zenderael_rl | [EVENT]

With the explanation, Mal feigned being distraught, hand going to his chest and giving Theresa a sad look, though the hint of a grin at the edge of his mouth might give him away. "It's terrible. I have a phobia of names, you see, so I have to give people nicknames in order to be able to tell them apart." His head leaned back, expression going thoughtful as he considered Theresa. "Think I'll designate you Dewey until further notice," he said with a nod.

It was not long after the last bite.

With the god-organ came the blessing of the gods-- or some other higher power-- waiting to be commanded. It promised to defend, to heal, to protect. With the Spenta's power, the feel of undeath and the Dark taint were so much more crisp and clear. And, perhaps, so much more repulsive to his sharpened senses for it.

Outside, Kharveryos had recently reformed from falling another time, roaring with renewed vigor, lashing out a the persistent berserkers.

[Fight is now reopened. \o/]

After texting Gabe to find out where he was in this mess, Mal made his way to where he and Gabe had come in as quickly as possible, which, unfortunately, wasn't as quick as he'd have liked, since there were people trying to find safe places to hide, scattering every time that dragon moved or turned, not to mention things getting knocked over.

When he did finally get there, he searched frantically until he spotted Gabe, then ran up and grabbed his arm. "We gotta find somewhere safe," he insisted, only then stopping to look around at the chaos.

Gabe had found a decent hiding place, at least. A table had overturned at some point and he had been using that as a shield. Fortunately, the dragon hadn't noticed him in his corner, and he had done everything he could to keep the thing from seeing him in the first place. He had chanced notice all of once, just to snap a picture to send to Duncan, but that had been it.

Mal catching hold of his arm, however, nearly caused him to drop his precious cell phone, and he fumbled with it a bit before finally managing to get his hands around it to tuck it into the pocket of his jeans. "Honey, at this point, I think 'safe' might be relative. Giant dragon, remember?" Giant dragon that could apparently only be killed with disenchantment or some sort of holy ability, according to Duncan, neither of which they seemed to have. They'd be lucky if they made it out of there in one piece.

"Honey, I could have told you that," he said, shaking his head in amusement. "I don't think I've ever seen him touch the booze whenever it's been brought out." He hadn't wondered about it too much at the time, of course, not being much of a drinker, himself. Besides, certain types of alcohol could burn quite a bit going down. Maybe Rhys hated that, and, really, Gabe couldn't blame him for that. "Though... why were you giving him alcohol, anyway?"

"It's probably for the best," Eileen admitted after a minute. "Monster might not like the dogs invading his territory. He'd probably jump out at them from all his little hiding places." And there were quite a few of them. Monster had been with her for years now, and she still didn't know where all of them were.

Eileen nodded, digging around in her bag for her cell phone, thumbing through her contacts quickly before finally finding Alison's name. She made sure to select the option to edit the information before offering it to her. "It's better to be safe than sorry, right?"

"Yeah, I know, I fought it dozens of times." In the game. This was totally different, but, he still knew what it was, and how to kill it (even if he couldn't actually kill it). It could die, and that was the important thing.

What was even more important at that particular moment was getting somewhere the thing's frost breath couldn't turn them both into icicles. "That thing breathes at this table and you're as good as dead, so please, let's find something better to hide behind. A counter or a closet or something." He grabbed Gabe's hand and tugged, the urgency apparent in both his tone and posture.

"It was right after we'd seen the video. Of Mister Hutchins." That was not a topic Mal wanted to get into. "It really seemed to affect him an' I just... wanted him to relax a little and not run off to do anything stupid." He shrugged with that, and then grinned. "It worked, though."

Rhys would probably never trust any drinks Mal offered again, but oh well.

Alison giggled. Oh, cats, you are so amusing. She'd never had one, however, being more of a dog person, and her parents hadn't really had pets at all. Probably why her dad was all over her dogs- mom wasn't much of a pet person at all.

She took the phone and put her parents' number in before handing it back. "Hopefully it'll never come up, but yeah, just in case." She smiled, and then noticed her turn to order was up and stepped up to the stand to place it.

After paying, she stepped to the side to let Eileen go up, and took a bite of her gyro while she waited.

"I'm not sure they have..." He chanced another quick look over the table, wincing a little as someone got knocked back once again. "Duncan says you need holy magic or disenchanting to kill it, but I don't think they have it."

He wanted to protest the decision, even though he knew Mal was right. The table had served as decent protection so far, but he wasn't sure how much longer that would last. The worst part was that he wanted to see them destroy the thing, even though that wasn't the smartest choice ever. He sighed, and nodded at last. "All right. Let's go." But go where?

The very mention of the Hutchins video made Gabe wince a bit. He had actually watched it several times over, though the first few times had been to reassure himself that he hadn't been imagining things and that really had been a greycloak that had killed him. The last few times had been enough to make it sink in that X-Dav would be looking for Rhys, and if the greycloaks worked for X-Dav, he didn't want to know what might happen if they happened upon each other one day.

"That was sweet," he said after a minute, grinning as he popped the rest of his loukoumade into his mouth. So tasty, these things! "But I don't know that alcohol was the way to go."

"You never know." She smiled a little as she took her phone back, tucking it away once again. "I might go home, find a giant monster on our back porch, and then panic and call you because I wouldn't know what else to do." God, she hoped not. That was the last thing she wanted after this. They had no experience with giant monsters.

She paused just long enough to place her gyro order, pay, and then happily move away from the stand with her gyro. These things really didn't have any right to be as delicious as they were.

Well both of his friends were okay out there, that was a relief. But he was certainly not, he realized, as he noticed how difficult it was getting to type thanks to the cold turning his fingers stiff. He sent off the text he was working on and let out a slow breath, watching the condensation form in the air.

He hated Kharveryos, he decided.

He also decided that Jordan was right, he did need to do something, because he was not properly equipped to do nothing in weather like this.

The tables outside had tablecloths. Did they keep those in here? They'd be thin and cheap, but it was better than relying on what he was wearing to keep his own body heat in. He started moving, scanning the shelves, pausing to answer Gabe and Mal when his phone went off.

He found a plastic tub nestled between a shelf and a stack of folding chairs that he probably wouldn't have seen if he wasn't looking as closely as he'd been and pried it open to check the contents. He dug through cheap centerpiece arrangements until he found a corner of white that led to a small stack of folded tablecloths.

"Hey," he called out to Jordan, as he dug them out of the tub one at a time, dropping them to the floor beside him. He wasn't petty enough not to give her something to keep warm with; he'd worked out most of his anger by calling her a bitch. "Come here."

Ezra gave Nadir a brief glance as Eileen said "self-aware", but Nadir watched her steadily, maybe with a bit of amusement (hey, why does she get amusement and Ez disdain, huh??), both of them wondering if she knew anything. It was hard to know who knew what, and Eileen wasn't someone he'd thought to tell, or Alison either, really. It just didn't seem like a thing you told people.

That Missie hadn't said anything seemed pretty amazing to both of them.

"There's somethin' goin' on, anyway. Could just be some unfinished plot thing? Nothin' sayin' if the character becomes self-aware they know what t'do with that they've been given. Could just be Ravi's way of copin' with the plotline?" He really had no idea- that seemed to be something he'd been doing with Alex, so Jordan maybe knew more? Ah, but Rachel had known, too...

Well, whatever. They'd sort it out. Poor Ravi. He liked the dude, even if he was the saddest person on the face of... of Zenderael.

Ezra was cleaning off empty plates from the tables, letting the silence fall without too much concern (Eileen didn't look to be the extra chatty type, so he backed off), leaving her free to turn to Nadir as he handed plates at the side of the table Ezra had trouble reaching. Older man, wild black hair tied back, dark-skinned, eyepatch, built like a tank, with one unmistakably gold eye. He straightened up when she spoke to him.

"Yes, I did. Not for me, though. I have my own sword."

"Wanna see it?" Ezra asked, waggling his eyebrows. Nadir gave him a pained look and the boy grinned and went back to replacing full plates on the table, though he spoke again anyway. "It's Nanshe's sword from the Gardens raid, if that helps your decision any."

Rhys was still under fury. Even after Kharveryos had fallen, too much of him knew the battle wasn't over, that it wouldn't ever be over.

He lunged at Kharveryos, ignoring the ice breath launched his way. Another icicle shot itself into Rhys' thigh, ignored. Kharveryos snapped its jaws forward, but Rhys grabbed onto its fangs, unblinking, and swung Kharveryos' head into the ground.

The crack he gave the skull meant nothing to the skeletal dragon, and with another bellowing roar, a point blank frost blast of frost breath sent Rhys smashing against the back wall.

Mal shoved the last bite of baklava into his mouth, shrugging while he chewed. It had worked, even if it hadn't worked the way he'd expected, and that was all that mattered.

After swallowing, he grinned to Gabe. "You ever drink? Kinda wonder what you'd be like."

"We usually had Joryn along for that." The cleric would cast holy magic at it to finish it off once they'd crumbled it. Mal glanced towards the fighting. Did they have anyone in the city who could do that? He could only hope so, and hope they got to it before everyone in the building froze to death.

Or at least before it finished off with those inside and broke out to terrorize the rest of the city...

Mal shook his head to clear it, and tried to focus on his present goal. That was, getting Gabriel somewhere safe. He looked around and started following the wall furthest from the dragon, keeping his grip on Gabe's hand firm.

Anything Eileen might have thought to say completely abandoned her brain at the mention of Nanshe's sword. Nanshe's sword. Eileen had loved the very idea of that sword from the moment she learned the thing existed, even if Anais couldn't use it due to it being wrong for her spec. Still, she could see it now. And it would be the real sword! How often did anyone get the opportunity to see something like that?

Still... what if Alison had been wrong? What if Nadir wasn't actually what she had said he was...?

"It's the real sword?" she asked, flinching a little when she realized just how hopeful that had sounded. Oh, God, did that make her sound too eager?

"Nah." Gabe shook his head. "Never liked the taste." Never mind the fact it could ruin your liver. Gabe was perfectly content to not have his liver irreversibly wrecked by a drink, thank you very much. "If I had to guess, though, I'd probably either be a weepy drunk or one of those really clingy ones."

The revulsion of what he'd done hit him first, and he wasted precious moments throwing up, his body purging itself of everything except the one thing he wanted to be rid of. No, it'd taken like a fish to water, that colon, and when he managed to stop gagging, when the sounds of the battle hit his ears again, it was the sudden wave of wrong hitting him that made him want to puke again.

Kharveryos.

The sickness was quickly taken over by anger, anger that such a thing could even exist, nevermind that it should be here where it didn't belong. He could smell it, feel it, like the darkness was trying to sink into his skin and every ounce of him rejected it with nothing short than utter disdain and hatred for its very existence.

Okay. Yeah, he could see why paladins were called uppity sometimes.

He breathed in. His stomach wasn't settled, but he could ignore it now, could move. He grabbed the rest of the jacket, ignoring how bad he was shaking (demi-godhood didn't do much for the cold), and roughly wiped his face clean before tossing it aside. He crouched in front of Nadir, taking both of his shoulders, though the man was slumped over now. "This better work, or I swear I will find a way to res you and kill you again," he muttered. What- what was he supposed to do? He could feel it, something that seemed to stay steady inside him. He shut his eyes again, focussing on it. What was he supposed to do? What did he want done?

And then the answer was there. He called it up, a cleansing spell that washed away the taint of poison from Nadir's body, that healed the wounds and gave him back some energy in the process. Nadir breathed in, coughed, kept coughing, and Ezra gave him a shake. The spellsword looked up, and Ezra grinned, shakily.

"This thing's got armour, right?"

Rhys hadn't even hit the ground before there were hands on him, guiding him to the floor. "Distract it!" he yelled at Nadir. Rhys was bleeding like nobody's business. Crouched beside him in spirit-woven armour, Ezra slapped his face (as though that might help, way to go) before he called up a healing spell, a light that wound its way through Rhys' body, sealing up every cut, erasing every bruise. At best for a normal paladin, it would have had the same effect as a mid-level heal from a cleric. Being the Spenta had some perks from being a regular paladin.

"Get up, get up," he muttered, picking up the longsword again that he'd dropped when he'd clutched at Rhys' shoulders. "I need you, man!"

Gabe followed, though he kept an eye on that dragon just in case. For all he knew, that thing would turn around and breathe on them or swat them with it's tail for the hell of it. Maybe if they moved slowly enough, it wouldn't see them. Then again, it seemed content to knock the people who were attacking it around. It might not notice them at all.

Meanwhile, the opposite was occurring in Jordan; her worries and frustration were steadily rising, each feeding the other into a silent anger that chipped at her ability to keep a cool head. She'd eventually stopped pacing and crouched down in front of a folded table, holding her knees to her torso as she ignored the childish urge to scream and physically lash out.

Duncan's voice snapped her attention away -- at least, for the moment -- and she lifted her head to look at him. Her eyes narrowed at the cloths on the floor, but she got up and walked over, looking as if she might cry at any minute. (She wouldn't.)

"Some of the fruity cocktails got no taste at all," Mal noted. While he was fine with straight rum, or rum and soda, or, well, rum and anything, the occasional cocktail was delicious on top of being alcoholic. He leaned back to give Gabe an appraising look. "I'd bet on clingy. Which would be adorable."

Nadir looked up briefly- rolling his eyes, though it was harder to tell when you had only one to roll- and he looked over to Ezra, who continued to grin cheekily. "Oh yes. We wasted eight hours of our lives getting that thing. I'll go get it?" he asked innocently. He couldn't have been happier if he had a tail to wag.

"Go get it," Nadir said with a long-suffering sigh. Ezra straightened up and saluted before sauntering off. Nadir watched after him for a moment before turning his attention back to Eileen.

"Yes, the real sword. A little knicked, but there's nothing I can do about that without a forge." He looked at her sharply. "...you know what that means, right?"

He stood, pulling a couple of tablecloths with him, trying to organize them to be roughly layered with each other. "Here." He held them up for her to take.

[EVENT] - Kharveryos

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[Mal/Gabe/Theresa] - can things get any worse

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