Tomb of the Lost

[okami1reeka333]

[OOC: hurting again but not as much as he could be, he chooses to possess one of the mummies to stagger it towards the sounds of fighting *towards Sara and the knight*. Can't see but gonna try to help! ; rolled a 19 to maintain control flipped a coin, Heads was knight, tails was Sara; grabbing for Sara; rolled a 20 for defense]

In the many attempts to regather himself, he grew to regret his action. hearing the commotions of the fight and the young man he pushed going into an absolute panic, his flame flickered in pain as he continued to try and reconstitute his own free will. However hearing the guttural sounds of another; unknown to him what it was, gave him an idea.

Perhaps he could borrow it? Help the group out.

he moved to possess it, the rotten whithered form near him. His fire manifested from the eye sockets of the life depraved form. "gruuuuuuh" was an attempt to talk, before he moved to try and head for a Knight? and Dr. Summers. He could hear them still and had a bit of a better sense of where things were.

But he still could not see anything.

He wants to help whoever was left, apart of him- a foreign unfamiliar part, wanted to stop them, if not simply watch. Perhaps throw the young man back at the knight, but can he really forsake a patient like that? as slow as he felt, he could tell this body had good hand strength . . . .perhaps he would grab one of them? He wants to grab the knight, but the other part wanted to grab the woman.

It felt like a 50/50 toss-up as to who he grabbed. But they were running out of time, they were injured with only God knows how much blood left in their system assuming they were only dealing with blood loss. He felt like he needed to do something.

When he is close enough, he will attempt to grab at the wrist/arm of one of the two.

He then felt something trying to force him out? he was not sure who or what- he couldn't tell, but he stubbornly clung onto the vessel like molasses in a porous vase. Although he was able to keep the vessel for now, as strong of a push as it was, he was not confident that he was going to be able to keep that up for long. . .

He did not know who he grabbed, but when he was close enough he grabbed for who he hopped was the knight, all the while the other part seemed to hope it was Dr. Summers he grabbed. If only he could see what was going on.

[Vaitris]

[OOC: Trying to help, Hau tries to take control of the mummy as well but fails to possess it. (17)]

He remembered falling, of choking on blood, and a black, all-consuming pain. Sara's voice saying his name, coaxing him to stay awake. A sensation of movement that was drown out by a tidal wave of agony. The shattering crack of his head.

Then nothing.

It was dark but there were voices, familiar ones. For a moment he was unsure, was he really dead? But the confusion was fleeting. Hau felt weightless, detached, drifting along in a starless night. His head still hurt. Except, he didn't have a head anymore. But that realization didn't erase the impression of pain, of a foul sort of weight pressing on him. It made it hard to think, to reason. Despite that, though, he could tell he was still in the tomb. Nothing could make him mistake that fact. This place was clinging to him like a snare. Anchoring, trapping.

He focused on the sounds around him, heard the turmoil. He wanted to help, to spite this damned place. But he had no advice, no aid to give, he barely had any idea what was going on except that the other survivors were still under assault. In the midst of it all he could just detect the deep moan of the undead. One of the charioteers, likely. Maybe he could prevent more chaos at least. Hau followed the sound of the thing’s shambling footsteps, tried to push his way inside, but found another presence had already taken over. He tried to wrest control, the fire in its eyes perhaps briefly flashing to blue as he struggled, but in the end his efforts failed and he was evicted from the form and left to find some other avenue to help.

[Pearl Dragon]

[Kira is put by the sun door.  She gets freaked out momentarily by the shadows and then notices the boy.  She moves closer to him, trying to reassure him but ultimately at a loss of what else she can do.  So she waits and watches the shadows with the boy.]

Cassius moved to place her down again, her grip tightened around his neck and shoulders, reluctant to let go, until she was finally on the ground. The moment Kira's feet touched cold stone, she crumpled against the sun door in a trembling ball. All around her, the shadows seemed to pulse inward as if to advance, and she threw her wings over her head, a feeble attempt to protect herself. In her panic, she didn't even notice the boy until she uncovered her eyes to see if she'd been eaten yet. The shadows, it seemed, had halted their advance.

When Kira finally looked over and spotted the boy, she felt a lump in her throat suddenly rise.

She gasped in joy, seeing him safe from the old man who'd attacked him earlier, and huddled quickly next to him. She looked him over, breathing in fearful gasps as she struggled to keep herself under control. Thankfully, her worry for the boy had temporarily distracted her from her growing madness.

"Is get out! We need to is get out!" She whispered harshly, her voice barely a squeak in the echoing darkness. Her eyes were drawn momentarily up at the door, and then to the one sword protruding from one of the slots. It was just like the one the armored being had...was that their way out? Kira shivered against the door, keeping close beside the boy and gazing back towards the doorway. They needed to get that sword, and she guessed that was what the green-tailed lady Sara was doing. The boy, meanwhile, stared expressionless at the surrounding shadows. Kira leaned closer to him and took a deep rattling breath. "Is be ok, we be is get out together." She said in a low voice, trying to sound hopeful and reassuring but unable to hide her own fear of the entire situation. She opened her mouth to say something else, but no words came. She could only wait and swallow back her wordless terror while the darkness loomed all around them.

[Sharei]

[OOC: Draggo cowers on the floor wishing for Azho to come save him, and then gets startled by the mummy Jed is possessing. He gets (possibly) tangled up in it when the mummy tries to get past him.]


He was the frightened hatchling again, wordless save for the calling of a child for a parent. His human vocal cords couldn't quite make the sound and it came out as more of a pained wail than a mother call, but the sentiment was the same. The juvenile curled tighter in on himself, arms around his knees, and sobbed. He wanted Kanagi to come save him as he had done when the dragon had been small, but there would be no rescue. Kanagi was dead, and the dragon had left him alone in his final moments. He wanted Marchelute, but his baba had disappeared into the darkness and had not resurfaced again but for the familiar sound of his growl. He wanted Azho, but she was gone too - and oh how he wanted Azho. He wanted her comforting presence to soothe his fears and quiet the trembling as she always had. He wanted her to take away the nightmares, to protect him, to be a comfort when he was most scared.

And he was quite terrified now. The sight of the armored figure Sara was facing off with sent him into unchecked hysterics. The juvenile had all but shut down, lost somewhere between the past and the present, and did not even hear Cassius' request. The giant figure was an amalgamation of itself and the faces of the men who had attacked his aerie, and the scent of blood was thick in the air. Kanagi's death moan only enhanced whatever hallucinations he was having, rather than draw him away.

It was only the movement of something passing close by that dragged him out of his panic. A mummy was shambling toward Sara, but to get to her it had to practically step over his huddled form since he was sprawled in the middle of the threshold. The juvenile recoiled from it, and the sudden movement caused him to get tangled in its limbs. This only alarmed him further and the resulting panic and flailing would quite possibly take them both to the ground. 

[kilnarak]

[ Ari looks for the scarred man, then retreats to cower in the corner. If he sees the grey thing moving into his room, he's going to use the armor-piece as a knife. ]

No one seemed to hear him - or if they did, they didn't respond to him. Perhaps his findings weren't important in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps they weren't helpful in any way at all, but he couldn't think of anything else to do. At least he had that jagged shard of armor to use as a knife. When the gray mass finally broke through... he could perhaps end things before it got to him.

Ari looked out, watching the others. There was the bat thing, cowering by the child-thing. And Marchelute's dragon-son, tangled with a mummy. They were outside of his room, there was nothing he could do. If he stepped into the hall he was sure things would become worse. There was Sara, still fighting - or perhaps fleeing? - the giant. And the man with the glasgow-smile, ready to fight it as well. Where had the other scarred man gone?

He barely had time to register the thought when the screaming began. His own voice echoed back at him, sounds he had made earlier in his life, in the time he had thought himself distanced from. Ari flinched down at the noise, clutching tight enough that the shard of armor bit into his fingers. He wedged himself into the corner again, whimpering and waiting for the end.

[MP]

Almost Everyone:
Sara's items: human effigy (2)
Kira's items: carved fragment
Draggo's items: broken flint necklace, sturdy rope, scholar's notes (1, 2), hideous cake (3), runed heart, simple knife, seeing stone

As Sara's stone formation stumbles the knight, she's joined in the hallway by a second person. The scarred man, weaponless, strikes the folding knee with his full weight. The knight, already off-balance, tips dangerously, then topples backward under the weight of its own armor. The space is too small for it to fall prone unless its lined up correctly, and it's stopped by the righthand wall instead, denting bricks where it falls. But for the moment, it's out of striking distance. Sara is free to retrieve the sword - to regroup or escape. The scarred man is already retreating out of the knight's reach, though he's forced to move away from the door given the events outside.

In the gallery room, a mummified figure has pushed from the depths of the residue- a charioteer. It apparently survived the collision and the massed entity. If anything, the residue seems to usher it toward them. The garbled scream of a horse from further back indicates that this isn't the only threat it's preserved.

The mummified charioteer is moving toward the hallway and the battling figures within. But the dragon and officer are already in the doorway, blocking the way. The dragon's panicked reaction, along with Cassius as an obstacle, tangles the mummy as it tries to pass. For the spirit within, the feel of nearby flesh, deliciously raw and vulnerable, is a magnet to the mummy's limited senses. And its hands are inhumanly strong, easily capable of tearing flesh or keeping a stranglehold on its victims. While the puppeted husk debates with the black thoughts, and while the two in the doorway are tangled with it, it's impossible for anyone to escape the hallway.

Ari, still watching from the opposite hall, can see something that the others are too distracted to notice. One of the mummified horses, trailing its yoke and shaft, pulls free of the residue just beside his door. The creature tosses its head, the skull-like face seeming to grin at him. But for the moment, it seems undecided.



Edge:
Items: broken knife (2), silver chain, grey vial

Edge makes his choice in the nick of time. As he moves into the hallway, the door to the hound room pushes open. A warped grey mass oozes through, hands and heads sagging and reforming as they turn after him. Then the sight closes off as the door falls shut behind him. 

By now, the accumulated residue is a constant agony. The flesh has been seared from Edge's legs, and the flakes continue to form and fall. But by using the alcoves along the east and west passages, he's able to keep above the residue and make it to the east door. Touching it, he can already feel that this will be the last one to open. The residue is layered so thickly before it that at first it refuses to budge. A push, then a full-body shove, then only the utmost effort forces it open. When it does, the weight of the door seems to change. Without warning, the door bursts open, stone cracking with the force.

A mass of residue floods through the opening. It seems to be never-ending, not spilling so much as expanding. Edge can see nothing of the room beyond - only a monstrous, seething mass that fills every corner, that yawns and closes like a multitude of mouths, that surges toward him in an unstoppable wave. There is malice and hunger behind it. Triumph. 

With this fresh wave, the residue is higher than ever. None of the remaining doors will open now. Edge is trapped in the hallway, alone and left to a slow, burning death as the residue rises. The entity takes its time, letting him watch. Skin, then muscle, then finally organs and bone are eaten away. Until at last, almost mercifully, the residue closes over him altogether.

[Vaitris]

[OOC: Hau possesses the mummified horse and will use it to try and drag Jed's mummy away from whatever fight he can hear brewing.]

The clattering of hooves and the jangle of a harness caught Hau’s attention. One of the horses had risen again. Maybe he could still follow through with his plan? This time, when he tried to take over, he met no resistance and was able to slip in with ease. It felt good to back on four feet, even if the body felt heavy and wasn’t jointed quite the same.

From close by he could hear a voice, whispering anxiously in broken English. Hau cast his senses past that, in the direction the other mummy had gone. Further away there was some dramatic scuffling and someone crying out. He turned his head towards the commotion and stumbled into an uncoordinated trot, the shaft of the harness scratching along the stone as it dragged behind him.

As he approached he tried to hone his hearing, searching for the papery sound of dry skin or anything like the moaning that the mummy had uttered earlier. If only he could see! He thought he felt the breeze of some sort of movement, perhaps the brush of desiccated flesh against his nose? Taking his chance, his teeth snapped forward, trying to snag any part of the charioteer that might be in reach. If he could get a hold, he could drag the mummy back and away, perhaps buy the remaining survivors a few moments to escape.

[tsukikoko]

[OOC: Sara tries to take advantage of the knight's downed position once she's retrieved the sword; she launches a wall spike at it first, in an attempt to slip through the gap she's made in the chest plate and either worsen the damage or knock it flat from momentum again. She'll then go for the chest plate with the sword. Roll: 12]

There was a commotion behind her, trouble, but though the shifter wanted to turn and check, help if any were in trouble, she had to hope Cassius would be able to deal with it in her stead. They needed that notched sword!

There wasn't much time for anything, aside from a quick nod and a heartfelt 'thank you' at the scarred man who'd come to help her. The armoured construct had fallen over and if Sara didn't take advantage she'd likely miss her best chance to. She considered sliding the sword to the scarred man, since he almost certainly had better skills than she; but the risk of the blade skittering in a random direction, or of the construct interfering and removing their only weapon, made the shifter reconsider.

Instead, knowing she likely had only one more go in her, before she would be too dangerously tired to even defend herself, Sara shot another spike, this time from the wall, into the construct's chest, aimed at the damage she'd already caused. Even if she didn't cause any further damage, she hoped such a sudden amount of force would cause it to topple again when it inevitably tried to rise. She had to release her hold on the material almost immediately after it connected, but she only needed that initial punch anyhow.

Then she let the sword guide her; darted in, struck savagely at the centre of the spreading cracks. There still wasn't enough damage, she needed to puncture through. But she didn't risk too much. She struck, hit hard and then leapt back again to reassess her opponent.

[NightshadeVII]

[OOC: Edge dies. He has run out of second chances.]

He didn’t even manage to open the door fully, before he knew he had made the wrong choice. The stone door was almost impossible to push, but then it was as if something clicked. The door shattered, the stone cracking beneath the force of whatever was behind it.
Residue spilled out from the door, or rather it expanded, reaching out hungrily, wanting everything around it, wanting to devour and corrupt and spread. He couldn’t glimpse the room beyond, for there was only the mass of residue, and there was nowhere he could go. The doors wouldn’t open, and the residue spread faster than he could move.

The wave of residue surged towards him, hungry and malicious, triumphant to claim a life. He couldn’t deny that there was no escaping this, and nothing to look forward to but a slow, painful death.
Unconsciously, he wrapped his wing around himself, finding a brief moment of comfort behind the soft, dark feathers. It would only make the situation worse, and he knew it, but this one, brief moment of comfort... he supposed it was worth it.

The burning sensation was immediately overwhelming. Rot eating through the feathers of his wings with frightening ease. The pain burned through his veins, tearing through muscles. But it went deeper than that. The pain from his now rotting wing spread to something beyond physical, it spread into heart and mind, into the very core of his being, who he was. It broke him apart, shattered him once more. He could feel it. He had never wanted to feel it again. Already now he began to scream. Tears welling up in his eyes, blinding him, burning. He could taste blood.
Soon the wing was gone, nothing but a useless stump against his back, rotted through and devoured. He expected the residents to overwhelm him immediately, but it took its time tearing him apart, dissecting him letting him watch it all, letting him feel it all. Skin began to rot and blacken, bringing with it a newfound, searing pain. The Darai watched as he muscles of his hands were exposed, as the skin was devoured and ruined, and he couldn’t move. The pain was unbearable, numbing, mind breaking, like everything was on fire and shattering at the same time. Like a thousand needles stabbing into him over and over, injecting acid into his blod, into his nerves. There was no room to breathe. No pause in the constant, searing agony.

Next the muscles rotted away, fell apart and disappeared, adding another layer to the torment. Still Edge could do nothing but watch. His voice had broken now, perhaps because there was no vocal cords left. He couldn’t understand what was happening anymore, couldn’t fully comprehend anything anymore. Why was he still awake? Why was he aware? When would the mercy come?
Nothing fully registered anymore. The wave of residue closed around him.

Then at last, when he had nothing left, a sense of calm overcame him. He was dying. Or perhaps he was already dead.
But he had been living on borrowed time anyway. He had been ever since that day. He should have bled out back then, should have drawn breath for the last time. He should have been crushed by those hands, burned by those flames, choked by that smoke, cut down by those blades. The dark should have claimed him then, like the agony did. His heard should have ceased to beat, and his blood should have run cold. His body should have fallen cold and silent, despite the raging flames around him, despite the screams.
And yet he hadn’t died.
Somehow he survived, life didn’t leave him and the dark never managed to permanently claim him. He never understood how, even after it had been explained to him a hundred times, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he shouldn’t be alive. He shouldn’t have been able to survive that. He couldn’t believe that he had survived that, even when doctors and friends called it a miracle, he couldn’t belive them. Every time he had closed his eyes back then, he expected to open them again and find himself back among the flames, dying, bleeding, breathing his last breath. But it never happened. He had survived, even though he shouldn’t.

He should have been dead years ago.
And now, that caught up to him.

But he still didn’t want to die.

[okami1reeka333]

[OOC: he notices someone at his feet and tangled up with him somehow? and reaches to grab Cassius to try and ask him for help to help the young man off ground before being dragged off away from the others]

as he walked at a pace that made even him anxious as slow as it was, he felt though the body's senses something tantalizing. Fresh. To what he understood, like fruit or food fresh at a grocery store. But isn't that the young man screaming? Rolling about in a panicked frenzy? He was in pain from the desperate death-grip he was trying to maintain with whats left of what he considers as himself. He needed to help the young man up, there was too much here for it to be safe to roll around on the ground in the middle of the walkway. The evidence of such from how he seemed to be on the ground, and was becoming entangled with the body the doctor was using.

the other one, he could sense with this body he was using- seemed to be better off? He wasn't sure if he attempted to help the young man up if a limb would come flying off or if he would fall on top of the young man trying to pull him up.

So using the body, the orange fiery eyes flickered as he reached to grab the one next to the flailing young man.

"ruuh.

gruuh.

eeeeeeugh.

uuuuurh.

gruuuh?" he tried to ask.

He grimaced, again, he had forgotten that the body he was using was not quite usable speech wise.

Then he felt something grab onto him and start to drag him backwards.

[jarahamee]

[Cassius tries to pull Draggo away from the mummy and to a safer place.]

Cassius felt one of the mummies grip his unattended shoulder as he spoke to the young Dragon. Powerful, firm, digging into his flesh. It rasped, but no words came out.  Too proximal, too close. He twisted away from the creature, half-rolling, carrying Draggo in his grip as he went. His thoughts of combat were temporarily abandoned; the mummies were fragile, but they were strong, and if he took too long, he might find himself crushed to death. 

The scarred man attempted to find better footing, moving away from the mummy, starting towards the sun door, before he saw one of the skeletal horses struggling to free itself from the mass. Neither was safe. They would have to retreat farther into the area with the fallen knight. 

He attempted to carry the young dragon towards the knight and away from their foe.. If needed, he could engage it barehanded, see how it fought without a head. 

And then.. the horse surged into the mummy. 

Cassius stared. 

[kilnarak]

[ Ari tries to warn the others about the horse. ]

Ari huddled in the corner, still trembling and stifling sobs after the gray's screams. His grip around the shard of armor was tight enough that his knuckles had blanched near white. He peered out from behind the bulk of the fallen armor, watching the drama unfolding across the room. It looked like Sara and the scarred man had gotten the upper hand on the giant - at least for the moment. He flinched back, making himself smaller when the mummy reeled into view, fighting? with glasgow-smile man.

Movement caught his eye and though he shuddered to look at the gray thing, at it's gaping mouthes, he risked a glance. Something large was fighting to pull free of the mass, and then it was out, a skeletal horse. The way it stomped and tossed its head, seeming to look at each of the group infront of the sun door, made it seem that it was preparing to charge. Horse hooves were heavier than deer hooves, less sharply pointed but where they couldn't cut they could crush. And worse than that, it had no trachea to crush, no vitals to claw out.

"L-Look out!" He cried to the others. "The horse!"

[Pearl Dragon]

[Kira stays quiet and stays low near the boy. She notices Ari and tries to follow his line of sight when she sees him notice something, to see if she can also spot it.]



Kira watched as a charioteer lurched through the dusty darkness and towards the room where the others were. Kira remained still and quiet, not wanting to attract unwanted attention. She worried for the others, of course, but there wasn't much she could do to help without putting herself and the boy at risk.



Instead, she huddled a little closer and looked down at the stone fragment she'd been carrying for ages. She didn't think it's purpose would do them any good at the moment and debated on setting it aside for good. When she looked up again, she noticed another figure who looked like the others (alive and scared) peering out of a door opposite the hallway the others were in. She sees him notice something, and feels her fear rise steadily. Who was he, what else was in the dark that he could see? She tried to follow his line of sight to see if she can spot what he's looking at.

[Sharei]

[OOC: Draggo tries to get back out of the room and squirms against Cassius' grip. He begs not to be taken near the knight.]


Cassius grabbed him. The dragon's shriek of surprise echoed over the din of fighting, but he didn't fight the larger man. At least, not yet. He curled into Cassius' side and the protection the human afforded, too exhausted to care about his race or that the man had turned into a giant wolf-thing earlier and tried to kill him. The events of the night were catching up to him and all of the terror he'd been able to shake off before was in the tremble of his limbs.

Then he was being pulled into the knight's room. The dragon squirmed in Cassius' grip, a shrill sound of alarm squeaking out of his throat. He flailed again, desperate, and reached back toward the doorway where the mummy and the horse had collided. He didn't care about the apparent danger, he'd take his chances with the mummies and the goo!

"No," he begged with a sob. "No, no, no, please-! Don't kill me - don't - not the man - please!"

[MP]

The Gallery (and Ari):
Kira's items: carved fragment

Dropped items: broken flint necklace, sturdy rope, scholar's notes (1, 2), hideous cake (3), runed heart, simple knife, seeing stone

As Ari and Kira look on, the tangle in the doorway becomes a scene of chaos. The horse sinks its teeth into the skin of the mummy; the mummy has Cassius by the shoulder; meanwhile, Cassius is still holding onto the dragon. Kira sees the two survivors as distorted creatures: a mass of hands scrabbling at the floor and against the grip of the armored monstrosity. The officer and dragon can't resist the combined strength of the mummies enough to escape into the hallway. The dragon's struggles have scattered his items across the floor, leaving him without any means of defense. And now that the mummies have latched onto the living, the air of the gallery changes.

The baiting screams fade from the minds of the group. In its place, an ominous weight descends upon the room, focused on the mummies. The air all but hums with it. To the tomb spirits inside their puppets, the feeling is smothering. The insidious thoughts that have been wearing away at them - envy, hatred, bloodlust - redouble in strength, threaten to overwhelm them. They - it - can remember the feeling of Jedidah's body breaking beneath the chariots thanks to their puppet bodies. The memory is intoxicating. It urges them toward the remaining survivors, urges them to break and tear, a crushing pressure tinged with urgency.

Ari sees the change as a fresh intensity in in the falling flakes of residue. By now, it layers the ground so thickly that even the boy's trail has filled in. The only clear spaces are the holes that mark where the dragon's items have fallen, and the small clear circle around the boy. Ari would have to wade through a waist-deep layer to reach these spots, and should he venture outside, he finds that the fallen residue burns faintly to the touch.

((The entity is attempting to turn possessing spirits hostile. Jedidah needs 17 or greater to resist. Hau needs 18 or greater. Spirits without puppets may attempt to hijack.))



Sara:
Sara's items: human effigy, blank effigy, general's sword

The wall reshapes at Sara's command. Shoots forward. Explodes in a shower of dust as the knight catches the point on its gauntlet and shatters it with a backhand. The visor turns to track her. Rather than try to regain its footing, the knight heaves the notched blade up from the floor, ready to catch the shifter with an underhand sweep. The precision that guides Sara forward has left her completely open, and it seems her luck has finally run out. 

But just as it begins its swing, the sword jolts, the tip striking the floor again. The scarred man has stomped on the end of the blade, heedless of the flames blackening his legs. A moment's distraction.

The knight wrenches the sword free, throwing the man off balance. It slams the blade sideways just as Sara strikes. Her sword punches deep into the chest plate; the notched sword falls, caving in flesh and bone with a sickening crunch.

When the dust settles, knight is standing motionless. Runes fade along its armor. The helmed head bows. As Sara watches, it collapses sideways with a crash. The flames die along the blade, the sword slipping from the knight's fingers. It lies harmlessly on the floor, still embedded in the scarred man's chest.

The flames have cauterized the gash, but it's clearly too late. The damage is catastrophic, the chest crushed in, and the last convulsive gasps are already fading on his lips. The notched sword will come free from the dying man with little effort. Sara is free to claim it. The commotion outside and the complaints of her own body suggest she has little time to spare.

Should Sara look down, both of her effigies have gone blank. The tomb no longer responds when she tries to reshape it, and the strain of the long night - her magical fatigue, her aches, the pain of her remaining burns - is slowly slowly creeping back. 

[kilnarak]

[ Ari leaves his room to steal Draggo's dropped knife and any other stuff around it. Then he goes to move into the boy's circle, a bit off to the side of him. ]

Ari watched the horse as it charged, flinching as it neared the man and the dragon-boy. But it didn't trample them, instead it bit into the mummy and made as if to haul it away - had it missed it's mark? But the mummy was still clinging to the man, and the man clinging to the dragon - the things the boy had been carrying scattered across the floor, sinking into the ashy flakes of corruption layering the floor. The glint of a knife caught Ari's eye, his attention followed it, marking where it fell. That would be better than his shard, cleaner.

He hesitated a moment, uncertain, then he pushed himself up, shivering, and moved slowly toward the doorway. The flakes of stuff were getting thicker and thicker - soon they'd likely block his doorway completely. He hesitated a moment more, and then he pushed out into it, clutching his shard and watching the mummies. But the mummies faded away, and the forms of the others. They all bled away into empty air. The boy was still there, a circle of light around him, and the horrible mass of gray.

The layers of ashy ground-cover itched, then began to burn against his skin. He moved through it as quickly as he could. The people had vanished, he just hoped the knife hadn't vanished with it. But the impression of it was still there. As he reached it he bent to grab the knife. And then in afterthought, he gathered up any other items near it - who knew what might prove useful? He didn't want to linger, however, and after a moment he hurried toward the cleared circle around the boy. It seemed a safer bet than the side-room.

[tsukikoko]

[OOC: Sara has an emotion where the scarred man is concerned. Throws/slides Cassius the general's sword and then hefts the notched blade with both hands. Hurries for the sun door to insert the sword into the door, slapping mummies out the way if they're still in the doorway by the time she gets there.
Roll : 18]

Sara realised her mistake too late to amend her strike. She saw the flaming blade shift, realised she had no means to move out of it's path and a cold chill settled through her body, as she realised her end was approaching.

That she'd failed them.

But instead, her sword struck the chestplate, no searing agony tore through her body. No darkness rushed up to meet her. She had blinked and instead of her own body caved in two, it was the scarred man she still didn't even know the name of. He'd stepped in to save her and now she was watching him die.

A shriek tore from the shifter's throat, a pointless denial in the form of the word 'no' that echoed even over the sound of her armoured opponent toppling sideways. It was finished, she was free to claim the sword, but first Sara found herself cradling the dying man. There wasn't much time and she knew it, knew it was far too late for him, but after all the death she's seen that night and with what he'd done to help her - knowingly and unknowingly, for she felt how his death brought about the fading of the effigy's power - Sara couldn't help herself. Tears fell, ran down her blood-smeared cheeks in rivulets and splashed onto his head as she choked out,
"I-I'm sorr-ry.. t-thank you, t-th-thank y-you, god, I'm s-so s-sor-sorry."
At about that moment, the commotion from the doorway filtered through to her, up to then masked by the shifter's own life and death struggle. She glanced up, saw how dire the situation seemed to be, with two mummies and no obvious way for her companions to defend themselves.

If she didn't get up now, everything this man had done, everything the group had already been through, would be for naught. Another glance down at the scarred man, before the shifter pressed a small kiss to his forehead, closed his eyes and again placed her hand on the blade she had fought with.

A fire licked inside her, ready to push Sara forward even though her body had begun to quiver with a thousand aches.

She stood up.

"CASSIUS!"
The shifter's voice rocketed through the small space, impressively loud. Soon it was apparent why she had called out the Gold's name, for she had wound back her arm and sent the sword sailing, handle-first across the floor towards him. It clattered and scraped, but the aim on it was straight as she could make it. She hoped he could hear her, hoped it would serve him as well as it had done herself. Then her hands were on the notched blade, both free now that she had discarded the effigies on the floor. With a final 'sorry' and a steadying exhalation of breath, the shifter pulled it free.

The blade was heavy, cumbersome and Sara could feel the night's weight getting heavier upon her; injuries and earlier exhaustions crept along her flesh like pricking needles. But still, the shifter began to move, hurrying as best she could through the hallway and the sun door she knew lay beyond. She hoped the way forward might be clear enough to slip through, especially if her companions could use the sword she had thrown. But if not, should anything look as though it were about to block her path, the was ready to smack it aside with the blade she now wielded. If the mummies came for her, Sara would strike them down.

[okami1reeka333]

[OOC: as hard as he tried to resist becoming evil/hostile, 15<17 sooooo, evil doctor is back again. attempts to grip-rip Cassius's sword arm off]

He tried to fight away the overwhelming drowning feeling of hatred, anxiety. Bloodlust. It felt like he was trying to swim in a batch of molasses or quick sand. . .the more he fought, the faster he sunk- as if it was taking every reason he tried against doing what it. . the foreign and insidious roars in his head wanted was twisted into perverted reasoning. As if every attempt turned back to him wanting to cause more suffering- as if he enjoyed watching people die in slow and unspeakable manners.

Did he enjoy it?

what seemed to be a struggle between suddenly being gentle to grappling onto the man's shoulder with an unforgiving death-grip became inevitable. The dried face twisted in an rigid manner into something of absolute rage, as the hand that gripped onto the officer clutched down onto the joint as if it were a dog's maw latching onto a fresh- ripened morsel. With the free hand he gripped onto the limb that had just received a weapon.

the rotten puppet then began to tear into the limb, a slow, almost sadistic speed to disarm the officer in an unspeakably gruesome manner.

[Vaitris]

[OOC: Hau succumbs to malevolence, lets the mummy go and instead attacks whatever survivor is closest to him.]

Against the odds, Hau's teeth found their mark in the shoulder of the charioteer, biting deep into old dusty skin and withered muscle. He felt a thrill of triumph, now he could... what? He seemed to have forgotten what he had come over here to do. In that moment, the foul pressure in his mind breached whatever was holding it back with a savage spike of pain. Malice flowed from it, flowed through him from some other place. He was filled with unexplainable anger and a hunger to cause harm, to make them bleed. After all he had suffered, it was only fair the others should have to as well.

He let go of the mummy he had seized and turned on the survivors caught in the melee with them. His jaws stretched wide and he lashed out for the closest piece of living flesh, looking to bite and tear, to rend, to kill. For the moment he was too much in the grip of the tomb’s influence to be horrified by his own actions.

[Pearl Dragon]

[Kira loses some sanity, finally does a brave and goes in for a shot at the many-armed beast (Draggo) using the stone fragment as a thrown projectile.]

Kira watched, petrified, as the chaos at the door unfolded. She could still hear the screaming in her head, which she'd surrendered to as part of the madness enfolding inside of her, and now she could see the thing of her nightmares grappling with another monstrosity in the doorway. There was no hope, she realized. Nothing could get them out. The tailed lady was surely dead, and there was no way they were getting out, not with all those monsters.

Kira turned towards the boy, her eyes slowly glazing over as she looked at him. Her panic was at its peak, and fear was all she could feel at that point. Even her broken wing seemed not to exist anymore, and she wondered if anything at all could be done. She highly doubted it. Looking back at the brawling monsters, she stood on shaky legs. Her knees felt like gel, trembling and watery. Tears were streaming down her face as she looked down at the stone fragment, and she began to realize what she believed needed to be done. She wanted it to end, so this was how to do it.

"S-...Stay." She whispered to the boy over her shoulder. Then, swallowing back the last of her sanity, Kira began to move. She first approached the two scrambling monsters, hobbling along as if she herself was one of the undead mummies. When she was close enough, she felt her mind begin to crack, allowing her the freedom she needed to blatantly winding her good arm back in a throwing motion. She swung her arm forward with all she could, releasing the stone fragment she'd been carrying in an overhand toss, anything to either distract or injure the creature so the other monster could get the upper hand. She kept low, still crouching and skipping away if she could to keep out of reach, all while searching the room beyond it for either the woman, the giant mechanical thing, or the sword.