zenderael_rl | [EVENT]

She hung up there for a bit anyway, coming to terms with yet another roadblock. It was easier to hear the sound of battle there, and if she really strained, she thought she could pick out some of the words in their shouts, those who were fighting. Did Noelle find materials to craft fire arrows? She hadn't had them equipped when she last used her.

Were any of them even support builds? Not Noelle or Nadir, definitely not the berserker, not Rhys. She wasn't sure about the kebab boy.

This was fucking ridiculous.

She kicked the ladder down, then dropped to the floor. The shock of landing traveled from her feet up her legs, to the rest of her body, and it did its job of jolting her back to full awareness.

"I'm sorry," she started, firm, turning around to face him. Her arms crossed over her chest again, but that was to keep them warm. There was stubbornness, yes -- a stubbornness not to have this stupid, petty shit on her record if they actually froze to death here. "For picking on you on the forums. I'm frustrated with everything that's happening and you were a convenient target."

He waited, and for a moment he started to worry that she'd pulled what he'd been thinking and found a way out without coming back to tell him. He took a step toward the ladder, wondering if he should go up after her, but the decision was made for him when she finally reappeared. He forced himself to look like he hadn't been worried.

The look he gave her when she gave that apology was annoyed, exasperated, resigned, also maybe a little stubborn. "I'll be honest, I don't really want to forgive you. That was a really shitty thing to do."

"Then don't." It wasn't a sassy remark. She didn't care if he forgave her or not, only that she apologized.

That was just frustrating. He didn't even know how to respond to that besides with a childish 'FINE I WON'T.'

He knew he was just being irrationally angry. That didn't help much.

He turned away, pondering kicking the door again to blow off some steam. He decided against it. "And fucking Lindsey, accusing me of goading you," he muttered. "How the fuck did you get so deep in with her that she'll misread a fight for you?"

Yes, maybe he was a bit bitter that his best friend would not stand up for him and accused him of being an aggressor when he was the one getting picked on.

She frowned. Deep? They weren't deep. It wasn't something she felt strongly about enough to correct him, though, so she said nothing.

He snapped back around to shout, "And where the fuck do you get off telling me skepticism is unfuckingscientific!"

She jumped, visibly startled by his outburst. Then she crossed her arms again. "Your brand is, yeah."

She may not have shouted back, but her temper was beginning to rise.

"We don't have the same fucking evidence, Jordan! New species cropping up in town is not a reasonable leap to 'they're from a fucking video game'! And I don't know if you realize but I have basically been in radio silence from the world the whole time monsters were showing up."

Floodgates: opened.

"Even if they look and sound like the ones in Zen? Have the same offensive capabilities?" The look she gave him was irritated-skeptical, but there wasn't much bite behind her words. She'd more or less passed Duncan off as impossible to convince, so she wasn't even going to try.

"Plants and insects don't have offensive capabilities in the game! You're talking about the monsters and I just said I didn't hear about those until one attacked me!"

"Whatever." It was all a blur of what-the-fuck to her with few time points to stand out -- namely, Rhys felling that tree, finding out Alex was moving on his own, trying to and failing to kill him...

She looked up at the ceiling again, desperate enough to consider what would happen if she climbed back up and shot through the vents.

That was dumb.

Whatever. Whatever?

"Fuck you," he shot back, lowering to a normal volume again. He walked back to the door, glared at it, and then turned on her again suddenly. "I think I know now why you didn't want me to know you in real life. Because I'd figure out what a bitch you were."

Duncan did not normally use gendered insults. That particular one very rarely made it out of his mouth. But his social justice muscles were not caught up to his anger, so there it was.

He'd regret it later.

She bristled, then turned to face him. "Yes, that's exactly it," she hissed, fingers clawing into the sleeves of her jacket. "I'm a bitch. Anything else you'd like to get out while we're here? Make yourself a little less useless, maybe?"

"The fuck do you want me to do?" He swept his arms out at the room. "There's no fucking way out, and even if we did get out, there's a level 100 raid boss in the next goddamn room!"

That Rhys was probably fighting, if he wasn't already dead.

"Aren't your friends out there? Try a little harder."

[Closed to Ezra/Nadir... for now.]

The battle had gone on for an hour, but Rhys and Roman were still at it. Fury may have been the only thing driving them past their exhaustion. Mal's offering of mail had done a lot to protect Rhys, but an icicle was still wedged into the Ahura's shoulder. Fury let him ignore that, too, and the trail of blood he left behind with his motions.

Kharveryos was equally relentless. No matter how many times he fell, he reformed back on all four feet. Undeath would outlast a berserker's battle lust.

Zale had been removed from the fight after taking a blow to the left leg from Kharveryos' tail. It didn't support his weight anymore, and he had been forced to flee to a fort he had built out of tables. The food was too frozen to eat, but that wasn't as much of a disappointment as his inevitable death. He picked up one of the small, cinammon honey balls. He forgot what they were called already. Maybe he could use them as projectiles. ~~(Noelle may or may not have been resorting to kebabs as arrows.)~~

Ezra would find his hiding place in the kitchen gave him a clear view of the battle through the windows. The door had been frozen half open rather than closed, by anyone wanting in or out would have to be willing to run under Kharyveros to do it. At the very least, he was protected from stray frost breath, but not the cold itself.

Edited 2012-07-11 21:11 (UTC)

It was humiliating, and frightning, and a million other things, to be one of the ones hiding away and shivering like mad, able to watch but not act. Nadir didn't remember the raids, he remembered, and he'd forgotten himself that necessary deathblow by cleric or paladin. And as the group of them got tossed around like ragdolls, Ezra could only feel guilt at being so totally unable to help. Rhys must have gone off the deep end with fury now, there was no way he could have kept it together for so long. He tried to ignore what looked like an icicle stuck in his back. Sometimes bad eyesight was an excuse he could fall back on.

Rogue out, hunter maybe bolted, he didn't see her anywhere. Nadir had taken a good slap aside by one of the wings and held an arm awkwardly, having gotten grazed by the vicious teeth at an inopportune moment (though what moment was ever good to get nearly bit by an undead dragon?) The spellsword wasn't looking any better than the rest of them, anyway.

The kitchen seemed eerily quiet, even with the noise outside. Everything had already been knocked over, everyone out the supply doors when he'd first run in. No one else had come in, making for the exits. Was everyone else okay? He didn't dare move to check.

Nadir's sword fizzled. Panting, ill- hopefully not due to the undead effect but that was wishful thinking, Nadir knew poisoning when he had it- he cursed, trying to pull up more energy, anything, but knew it was useless. He glanced aside, fell back, saw the door and staggered in to the kitchen. Ezra caught his shoulder and they knelt together, Ezra amazed at how hot Nadir's skin must be beneath the shirt, or how cold he must be to feel it that way.

"This isn't working," Ezra said, teeth chattering.

"No shit," slurred Nadir unhelpfully. Ezra had put someone else's jacket on. He took it off and ripped the sleeve off, trying to tie it around Nadir's arm. "Now what?"

Another laugh, hand going to his mouth so he didn't spit little bits of nuts while he did, and he managed to finish that mouthful off before speaking. "I could... Not really used to vegetarian cooking, though." Already he was pondering what sort of things he could bring over that the two could both enjoy, and he tilted his head to Gabe. "You'll hafta tell me if there's any icky green things or whatever you won't eat."

When Ezra looked over Nadir's shoulder from the make-shift first aid efforts, he would notice abruptly that he wasn't alone.

Lying against the cabinets was an elderly man, hair streaked grey and skin ashen with age. His eyes were closed as if in slumber, head slumped forehead, and a bloodied hand resting over his chest. Blood was dripping over his chain mail, and his white pauldrons were cracked from the wear of battle. His other hand was limp at his side, open, but hilt of his longsword still resting against his palm.

It bore the symbol of Bastan, and still had a lingering holy energy on the blade that Nadir would be able to see.

Gabe paused in the action of bringing the loukoumade to his mouth, staring at Mal in surprise for a minute or two before finally managing to ask, "Rhys is a vegetarian?" Well. He felt like an idiot. How did he not know that vital piece of information?

Gabe didn't know? That surprised him, and Mal's brows shot up briefly before he shrugged it off. "Must be more recent, then." He could only assume Gabe would've figured it out otherwise.

His brow rose, mildly amused, and his attention returned to Duncan. "Not very talkative, is she?" He was just like Valentine in that regard, calling people out on their silence, even if only briefly. "Oh, the mage Marlene mentioned?" He paused to glance back towards Theresa, not knowing if she was aware of everything going on in-game.

To dodge a possible awkward bullet, he looked back to Duncan, grinned broadly, and changed the topic. "You seen that blog? The uh, 'You Be The Judge' thing. They post info on all the creatures that've been seen."

Alison grinned and headed for the stand, finishing off the last bite of her skewered pork and tossing the skewers into a conveniently located trash bin. There was a line- of course there was a line, gyros were amazing- and she got into it, glancing back at Eileen. "I'm at my parents' now, by the way. Dad was over when that thing tried to get in, so he insisted." That and the shattered windows and worry for her dogs had been enough to send her packing. At least her parents were local.

It took a second glance, having looked up to see something entirely different, to notice the old man. Nadir snapped at him when he pulled the makeshift bandage too tight. "What- hey, hey!" he called out, hand on Nadir's shoulder, first for assurance and second for stability as he pushed back up to his feet, sneakers slipping on the icy floor. Nadir turned as well, confused at the suddenness of Ezra's move.

"Hey, old man- oh God," he muttered, hands hovering over the man's shoulders. Blood first, but as his hands reached out he noticed what they lingered over. Pauldrons? "H-hey," he mumbled, not sure of what he was seeing.

"What is it?" Nadir struggled to say. He crouched down next to Ezra, then swore sharply.

"Don't say that."

"His sword-"

"I said don't say that!" Ezra snapped, pressing his lips together. He didn't want to look at it. He already knew what it was.

Nadir made a sound, then a sign, falling silent. For a moment neither of them heard what was going on outside. Then Nadir shifted, taking his knife out of his boot. Every physical effort was dragging him down now, but he forced himself through the sluggishness.

"What are you doing?" Ezra hissed. Nadir ignored him. "Take his mail off. We need to cut in."

"Wha- no, no, fuck you!"

"What other answer have you got, Amos?" the spellsword said angrily. "Mail off. Before someone else finds him! X-Dav already has agents here."

Stunned, Ezra moved to comply. He watched in surreal slow motion as Nadir took his gloves off with visible effort, before pressing his hand to the man's abdomen. "...sorry about this," he murmured, then dug in.

It took a moment. Finally, Ezra took over himself, numb to what he was doing. "What am I looking for?" he asked.

"Colon."

"Right. Of course." Part of him was at least glad the man was so warm on the inside. He found himself giggling when he thought suddenly of Star Wars.

The corpse hadn't lost its body heat from the outside yet, either. This kill was fresh, but removing his mail revealed that neither of his stab wounds should have been fatal. It didn't matter. A corpse couldn't protect a god-organ. Only a new host could.

The kitchen shook with a tremor, something Kharveryos liked to do every so often when his tail or wings smacked into a wall. Someone called out, but it was drowned away in the dragon's roar.

[EVENT] - Kharveryos

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[9pm]

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