Sorana

"We won't know until we see it." Althea replied, turned around again and started to wander off deeper into the cave. She tapped some stormlight again, just in case of an attack and looked around. It was an eerie environment, the stones glowing all around. It reminded her of a faery realm. Calm and beautiful. Be careful to decline food and drink, she reminded herself, suprised at the lightness of her thought. She hadn't expected for the expedition to be so different, but it was. It was easy and fun. Something scurried over the ground close to her and she whirled around, tried to follow it with her eyes. It wasn't huge, small, but it was there. "Karin, Adren" She called out to them, "I think here might be another species." Slowly she followed it around the boulder, saw, a long furry tail, but it vanished again into the darkness. She was making too much noise, moved too slowly. A slight grin touched her lips when she elsecalled after the animal, guessed where it had gone. Nothing was there, but now she squat down, took a sphere out of her pocket to illuminate the area close to the ground. Nothing happened for a while and then she heard something, shortly afterwards a little nose peeked around a corner. It moved a little towards the sphere and she could see dark eyes, tried to remain impassive, considered a good way to trap it. The eyes met hers, and it froze, looked at the sphere again, its gaze resting on it for a while, as if drawn to it, fascinated by it. Althea moved a little when she nearly lost her balance, and it scurried away again. @kenod @ElephantEarwax @whoeverelse is interested

Lena pushed the door to the Forge open and stepped inside. She left it open for Alask to follow and smiled when she saw Mart, sitting at the table. He was eating something, and she realized, that naming the Forge as the location to meet with their old guild, maybe hadn't been the best idea. He jumped to his feet when he saw them and she quickly hugged him close, kissed his hair, then watched him run off, greet Alask as well. She paid the woman watching him after school and then walked over, took a look at the table, at his homework. Humming to herself she started to cook them some dinner, she had found some beautiful zucchini yesterday and had decided to fill them and then bake them in the oven. "So which place do we want to rob? Metallurgy and Investiture?" She asked Alask, unsure if that was the name of the place, or only what they selled. Names and Lena didn't fit too well. She started to chop some onions. When they were done she roasted them in a pan and used a different knife to cut some foxglove in tiny pieces she stowed in a little glass. @Voidus @I think I am here.

Shana listened to his words, saw his tears and felt her throat contrict, when his honesty struck a chord. "I know." She whispered and leaned over, wrapped her arms around him and started to sob. A part of her felt like she was doing nothing but crying these days, but she felt like crying and so she did. "I just don't feel like partying." She admitted, her voice muffled by his shirt. "I don't want to see Ashlyn, or Ben's tired face, or have to smile at Jace. He didn't even invite me to his wedding. I thought he would, I worried about a dress, but he didn't even invite me." Sobbing she clung to him, "I'm sorry to dump it all on you, you have so much better things to do, than listen to my misery, and I don't want to keep you, but I just, I simply, " She stopped talking just held on for the moment. He would leave soon enough. There was no need to spoil this moment by talking.

Althea inclined her head in agreement. She wasn't particulary tired, but then she rarely was when she had stormlight inside of her. "Both options are risky." She looked around again. "Our only chance to judge the threat is, to get it out in open. Wether we do that, by threatening it, or by sleeping with a perimeter - in the end we won't know what it is, until it's there." Gently she pushed the stormligh back into her bracer, a sense of loss falling down on her, weighing her shoulders down. Too much, too often. She should stop reaching out for the stormligh at the slightest reason she had. It was dangerous to rely on it that often, to trust it, to keep her nightmares away and her body strong. Sometime during the last war she had started to rely more and more on it, dangerous. And tempting. the bracer made it easier to carry it around, despite the spheres she carried to draw eyes away from her jewellery. "If we really want to set up camp, Adren managed the split one of these rocks in half. A clean area would be easier defended and easier for the watch to keep an eye on." She looked around, tried to find a suitable spot, but ended up with none that was really great. "I'm not sure if work and benefit align though." Or to state it clearly. If they really had to hack the stones apart, then it wouldn't be worth it. Unless they used the pieces to build some defenses, which most likely would be useless against whatever it was anyway. If it knew how to hunt between all these rocks, then it could deal with everything they managed to build easily. Unless, unless she soulcast. It would be difficult, a challenge, but on the other hand, she could provide them with shelter. Gently she touched the stones and the air bargained with the spren to judge the cost of her idea and discareded it. Cost and benefit didn't really aling as well. Not in their current situation at least.

She looked down when he heard someone approach, surprised to hear James voice. Ben, she had expected Ben or maybe Rob. But no, asleep and girlfriend, unfair Shana, but it was James. "Yes." She replied and climbed down a bit, until she was sitting on the lowest branch, saw him stand there, looked at him. He seemed, concerned? She wasn't sure. Despite all her boiling emotions, she wasn't too good at judging others. "We don't need to talk." She said quietly, but still extended a hand towards him, to help hiim climb up. He had come. Despite everything, he had come. He had searched for her. He wasn't getting ready for the wedding, he had come here to talk to her. And if they talked about birds, it still meant the world.

"That can save so many lives." Temeria felt for the coin again, considered the possibilities. Store health. Survive a wound to her gut, or a blow to her head. All for the price of being weaker, slightly ill for a while. It was tempting. So tempting, that she had to try, to push something into the coin, to feel ill. She concentrated, tried to do something to activate the coin, but nothing happened. She tried again, her fingers pressing down on it, when she pictured pushing something into it, the thought to push something into a coin nearly laughable. But Aln had said, that it would work like that and Aln wasn't one to lie about facts. Sill, nothing. "Thank you." She told her sister after a while, meaning more than the explanations, more than just sitting here and talking. It was also about allowing her into this building, about not sending her away immediatly. "What you spoke about earlier, your journey. It sounds like a real adventure." She carefully tried to stop talking about facts and more about them.

Althea looked towards "back there" and then slowly started to walk towards the general area. She carefully listened, but the many people in the cavern made it impossible to detect something off. "I'm no fan to be surprised by whatever it was either. Now that we know that it's there, we can use that to our advantage." She stopped walking looked at the glowing rocks around her. Beautiful. Eerie. And almost threatening. She didn't trust the beauty, it felt like one of the carnivorous plants to her. Beautiful to the eye, but deadly for their prey. Better paranoid than backstabbed. Pensively she tapped a finger against her lips. "As far as I can see, we have several possibilities. One of us walks through the cave alone, the other cover from a distance. Maybe we can lure it out in the open. We spread out, we should be enough to cover the whole width of the cave and then walk slowly, steadly forward, so that we can direct towards one spot. We have to keep in mind, that most beings don't like to be hunted or trapped so in that case we need to prepare ourselves for an attack." Depending on the intelligence of the thing, it would attack where they were weakest. That meant Wes, Sarah, Myriad. "Or we just stay together and walk forward. Either it attacks us as a group, or we scare it away." Sarah. She paused, and then lifted a hand to Brashen. "Go and check for Sarah." Her spren hesitated, hopped onto her hand and she nodded again, confirmed her words. Grumpily he rushed off, through the cave. @ZincAboutIt @TrailRunnin @Invocation --.-- Brashen hurried the way back. Alone, away from her. He hated to be away from her. She had to stay with him, and he wasn't willing to risk her again. Still - he could understand. Making sure the woman was safe was good. He liked to preserve lifes. And so he hopped from shadow to shadow, from stone to stone, climed up walls until finally, he saw the woman. Sitting on a rock close to her and the other one she was talking to, he oberserved for a moment, to make sure, that she was alright. @Rushu42

I've been waiting for the phoenix

Snake hissed, when Fox reminded her, that the leading one was weak and she paused, head moving this way and that way, when she considered to strike, to get rid of the leading one. Mike yelped in fear, when he realized what Snake was about to, what she considered and he jumped, reached out for her. She evaded his grip, and suddenly he found himself opposing Fox, staring into its eyes, into the cruel, cold, intelligent eyes. Fox came closer, pushed him away from Snake, and Mike crawled backwards, away from him. His heart beat in fear, when Fox followed him. Wolf jumped. Wolf gave Nila a curt look and then stood up, obidiently followed Lusk over to the bar. His body shifted accordingly, now displaying ears, eyes and the sharp teeth of a wolf, his movement's of a calm elegance. "Sir?" Wolf asked, easily accepting Lusk as superior.

*offers chocolate*

*waves*

Fox knelt down next to her, easily changed when he handed control over to Snake. Snake tasted the air with her split tongue and tilted her head at Nila. "Shapechanger." She hissed and shook her head. "There is more. More to this. You know more, you hide something. Even if she shattered her mind, she wouldn't have shattered your body, and vaporise her, no Radiant can change their body." Snake easily used Mike's knowledge to speak, looked through his memories, through his fears to form sentences, looked for clues. Snake disliked the withering worm on the ground. They were weak. You didn't let yourself get grounded like that. Mari was definitely the stronger one. --.-- Squid wrapped itself around his arm and Mike watched in in silence, as the little one tried to comfort him. Snake and Fox were gone, handing control over between the two of them and there was nothing he could do about it. He'd tried fighting them, he'd tried to get back control, but it hadn't worked and so he just sat there, in the darkness, watched as Snake vanished and Fox returned instead. Fox languishly walked over to him, his steps slow and meassured. Mike made a grimace, but stayed where he was, didn't move at all. Fox sniffed his face, sat down in front of him and Mike only stared back, wished that he could make him vanish, leave him alone. Fox tilted his head to the side, then he turned his ears a little, as if to force Mike to look at him, to admire him, accept him. "Leave." Mike hissed but Fox only seemed to laugh at him and turned around, walked away. Squirrel hopped onto his shoulder and Mike sighed, rested his chin on his knees while Squid floated over, seemed to hug him. He could do nothing but wait. On the border of the darkness, there where he could barely perceive something he saw salmon. Slowly the fish swam this way and that way, his movements slow, but entrancing.

A challenge. Admist all the chaos, the teleportation, this was something she knew how to handle. She stayed between Zura and Price, shot Zura a dark glance, daring her to come closer, to try to fight her. A fight. Easier than to try to understand what happened familiar and in contrast to the forstlynxes, nothing to be afraid of. "We?" She shook her head at Tion. "We did something? We were talking peacefully, and then you come around. You do something to my mind, you change Zura's memories and finally you lure a horde of forestlynxes to our place. Whoever you are, just leave us alone and take your bad luck with you." Glowering at Zura she added. "And you can leave with them. Either we fight or we don't. All this fight, no fight, fight, no fight. Do you have the guts to stand you woman, or don't you?"

Shana sat on her tree. She closed her eyes, listened to the singing of the birds, to the insects flying by. She didn't notice James searching for her, mostly because she didn't expect anybody searching for her at all. Instead she just stayed there, angrily slamming her hand against the tree a few times, then she stopped. Wait. If she waited long enough the party would be over. Or it would be dark enough so that she could leave the yard and slip away. Spend the night outside, or whereever suit her. Calm down. She couldn't face her friends like that. She would destroy everything. The party, the family. It was the one thing she was good at - destroying. It was the only purpose she had, to fight to destroy. But right here and now, she didn't want to. She wanted for them to have fun, and if she rushed in there, dirty and angry - she felt like exploding at a wrong word, a sideways glance. And she didn't want to. If she lost them because of her temper, because of some stupid jealously, then she had nothing left. Nobody left to catch her, when she fell. She kept her eyes closed, allowed her thoughts to run wild, to act on her fear and fury, pictured herself destroying their training room, pictured herself shouting at Ashlyn and Doc. Yelling at them, why they had to destroy everything, why they didn't take a heartbeat to think about her. @Wyndlerunner

It's amazing, how you really can think of something good for each of these prompts!

Althea followed the others through the cavern, again resorting to not breathing at all. Why risk a poisoning with some spores she could heal or not, when there was no need to catch one in the first place. She waited, while they all clambered down the ridge, waited until she heard their voices, about water being down there, Allri and Rig helping some of the others. Their headlamps illuminated the bottom below and she waited until she had a good picture in her mind, then she elesecalled down as well. The water was cold, took her breath for a moment, then she smiled, her smile carefully hidden by the dark. Water. She liked water, liked to swim, although it was one of these things she rarely did. The sound of a storm, the feeling when it battered your body, soaked your cloths. You were cold then. Cold and inconsesquential. Lika a leaf blown around by the wind. She careful wiped the smile of her face before she continued along the path, it wasn't really a path, more a place where you could walk and finally stepped into a larger cavern. She arrived just in time to see Adren cut a glowing rock in half, although the insides stayed dark. Breathtaking. She took a moment to commit this sight to memory, wondered if a new Underground was really worth destroying all of this. There were other means of transportation, maybe they should leave the caverns alone. Let them rest after they were gone, sink back into a forgotten haze again. Lifting her head she looked at the waterfall, the water golden admit the light, how the water rushed towards the ground. Almost instinctively she tapped some stormlight, the thunder inside matching the one of the water and she stopped next to Adren, looked around. "Impressive isn't it?" she said quietly, her voice barely hearable over the sounds of the water. Wes, the girl, not the Underling, was standing close again, and she inclined her head in greeting. After their brief introduction at the meeting a few days ago, they hadn't talked again. Closing her distance to the others, she added another, more professional question. "Did you see anything when the rocks started to glow? Something hinting at an enemy?" @ElephantEarwax @ZincAboutIt @TrailRunnin @Invocation @I think I am here. @AonEne

Slowly Althea got to her feet. "I just saved your life." She stated calmly and looked at the woman with her read eyes. "You are in a cave, down below Alleycity." A hand made a small gesture towards the light. "I can only advice you to stop threatenings us, and tell us why you are here, where you come from." An epic. Meant she had to find out about her weakness as well, sonner or later at least. It also made it difficult to really judge her strength. Epic were interesting. There were so many layers to them, powers beneath powers. The weaknesses only added to the whole general fascination. She had spend hours upon hours studying them, but every tie she met one, was interesting. The personal aspect that influenced their weakness made it close to impossible to anticipate them without studying the person behind the Epic first. She looked at the stranger, lying beneath so many others she hadn't seen coming and added. "We don't mean harm, otherwise you would still be back there, dying admist the mushrooms." But if she was an Epic, then there was a chance that her powers would corrupt her. Just as they had corrupted Solace. The memory hurt, but she hid it for now, pushed the pain and the fear back into a corner of her mind that she could ignore. Focus. She had to focus on the task at hand. @Invocation @ZincAboutIt @TrailRunnin

"I don't know." Althea replied to Sarah. "I'm no expert for strange mushrooms. You have to give it a try. Should you feel sleepy, just step back." She saw Corette get up, fetch a device to help Rig breathe. These two were settled. Corette moved without breathing herself and Althea made a mental note to ask about her abilities later. Inhaling she followed Karin into the cavern, felt the stormlight like a comfortable warmth inside of her stomach. Carefully she set one step in front of the other, made sure she didn't catch her foot on a stone or hurt her ankle in a hidden hole. She gestured towards Sarah, Karin and then the Mistborn, then turned towards the hidden figure Corette had discovered. Bending down she pulled gloves over her hands and then started to remove the mushrooms. A human, a woman. Gently she brushed the mushrooms away from her, made sure no part of her body was still trapped beneath some kind of plant or mushroom and then easily picked her up. Her weight posed no problem to her strengthened body and she carried her over to the others. Exhaling she resumed breathing to be able to talk and carefully placed her body on the ground. "We should be careful. We don't know if she poses a threat or not." She repeated Corette's words to make sure everybody knew about the possibility that the woman might be dangerous. Then she knelt down next to her and shook her, to wake her up. @Invocation @kenod @Rushu42

Fur's rating is fair. If you want your character to be very experienced, you might consider to take the expert skill with this weapon, which would cost 25 points more than the level experienced. If the experienced level if fine tell me, then I'll add him to the character list.

Temeria thought about her words for a moment, then she nodded. The nightwatcher. It had been years since she last heard that story, about the being somewhere up in the mountains. Eternal and strong it granted a wish, but took a horrendous price for it. Everybody knew the stories, but it had been that - stories. "It makes your life easier, I suspect." She replied a bit weakly, considered again to get up and leave. This was growing more and more complicated by the moment. She moved a hand through her hair as well, and then shook her head. To adress their past again felt heavy, to heavy to deal with right now. But maybe she could take a step towards her. A daring thought, but Alanis was her sister. She could trust her. She feared that she would push her away again, throw her into harms way, but maybe Aln had changed. Maybe she wouldn't use her to get away again. "What do you know about storing health? How does that work?" She asked instead, cautiously looked at her sister. Aln was helping her, without asking for a price. Maybe there really was a chance to repair this gap between them.

Shana watched as James walked away without placing the candles into the pool and without reacting to her words at all. As if she'd never told him. He simply turned and walked away. She'd just told him her secret, the one thing that ripped her apart, that gave her nightmares and that made her gasp in fear and he just walked away. Too much, and she had known that it would be too much. He hadn't wanted to talk back in the supermarket, that he'd asked now was only a polite gesture. It had been her, stupid her that had thought the he really was interested, that he might care. She wished to be able to talk to Rob, to have him smack her across her head with his words, with his easy way to see the world. Deal with it, and then go on. It was such a simple way to deal with things. Face them and go on. She'd never been able to do it, but when Rob told her, then she was. For a short moment she was. Hugging herself she turned away from the house, and headed around it, until she reached the side where her room was located. She couldn't bother Rob again. She'd already given him nightmares, had hurt him in a way she'd never wanted to hurt anybody. Her fingers touched her side again, she paused and lifted her shirt, found a scar where Rob's stone had impaled her. A reminder. It hadn't been there at first, but now that she saw it, she recalled it appearing slowly, always after she used some stormlight. As if she wanted to bear a mark of this mistake. She jumped, reached out for the first branch and swung herself onto it, easily changing her last pair of more or less clean pants into a pair of pants that belonged into the washing machine. But it felt good to move, to finally do somthing, her anger at Ashlyn surging again when she knew that she was the reason she couldn't go and talk to her friend. She had given him nightmares, she wouldn't ruin his blossoming relationship. That it was her decision to stay away didn't change anything about her anger. Without Ashlyn nothing would have changed, without the Voidbringers, they could have continued their life. Freaks, but good freaks. Friendly freaks. Standing up she reached out for the next branch, pulled herself higher and higher, until she was sitting on a branch that looked thin, but was easily able to carry her weight. Below the party would start soon, but she wasn't in the mood for a party. She was in the mood to take a weapon and smack it at someone, until she wasn't able to stand from exhaustion. And again, the one person that would be able to take her in her current mood was Rob. Or Ben. But she couldn't wake him. Not for a silly thing like that. She pivoted, leaned against the trunk of the tree and look at the house. This was her place. She would stay here, until she had calmed down again and then she could climb down and be nice and greet them. She rested her head on her knees, knew that she had just ruined the one set of cloths that might have suit the occasion, but couldn't bring herself to care anymore. Jace hadn't invited her anyway. Why should she care how she ran around at home? But she did. And that she did, that she was one of these girls that only thought about their cloths made her even angrier. At herself, at everything. Anger. It was a good emotion. Easy. There were always reasons to be angry. It was better to be angry than to face the fact that James walking away had hurt. That he hadn't taken the time to think about her words, maybe to tell her that they would talk later. Ben. That he always had to sleep, it hurt. She needed him, he should know that. She had wanted to talk to him, finish the topic about killing, get at least that part out of her head. But he had to be asleep again. Unfair, she was being unfair. But unfair was easy.

Fox turned to him, sensed an opening. The leading one was weak, unable to form a decision. It meant his territory was ripe to take. "We can check the factory on our way out." He used Mike's voice to form a reply. The boy was observant, Fox liked that about him. "If the violin player has its den in the tavern, he will still be there, otherwise he is gone already, no matter if we leave now or in half an hour."

"Yes." Althea looked at her calmly, wondered if Myriad was following her words, or if she wasn't motivated to use her brain and think on her own. Althea basically had replied to that question already. "You aren't my priority number one, but as I'm able to take all of our group at once, that shouldn't be a problem for you." She stopped in front of the next cave, oberserved how Adren got in, covered his nose and mouth and retrieved some of the mushrooms. Allri, Corette and Rig were lying down on the ground, sleeping. Adren seemed fine though, so most likely something with the air. Spores maybe? Plants weren't really something she'd focused on. She inhaled, took a moment to roam her eyes through the cave, noticed the soft glowing light, the mushrooms. Beautiful. But at the same time it was dangerous. She stepped into the cave and stopped breathing, instead she tapped a little bit of stormligh to keep her body running. Standing there for a moment she tried to see if anything changed. Nothing did. She was feeling slightly strange, when her body urged her to breathe, when the oxygen concentration in her blood was lowered while her body used up what he could get. At one point the stormlight took over, repaired whatever damage the missing oxygen did. Uncomfortable, but not life threatening. She wondered wether to get the three out immediatly, but instead returned to her own group. Inhaling again she followed the natural urge of her body, and kept her eyes with the sleeping forms. If something used to prey on those who fell asleep, then there was a chance it would show itself soon. She could get the them out of its way and at the same time they had a lifeform to trap. If nothing showed up, then they were absolutely fine to sleep there for a minute or two. Of course she had no way to judge the longterm consequences of whatever it was, that made them fall asleep, but judging the abscence of bones in the cave she figured they had a minute to check for a predator. "Good catch Adren. I am pretty sure, that the the spores affect you first through your lungs, any slower secondary effects can't be judged at the moment." "Wes." She adressed the Underling without looking at him, made sure she kept a part of her attention with the sleeping forms. "Can you build some masks for those of us who need to breathe? We need to get the three, maybe four if Kendul falls asleep as well out of the cave, and we need to cross it later." "Apart from that, anybody willing to step inside with me and get them out? I can carry one of them, together we should be able to get them back into the tunnel easily." There was no need to use up lots of stormlight to elsecall them over. Not if she was sure that Karin was able to step into the room as well. And with some masks, or at least some cloth in front of their faces, maybe some of the others were as well. @Rushu42 @I think I am here. @AonEne @ElephantEarwax @kenod