The Firelands

First one in, and first to react, Temperance hit the ground running upon exiting the portal. While others would struggle with the churning sensation that such travel caused, she had experienced such unpleasantness earlier and did not care for a repeat of nausea and vertigo. Forcing a surge of divine energy through herself, the little priestess sprinted ahead past the ash-covered creatures, having healed her upset tummy-tum and giving herself a boost of energy. The uneven grounds and scorching winds caused her to trip, collapsing on the jagged and baked earth, her hand falling heavily on top of the hand of one of the prostrated statues.

She curled her fingers reflexively as the soft and gritty packed ash broke away in her hands... revealing heat-blistered pink flesh beneath, with bright blue veins. She recoiled in fear as the hand began to grip her fingers tightly in what seemed like desperation. Once she was free of its grasp, it fell back to a resigned pose and did no more, the sound of husky breathing audible from it and several other statues around her. These were no gothic pieces to intimidate people into belief; they were the husks of those who had given up in this place and waited so long in storms of ash and cinder that they had become entombed here.

That thought horrified her more than anything she had seen so far, and she continued to sprint ahead to the temple, desperate to get away from this place. Inside, she paced around, amazed that there were no guards to stop her from doing so. Apparently whatever forces they planned to send through hadn't arrived yet... She stumbled her way into a prison area eventually, where a man was bound and covered in burn marks and scars. He began to plead for help, but he was locked in a cage. Ignoring any notions that this man might 'deserve' what was happening to him, Temperance conjured up her ice magic and froze the lock of the cage, then picked up a large cruel looking hammer and shattered it in one blow.

"It's okay, I've got you!" she said, stepping into the cage and tossing the burnt remains of her robe around the man's shoulders. She knelt and gave him a small hug, channeling her holy magic into him to offer him the largest healing spell she could muster.

heal hogger

"Let's get those relic pieces and get you out of here, okay? I'll keep you safe, don't worry! What's your name? I'm Temperance." Leading the man out of his cell, she used her hydromancy to cool him down... prepared to blast anything that might threaten him harm.

 

After stepping into the portal, it was as if a rug beneath Eleanor's feet was pulled, and she was soon swept around. She felt herself, being pulled here and there, like a rubber band. Twisted and mangled, her body ached as bones bent without breaking, wracking her with an unnerving agony. The stretching was as if she was elongated, it reminded her of learning to dive. With her goggles on, kicking her feet to get to the bottom of the pool, as the pressure increased, it would begin to feel as though her face would soon tear into pieces. Though, in this case, it wasn't just her face, but her whole body.

Though the torment felt relentless, it was not immortal, and it soon came to an end. With some momentum, Eleanor was thrown, like a weightless doll from the portal. It was a moment before she realized the mangling torture of rift traveling had finally come to an end. In an attempt to catch herself on her hands and knees, she had not accounted for her forward trajectory, tumbling over and onto her back. Grumbling, and pushing herself up, she grabbed her hat in a crumpled fist, placing it back on her head. If the damn thing kept falling off her head, it wouldn't be long till she lost it for good. She had to take better care of the suicidal accessory.

"You guys okay?" Looking around, she noticed that she was not alone. There must have been other portals on separate spires that had also transported others. Rising to her feet, she brushed herself off, giving a discomforted glance over the vaguely human sculptures that all faced towards the temple. With hands in her pockets, in a slightly hunched position to keep her hat protecting her from a bit of the boiling, red sunlight, Eleanor continued towards the entrance, shyly moving along, not bothering to interact much with the group along the way.

While those fire ass-holes seemed to be brutal and barbaric in their battle tactics, they seemed much more lavish and respectful in their shrines. Stopping at one of the paintings that depicted, rather plainly, fire, Eleanor squinted to observe the fine details. It was more than art, it was like a photograph... But with paint strokes? There was something incredible and unbelievably precise about the creation. It was otherworldly. It was unreal. An image of such magnitude would certainly cost fortunes within the real world. Eleanor wondered how it passed off as some random painting to be passed by players in some alternate, optional, virtual plane. None of it seemed 'right' to her at all.

Continuing on, the party eventually made it's way to what seemed to be a sort of prison. Eleanor scanned each of the cells, entering investigation mode to get a more thorough description of each. Chains, and objects of torture lay strewn about. This place was like hell. To state it minimally, it gave Eleanor the creeps. Though it seemed empty. That was, until a scraggly, naked body emerged from the darkness, sputtering and begging for his life.

Taking a step back, and raising a hand that glowed with arcane power, the woman in blue offered little more than a careful stare towards the man, for the first few moments remaining quite prepared to strike. Though, it seemed there were bars keeping him back, and this gave Eleanor a bit of calmness on the matter. Quietly, she listened as he detailed his story. He explained things, like why he was a live, and what use he could be to them. Eleanor prepared to muse it over for a few moments in her mind, safe from whatever dangers the stranger held. Considering he spoke of being a mage, he certainly had some sort of magic, just as Eleanor did, and she knew well that a mage needn't a weapon to kill, as she did not have one herself.

The situation seemed to change though, as one among the portal goers struck down the bars with an ice weapon, moving to comfort the scraggly man. "Ehh?!" She was not prepared for such immediate action without the consult of others. With her hand glowing, purple sparks of arcane energy danced between her fingertips. "W-Wait just a second!" Eleanor tried to explain, though she knew she was not completely knowledgeable on the subject of the game.

"For all we know, this guy could be dangerous." While @Temperance had seemed to thrown caution to the wind, Eleanor kept herself a safer distance away, prepared to strike if she needed to. "We need to be smart about this. What he's offering seems far too good to be true!" She glanced to @Alice, @Sylpha Astarte, and @Ursa, hoping that one of them may agree with her. "He was in there for a reason! For all we know, this could be an illusion to trick us and lead us into a trap!" The often quiet and shy Eleanor found herself speaking out much more than she usually did, attempting to take control of the insane situation. Perhaps this is what the stress of the moment did to her. After all, death could be waiting for them around any corner in that misbegotten world.

"I say we leave him behind or..." She cursed herself for thinking it, but she seriously didn't feel like filtering herself, "Well, kill him if we have to. People are still fighting out there." Eleanor pointed behind her, though in the place that they ended up, she really had no clue which way 'out there' really was. Perhaps it was up down, sideways or backwards. The portal had been so discombobulating and agonizing, there was no good way for her to tell. "We have to get going to what we came here for."

Her words were harsh and serious, a cold undertone to contrast the dire heat and circumstance they had found themselves in. Perhaps it had been the portal that had temporarily affected Eleanor's demeanor. Either way, she had taken a very serious shift upon entering the portal.

 

Right behind Temperance was Sylpha. To be correct, she was the first one in, but she flopped onto the ground and thus was promptly left in @Temperance's dust. Grumbling, she picked herself up, opened her palm menu and selected the screenshot function.

Sylpha was here to see new sights, so she wasn't going to let this chance go. Following behind, she snapped several of the surroundings and of the players around her.

Ash-covered petrified humans? Snap.
Clearly ominous temple? Snap.
Lands cracking and glowing from the raging heat below? Well, can't hurt to have another shot.

Seeing the cultists, she hesitated a bit at their suffering before she took some shots of them too. She even managed to snap one of @Temperance breaking the pleading cultist free. Clearly, it did not sit well with some of the others, as an argument already loomed on the horizon.

For the first time, Sylpha spoke:
"Well, she has the ability to freeze things. Can't she freeze him before he does something or turns into something bad?"

Yes, it was just so she could snap a picture of a frozen person. The lady (@Temperance) already had ice powers (and wind, considering how she just threw all caution to it), so adding a bit more fuel wouldn't hurt. "Sunk cost", people would say.

All she hoped was that in the case she should die, these pictures would still be accessible from her device.

 

_____The group would quickly lose Alice as the Faerin saw something Shiny in the temple and ran off to obtain it. The same thing kept happening as she moved around the area taking anything shiny she could and trying to stash it into her Inventory. She was doing everything to not focus on the amount of unease she felt roaming around the temple, and the heat. It seriously reminded her of the fire she fought in the forest, but so much worse as she sweat badly and moved around looting.

_____After some time though she would regroup with the group, her arms full of a few shiny objects she could not throw into her inventory. Blinking a few times at the group and the odd naked man before it got to her and she turned bright red and ran off like a little kid. Some of her looted items falling to the ground as she ran away.

”Wha… why… Nope nopy nope!”

_____The faerin did not show any sign of stopping as she ran deeper into the temple to avoid the male and the others that seemed so fine with it. Her pace only slowed because she felt nothing in her arms and spun around to see none of her shinies anywhere near her. Panic rising as she checked her UI with a sigh of relief her other items did not vanish on her. Blinking a few times before she began to explore searching for her way out, but with how far she was off the set course the chance she ever got near the exit before it close or the others was next to slim at best.

 

The only proper way Ursa could ever describe what she felt while inside the hellish rift is to feel like a god damned piece of steel being drawn out by a blacksmith. Coincidence? Who knows! She would definitely try and hit her steel when smithing next time, though. When the portal shot her out in the new plane or dimension, she failed to keep her balance and landed face first on the ground, quickly getting back up to her feet as the her skin burned in contact with it. She cursed under her breath, a large a relieving sigh escaping her lips; she was finally done with the portal bullshit.

With that said, she rested her hands on her hips, eyes scanning the environment. Some creepy stuff happening out here, apparently, though none of it was of her concern. In the distance, her blue eyes could make out what appeared to be other adventurers - a few faces she recognized from the time inside the temple, though some, not really.That was fine, at least she didn’t die on going through that portal. “Well then, let’s see…” Ursula quietly followed the group while checking her parts and equipment salvaged from her broken steam mech. She connected some parts to her heavy gauntlets to give them an extra oomph, while she quickly used the coolant devices to assemble an addon to do some cold beating for use on her pickaxe, should they have to deal with any fire monsters. In the midst of that, the blocky magic thing appeared again. It held interesting information.

Lastly, Ursula put down a few spider automatas on the ground and gave them the order to fetch - luckily, she constantly used them to find small pieces of precious metals, so if the relic had any resemblance to those, they could find something inside this place and return with it to Ursa later. The group pressed on, arriving upon a prison area; one of their group members did not hesitate on setting free a prisoner that claimed to be a great Astral Mage. Ursula wasn’t quite well versed in magic, but something sounded fishy for her.

“Ya know, he was the one who opened up those portal things, aye?” The tinkerer scratched her chin. “Then why didn’t ya open a portal in there to get the hell outta here, buddy? Sounds fishy to me, ya know. ” She sighed, scratching the back of her head. “But then again, people back there are goin’ to be swimmin’ in a pool of lava real soon. If he tries sumthin’, we kick his butt. I’d say that works.”

@Asch

 

Sylpha listened to his speech as they walked along, taking screenshots of him and the others as they went down some redundantly long hall. His final plea for haste did not fall on deaf ears, but Sylpha's long pointed ones twitched when she heard him say "Frostlands".

She made it a point to hide any outward interest in taking a screenshot of that as she made her way into some chamber which glowed with importance. Literally. The game did have to use some method to distinguish important rooms from the rest. Madly screenshotting all of the seals and even the pitch-black floor, she let curiosity take over and spent much effort climbing the rightmost pedestal.

When she finally made it up (curse having no points in Mobility mastery!) she made screenshots of the view from the top of the pedestal and of the fragment before touching it.

The whole vision-like movie played, which Sylpha likened to drugs (despite having no actual experience with hallucinogens). The whole time she tried to recall the screenshot button from memory and tried to take more through the whole drama, because whatever the hell the game was making her trip on, it's powerful enough to be worth a shot. The entire emotional experience had been lost on her. To make things worse, she hadn't been following the story well enough to understand any of the things she was seeing, other than remembering Azog's form and him slipping something bearing resemblance to the shards into the opened chest of something else bearing a similar fiery form. Sylpha was intelligent enough to at least deduce that it was what they were supposed to do to Azog.

"Waking" up promptly, she saw the UI message and acknowledged it. Then, she took a few more screenshots including one of the ceiling which she had forgotten to take before finally climbing down.

When the others bearing the shards came, she would wordlessly offer hers to them so they could fit it together. After all, they had spent more time than necessary watching the whole "movie clip".

 

Eleanor followed as the group moved forward, keeping a hand ready to strike if the cultist working with them. She still was not completely prepared to trust him, as they ventured through the long, hundred door hallway. With one hand in her pocket, she kept herself low and out of the way, just in case the cultist burst into flame and started trying to gobble them up or fry them like eggs. She also took note of each of her allies. Seeing as they were players, their actions might be unpredictable. She her best tried to keep her blind spots in sight.

As the party progressed forward, they came upon a door, lead to by the cultist. Within stood massive podiums of sorts, each with a fragment of the relic that they had gone for. As the cultist spoke of haste, Eleanor paused, waiting a moment for him to finish. She did not bother setting a hand on his shoulder, or doing any comforting notions, knowing that it would probably be interpreted as an attempt at murder. She merely looked towards him and spoke, as she stepped ahead. "Thank you for your help. I am sorry. You must understand my hesitation to trust." Eleanor provided a low bow, bringing her whole torso down, and pausing, before rising back up. Though, her lack of social graces might have made the notion seem cold and empty, she did not put needless emotion into it.

Approaching one of the pillars, the woman in blue carefully scanned the area, noticing the magical warding. Often times, as she went to cast a spell, it was as if she was pulling back an energetic rubber band, snapping it free to strike her foes. Within the confines of that massive room, full of wards and the sort, it seemed the rubber band was nonexistent. Though, she maintained a low glow of purple, arcane energy within her palm. Entering investigation mode, she inspected the pillar. While the seals were visible before, with two fingers placed upon her temple, she noticed more detail.

It weaved together, like a grid. Glowing lines connected and interlocked through the seals that covered the pillar. Moving closer to investigate further, they lines were like thick, tightly drawn strings, linking each of the seals together into a powerful field. With her hand glowing, she reached forward to feel at the strand, and to her surprise, her fingertips found purchase. Though, reaching forward with her other hand, it seemed her other fingers found no grasp.

"Heh... What?" Eleanor smiled, stepping back and looking into her palms, as both began to glow purple with arcane power. The seals, though divine and perhaps magical, were linked with arcane energies! "No way..." With a wide smile, she realized what use this could be to her! It was as though she was a student, finally achieving a further understanding of a certain mathematical concept. That ah ha moment where she had discovered something of great use. It felt as though she had never been so jovial in her life!

Reaching towards the pillar, she locked her fingers underneath one of the strands, using them like handholds and footholds. Climbing, she was still not the most physically adept, but with such easy places to place her limbs, it was like climbing a rock wall. It had been a long time before she had been so proud of herself. It wasn't long, before she reached the top, fingers grasping outwards towards the fragment of the relic. Suddenly, her mind felt as though it had lost grip on reality. Possibly a trap that she had not accounted for?! Eleanor, in a panic, grasped close to the pillar with her fingers and feet, hoping not to fall to her doom, as memories that were not her own flooded her mind.

The story, though one of good intention, had quite the rather tragic ending, and after the cutscene-like incident ended, Eleanor reached a hand for the fragment. Taking it into her palm, the self-proclaimed detective had witnessed the crime that the great fire elemental had committed. Order had to be achieved, and the guilty required punishment. The fragment of the relic, thought not yet whole, was the way to bring such things into being. With the orb fragment slipped into her pocket, she carefully traversed her way back down the pillar, using her arcane footholds and handholds to make the journey a million times easier.

Settling on the ground, Eleanor would wait for the other fragments to be obtained by the other members of the relic crew, holding hers plainly in her palm. Upon their gathering, Eleanor stared up, the fragments of the relic fusing into one. The orb seemed infinite and glowing, like a piece of the sun, but also cold. There was something missing. She listened, as the object informed them that one must be sacrificed into the orb.

"Well..." Eleanor spoke up, looking to the rest of the group. "I can't do much... But I can do this." Rubbing the back of her neck, she took off her jacket and hat, carefully draping the two over her arm. It was far too warm to be wearing such things anyways. "I'm the weakest among you. My sacrifice would harm our efforts the least." She tried to speak with reason, though nearly at the point of quivering. Mentally, she attempted to smack some sense into herself. Stepping towards the completed orb, Eleanor would offer herself as the catalyst for the relic. "The fighting might not just end after this. There will probably be more combat outside, and you all will have to help the others with that. Allow me to make this contribution. It is the least I can do."

Eleanor understood that she was sort of ranting to strangers, but she wanted to take on the burden herself. She had not contributed much to the fighting before, and had even nearly gotten herself killed. She was of little use in combat, and would certainly prove so again if given the opportunity. To Eleanor, this was the not only the least she could do for the party, but the least she could do for the whole effort in general. This was the perfect opportunity to make up for her shortcom

 

Ursula scratched the back of her head when the man explained his situation and how he could not teleport out of his imprisoning. “Aye, got it” She did not. Fancy magic was not her forte. “Sorry ‘bout that, mage buddy.” There was also the point that somehow, this man knew their reasoning of being here, even. She would not trust him blindly, but she had to keep her guard up.

Ursula’s eyes locked on each member of the group, including the man. Her guts told her that something — or rather, someone — was missing. Her eyebrows raised in concern as she searched around properly, only to find no one else. “Hey, hey, wait. Where’s the little one? Ya know, the shrimp even smaller than me?” with her concern raised she’d just follow along if no one voiced their own. That felt bad, she wouldn’t want that to happen to herself either, so she let out her last Automata spider to go back in hopes that maybe @Alice could find it and return to the group.

With that said, the blacksmith sighed in annoyance as they walked past dozens, and dozens, up to a hundred doors. Was that relic really that important? Everything worked with magic, apparently, much like she saw happen back in the hellish lava-filled temple. She heard the man ask them to make haste, but… Why? Ursula rested her chin on her right hand, trying to remember the reasoning behind their objective. Unfortunately, for someone as scatterbrained a herself, the blocky magic (UI) things had too much information in them. Immersed on her thoughts, Ursula sit on the ground mumbling to herself.

“So… That big guy appeared, wanting to make the world his own or something... Then the mage guys flying in the sky sent help and sent us here, so why do we need to haste again… Right, we can’t kill the big fiery guy without that thing…” she looked at the shards, mumbling something incomprehensible before turning to normal speech again. “Oh, right!” Ursula hit her left palm with her right fist, resembling an “eureka!” motion. “If we don’t get these fast, the portals--” And the her speech overlapped with the Astral mage’s worries about the portals closing soon.

“Well then, here we go-” Much to her chagrin, when she finally decided to take action and try to bring in one of the shards, all three were gathered already. “Eeeeeh…” Disappointed, she let out a sigh.

Ursa’s eyebrows furrowed when Eleanor offered herself. Did that mean someone had to sacrifice themselves to use the thing? Normally, Ursa would just let it go and allow the blue Haired woman to do as she pleases. The problem however was in Ursula’s intuitive personality. Her instinct screamed at her and a chill ran down her spine as Eleannor offered herself. “Ya know, it’s fine if ya don’t wanna do it. Don’t overthink it. If ya don’t wanna do it, I can.” The tinkerer scratched her chin. She’d need to back up her reasonign with more arguments in order to not sound arrogant. “Ya know missy, ye are a mage and can use the fancy magic thing. Yer kind has a lot more use than a brute like myself. If ya really wanna do it, go ahead. If not, I’ll do the thing, whatever it is. I’m sure ya are of a lot use back there with attacking the big guy and what not, and how he gives no fucks to we brutes’ attacks without magic.”

With that said, she remained quiet to let @Temperance and perhaps the Astral Mage say their thoughts on the matter.

 

Temperance had little understanding of who these people were or why they were doing whatever it is they were doing. To her simpler mind, there was a man in need of help and she had offered him clothing and soothed his pains with her divine magic. As she escorted him from the cage others arrived and took different stances on the situation. One wanted to kill the man, another to merely beat him to a pulp. The third stared like a freaking weirdo, while the fourth ran off with a bunch of stolen goods down a dark corridor, all on her lonesome. Temperance did not bother arguing over whether or not to harm the man, she merely puffed up her cheeks and squinted her eyes to appear more menacing, following the man closely to keep him safe from the others.

He lead them to a room with three large pedestals that held the orb fragments, warded behind powerful magics to prevent one from gating into the room and making off with them. Eleanor and Sylpha bypassed their own obstacles and reached the pieces of the relic, so Temperance shrugged and began to move forward herself. She began to cast a path of ice before her, walking across it carefully as the cold magic disrupted the wards set in place by fire-based creatures. It was not enough to shut them off completely, but it muted their strength to let her walk up to the fragment and take it in her hands, looking over the large chunk of... glass?

A vision swam through her mind and she let out a small gasp, almost dropping the relic piece, but managing to keep it clutched in her hands. Was this what the man saw every time they made him open a portal? How horrible! And nobody even thought to consider the pains he had to endure here!

As the others began to argue over who would sacrifice themselves, she became very VERY confused.

"Wait... sacrifice? What? Where did that come from and what are you talking about? I thought we were just here to retrieve the orb fragments and help this poor man! Nobody's said anything to me about sacrifices!"
She puffed her cheeks up again and held the relic close to her chest, as if that would prevent anyone from dying, and stared at them as Ursa gave her rough explanation. So the big mean guy needed to have this put in him, like he'd done in the vision... Or he wouldn't die. She didn't like the idea of somebody having to pay with their life to do that, but if it was going to be anyone... it was going to be Eleanor. As Sylpha held out her piece silently, Temperance grabbed it with her other hand and walked over to the blue clad girl, shoving the other two fragments into her arms and piecing them together into one completed whole.

"Blue girl can do it then! She was so keen to kill this poor man... well let her life be the one that's spent if she's so anxious for blood! Besides. You don't look reliable, the little one ran off and is clearly too distracted to do what needs to be done, and that quiet girl back there really FREAKS MY TITS. Come on Toby!" she huffed, walking back across the room to where the cultist stood, crossing her arms and creating a cold aura around them both to keep them comfortable.
"That's your name since you won't give me yours... TOBY!"

 

_____Just Alice’s luck as she slowed down to a near halt and looked into the eyes of fire beast. She did not move at first until the looked away for just a brief moment, that was when she ran like a bat out of hell in the direction she had came with beast tailing at some distance behind her. How did she always end up running for her life? This was going to need to addressed in her next reflect on the week with her doctors as the Faerin slide under a chair and staggered to get back up to run some more.

_____Reaching behind herself or forward to throw anything she could down to make the chase a bit harder on the monsters. One good thing she guessed was that she knew a few ways of getting away since not all things in the forest took kindly to her there, and the lesson she learned there slightly converted to this escape. When things seemed to just begin to repeat her only break was seeing a little robot spider thing.

_____Taking the moment to look at it before it began to move away and she could hear her pursuers closing distance. ”It's better than aimless I guess…” Turning on her heel she began to chase after the little spider hoping it was here to help her and not lead her into something even worse, her head shaking to get bad thoughts out of her head to avoid jinxing herself. Eyes blinking a few moments as the spider entered a room with a different colored light.

_____Not the light from something glowing like fire, but a light like a shine off an object, slamming her breaks and running into the room to vaguely see the others causing her to blink a few times. She did not know if any of the monsters still had been chasing her but her focus was on the light trying to find the source as she scanned the room, a slight wave to everyone there before moving to stay a bit away from the scary thin man.

”Shiny rocks!~”

_____If they still had the rock orb showing Alice would run over to try and take it from the girl, highly like to trip as her legs decided enough running around without a break. If she had the orb it likely would have been slammed to her chest during the fall, Alice was going to need to do some UI scanning to see why the hell she was now so focused on taking anything that glowed and or sparkled.
@Asch

 

Eleanor, standing with her fragment of the orb, with the pair of other missing pieces shoved together by @Temperance, stood as the pieces remained her her hands. As they shifted, like magnets to join together, she stared down into them, observing diligently. Still, regardless of how much progress they made, the sacrifice would still be required.

Listening to @Temperance, as much as her words seemed rather blunt in condemning Eleanor to her decision, the self-proclaimed detective nodded respectfully, bowing her head. "Understood." Turning towards @Ursa, she smiled a twitchy grin, "I appreciate your concern," Her joints still seemed to shake with nervousness. In a game that felt so real, facing the reality of death was still quite the daunting task. "I will be fine, trust me." It was certainly odd to say such things, considering she barely trusted herself at that very moment. "Be safe out there."

Sweat still dripped from her forehead, as the room maintained a rather balmy temperature. Like a cat, alerted to the sound of something incoming, the slapping of feet against the ground rang in Eleanor's ear. It was not the most uncommon sound, but one that increased her heart rate, nevertheless. Turning to face an incoming @Alice, Eleanor grit her teeth, eyes widening, as she made a quick movement and attempt to sidestep the incoming, projectile-like humanoid that darted towards her. "H-Hey!" Regardless of what occurred with the other girl, Eleanor's main intent was to protect the objective that they had come for, keeping herself positioned away from the Faerin. "We must be careful not to damage that which we came here for. This is important." Her words where cold, each consonant. ending sharp and concise.

Staring back down into the pieces of the orb, as long as she still held them, Eleanor remained prepared to take the leap. Perhaps some small part of her was masochistic, wanting to experience what it was like to die, even in a virtual world. Maybe another part of her was driven by some insane curiosity, wondering for the feeling and experience of it all. For a detective, Eleanor was still trying to figure that part out. But she felt that this was something that she should do. Something she was meant to do.

"I can handle this." With a somewhat quivering voice, she took a moment to bite her lip, before shaking it off like an antsy dog. with her hat and coat falling from her arm onto the ground, Eleanor glance cautiously between the shifting shards in her hands, and the others in her proximity, and an extra careful eye on the Faerin.

 

One could only wonder just how in the world someone as scatterbrained as Ursula could have been paying attention to the serious atmosphere for so long. Thanks to that, the blacksmith did not realize that her steam automata sent her back a beeping to her helmet, which meant objective completed. Much to her dismay, though, when she realized that the signal was a thing she was too late to perceive Alice’s presence in the room. She watched as the small Faerin first seemed to approach in shy steps, and lunged towards the shards. No wonder — she ran away with plenty of shiny things before. That must’ve been some sort of condition the girl had.

Moreover, Ursula quickly reacted in a similar fashion to Eleanor. Only that in her movement, her rocket gauntlets shot in a circular motion as malleable metal cables coiled tightly around the Faerin’s body, though not enough to hurt — she even managed to stop her from smacking her face on the ground. — What a handy tech! Rumours say that the metal ursula used to make them, however, are made of Syncronity ore. In other words, she could feel the metal parts of her gauntlets just like her own; And that’s when…

“Hmmmhm.” squish, squish “Considering your size, they are quite firm, missy!” She said letting a hearty laugh as the mechanical hand squished @Alice ’s butt. She quickly let the girl stand and stopped the squishing, but she still held her so she would not make any necessary moves.

Her eyes locked on @Eleanor Loan and to @Sylpha Astarte . Her only response was a single nod with furrowed eyebrows.