Noctis
Zapdos
Damycles
Izurich
Teyao
Dark Cloud
Lucid Dreaming
xenon
Charybdis@ZapdosCheers sham! I'll keep an eye out for it xD
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As the bridge of trees fell, MacKensie fired a shot at the wolves trying to make it across the gorge, hitting the one just behind the Alpha Female. It fell into the darkness along with one of it's brethren, but the Ranger didn't wait to see it disappear - already shoving her free hand into her pouch to come up with a fistful of bolts. A lightning quick reload followed by a sharp raising of her one-handed crossbow. Stood side on, a deep breath held, one eye closed as she aimed with utmost concentration - her target; the Alpha Male crossing the gorge. She followed the flight-path of the direwolf's leap, accounting for distance, a little wind and... J'ai vous.
The crossbow twanged as the bolt exploded towards the target, perfectly on course to catch the Alpha Male in it's skull, in mid-air, right above the gorge where gravity could finish the job. But no.
"What?" MacKensie exclaimed as the bolt missed.
The Alpha Male direwolf, in some feat of sorcery, jumped again, using a flash of light?
There was no time to mourn the miss as a blast of sound and air came towards the group. She watched Zell avoid it, then dodged to one side with pirouette to let it past her harmlessly. Adam was now in danger, betwixt the Alphas, and direwolves from the periphery of her vision swarmed down from the cliffsides to block her from a clear shot to help her friend. The front line engaged the charging enemy. MacKensie supported as she moved to get a visual on Adam. She dropped a bolt into the firing mechanism, cocked back and let one fly from the hip - all in one smooth motion, her bolt hitting the leg of the Lesser Direwolf charging Clive.
When James shouted for Zell to help Adam, MacKensie could wait no longer for her clear shot. "On it!"
She ran forward, skipping between Clive and Arthur's fights in a zig-zag motion to avoid stray attacks, to catch up to Fenna's advanced position. In the back of her mind, a lone and very quiet thought trailed amongst the urgent ones. I didn't notice her spear was so long! Nonetheless, with a clear view of Adam and the Alphas, she took aim and fired off three shots at the Male, in hopes of at least distracting it, if she could not hurt it.
"Come quick!" she called to the Druid, backing up and continuing to fire off more shots until Adam was close enough that she could reach out and grab his hand. "Let's go," she said, turning to run with him back past the remaining Lesser Direwolves to the safety of the back line.
@TeyaoUnderstood. I'll try and post tonight. If not then definitely tomorrow.
"Buff's in, fuck them up!"- Queue appropriate Death Metal track xD
Lillianna and MacKensie about to be like:
The thanks from James intertwined with Zell's objections was so funny that MacKensie almost forgot she was inside nature's labyrinth of doom. Her shoulders hunched up as she covered a school-girl giggle with her fingers. The two men were just too funny - seeming so starkly contrasted in many senses, but so alike at the same time. Such a pair were destined to be the best of friends or the worst of enemies. MacKensie was glad that the former was seeming to be the case.
"Yes," she agreed with a smile as she recovered. And then James went on to allay of her fears and concerns from the start of the day. All of the extreme possibilities she had wondered, about her behaviour, about his mindstate... all put to rest by one string of words.
"...I am really bad at the whole 'being a morning person thing' Just wow. So simple and yet so effective at completely curing all the angst she'd built up. In this moment, all she could think as she looked at that face wearing a tired grimace, was that he had no idea how much better he'd just made her feel. He really was a healer, in every sense of the word. Could you tell me what you wanted to say?"
She cupped his shoulder, a slow blink and a shake of the head. "It is not that important, but I am so very grateful for these words," she said to him, smiling. "We can speak again soon."
Fenna's observations of the north-westerly direction brought MacKensie back into a state of seriousness once more. It seemed they were beset on both sides by potential danger. Lillianna concluded the group assessment with a suggestion to take the northmost central path, but her voice trailed off. MacKensie's eyes narrowed at the wizard who was looking around at... something. The Ranger looked behind her and around but couldn't tell what Lillianna was so fixated on. She looked back at the other woman. Whatever was going on had her spooked.
"...-ok, so does anyone else other than myself see the large amount of spirits of the dead, as in ghosts, all over the place here?"
Okay, spooked was most definitely the accurate terminology. MacKensie bristled at Lillianna's words, pausing for a moment to double-check mentally that she had indeed just heard that question right, then shook her head. When the wizard jumped backwards, MacKensie was instantly on her toes, crossbow arm cocked and ready to aim. It was doubtful that crossbow bolts could do anything to a spirit of the dead, but instincts were instincts and she was ready to fire anyway.
She never lowered her weapon once as Lillianna proceeded to have a full-blown conversation with an invisible person. The whole situation was bizarre, even for this world.
"Ok, so one of the dead spirits here just let me know there is a small pack of direwolves coming from the south. I don't care if I sound crazy, and I don't know if these wolves followed us here or are from here already, but we need to get ready for an attack from our rear.
Now."
MacKensie did not think Lillianna crazy. Just like when she'd told them that The Witch Queen knew where they'd camped last night - her trust in the special powers of the group, aswell as the character of the members of said group, had been proven already to be well-placed. She accepted these truths, and now she accepted this one too. They were about to be attacked.
"Well I should-"
"Destroy the bridge," MacKensie finished Adam's sentence, nodding in agreement with him. He chuckled and she smiled at him. "Let's do this."
The same three words she'd said to him yesterday, before the fight to defend Hommas. It was time to fight again. But this time they were alone. No garrison of soldiers to fight alongside. Here, in this claustrophobic environment, they would fight for their own lives.
Assuming that everyone would get into formation, MacKensie took up a position next to Lillianna and James, on the opposite side to Fenna. They were close enough to Adam that he could run back to them, but far enough away from the edge of the gorge that the front-line fighters had room to maneouveur. She was ready. All that was left was to recite the thing she always said right before any performance.
Calm. Focus. Don't forget to breathe.
Was reading the latest posts and...
lmao I think I went too far with her quick mastery of it. I got a bit happy while writing xD
She stood between Joji and Adam, looking at the place that could only be what Adam had described, this morning, as The Mazy Hillocks. "Sacre bleu," she muttered in unison with the curse of the massive swordsman next to her. Mazy Hillocks was an apt name. It looked mind-boggling.
“Is there a way we can get around this thing?”
MacKensie looked hopefully at Adam, who would know best. The young Druid's answer was deflating. She turned her head sharply back at the maze below, angry at it. Ready. We can do this, she told herself, standing still a moment longer to steel herself as the two men beside her went down the hill, then walked after them. When Zell inquired about her grapplehook, it reignited the thought she had after she'd finished scouting: What in the world have I become?
"I have a magical gauntlet," she replied. "See?" she showed him her arm. "It is a grapple hook. I have had little practice, but I seem to be getting the hang of it okay." A humble understatement. She'd tried it out for a total of ten minutes and then - perhaps irresponsibly - took to the skies where she could've died for a second time had she made a single mistake. Zell's compliment warmed her insides but she tried to play it off with a cocky comeback. "I am full of surprises," she smirked as she shared his gaze.
Walking through the open-air corridors of cliff and boulders, MacKensie had her crossbow drawn and loaded to make herself feel better about the spooky atmosphere. She constantly checked behind her, above her and ahead - making sure the team stayed together and nothing was sneaking up on them. The place felt haunted with ghosts and magic. In her head, she imagined the last moments of unfortunate travellers who'd tried to come through here. It was all she could do not to strangle Zell, who's moaning was doing nothing to help matters. As if he was only one who was feeling the burn. Such an idiot.
At the gorge, she gasped when Adam casted the biggest spell he'd done yet. She was not the only one getting more and more familiar with these new abilities they'd been gifted. She looked at the trees he'd created, then at him. "Okay, so we can get across this way..." And he just carried on like it was nothing! MacKensie almost missed what he was saying, her gaze moving slowly back to the trees as she marvelled. "...I feel repetitive saying this, but please be careful."
She ended up going across with Zell, putting away her crossbow and giving him a curt nod before stepping onto the tree-trunks in tandem with him. Easy does it, Mac. Careful. Careful. Each footfall was precise, her graceful poise and posture drilled into her from a childhood of ballet. One step at a time. The rough sound of Zell's booted feet gave him away as soon as he lost his footing and she shot a glare his way, horrified to see him flailing. She threw herself at him, left hand firing her gauntlet behind her to secure herself and the swordsman as she wrapped her right arm around his back, holding him tight.
Yet another gasp, her breathing elevated from the difibrilation of fear that jolted her into action. For a moment they were frozen - a few seconds to gather herself, to make sure they were secure, to be relieved that he wasn't lost to them - then her gauntlet wire wound them both back into the safety of the middle of the tree-trunk platform. The magical blue beam disappeared and there they stood, before she realised with a blush that she was still holding him as tight as possible. With a knee-jerk reaction she let go and stepped slightly away from him, hiding her embaressment with anger. "Will you kindly watch your step, Zell Brooks?" it wasn't a question, but a command. "Hmph."
Paranoid that she was still blushing, she turned away and started moving, making sure to be slightly ahead of him to hide her face, but not so much that she couldn't save his rear end again if need be. When they were off the bridge, she walked straight past the others without delaying a step. "I will scout ahead a little."
Once she was alone, she rubbed her eyes with one stroke of her hand, to regain focus (although it looked suspiciously like a face-palm) then redrew her crossbow and followed the zig-zagging passage, eventually coming to a junction with three different ways to go from there. She took the right-side passage and made it less than fifty paces before the narrow passage opened up into a clearing that made heart palpitate.
"What in the world...!?" she whispered to stop herself shouting.
In front of her was a clearing littered with skeletal remains and what looked like half-eaten corpses too! Not only could she hear the loud buzzing of flies, but she could even see them, overgrown to the size of pebbles. The sight and smell made her want to vomit. She could only be happy that there was nothing else alive in there, no predator in sight. She backed away slowly, then turned and fled. Deciding against scouting any further and potentially getting lost, she retread her way back to the rest of them, informing the group of what she saw and advising that they should expect trouble ahead.
Just because she had woken up in a better mood - more emotionally resilient after her talks with Fenna and Adam - it did not mean that everyone else had.
It took her a few minutes to realise this fact as she watched James give vacant replies to her, his demeanour distant. She'd took it for dismissiveness at first, wondering why the sudden change in his disposition towards her, seeing as they'd gotten along quite well during yesterday's travelling. Honestly, she was a little miffed at first, but shortly after she realised that she was being incredibley self-centered and spoiled to expect anything from the Cleric.
MacKensie Rosetta Trydant, you must be better than this, the scolding voice in her head was her mothers.
Who knew what was going through James' head. Who knew what he might have dreamt last night. It would take more than twenty-fours to adjust to this new life - this abduction - and perhaps some of the group would never get over it. And here MacKensie was, pestering him with questions, tugging his robe to point at some stupid deer, like a child.
A few minutes to realise herself... a few minutes too long. Be better.
She fell into silence as they walked, after that, feeling bad about her behaviour and feeling bad for her friend. Some time later, Fenna enlightened the party about potential problems ahead. Then Lillianna came forward to drop a bomb of her own. So much all at once. MacKensie's eyes widened as she gauged the reaction of everyone, unsure herself how to approach the situation. Lillianna was frighteningly pale, her forehead looking clammy with sweat. MacKensie stepped next to her, touching her elbow. "It's okay," she said softly to the wizard. "We will figure this out."
When Adam spoke, eventually putting the question to James, MacKensie hoped that the man would be okay enough to put his tactical mind to good use. The ranger was hopeful as Adam's question looked like it had flicked a switch inside James. He was back. And he made up his mind - they were to forge straight ahead. Qui n'avance pas recule, her father's voice this time - his favourite proverb. MacKensie nodded, happy with the decision. It was time for her to do something too, Fenna inspiring her with the tree climbing.
"I can be a look out," the Frenchwoman offered sharply, glancing over a few faces with a fire in her eyes. Perhaps she didn't know anything about scouting. It was time for some 'on the job' learning. "Our heading is that way?" she asked Adam, double-checking with him and his compass. "Okay, I will come back immediately if I see anything."
And with that, she went ahead in something of a jog, but keeping low and on alert. She'd only gone a hundred yards before she fired her gauntlet up at an extremely tall tree, then flew up to it, squatting on a sturdy branch as she kept a look-out. Her adrenaline was already starting to flow - a good job really, because it protected her from worrying about the dizzying, deathly height she'd ascended too. Still, she would see danger before danger caught sight of them.
If the party safely caught up to her, then she'd leap from the branch in a T-pose, instinctively faithful in her newfound ability. Then with a thrust of her left hand, the magical wire of blue light fired from her gauntlet, northbound to the next tree. It latched on and she quickly closed in on her target position - swinging low into an arc as she did, Indiana Jones-style, before zipping up to the next branch and flipping acrobatically onto it. If she could see herself, she'd marvel, but she was too busy looking for danger.
lol yeah that was weird. Perhaps the site was being updated.
Behave xD
Have a good one, madlad!
Behave xD
Have a good one, madlad!
Awwww! I wish you the best of luck with that step xD
Wdym close? Zell and MacKensie haven't talked for like four pages lol. This is propaganda, I say!
Wdym close? Zell and MacKensie haven't talked for like four pages lol. This is propaganda, I say!
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