When they eventually arrive at the place they're headed to, at the first street corner:
"Cometh one, cometh all! Hark to this humble street cri'r's w'rds!
Cometh to Sir John's Tav'rn! With locations scatt'r'd across the whole of the empire, we provideth cubiculos to rest in and the finest of pies to satiate weary traveleth'rs! Meat pies, fruit pies, mincemeat pies, hot sheep's feet pies, and eke Sir Wellington's most delightful pastry-wrapp'd meat loin!
Cometh one, cometh all! Hark to this humble street cri'r's w'rds!"
She would take the fish Adam offered her with an almost desperate haste, mostly as her body wanted to much into something edible as soon as possible. As quickly as possible at that! Frankly she'd come over to the others already biting into her fish with a hungry fervor, tearing into the flaky meat on its side without so much as an ounce of hesitation. Yet as much as stuffing her face with fish was helping the hunger in her stomach and ache in her body, the rushed eating had hit her like a ton of bricks despite trying to and eventually managing to slow herself down near the end of her eating spree.
As if she hadn't made enough of a fool of herself by now...panicked on entry, fumbling about for a little shelter as the others had actually bothered to do more productive things, and now scarfing down a fish like she was some starving five year old without self-control! She'd been too embarrassed to say a thing at the fire otherwise, just sitting there and fumbling around with the cube and afraid of making eye contact.
Heck by the time MacKensie had asked about which of them would like to join her on the final watch, she'd slammed herself face-first into a fish to start eating and Adam had then volunteered to take the final watch with her.
In the end it all felt...isolating, to a certain extent. Not surprising given her aptitude for failure. Hah.
She'd not had much of, if really any, chance to talk to anyone more individually save for Adam thus far. Not even spending any distinct time to try to talk to either of the only other two women on the team at that. Just floundering around making a useless little shelter, scarfing down food and silencing herself out of mortified embarrassment, and failing to volunteer to help anyone with anything meaningful for the group. All in the span of a few hours since her, most likely in her mind, probable death at the hands of a loose beach umbrella to the head and consequent kidnapping to another world.
She missed her bed. She missed her uncle. She missed any sort of friends being around. She missed a good book to read, and the feeling of the salty ocean air running over her skin as she walked on the beach under the light of a full moon. She missed it all.
At the same time, however, she had to keep doing something. Anything. The moment she gave into that ever-looming ball of those thoughts in the back of her head-...no. It wouldn't come to that. It couldn't come to that. Keep focus. Keep doing something, working at the next little goal or task ahead of her.
The whole thing was so very vexing, if not personally exasperating, that it was ridiculous to think about! Perhaps she was overthinking a bit, however, that wouldn't be the first time. Yes. Even so, she'd sat by the fire until she was virtually the last one, before meekly putting some more wood on it, looking about, and taking up back at her little shelter to try to settle in for the night.
A giant pair of eyes, staring down at her from the blackness of a void. A woman's eyes, judging by the shape...deep red were their hue.
They stared at her, dwarfing her. They marked her. They inspired fear. They radiated power.
...And then Lillianna would wake.
The mage shot up in place, bumping her head on the roof of her shelter with a small clatter but not damaging it at least as her head bounced back down onto the floor of the shelter. It wasn't a big noise, or at least the biggest noise, but a small little disturbance if nothing else. All the same, she would stay lying down for the moment as one hand came up to rub her head...the other clinging tightly to the cube itself still (having been sleeping with it in her arms).
Reasonable, Minions, Mana Font, Retrieval, Transportation | Insomnia, Quick Tempered, Health Sapping, Fearsome Reputation
STR: 03 | AGI: 03 | VIT: 04 | MAG: 04 | LCK: 03
STR: 3 | AGI: 3 | VIT: 6 | MAG: 20 | LCK: 9
Coins: None
Kiyome
Age: 16 | Gender: Female | Time, Space Underdeveloped | Focused Assault, Regeneration | Horror (Thos) Precognition, Monstrous Metamorphosis, Big Damn Hero, Enhanced Weapon, Immortality
Reasonable, Marked, Mana Font, Minions, Retrieval, Magical Overload | Insomnia, Quick Tempered, Health Sapping, Fearsome Reputation, Monstrous Form Thick Skin, Second Specialization (Oddball: Space)| Hoarder, Broken Reincarnation
STR: 3 | AGI: 2 | VIT: 3 | MAG: 4 | LCK: 3
STR: 6 | AGI: 2 | VIT: 16 | MAG: 12 | LCK: 6
Coins: None
The swordswoman raised an eyebrow, but would ultimately accept the device that Ellen offered her and pop it into her right ear.
“I hear things have gotten a bit more complicated back in the city”
“Though not all for the bad, my offer for an evac is still open if you need it. And this is going to be the easier way to stay in contact as I’m a bit occupied at the moment.”
Well, it seemed she was still alive after that rampage of hers at least. Fortunate, at least when it came to that one's offer of assisting with the evacuation out of the city for herself and her mistress. But it seemed she wasn't the only one getting an earpiece either. Hmm. One of the Beacon members, the same who'd first addressed them, also seemed to receive one from what she could see. Curious.
"It has become certainly more complicated, yes, but we'll accept your offer for an evac. I and my mistress that is.
Currently the evacuation of the civilians is underway, with Beacon having brought a teleporter with them, but I'll assume you're aware of their presence given the circumstances."
A fair assumption, she felt, to make based on what she'd seen.
But more than this, one of the beacon members seemed to have a reaction to something. Her 'marked' status, perhaps? The chill and aura that clung palpably in the air, that of a greater horror of no small reputation at least, was not something everyone reacted to kindly. Some worse than others. But this one rather scantily-dressed 'bunny maid' seemed to take it rather badly on that spectrum of reactions she'd seen, even as she could see out of the corner of her eye the potential reaction of another one of the Beacon members in turn. A reaction that spoke more than any words could about her obvious fear. She could almost taste that fear from where she sat at that.
And then came the shattering of Eliana's barrier, her mistress flinching reflexively as her hard work was torn asunder and exposed both the teleporter and what remained of the sleeping civilians to danger.
Other magical girls/boys would seem to take actions, from the barrier of the living-torture-device-please-make-it-stop-talking, to the lightning girl seeming to transform into an angry evil spirit going on a rampage within the enemy's ranks, to that one magical boy's dome barrier, and otherwise. Her first action, meanwhile, was to gingerly help Eliana sit on the ground next to her as best as she could. Not a terrible blow that would have hurt her mistress, but an unacceptable sudden shock to her as her mistress had seemingly been distracted with looking over at the civilian rescue effort.
"Breathe, mistress, but we must make haste if we are to ensure your safe evacuation from this place-"
"We...we have to get the civilians out of here...everyone...we have to get everyone out..."
Her mistress spoke with a resolve, gritting her teeth as she stood back up once more, only putting a hand to her head briefly before trying to shake the brief headache off. In response the draconic swordswoman could only take pause, and then somewhat sigh before continuing on.
"...Understood, mistress. In that vein I won't be of much help right here, but I'll have to impose on you to hold onto something for me in the meantime. Also these two weapons I've captured."
Kiyome would remove the magical slippers from her waist, tying them to Eliana's waistband as her mistress looked down at her with a small bit of surprise. She then nearly tossed the two magical guns into her mistress' arms, who caught and held them despite her surprised state, before she opened her mouth in some attempt to protest-
"I'll be back, alive, when you next see me. That's a promise. Until then, focus on the work in front of you...and don't lose my treasures either."
Kiyome would then push her closer toward the teleporter, Eliana nearly falling on her butt as she caught her balance again, before the swordswoman want about putting a hand quickly up to her provided earpiece. The two minions she had sent to help move civilians would also divert to stand on either side of Eliana, moving to protect her as well as one of them moving to gently take and hold to two guns the cosmic gypsy carried in her arms.
"I'm going to teleport back out to where we were, see if I can stir up any trouble back there or find any idiots I can send back to help evacuate the civilians better than I could. Can't really use my legs, but that won't be much of a problem.
...Should I fail to show up in time for the evacuation, just ensure my mistress gets out of there. Simply ask for Eliana at the shelter."
Pop.
In a flash of magic, the draconic sword user would case a Space spec spell and disappear from before the eyes of those at the teleporter once more.
Kiyome would appear once more, standing on her knees and silently gritting her teeth through the pain, as she reappeared once more on the battleground she'd formerly been fighting on in the outside area of the town. Yet in particular she would appear about the time the real Mayra would, whenever it occurred, be trying to rocket back toward town in an obvious and seemingly rather loud blaze of glory. In fact she appeared in the general direction that the rocketing Mayra would be headed in the direction of, actually, if the other dragon managed to get that far. Likewise in enough time to see the smokescreen and quickly take a glance at the situation, all to calculate that-...ah.
Nope, this one was still an idiot.
But at least the swordswoman had arrived in time to try to help in case anyone sought to pursue the dragon and the two parts of a now-headless other ally from the battlefield.
Kiyome would prepare a Space spec spell as quickly as she could, targeted at sending Mayra/Finn back to the center of town, using her precognition to keep an eye open on things and be ready to cast the spell as soon as anyone (if they did) tried to grab Mayra/Finn or intercept them. Meanwhile she held her overly-long sword up in a combat stance, or at least what she could make of one in her current (and somewhat awkward) position.
Eliana handed the two weapons over to one of the two minions coming to her sides, which Kiyome had summoned before at least, taking only a momentary pause at the injured swordswoman's sudden disappearance before turning her attention back to the evacuation. Specifically the attempts by others to help protect the civilians and teleporter after her barrier had suddenly fallen.
The Cosmic Gypsy would toss up a smaller dark energy enemy-repelling barrier to add to Alex's own protective dome, seeking to at least augment the work, before running over to start helping move the rest of the civilians as quickly as she could to the teleporter. Whether it was using dark energy spells to make them levitate off of the ground to help herself or others more easily move them, or carrying them with her own two arms, Eliana would throw herself back into the work and push to get all the civilians out as quickly as she could. Especially since more help seemed to arrive on-scene in the meantime to assist in protecting the teleporter and such.
At the same time...
'That...that stupid idiot!!! She had better not get herself killed!
Her cheeks puffed out in a bit of a huff as she tried to hold in the mounting frustrations inside of her head, now somewhat aimed at herself, the enemy, and Kiyome all at once by this point in time. Ugh. Herself for putting such pressure on her already-injured compatriot, who couldn't even walk on her own, and the rest on the stupid situation the enemy had caused here as well as at Kiyome's tendency to act so rashly without regards to her own health and safety! On the other hand, they had to help the civilians and other magical girls get out of there! It was...but...aaargh!
Conflicting enough as it was, she would do her best to help move the civilians this time. If her first barrier was not doing so well, she'd have to rely on the others and get hands-on with the work once more! But with Lilly seeming to go into some kind of 'monstrous transformation', she worried about the other girl's safety to boot as she helped move civilians. Not that there wasn't enough she was concerned about already in all of this. Not to mention her curiosity about the 'where' those magical slippers now tied to her own waist had come from! The guns, though, were less surprising.
She'd focus on the work in front of her, but there really wasn't much time to talk with anyone else or anything. Just do things. Further interaction with the rest of the cast would have to come after the hard work maybe? Unless someone approached her to talk to her. Ha.
Perfect Life, Shinespark, Mystic Might | Vow of Humanity, Excommunication
STR: 3 | AGI: 3 | VIT: 4 | MAG: 4 | LCK: 3
STR: 5 | AGI: 10 | VIT: 9 | MAG: 23 | LCK: 7
Coins: 2 silver
As she felt the panic sucked out of her, like a vacuum cleaner or something, she softly looked over to Aurelio and gave a small but silent thankful nod. But his look said it all without words, and she frankly had no idea where to begin. Much less she had zero good ideas of how to explain, in the middle of an evacuation of all things, how the presence of this one monster girl was setting off one of her deepest-seated fears since becoming incarnated as a human and then made into a magical girl. Not without alerting the servants of one of her worst enemies that she was something that their patron would be highly interested in killing...eating...maybe worse. Maybe worse? Yeah, maybe worse. Eternal torture and suffering was but the tip of a fate worse than death, after all.
“Hey, is something wrong? We need to get these civilians out!”
As sour as she was, she could see the genuine worry in the former monster girls' face and eyes at the same time. Gulping, Serenity then nodded at Huyn before the sudden shattering of the initial protective barrier grabbed her attention and caused a shudder to run down her back out of surprise.
Hastily, the magical maid looked back at Aurelio and then Huyn once more before she suddenly and quickly moved to get back to work in moving the civilians. She'd even cast another series of time-spec speed buffs to herself and the others who were moving the civilians to try to help them move faster. Yet even then, before she moved suddenly to get back to work and try to stifle the worries of her allies, for the moment at least, Hyun and Aurelio would be able to clearly see in her eyes that something about that monster girl's aura had deeply troubled her. Jarred her, for a lack of better words, more than it had the rest of them in particular.
Even so, the sudden disappearance of Kiyome to elsewhere would admittedlly set the maid's mind more at ease as she did her best to speed up efforts.
To say the work had been draining was at least a generally correct fact. All the walking about and trying to get things ready had been draining indeed, but she at least wasn't completely exhausted in the physical sense. She wasn't made of paper, after all! Albeit she wasn't used to doing things like this all the time after a long walk from elsewhere....so, yeah, it was very draining in the end if she took that all into account. But really, what about any of this was familiar to any of them?
They'd been tossed into another world in stone sarcophagi, she would have to note returning to the village to see if she could study them more at some point in the future perhaps, and the others had fought a battle before she even arrived. Tardy to the party as she was. Dead, pulled from home, whatever the case was it was pulling a bunch of people far from home. And that wasn't just easy for everyone. Hell, she'd barely found a home in the past few years she felt she could call one in the first place. A place that she could call a home for her. None of the pressure or the chores or the getting yanked around to interviews with colleges and professors and talking to researchers and all of that mess.
...It hadn't been all bad, er, really, but it hadn't been all good. She enjoyed proper discourse and discussion of scholastic topics or subjects she felt an interest in for sure, that wasn't a problem. But a lot hadn't been there either that other kids her age seemed to take in stride.
Field trips? Sleepovers? Finding Love? Going to see places far away?
She'd been to the beach before with her family on vacation, sure, but it hadn't been until living with her uncle she'd found the fun in it and a lot of other things for once in her life. The real fun in just...doing something, really. Or something like that? It was hard to put into words the sensation she'd felt at the time, even now being hard to really try to fathom. But it had been welcome more than anything in her life in a long time.
Shopping for a swimsuit with her uncle's girlfriend and daughters, lying on the beach to soak in a nice nap or read a book, talking with people her age without the bar of scholarship between them, all of it! Just things she'd never been able to do for herself had come after that, and then choosing her own path scholastically for the future had come in the wake of those things a time later.
Now it was all gone. Like a bag of weights she was trying to ignore, strapped to her heart and dragging down on it.
As a certain girl in an older work of fiction had once said: "We're not in Kansas anymore."
She welcomed the tiredness as the burn of her working muscles began to cool, the beating of her heart began to slow back down as her breathing slowed in turn, and the sweat cooled and evaporated from the surface of her skin and salty droplets sneakily rolled down her cheeks from the corners of her eyes. Even with the tiredness of making a shelter, it couldn't drain everything from her system it seemed.
But the line between which salty drops rolling over her face and skin were caused by the work, or the metaphorical bag of weight on her heart, didn't seem to much matter in the moment now either. Really it dredged up the crystal-clear image of her uncle smiling like a toothy-grinning idiot, and looking up at the roof of her little shelter and turning her head to look at the sides of it as well she couldn't help but feel the same stupid grin come onto her own face somehow as her stomach rumbled once again.
The big loveable dunce would have loved making something like this, she figured, then hitting the town for some fresh seafood at his favorite food truck. Heh....ah...
...
It wouldn't be too long before she'd hear someone walking over, however, and would sit up on the floor of her little shelter and wipe her face off on her right sleeve. Her left hand would briefly come to her head, however, as the dizziness from hunger and tiredness from work made her vision slightly spin. Grabbing her water skin as Adam came up to her, Lillianna would slowly drink up the rest of the water in it before putting it with where she set her backpack in the back corner of the shelter. Likewise the cube, in all of its odd shining metal glory, sat there hidden underneath her backpack as well.
"Lillianna, I made some fish. Do you want any? I can set it here if you'd rather eat alone, or you can join us by the fire. Or I can join you in there, whatever you want."
She didn't bother to go over to listen to Zell's discussion, which she assumed was strategy from what little she could see going on over there from her position, but Adam's offer was one she really couldn't refuse if her stomach had any say in it.
"I'll come to join you all, and some cooked fish sounds good to me about now after doing all of this...labor, as it were."
Lillianna would scoot over and dig underneath her backpack, taking out the cube again to keep it close to her. Just in case. Maybe it would respond or something this tim-
When Lillianna ran her fingers over the cubes surface, with magical intent in her mind, the cube shimmered for a split-second. That same Thrum she felt when she first held her staff, she felt again, but this was a very different type of Thrum.
It was a distant vibration, almost imperceptible, as if so very far away. And yet, in spite of the quietness of it, in her magically-proficient mind, she sensed immense power. But that was the only reaction from the cube she could earn.
The mage briefly paused as she looked at the cube with a raised eyebrow. A response, or at least a response of some kind. Very interesting-, no, fascinating even! Ultimately, however, she let out a small sigh and looked back to Adam.
"For now, it would be nice to get something to eat before my body tries to argue further-"
@xenon that would be cruel to everyone not just me.
Indeed. But as just a theoretical silly situation to talk about for giggles? Yeah its a bit funny to imagine at least.
Unless we all tried to cram under a one-person shelter in the middle of the night, in which case it becomes group bonding time for some giggles and a little shared frustration. Lol.
As it is I expect Lillianna to still just be the silly one out for overthinking it as things end up fine, but that's just part of her character to overthink it in this case. XD
Lillianna, turning and raising a curious eyebrow at Clive: "Yeah I overthought it all, and its mortifyingly embarrassing in hindsight to be honest, but somehow it all turned out to be the right decision for me in the end somehow. I'll take what little luck I had there, for what it's worth.
Also please come get near the fire, Clive, you're still soaking wet."
What Lillianna Thinks In The Heat Of The Moment: 'Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair! I am Lillianna, Queen of the Shelter!'
What Lillianna Actually Says, after seeing the others soaked the next day and feeling bad about it: "...I'll help build us a bigger one for everyone next time."
Well, for once in her life it was struggle to keep occupied, at least to a certain extent. Without the benefit of the books and internet pages to read at home, or even a good anime to watch for that matter, the cold reality of her situation began to settle in somewhat more than she'd bargained for. Not that she bargained to get here in the first place! The world could be cold and harsh, and with the sun beginning to dip it wasn't exactly like they had much room to debate when it came to setting up for the night. Ugh. What made it worse was the sensation that early sunset breeze seemed to bring on in her own mind...just another reminder of the home she'd lost.
...No. She had to keep busy for now. Survival was first and foremost....it had to be.
Meanwhile the rest of their 'merry band' had begun doing things of their own accord. Albeit one of them had gained a falcon, a beautiful falcon to be sure, but the use of it would remain to be seen for the most part. Birds of prey could lift only so much weight, after all, and that meant only so many small game animals at most could be brought back before it eventually tired. Adam also seemed to get a fire going before heading out in a direction of his own, whilst Zell was calling out to the man who had saved her (James was his name, eh?) to move a tree trunk into the camp near the fire. MacKensie seemed to quip at the duo before walking off to her own devices as well. She hadn't seen what the rest would be up to, and frankly had no idea of anyone was heading out for some alone time, but if they did nothing then this 'camp' would be nothing but huddling close to a fire with nothing else! She had to at least do something here if she was to survive the night, right?
Not much she could do in terms of magic or other skills in terms of their usefulness in the heat of the moment, unless they wanted a larger fire or no fire at all from one of her lightning bolts, so Lillianna would resign herself to a seemingly small task. Leaving her staff at the impromptu camp, propped up on the non-fire side of tree trunk (if Zell and/or James brought it over in the end) and began to scour the space around the camp for wood. Her intent was to gather up as many sticks and branches as she could manage, make somewhat sorted piles of them based on size back at camp for using on the fire. Nothing too big or insane, but sticks and branches big enough to keep the fire she figured. Maybe a few small log chunks too if she could manage to drag or carry them over as well.
Once she would eventually get a reasonable amount of sticks and branches stacked up near, but not too close to, the fire, then came the other matter: Shelter. Well, her shelter at least. She would be going out to get wood, this time at least, from the farther away woods just down the hill (going in the same general-ish direction MacKensie had gone, and getting everything she needed for the rest of her supplies before moving on in her plans, but not getting close enough to notice her) to get these supplies. Sticks, branches, and more leafy branches not attached to any sort of vines. Even smaller stones from the stony/tree-cluster hilltop they were on to boot, or at least what ones she could carry. She didn't even want to risk touching foreign world vines or bushes, though, just in case anything was odd or they tried to eat her or such.
After this she would take a small rest, drinking some water and likewise chewing on the jerky from one of her three rations, before scouting out a potential location to set up. This would ultimately be a small cluster of larger standing rocks placed close enough to the fire Adam had set, within the midst of the mage would fit an amount of the sticks and branches together on the ground in the middle/midst of the rock cluster to make it a tight fit and keep her off of the ground. Then she'd try to layer a fair amount of the much thinner, leafy branches she'd gathered on top of this to make it soft-ish to sit or lie down on. (All of this to the best of her ability at least, she wasn't dumb but she wasn't wilderness trained either.)
Once this was done, another rest. More water. Little more jerky from the same single ration, which she was (pun not intended) rationing out for her work.
Then she would begin work on the next 'part' of her plan. Longer branches would sit over the top of the rock in the cluster, with smaller sticks crossed over them in perpendicular, and then the leafy thinner branches placed over the top of these so as to make am impromptu 'roof' of sorts. Then she would try to carefully weight it down with some of the smaller stones, both around the edges and some in the middle, trying to not make it too heavy but also not wanting her shelter to 'blow away'. Then same using any remaining smaller stones she got and sticks/branches for making shelter to fill in the gaps of the 'walls' of her little shelter. At least so she left just one opening pointed at Adam's fire, and she could safely lie down under the shelter at least.
Anything left after this? If there was any, she'd add any extra wood at this point (if any) to the wood piles she'd made for the fire, and use any small stones left (if any) to stick with the other stones around the edge of the fire.
If she got this far and did all of this somehow, the mage would find herself sitting on the floor of her new shelter exhausted and chugging most of (but not all of) the rest of her water in her water skin and chewing down the last fragments of jerky from the one ration she'd opened up. A weak pang of hunger would grumble against her, however, making her stomach rumble audibly for anyone standing decently close enough to her.
Zapdos
Xaltwind
Spiffy
dwyer austin
The Otter
Dezuel
Izurich
Danyel
Aku the Samurai
tundrafrog1124