and half undressed, but on the other, it meant that for the moment, Sana was simply gone.

The girl who stood in Sana's place, with Sana's bow, crouching over Sana's footprints, didn't look that threatening, and certainly nothing worthy of screaming in terror at, but if that glowing orb of light illuminating a circle around her was any indication, she had magic of some kind, and Fiona knew that magic could do some pretty great and terrible things. Fiona didn't draw her weapon, but watched the girl intently as her horse came to a stop.

"Me? I didn't do anything. I came to check out the scream, same as you," Zoe answered Shela, standing with the bow in hand. Her eyes took in each new person as they arrived, all of them friends of the disappeared woman, apparently. "As for the bow... I dunno, I was just looking. Somebody want it?" She held it out to the dwarf lady, and then the man ready to draw his sword, and then up at the redheaded girl on the horse, to see if anyone would take it. Her spear was still propped up against the tree.

"I was riding when I noticed this weird thing with the sun going the wrong way, so I stopped and waited, because that's magic you know, the sun doesn't just do that on its own. Heard a lady scream, came to check it out." She pointed down at the tracks beneath her with the arrow in her other hand. "From what I can tell, she stopped here, stomped about a bit, and then..."

She shrugged. "Poof."

[Invisible Man]

Drazig was by himself, an eerie squeaking noise filled the air and the darkness enveloped him making escape impossible in the shroud of shadows. The Ogre was scared, and he was all alone in the scary darkness. Suddenly, he felt cold. He jerked at the sudden feeling, did a ghost just pass through him? Is he being frozen alive at this very moment!? What was happening! He tried to get up, but his body didn't allow it, is he being possessed right now!? Drazig moved his head around to find the thing that was keeping him locked in place, and his sight soon stopped at his belly. Something wasn't right... Where is his blanket!? "Drazig! Stop moving, I'm trying to sleep," grumbled Dorat.

"Oh, sorry." Drazig responded with a blank face. He stayed in that pose for several seconds, his brain trying to figure out something, but he just couldn't tell. Oh, he wasn't all alone, he had Dorat. Double 'oh'! He could see in the dark, the shadows can't hurt him. Triple 'oh'! The eeire squeaking was coming from the wagon they are currently traveling inside. Qua... Quin... Four 'oh'! He felt cold, because Dorat took his side of the blanket... Wait, Dorat just took his side of the blanket... HEY! Drazig came to the most important realization that his partner had just taken his side of the blanket, and punched his own arm.

"Ow! What'd you do that for!" Dorat awoken, slightly angry that he could go to sleep and that he had just gotten punched by his other half.

"Give me back my blanket!" Drazig punched his own arm again, pissing off Dorat even further.

"Your half of the body is fatter! You give off more body heat than my side!" Dorat explained, trying to bullshit Drazig so he could stay extra toasty in the wagon. And, it seemed to work. Until Drazig's face turned from confusion to anger once again.

"I don't know what that means!" Drazig was just about to punch his own body's arm once again, but suddenly, a distant scream was heard in the distance, stopping the angered ogre. Dorat had heard it too, and looked to his partner. "Hey, Drazig. Want to go save somebody?" The anger from Drazig's face was gone, and it was replaced with joy.

"Yeah! Lets go save someone! I can be friends with them too!" The entire body soon moved as one, both halves working in perfect sync. They jumped off the wagon, the dying wood finally getting its rest from the enormous weight of the two. The wagon driver soon stopped the horse, and he looked back at the two.

"What are you guys doing?"

"Off to go adventuring!" Drazig bellowed out. Dorat's half soon pulled out a sack of coins, and threw them to the wagon driver. It was the pay that they were supposed to give them for the full ride to the next town. The wagon driver smiled at the two.

"Good luck on your adventure! Even in night you guys are still doing good." The wagon started to move again, the horse was also glad that the extra seven hundred pounds were gone. Drazig and Dorat looked at each other, they both nodded and started to move to the scream.

The Ogre's eyesight was impeccable in the darkness, you could even say they see better without light! The two were walking briskly towards the scene of the crime, however, with their size, it was more like running to an average human. The trees were also fairly annoying for the pair, they may have been moving this body for the past sixty years, but it still fairly hard to maneuver this large body through slim openings given by the forest. Branches and leaves soon started to stick to their armor, the sharp wood not able to penetrate through the ogre's thick skin. Soon, their eyes spotted something. A large group of adventures were gathered around one spot, that had to be the crime scene! Drazig increased their speed, the loud thumping sound was getting louder to the group ahead, and the darkness wasn't really helping the stranger's imaginations. Dorat, just now, realized the implications of an Ogre running into a group randomly out of nowhere, but it was too late to stop Drazig.

The Ogre jumped into the clearing, leaves and twigs scattered across the clearing. He was clearly excited, and the ten foot monster soon bellowed out to the group, not able to control the volume of his voice.

"WHO WENT POOF!?" Dorat, at the moment, had frozen up by the sheer stupidity that Drazig had just done, and not able to explain that they were good, instead of a two headed monster wanting to murder the entire group.

[Goldeagle1221]

“Sleep bereft of me.”

“I am not here to wither away, I had told you who I was, and I had told you who I am and what I intend to do.

There are no secrets between us, only the chill of sorrow. I’ve walked far and I’ve walked long, just to be away from you, to be away from all of that, and why? So I can someday fall back into place.

I’ll get on all by myself, and though miles tread under my feet, do not mistake my travels for adventure and life, for each passing second is spent waiting still. Sleep pulls me to close my eyes, but I won’t listen. I am not done yet, I have not yet made it out of the shadows.

But when I do, when I am free, warm the fire for my return, and let us live, live like we have died.”

The words echoed in Derrix’s mind as he lowered his blade, it’s tip aimed at the back of the strange woman with Sana’s bow. His eyes focused on her form, blurring out the midget among the others in front of her.

He slunk forward and all but whispered, the point of his ashen sword finely focused, “your name?”

Suddenly leaves blew all around the man as a large figure leapt from nowhere. Derrix’s blade swung over to point at the newest member of the stand off, and he silently stared the monstrosity down, ready to lunge.

[Horrid]

All it took was a scream to get Drizzak up and into motion. One familiar scream and he was up in a flash, fully awake and fully ready to act. He was naked besides his loincloth, sure, but putting them on could mean death for him. The cold was just too much. Instead, he grabbed for his blade and made for the direction of the scream. It was Sana that screamed, he remembered the sound from their previous adventures together. She was a tough woman, and only screamed when bad things were well and truly bad.

He reached the others relatively quick, his shorter legs failing to hamper his speed as he sprinted to the scene of the crime.

"What is happen!? Where Sana? Why you have bow?"

Drizzak barked at the group, and at the one holding Sana's bow. He could smell strange scents on the air, but his nose was not as good as he wished it was. He was getting heated up. This was very bad, what could have taken her? Surely someone saw it?

[Afina]

Shela thick brows arched as her head turned towards looked over to Kazuo, having to hold her composure but failing miserably. “Haha, what she said,” she said sniggering under her breath. Apparently it didn’t matter how old the dwarf woman was, she still have the mind of an adolescent teen when it came to some things. Much of the group came barreling over to the scene rather quickly but others, they seemed to linger behind; which seemed rather odd to Shela. Sana seemed to have the biggest mouth in the bunch, which usually denoted the leader. If not the leader the one that drew the most attention and that scream had been rather bone chilling. It wasn’t a scream of anger or a rant, that was a scream of pure terror and to leave ones weapon behind only added to the bad juju that seemed to be swirling around.

“What do ya mean *poof*? Peoples dun just go *poof*! Well maybe they do when caught in dragon fire but that be more of a sizzle and ash than a *poof*,” Shela grumbled as she walked over and snatched Sanas bow from the woman and picked up the arrow out of the ground, securing both to her belt. “Those don’t be yours girlie,” she added before looking over towards the fiery red head. “Yeah, that girl dun gone *poof*, she got a horse right? We better be putting this with it,” Shela said before she looked down at her stomach and placed her hand against it as the ground seemed to shake.

“Okay, that ain’t me this time,” she said looking up and then around before she spun around in the direction of the cause of the rumble through the earth. “Bloody hell,” she yelled as she gripped her hammer tight in her fingers and lowered her stance as a monstrosity came out of the forest. “Be more things crawling out of the woods than vanishing in them. Why this thing not go *poof*?” she said looking over at the two headed ogre. “I mean, I be thinking if something need to go *poof* and the choices are a drenched twig or a towering,” she began motioning with her thick fingers. “Thing! Well I’d bet me hearth that I be making that go *poof*!”

"You be the one making women go *poof* in the night?" Shela asked in harsh tone pointing to both the new woman on the scene and the towering juggernaut.

[Luminosity]

"Yeesh, take it, thank you!" Zoe said, glad to have the dwarf woman take the bow off her hands. It was causing way more trouble than it was worth. There was a goblin here now, and a man pointing a sword at her, asking her name, and the redhead girl still hadn't gotten off her horse or stopped looking at her. They were a very angry bunch, these people, and while Zoe had quite a bit of magic, none of it could make people just disappear.

Fiona pulled her horse up alongside Shela, holding her hand out expectantly. "I'll take the bow, if you don't mind. I think it might go over better if Sana gets it back from me." The dwarf and Sana hadn't made the best first impression on each other, as she recalled. That, and Shela didn't seem the type to take the best care of her possessions. She could've been wrong, but it was just a hunch.

Before any transaction could be made, however, a two-headed tower of meat and muscle trampled onto the scene, demanding to know who had gone poof. Fiona was unable to stop herself from drawing her sword, narrowing her eyes at the ogre and holding her horse steady.

Zoe had taken the opportunity to take both her and her floating light behind the tree, putting them more or less in between her and the ogre. When he made no move to attack the lot of them, though, she stepped back out, her face set into a hard scowl, though she looked anything but fearsome.

"Listen, okay? Everybody just calm down." She held out her hands as though it would somehow helped push all their nasty emotions and violent urges away. "You're all taking poof a little too literally. All I know is that she came to this spot, and when I got here, she was gone. There are no tracks leading away from here, so... maybe something grabbed her, that doesn't go on the ground. We could check the trees for any sign of her. I have light with me here, I can use it to look around." She turned and looked back at Derrix. "It's Zoe, by the way. I've got a bigger name, but we'll save that for when we're friends."

"I'm Fiona," the redheaded girl said, introducing herself, to both Zoe and the ogre, though she was obviously still wary of the creature, and had yet to sheathe her sword. "If we're settled on not killing each other," Fiona continued, "I'd like to look around for any clues of Sana. Not doing any good standing here."

[Dragoknighte]

Kazuo pursed his lips at Shela's snickering. He deserved it. But the important matter at hand was that this Sana lady had disappeared, either by some odd magic or maybe carried off by a giant bird. When the giant two-headed ogre burst through the trees, he had to take a hand off his sword to keep Trombe from rearing.

"Easy, easy." He still wasn't sure if he could trust this Zoe girl or if he'd have to cut up the ogre, but really, he really wasn't sure what to do at all. Looking through the wilderness for people who up and disappeared wasn't his strong suit. It was dark and although the magician, (assuming she wasn't the one who poofed Sana) had a ball of light with her, it could only illuminate so much at one time. The more he thought about it, the more this seemed like a lost cause.

[Invisible Man]

Drazig's sense of enchantment soon started to fade away as the situation surrounding this group was just getting confusing for the ogre. Everyone was just yelling at each other, most of them directed towards him, and people had their weapons out with the same situation about the screaming. It took Drazig only a few moments before the cogs in his brain started to churn out another idea, which was quite amazing as Dorat was usually the one who would do that! However, this was not the time to be thinking to himself, Drazig needed to tell everyone that he was just a friendly two headed monster! The Ogre soon tried to make his speech, the speech that would save him the trouble of fighting these adventures. "Uh... I'm not a monster... Well, I'm a monster, but I'm not a bad monster... Right?" Drazig, questioning his own logic.

"Yes! Yes! We are good samaritans!" Dorat spoke as Drazig continued to be confused, "We mean you no harm, we were just attracted by the screams, and we wanted to help like the good adventures we are, that is all."

"Yeah! We good! We good! Now who went poof?"

"Drazig... Please, let me do the talking in these situations." Dorat looked at the group surrounding him, most of the people seemed anxious to attack him, a reasonable response to a monster of their size. However, there seemed to be someone who at least tried to reason with the two instead of coldly looking at him like some people in the group. The Ogre Mage cleared his throat, and looked to the person that called themselves Fiora. "Yes, hello. Let us drop our weapons, no need for attack one another, we are good guys like we had stated earlier," Dorat glanced at the group again, they weren't attacking yet, that was good, "I am Dorat, an Ogre Mage while my partner here is Drazig, an Ogre. We mean you no harm, we would like to be chummy with everyone here, is that alright? Can we get back to the main situation at hand?"

"We good guys." Drazig restated.

[Goldeagle1221]

Derrix sighed, either from relief, or from annoyance. Either way he lowered his sword and looked around. The forest was cool and calm besides the shouts of the group and sudden monstrosity, and that was bothersome.

There were no signs of any trouble, no signs of struggles, there wasn’t anything but the mud and a discarded weapon. The golden eyed man crouched over the footprints for a moment and after a few silent seconds he nodded, “perhaps we should try the tree’s. Something isn’t right, and on top of it, I think the sun felt it too this afternoon.”

He looked up, blinking at the dark canopy, his own face glowing like a dim lantern in the night. His golden eye’s fluttered behind his eyelids, creating a strobe of sorts as he examined the trees.

[Afina]

Shela nodded and handed the bow and arrow over to Fiona, “no skin of me teeth.” Taking a breath she glanced around as she slowly lowered her hammer, listening to the odd two headed one seem to argue and agree with itself simultaneously.

“Right, you look high, I’ll look low and you’ll find the hot temper one before me,” she said as she began to trudge through the mud looking for any sign of what had happened to Sana. Her eyes scanning the ground but there was nothing, no sign of anything which struck her as odd.

Looking back over to the group she pursed her lips, “nothing here, anyone else seeing anything?” she asked as she began to walk back towards the cave, wondering if there were any signs there they may have missed when they first arrived. Wondering to herself if there were any signs of something was amiss.

Getting to the cave she stopped in her tracks as she watched a rather dense and unnatural fog roll out quickly. “That ain’t right,” she muttered to herself. Looking in the cave, she saw something even more off. Sanas horse and things were in the cave and she was gone, same with two others in the group now.

“We got two more gone,” she yelled over her shoulder. There was no sign of the half-orc that had been sitting in the cave earlier not saying anything nor the bald headed monk, weapons and possessions were still there. To add to the confusion Hugh was gone, the one Sana had adamantly claimed as her own. The difference between Hughs disappearance and the rest was that all his items were gone as well and there were tracks from his horse going off back to the road where she had followed to the camp in the first place.

“Make that two more gone and one left,” she yelled as she dropped her hammer to the ground, leaning against it as she wrinkled her lips and rubbed her chin.

Elsewhere, each of the three that had vanished would find that they would awaken to a different scene. The monk would find himself dumped behind some tavern in an unknown town, the half-orc was in a cave with the sound of flapping wings above him, and the archer would find herself bound and gagged behind wooden walls and bars; feeling the gentle rock of a wagon as it pulled her through an open field.

[Luminosity]

Fiona tucked the bow into an open saddlebag for the moment. She'd find a better way to store it later. For now, there was searching to do, as it looked like the ogre was surprisingly no danger to them. For now. She sheathed her sword and gave him a tired nod. Drazig and Dorat... already she wasn't sure which was which. She'd never befriended anyone with two heads before, that was for sure. And now more were missing? Hugh and Lob... what had happened to them? Sana had been the first to vanish... they needed to find her, and quick.

"I'll try to the north," she suggested, glancing down at Zoe. "Or... I think that's north." It was difficult to know for sure, if the sun had set on the wrong side. Fiona had to admit she wasn't really paying attention. "Care to follow me with the light?" She'd have a better vantage to look up at the trees from atop her horse, and Zoe was a short thing, besides. She seemed to see the logic behind it.

"Sure."

The two moved slowly in that direction, heading back towards the road that Zoe had come from, albeit at a slightly different angle. The light above Zoe hovered slightly higher, so as to be more useful to Fiona, who studied the trees carefully, eventually holding up a hand to stop.

"There's bark knocked off some of these," she pointed out. "From climbing, I would imagine."

"You think it's the missing lady?" Zoe asked, leaning on her spear, which she had planted into the ground. "Or... something else?"

"Hard to say. Let's keep moving, see if there's a trail." There was, as it turned out, multiple trees heading the direction of the road having bark knocked off from climbing. Fiona called it out to the group, and followed the trail. It wouldn't be hard for the others to keep up with it, as the floating ball of light Zoe had conjured made them a beacon of sorts in the dark woods. Eventually they came upon the nearby road, at which point the trail ended.

"Road's too drenched and traveled to track anything further," Fiona said, a little dismayed. She didn't want to leave Sana to the mercy of whatever had taken her, but it was clearly dangerous to split up and search, and trying to track her down in the dark may well be impossible. Perhaps it was best to just regroup in the cave, wait until morning, and... she didn't know. Sana had been the sort of impromptu leader before, and with her gone... would that fall to Fiona? She didn't know if she was up for it.

[Dragoknighte]

Kazuo didn't do much active searching, it was dark as fuck and he couldn't see much that wasn't already around that Zoe girl. He wouldn't be much use looking around, but he could still keep an eye out on the new strangers. As innocent as she seemed, Zoe was a magic user, and they were slippery, untrustworthy types to begin with, who knows if that spell they're about to cast isn't meant to actually sacrifice you to some unholy thing from Hell? Clerics were a bit more trustworthy, but they might be worshiping some evil god of deception and betrayal, and you wouldn't know. Magic was unnatural and not to be trusted. The other guy was a two-headed ogre. It paid to keep your distance no matter the situation. If he tripped, it would suck to be the below him. So Kazuo sat back and watched Zoe and red-headed girl find a path and head down that way while Shela found two more people apparently poofed by the fog. Man, fuck magic.

[TheWizardLizard]

The Thief
Tobias, for his part, was behaving in a way almost totally foreign to him - he was following Fiona around and keeping his mouth shut. The situation had gone past abnormal - first a dwarf, then a 'friendly' zombie, then another traveler, then Sana got 'poofed' by something, as explained by a strange magic spear-girl nobody had ever met before, and then a half-sophisticated two headed ogre burst onto the scene, looking to help rather than to eat anyone's heads. This shit was weird.

Finally, while Fiona and Zoe were discussing the next plan of action, Tobias spoke up. "Uh, yes, hello? Voice of reason here. I suggest we take all the people..." he struggled for a moment, casting his eyes around the assembly. "Or, well, sentient things, and have us all sit with our backs to each other in a big fucking circle until night falls. Something is out there 'poofing' people - not just people, either, this is Sana Skullfucker we're talking about, as well as the half-orc monster and the guy who punches swordsmen. This thing is bad news, and we are in its house, yeah? So I think we should all bite the bullet, have an uncomfortable as hell night, and hope our dear friends are still alive in the morning, when there's less chance of us getting poofed right along with them." The rogue clapped his hands. "All in favor?"

The Corpse
Finally, Oscar couldn't maintain his sprint anymore - the dead body stumbled and launched itself forward, landing hard and utterly destroying a shrubbery as he did so. With some difficulty, the dead body struggled to his feet and threw his glassy eyes around the woods as the other searchers caught up with him. "Katherine!" he rumbled into the darkness. "Kather...ine?" His voice died out. Who was Katherine?

The corpse struggled with his memory for a moment. He was looking for a woman. Who had screamed in the woods. He was looking for her for... some reason. It didn't matter now. The others, they were looking for her too. But now they were talking, a bunch of shadowy silhouettes in faint conversation, and from what Oscar was able to comprehend, the woman was gone. Poofed? Something new had arrived, something big with two voices, and Oscar tensed his stiffened muscles to confront it. It made no hostile moves, however, and so the corpse let it be.

He cast his gaze upwards and saw blackness, choking, deep, infinite. He rumbled into his throat and asked a question - unsure of whether he was speaking to the others or the abyss. "What... do I do? Find her. I have to find her." He repeated the maxim in his rotted brain, forcing himself to push it through his mind again and again. Find her. Find her. Find her.

[Goldeagle1221]

Derrix quickly agreed with Fiona, “it would seem so.” he muttered irritated as he followed the two girls through the woods and to the drenched road. His ears opened to Tobias' words, but his own thoughts mingled outside of the thief's suggestion

He pointed at the other side of the road, “we could check the other side and see if the tracks pick up, if not then we should all reconvene and decide on the best course of action as a group.”