((
@Ogobrogo,
@lmpkio))
Eloise choked and spluttered as she was rudely awakened from her brief stint of unconsciousness by a sudden rush of water on her face. Blearily looking around in a mild panic, she finally pieced together the events leading up to the point where she found herself lying in the mud on the side of the lake. Turning around, she looked down the lakeside to see her two quarries, Pan and Dreadlin, walking away from her towards the distant form of a boat on the lake. Stumbling to her feet, she raced along the shoreline behind them.
"Waaaaait! Do you even know where you're going?! And what if the monsters come back?"
A bit ruffled and disoriented from the whole experience, Eloise at least took solace in the fact that at least she'd completed her task and had delivered the message successfully. From here it should be a relatively easy task to just help them quickly back across the lake where they should hopefully be able to find the guildmaster by calling for her, at which point Eloise would finally be able to rest easy.
((
@Sho Minazuki,
@Spanner))
The acquisition of Vega was going well, they had him caged and surrounded, so when he decided to take the fight to them, Angela was neither surprised nor concerned. Directing the fight like a conductor from the back, everything was going well, as the noose was slowly tightening around Vega's neck, with Jardon slowly putting out more bars in strategic places to funnel their quarry's movements into a more manageable set of patterns. Just as they closed in for the final strikes however, a spanner was thrown into the works, or more accurately about thirty of them were.
Stunned by the sudden appearance of 30 Vega illusions (for they could be nothing else), Angela was a fraction too late onher warning for Jardon, and he was unable to avoid Vega's chains in time. Flashing over from the other side of the fight, Steven tried to keep the original in sight and contained, but he swiftly disappeared into the crowd of illusions. As the team kicked into overdrive to clear the illusions, a big red X appearing over each proven illusion in their sight courtesy of Angela, she called out loudly enough for anyone in the square to hear:
"You know, Vega, Delsin probably wants to talk to you about the S-Class trials. If you want to be a measly A-Class for the rest of your days here, not going to see him before the announcement like he wants is a great way to go about it...
Not that an ingrate like you would ever be chosen in the first place."
Turning and walking towards the edge of the dome, leaving the rest of the team to sort through the clones to see if for some reason the real one was still inside, Angela scanned the square for any signs of her least favorite illusionist. Any of the illusionists in town could have done this, certainly, but there was only one of them who would even vaguely consider helping Vega out, even excluding the fact that they'd be putting themselves on the bad side of a full team of S-Class mages. No, there was only one person this could have been.
"I know you're out there Seto. Buddying up with Vega now are we? A proper pair of miscreants you are. I'm sure the rest of the guild will love to hear that you two are such great friends now. Maybe we should put you both in the same room since you're so close, how does that sound?"
Around her, the cage began to dissolve and flow back towards Jardon. They'd found the hole and knew their target was gone. With no real info on where he would be going next, there was no reason to chase, particularly with the announcement coming up reasonably soon. Gathering around Angela, the group headed off back towards the guild hall.
Illedrith turned back to the group just in time to hear Alexandria address the rest of the gathering.
“Time has passed a fair amount. Perhaps we should move along before we grow rooted to the ground here and miss the meeting in town? Illedrith, Ceri and I were going to walk together to the meeting that’s happening in town. Would you two care to join us, barring any objections from the others?”
With Ceri mirroring the sentiment a moment later, Illedrith agreed. The sun was well on its way towards the horizon, and it wouldn't do to be late for the announcement.
"You're both absolutely right. We've got plenty of time to grab a snack in town, or look at the traditionally present activities around the square before the announcement, but we should be getting going. I really hope they have those themed attractions based off the well known mages again; I had no end of fun messing with the townies in the Mirror Maze last year, I can't wait to see what they think of this year."- - - - - - - - - -
The walk into town was, as ever, pleasant. With the flowers and trees to either side of the path across the lake in full bloom at this time of year, the promenade was a riot of colour and life. Bumping into one or two of their guildmates at a time as they wandered into town, they were soon a veritable throng of Harpy's Wing members all cluttered together, chatting away with each other as they sauntered through the outskirts of Luna Crescente. The townsfolk gave them a wide berth for the most part, preferring not to get in the way of a large and energetic group of mages, but they were hardly ones to be starting trouble, and the walk went without incident.
Finally, the group arrived at the town square outside the mayor's townhouse. The whole place was covered, wall to wall, with streamers and bunting. Usually they would have been all in one colour and bearing the logo of the Harpy, but now there were two colours mixed together, and every other logo was the Fist of the Golem. Plenty of guild members from both guilds already filled the area, with the merchants and attractions all set up around the outside of the square and down the little alleys that came off it. Normally there would have been a reasonable level of tension between both groups guild members, but today there was a much more important thing to be focused on, so the tension was significantly decreased, with everyone having a good time on what was practically a festival day for most of them.
The most conspicuous thing to Illedrith, however, was that there was no fighting arena set up. Typically when the S-Class trials occurred, the final component would be a tournament or a fight of some kind, but this year that traditional raised platform was entirely absent, and there didn't seem to be anything that would naturally replace it... Still, she imagined that everything would be revealed when Ria turned up. There had already been one curve ball announcement today, so who was saying there couldn't be a second? Gravitating towards the food booths, she decided not to dwell on it too much; after all, a non-combat trial might even be a benefit to some of her team, so she wouldn't be found complaining!
