Cyanic

Ran turned into the form of a woman again and entered the Waystop's lobby, discretion was not a concern anymore. "Can anyone help? Someone's fainted just outside." She was worried, but her plea was still delivered with calm. She could touch Araha, but not hold her, not in this form, let alone carry her back inside. She went back outside, shrinking and darting out through a window in the form of a ribbon of light. Then kneeled by Araha's side in her large form.

The panther tackled Deras to the ground, and this time, there'd be no tapping out. His sword had vanished when it left his hand since he didn't will it to stay and it was too late to re-summon it. The panther had his arm in a hold, and was trying to break it. but unlike them, he didn't need un-broken arms. Deras let the panther break his arm without so much as a sound, then when he let up, the opening provided by his broken arm, Deras spun with all his might and sent the man into the ground. The arm and the fracture started very slowly healing itself, with his good arm, Deras punched the man, though, it was blocked by his own arms. That didn't stop him from screaming in pain as Deras felt the bones crack and break from his punch. Deras summoned the sword again while the man was reeling and greyed his legs out. Both of them. He screamed in pain again. He wanted to let them live, and this was the best way he knew how, by incapacitating them. Deras called to them panthers still standing. "YIELD." He yelled in his deep voice, which sounded like a small explosion. "Your life is not worth losing for this!" For the first time, Deras spoke in a complete sentence, it was not the time for efficiency and wanted his message to come across clearly.

Araha had intrigue in her eyes and was about to respond to Corundum, when she heard a scream from outside, multiple screams. She made a worried eye contact with Ran, then Damaya, then stood and rushed out the door, ready for combat, surveying, then a few minutes later she saw the man she met earlier, Clay, bringing a large bomb to the lobby. "SPARKS!" She swore. The man yelled to not look at the counter, so she complied. Clay placed the bomb in the lobby on the carpet. There was no way they could defuse a bomb in time, she didn't know anyone here, yet there were so many ways to dispose of a non-sentient threat available, it was ridiculous. Soulcast it into something harmless, use Transportation to bring it somewhere uninhabited, coat it in enough Aonic shielding that the explosion did no harm, Awaken it, Forge it, whatever, but she didn't know of anyone's abilities, all she knew... were her own. "Ran! How do I access Gravitation?" She yelled, not caring if she revealed herself anymore, this was more pressing. "You have to say the words!" She exclaimed in response, but without panic. "What words?!" "I've told you them before already. Remember." The words, what were the words? The ideals of the Knights Radiants. All of them shared the first one. What was it? What was it? Araha took a deep breath. Struggling to remember the words. "Life before..." Then it hit her, she remembered clearly. "Life before death! Strength before weakness! Journey. Before. Destination!" She didn't merely yell them out, she understood them, each word. She felt a change inside her, she wasn't sure what, but she did. "Now you need stormlight to breathe in." Ran continued, not missing a beat. There were some spheres on the counter, not a lot, but the amount of stormlight in them would have to do. She rushed over and sucked in. The wisps of stormlight streaming into her, then it made her glow. She held one of the spheres and willed the stormlight to go inside, it did, then she thought, willed it to fall toward the wall, it didn't. She sucked back the stormlight in and tried again, instead trying to make its down the wall. It worked and the sphere fell to the wall as it would falling to the floor. The Waystop was now reinforced with metal, but that would protect from outside threats, and if she did what she had planned now, it wouldn't work. She grabbed hold of the bomb, excess stormlight making her stronger, she looked at everyone then she ran the bomb outside, to the peaks themselves. How large was the explosion going to be though? She'd visited AlleyCity after it was destroyed, and if the bomb was anything like that, then even a few kilometers into the sky, it would still hit the Waystop, reinforced or not. THEN SEND IT TO SPACE. She yelled in her mind. The bomb did not have any aluminum components on it, so she could surgebind it easily. She touched the bomb with one hand and let the storm flow. Lashing it upward once, twice, four times, ten times, twenty times, forty times as much as the stormlight in her body could allow. She drained almost all the stormlight in her body and the bomb went flying. - The bomb cleared the stratosphere, then the exosphere, then the planet's orbit, and now that the bomb wasn't bound by the planet's own gravity, it sailed farther and farther before exploding like a distant star. - Back on the surface, Araha looked on, not even seeing where the bomb was anymore. Then she laughed, in relief, and with what she just did. She was spent, the stormlight increased, adrenaline fueled high finally wearing off. Then she passed out on the ground outside the Waystop.

The sword was intimidating, but slow enough to see coming. Deras dodged to the side and swung his own summoned sword at the man's arm, which went through without resistance and greyed it out, making him drop the greatsword. Deras then stepped into the man's space, dropping his sword but willing it to remain and grabbed his neck and leg to slam him onto the ground, getting a few blows from the man's good arm in the process and cracking the stone underneath. On the ground, Deras stepped on the man's shoulder on his good arm, breaking it, and giving the stone below it more cracks. Deras ran to help Devaan with the others, intending to ram one of them.

Araha's relaxed posture turned to one of attention when Damaya revealed her own spren and her eyes widened. From her reluctance and her words themselves, she seemed to be one who'd want to keep her spren a secret, but the fact that Damaya trusted Araha enough to reveal Coru actually warmed her heart. Ran's posture was also more intent, more surprised than anything, but she still managed to keep an air of maturity despite this. At her words though, Araha nodded thoughtfully, "I have my own opinions. Like most Investiture and just power in general, they can be used for different ends, I guess. Like that healer, she had power, but she used that to help rather than to harm. I don't know her or her motives, but those aren't important, what matters were her actions." Araha paused, considering her words. "I guess that yeah, having power can cause more destruction, but I think that's up to the person." After a brief moment, Araha, quickly interjected herself. "I-I didn't mean to lecture you!" She laughed nervously. "Um, can Coru talk too?" Yes that's it, Ara. Change the topic! Araha thought to herself.

Araha ignored the sudden appearance and disappearance of the man, or more like partially subconsciously forgot that happened. Ran nodded at Damaya's comment, smiling back. More of a smirk really. "We bonded since I was about five or six years old, not very sure of the specific year now." Araha replied. "I'm twenty now, err... twenty-one Rosharan time, but twenty generally, so that's about fifteen or fourteen years." She chuckled at what she was about to say next. "Wow, imagine dealing with this headache for fifteen years." She gestured toward Ran. "If I recall, I'm the older sister, so I believe it's you who was the headache." Ran replied, not a hint of malice in her voice, but still keeping her smirk. "Well, with how much older you are, you're more like a mother." Araha crossed her arms. "I take no offense to that." Ran shrugged. "Sparks, y'got me." Araha smiled in defeat. She turned back to Damaya. "As y'can see, we're good friends." She scratched her head and chuckled. "Is this your first time 'meeting' a spren?"

Araha nodded. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" A small, quiet voice spoke near Araha's temple, it wasn't a whisper, just a very small voice, but it was quiet enough to have the function of a whisper. Araha turned and cupped a hand to hide her mouth, whispering to her side where her 'hair clip' was. "Yeah, we're not giving away much by revealing that I'm a surgebinder, and besides, I think we can trust her." "You're still quick to trust people, but fine." "Just do it slowly so we don't startle her." Ran made sure she was visible to the other woman and the green hair clip on Araha started floating from her head and in the air started growing larger, then turned into the form of a young woman, she nodded to Damaya. "Good eve." Then she sat on the air by the table. Araha smiled, excited. She'd never showed anyone Ran before outside of Master Soren. "This's Ran," she gestured to her long-time friend with a grin. "She's my spren, specifically, an honorspren. I wasn't lying when I said I didn't know much about spren kinds, I only knew about Ran's own. She supposedly grants me Gravitation and Adhesion, but I've never done any of that before, for some reason." Araha rolled her eyes toward Ran. "I've already told you that it's not my place to teach you." Ran said as a matter-of-factly reply and she crossed her legs, still sitting on nothing. "That's why we came here." Araha said, shaking her head. "That's not important right'now." She looked back at Damaya, excited to see the woman's expression. "Preeeeetty interesting, wouldn't you say?"

"That woman sounds like a hero," Araha nodded, "someone who helped others for no reason other than to help them." She remembered when she herself was saved by a man who flew, but, why did she need to be saved in the first place? The memories started swimming to the surface, but before they could form images or sounds in her mind, Araha pushed them back to the depths, then shook her head. "Um anyway, I believe if she was a surgebinder, she was using the surge of Progression, surgebinders can use stormlight to heal themselves but not others, unless they have Progression, which I think helps heal wounds and, judging from its name, it helps progress life, I guess." She chuckled. "She could've easily had a spren as well as other Investiture though, but mentioning them all is liable to take th'whole day. Just for surgebinding, there are ten different surges" She chuckled again, "I'll try my best to condense the information though. That I know of from the Cosmere, there are four major Investitures: Metallic Arts, which originate from Scadrial, surgebinding which originate here on Roshar, Awakening, or as scholars call them BioChroma, which comes from Nalthis, and Dor-based Investiture which comes from Sel." She said, every other word punctuated by a gesture. "There are also minor ones such as Sand Mastery, Cognitive sense, and shades, but I'm not too well versed in those." "Actually," Araha looked around, to verify that they were around. "D'you want to see something interesting?" She asked Damaya, leaning in, voice low.

"Definitely! Or well, it's more interesting than anything else, but still!" Araha said then looked down at her plate of food which she began to eat, nothing too extravagant, but it was good and filling. "Before now," she continued, "I'd always thought that spren granted only one surge, I wasn't aware it was two. My master, Master Soren, taught me about the various Investitures, and basic Realmatic theory, and I do know that Soulcasting has something to do with the Cognitive Realm, that's as far as my knowledge goes though." She chuckled. "Do you know of other bond spren?" She asked eager to continue discussing, she'd always marveled at how intriguing the topic of Investiture was, but she'd always forgot that it was this intriguing. She slowed down, remembering her politeness "Er sorry, do you have anything to ask me?"

The dining room was fairly big for how relatively small the 'Stop was, and though it wasn't anything really special, it was still clean and felt welcoming. "Oooh, this is pretty nice in here." She said with a glance back at Damaya, then walked in and found some place to sit. A moment passed and she felt Ran tap her twice by her temple, different from the reprimanding nudges from earlier. This time just reminding her of a topic, most likely. "Oh! You wanted to talk about spren right?" She paused, "well, I wanna talk about spren," she chuckled, "You said that was a spren from earlier, that strange pattern-looking indentation on the floor? I don't know much about unique spren, just that they're connected to the surgebinding Investitures."

Araha nodded. "Yeah, I could go for something to eat." She then made her way past the small crowd and to the hallway, only to stop and turn. "Er... I don't know where the dining chamber is. It might be better if you lead." She chuckled.

He smiled with a nod at the joke, though Deras wasn't sure what Devaan meant by stasis. Out of nowhere, multiple figures showed up and called Devaan out, the rushed forward, seeming ready to attack. Deras' eyes widened and he stepped back, reaching to his side and summoning the strange sword which appeared from mist five heartbeats later. "Enemies?" Deras asked Devaan, then took a stance. He held the sword with one hand and rested it, blunt-side on his shoulder, with his other arm up, fist ready.

Deras recounted, from his perspective, he was 'born' the other day, helped a village the next, and then came to the training grounds just that day, but from everyone else's he might've been around for a longer time, and no one would question why he didn't age since he was a Lifeless. "A... few days," he responded. "Not sure how explain. Complicated."

Deras got up as well. He nodded at the compliment. "Thank you." He said with his usual monotone voice. His next question though made Deras hesitate, not because he had anything to hide, but because he didn't know how to answer. How old was the man, really? "I..." he begun, "not there, in war, specifically... but was around, nearby. Had to help people from village near city." He really was unsure how to talk about his situation, and above that, did he want to go back 16 years in the past? He didn't have a home, and he might have as much luck finding about his own past now as he did before, so there really was no reason to.

Deras was now pinned under Devaan's knee and on the ground. While he was taught close combat, they weren't taught any ground game, only being taught to avoid the fight being taken to the ground as much as possible. Usually tapping out was only for when the pain was too much after being grappled and in a losing position. Deras didn't feel pain, but he recognized when he was out of options, like he was now. With that, he tapped the groundsmaster twice, signalling his defeat.

Deras nodded, then stepped forward, telegraphing a punch, but at the last second, retracting it and swung with his other hand, with as much force as possible without losing the stance.

Devaan slid under the Lifeless' wide stance which made Deras turn, trying to adjust his stance, only to be hit in the diaphragm by his opponent's elbow. The hit threw all the remaining wind out of him in a sort of puff sound, but Deras held and didn't topple. At the groundsmaster's advice, he tightened his stance so his opponent couldn't pull the same move. He was getting good at technicals, but the fact that this was a spar made him not want to use his strength even though he was sure the groundsmaster could take it. "May I use more strength?" At least this way, he was asking permission first.

Araha felt the other woman tense up, but then felt her fingers on her hand. She wasn't sure if she should say sorry, she was probably just surprised. For now, she patted Damaya's shoulder gently then retracted and put her hand down.

In response, Araha just shook her head without saying anything.

Araha was surprised at the display, her fear subsided, replaced by slight concern for the man with an axeblade in his head. That concern soon faded as he seemed fine. Damaya had begun speaking though, she seemed afraid almost, and it made sense. In fact, Araha didn't know why she herself wasn't afraid, because Damaya made a good point. In the meantime, even though they weren't especially close, she put a hand on Damaya's shoulder wordlessly, to reassure her? calm her down? She didn't really know.

Deras stumbled as he was struck in the back of the head, it didn't hurt of course, but still. He collected himself and faced Devaan again. "Understood." He acknowledged the groundsmaster's advice and readied himself again. He stepped into range, remembering the training from earlier. He threw two quick jabs to prod his opponent's defenses, then stepped to the side, not waiting for a counter attack.

Deras did not see the kick coming, and was hit by the sweep kick and fell to the ground. As he fell, he used both his hands to leverage the ground and propel himself backward with his strength in case of further attacks on the ground. He slid a small ways and stood back up, before quickly rushing at Devaan, body low to the ground, intending to tackle the other man.