AC: Round 1 - Group 2

[Revenant]

This thread is reserved for member of Group 2. The thread will open at noon on August 18th (Pacific time) and will be closed after two weeks.

Good Luck!

Group 2
Flint Skovik - Warpath
Black Shadow - black shadow
Madison Freebird - BlackandBlueEyes
Isylle - Isylle

[Isylle]

High tide. Azure ocean waves swelled over the submerged spit in the distance, rolled in with a noise not unlike a mine cart, and crashed into the shore as white foam and flying spray. In the coral sands well above the reach of the water, a small, brown crab pushed itself to the surface. Its antennae flicked, tasting the steady sea winds and noting the distinct presence of a coconut nearby. The crab scuttled towards the waterline until at last its swiveling eyes noted the fruit washed ashore and already half-buried in sand.

A shadow fell over the ground and then the crab was gone.

A white-and-black tern fought with its hard-shelled lunch for a minute before finally gave it up as a bad job. The crab, minus a leg, made a rude gesture at the bird and dug back beneath. The bird, plus a leg, looked about the beach for something more satiating. It circled in the cloudless blue sky until it spotted a reddish lump. That looked promising.

Up close, the lump proved to be disconcertingly large, almost four wingspans long. It smelled very strange, too, like a gross of flowers. Whatever it was, it didn't smell like meatish food. Seabirds, as a rule, weren't particularly picky eaters and so it stepped closer to give it a experimental peck.

The lump made a sound and shifted a little. The tern flapped away in a great hurry but stopped a short distance away, hoping that maybe what wasn't quite dead yet would be considerate enough to go the rest of the way sometime soon.

Isylle's dream was broken by a sharp poke in the side. She felt the irregular sand against her hands and face, the warm wind against her neck, the wet salt smell in the air, the sun's hot embrace all over, and a hundred other little feelings. What was most reassuring was that she felt the familiar shape of her umbrella in her hand. But what was she doing here?

Ah, right.

The tern flapped away, complaining loudly. Sun-bleached sand fell off of Isylle in flakes and individually cascade as she stood up. She opened one green eye tentatively.

Brightness. Pain.

The umbrella blossomed noiselessly at a flick of her wrist. Though unrecognizable to even most florists, it was the one flower that lived on unwilting through all seasons in Tenger Jerhal. It shaded its master now, the woody stem casually leaning on one shoulder and the pale pink, interconnected petals projecting a patch of instant relief against the sun.

In this new shade, Isylle opened her eyes, red and green both, and inspected the mess of a costume that she was wearing. There were still a multitude of stray grains, but there was an obvious solution. Since the moment that she had woken up, vegetation had sprouted and started growing all around her to form a patch of green in the pink-white sands.

She bent down and cupped her free hand above a small tassel fern sprout. It fairly exploded out of the ground, growing a single distorted, arm-sized leaf in the span of seconds, then its roots died, dried, and cracked. Isylle gently plucked free the brush-like production and went to work. She started with her hair, cleaning and separating out each auburn strand. Her white blouse was next, the leaf-brush moving underneath the black-plaid red vest as necessary. Then the vest itself and the matching skirt. Her black stockings and her dark brown boots were probably the most densely populated. Isylle dropped the already-browning leaf and reached up to straighten her ascot, turning inland to inspect what laid before her.

The dense jungle started abruptly at the beach's edge, the boundary marked by a sharp line of denuded, felled trees from some long-forgotten tsunami. It was a solid wall of dark green and brownish-green speckled with the daring color of tropical flowers. Occasionally, a little speck of not-green would blink and then retreat into that opaque sea.

More interesting than the sights, though, were the smells. The westerly wind brought with it hundreds of different scents, many from deep inland. Dogs or moths might have had the words to describe it, but explaining the whole experience to a human is an exercise in futility. Isylle was excited. There were new species to inspect and assimilate right in front of her, but other business had to be attended to first.

Isylle was finally satisfied with her spotless appearance. Then, and only then, did she turn back towards the three unconscious bodies that she had woken up next to. She twirled her parasol and waited with a pleasant smile on her pale face.

[black shadow]

Black Shadow, Having the intense training he had when he was young, heard Isylle moving about. He quickly opened his eyes and drew his bow in a panic, thinking Isylle was something else. When he noticed it was just his team mate he lowered his weapon and motioned his hands in sign language saying, "I almost shot you, next time you might want to be a bit more careful." he then stuck his hand out, offering a friendly handshake.

[Isylle]

Isylle looked down at the proffered hand and restrained herself from displaying the puzzlement that she felt. She had seen handshakes one or twice before during her very brief contacts with populated places in this realm: you put your hand in their hand and then you vibrated the whole affair for a little while. No, the puzzlement resulted from the strange bunch of gestures and waving that the creature had performed at her a moment ago. It was similar to yet entirely unlike what she had seen a 'wizards' do, once before. That time, the 'wizard' was trying to use whatever magic was native to this realm to fight for his own pitiful little animal life after Isylle had come across him uprooting plants for their roots. It was probably something about potions or ingredients or cooking or something; he was terribly inarticulate in trying to explain himself, after he had been pinned to the ground with small trees through the chest.

This time was unlike the last time because there was a distinct lack of burning wasps, sharp silver stars, or other sorts of magical conjurations headed her way. Maybe the creature was just incompetent, which would make the whole business a little more difficult. Isylle continued staring down at the proffered hand with her free hand unmoving, a pleasant smile unmoving, and considered returning the gesture. Trust and friendship were highly dangerous terms in Tenger Jerhal. The dumber fairies trusted one another until they suddenly didn't, friendships were made and broken in the blink of an eye, and nobody held grudges or memories because anyone's heads would explode while trying to keep track of it all. The more ancient ones like Isylle trusted no-one at all, not really. Even when two were in their most intimate moments, each was guarding against sudden death from the other. Fairies were very good at pretending otherwise, when they needed to.

Isylle looked up into Black Shadow's eyes for a moment, then raised her free hand and brushed his with it. "I'm Isylle. I hope that you can scream when appropriate." She turned around and walked to one of the other sleeping bodies.

"Wake up~" She said, cheerfully, as a mother might address a beloved child on a lazy summer vacation morning. Then she kicked the body in the side quite hard with her very serviceable boots.

[Warpath]

The one-time gladiator was aware before he was awake. He heard the waves and smelled the salt and the breeze was warm and balmy. There were sensations in his head that felt like colors, which meant somebody had been using magic on him. It wasn’t the first time, and unless hell had gone tropical it wouldn’t be the last.

The light coming through his eyelids dimmed, and then somebody gave him a good kick in the ribs. He took it like a log and accepted the ache, letting the rush of anger settle over him like a favorite blanket. Now he was awake.

Flint cracked his eyes open to regard the cheeriest attacker he’d ever had. He stared for a long moment, and then decided there wasn’t anything wrong with his vision. There was in fact a pretty woman standing over him holding a lovely pink parasol, fairly well glowing in the light of the sun, and she kicked like a goddamn sailor.

“Thank you,” he croaked evenly, and then he sat himself up.

He felt sand clinging to him and sneered, lifting his hands to regard himself. Where had he been before this? He was wearing leather at the legs and thin cotton over his torso, but couldn’t clearly recall the last couple of days. It hadn’t been anywhere with sand.

His scalp felt a size too small for his skull, so he peeled the cotton shirt off and tied it to his head before the sunburn got worse. So attired, he squinted up at his cheerful abuser, and then peered around her at the man in black, then at the woman still sleeping some distance away.

He decided he would not be signing any more strange proclamations on tavern posting boards, not even with a false name.

[Isylle]

"Good morning~" Isylle replied, rather reassured that she won't have to go and do the hand-touching ritual again. She turned around and went over to the remaining, horizontal member of the team and lifted her foot.

"Wake up~" Thump.

Heedless of how well the kick to the sand next to the head was received, Isylle turned towards the jungle and started walking off, leaving a trail of sprouting greenery along the sand in her wake. The subtle, delicious scent of rare flowers beckoned to her like extremely expensive ladies of negotiable affection beckoned to lords (and ladies) of means, complete with the implicit promise of two becoming one at some later date. The flower fairy was a predator in this sense, always seeking out new flora to assimilate into her already mind-boggling repertoire. Some of that repertoire was showing itself now.

A tiny sand-centipede, drawn by the movement nearby on the surface, poked its head out. its multitude of legs scrambled along the big grains as it wound towards the verdant path behind Isylle. It selected a choice, young shoot and took a nibble with tiny mandibles. A few seconds later, it was writhing nearby with legs spasming. A few more seconds passed, and it laid still in an agonized curl.

All of Isylle's growths naturally included a mixture of the most potent, self-produced pesticides from several realms. Often, this served to draw the plant's own fertilizer.

She stopped at the edge of the jungle and reached up with one hand to cup a deep violet, tongue-shaped flower from a vine curled around a tree trunk. It quietly separated itself, growing a new, thin vine around one of her fingers and climbing into her palm like a very friendly, very colorful bird. Isylle saw that this one was good only for its sex appeal and a strange scent that it released to attract some kind of small, red ant to defend it against attackers.

Isylle turned around, parasol twirling slowly, flower snuggled in hand. She had a smiling, saccharine expression like an elementary teacher, "Let's get a move on, shall we?"

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

Well, Miss Madison, what's the first rule for signing up for any sort of adventurous outing?

Always read the fine print.

And what's the second rule for signing up for any sort of adventurous outing?

Always read the damn fine print.

I don't remember much. I recalled seeing a call for adventurers posted in one of my favorite drinking holes in Underwood. I remembered saying to myself, sure, why not, I could use a break from my research. And then nothing from there up until being unceremoniously dumped onto a remote beach, waking up to the overwhelming sound of waves crashing echoing throughout my aching head and the dry, crunchy sensation of a mouthful with sand.

Hacking up clouds of sand, I pushed myself up onto my knees whilst furiously shaking my head to free any lingering grains caught in my hair. That made my headache even worse; I was still feeling pangs of teleportation sickness. I lowered my head and tried to take a few breaths, trying to calm my system down.

A sea bird cried out overhead. After a few breaths, I started to assess my situation. I had been dropped onto a beach only the Thayne knew where, and presumably had several tasks to carry out. Was I equipped to do it? I gave myself a quick pat down to find out. Corset, check. Daggers, check. Wire wrapped around my biceps, check and double check. Cloak, check. The only thing I was missing were my throwing knives and my traveling satchel. The knives I could do without; but not having my travel-sized alchemy kit on me could pose a few problems. Nothing to do but huff out an exasperated sigh.

I slowly became aware of the movement of others around me. My teleportation was still having a lingering effect on me; as I raised my head and rubbed my eyes with my fists, I could only make out three blurry shadows against the aching brightness of the sun. Allies, my snap judgment told me.

Still, I hesitated for a brief moment before I managed to croak out an awful, drawn-out "Hi..."

[Isylle]

It was easy to follow Isylle through the jungle; she didn't walk fast and she bore through the solid verdant wall like a catapult ball through pudding. Branches bent away from her and stayed bent. Dangling vines parted like drapes attended by invisible servants. Swarms of confused insects took to the air as their living geography gave up their sedentary lifestyle for about as long as the average new year's resolution lasts.

The resulting tunnel was vegetable on all sides. Soft grass sprung calf-high from the dark soil. Vines and branches laid flat to form walls neatly covered in varied leaves and flowers. A scarce few rays of sunlight pierced through the canopy above. It was similar to what a few years of diligent gardening work might look like, assuming that there was such a thing as an invisible trellis. Isylle walked ahead calmly, slowly twirling her pink parasol, and concentrated on restricting and conserving her power.

Certainly, this was all completely unnecessary. She could have just pushed along between the vegetation like a normal person. That plan risked all sorts of unpleasant things like small creatures falling on her, touching poisonous plants, or getting one's hand damp. It certainly wasn't stylish and it was this unstylishness that rang its death knell. If given a choice, elder fairies would suffer through quite a lot of injuries before settling for something less than pretty and stylish.

There were some things that no amount of stylishness was going to resolve. Isylle stopped as the tunnel abruptly ended at another clearing. There was a very good reason for this clearing, not five hundred paces into the jungle. The reason was that the whole place was quite heavily flooded. A long depression in the ground had created wetlands for at least a mile ahead and the salty, muddy water was rife with the tiny ripples of insect life on its surface.

The occasional v-shaped ripple tearing across bits of the surface from inudated tree root to another promised big, toothy dangers under the surface. Isylle stopped. She thought.

[black shadow]

Black Shadow followed along behind Isylle in the jungle, something about wildlife always calmed his mind and allowed him to think better. When they reached the clearing he thought, Hmm, how will we get passed this, I have my arrows and could attack a rope or vine to it and we could walk across it like a tightrope, but then again I'm not sure if they could do it too.

He looked around searching for anything he could shoot the arrow to form the tightrope, but the nearest tree he could hit was in the middle of the wetlands and he couldn't shoot another until he reached the first tree. I'll ask Isylle if she has any ideas, if not then we'll just have to use the tightrope idea. He then took out a piece of paper, a ink jar, and a feather and began writing.


Excuse me, I have an idea to cross this, although i'm not sure how well you and the others will do with it. If you or any of them have an idea then we could do that, otherwise we'll have to do mine.

He then attached it to one of his steel arrows and fired it a little less than a centimeter in front of her face at a tree not a meter from her left arm.

[Warpath]

Flint watched the slim woman take stock of her possessions, carefully noting where her hands paused. When she was finished and he felt he had a decent idea of what she had on her and where, he took stock of his own weapons and found himself entirely lacking. Even his shoes were unsuitable for the environment.

The kicky woman was trotting off on her own just as the well-armed woman made a noise one might expect from distressed wood, if distressed wood could exhale. He gave her another once over before giving her a curt nod. “Flint,” he offered by way of reluctant greeting.

He wasn’t sure he could take her in a fight, not without a weapon. The other two though?

As he was crawling to his feet, he eyed the night-clad archer, who stood out as garishly on the beach as Isylle would have in his natural habitat. The man was very tall and rail-thin, which is what Flint preferred in people taller than he. It was a shame he only seemed to have a bow. The arrows might make a decent weapon in a pinch, but Skovik wasn’t about to take up sharpshooting. It didn’t suit him.

When the gangly ninja turned to follow the fairy, Flint glanced at the armed one before following at a distance. He bent mid-step to scoop a coconut out of the sand and palmed it, holding it at the ready. He had a way of swaggering when he walked, suggesting utter lackadaisical confidence. This belied the truth: a steady rush of adrenaline rolled through him, a readiness to pounce on any one of these strangers at the slightest provocation. Or opportunity.

He was impressed when foliage began springing up everywhere the kicky one went, suggesting her feet were both hard and magic, and when the overgrowth began bending aside to accommodate her he reassessed the threat she presented. Wizards were bad news, he’d found, because one never knows what to expect from wizards and they are, to a one, bat shit insane.

Eventually the green bent away to reveal a marsh wide and long, and that gave the apparent wizard pause. Flint noted what seemed to be a limitation. He thought to say something snide when Gangly startled the hell out of him by producing a veritable stationery kit from who-knows-where, penned a quick note, and then proceeded to aim a shot at the wizard.

Perfect, the brute thought, and he tensed up to throw his coconut right at the ninja’s temple. If this worked out well, the wizard would take the arrow and the coconut would fell the archer long enough for him to overpower the slim woman.

If it didn’t work out well he would just have to hope the wizard noticed him last.

[Isylle]

Whud.

Isylle, who wasn't much moving much before, froze stock still as the arrow passed across her face. Its wind lifted a few strands of her hair. If she had been some sort of human, a vein might have popped in her forehead. As it is, her somewhat perplexed smile froze into a different smile of steely purpose.

The fairy walked over to the tree and placed her hand over the wound. The arrow gently fell out into her grip and fresh bark closed over the thin incision. She stood there for a little while, stroking the trunk tenderly with the back of her hand.

Then she noticed the attached note. She read it. Her smile widened.

An odd sense of foreboding accompanied Isylle as she walked over to Black Shadow. Along the path, flowers bloomed and turned to follow her progress. She stopped in front of him, holding up the arrow by the neck and careful to keep her hand free of the bodkin point.

"Is this yours?" She asked, in the tone of a mother at her child's playdate asking a rhetorical question. Her parasol had stopped twirling.

Black Shadow nodded. He reached up to take it back.

In one sudden movement, Isylle snapped out her arm and plunged the arrow into the human's shooting hand. He felt a sudden, sharp pain in the palm and jerked back. The arrowshaft hung heavily from his hand.

Thup. The arrowhead, wilted and broken at the neck, fell into the grassy ground.

Black Shadow stared. The headless arrow had been smashed into his hand with bruising force, and his hand ached. More surprisingly, it seemed to have sprouted again. The wood was alive, with tiny leaves sprouting from the side even as he looked. The tip of it had become a complicated knot of woody tissue that sprouted short, thick vines that had entwined themselves solidly around his hand and were even how starting to quest up his wrist. One strand of the vine floated airily and steadily reached towards Isylle, as if she was magnetic.

Isylle twirled her parasol again, her smile softening. "Please don't injure the plants. Perhaps you can launch this arrow as far as you can, across the water?"

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

As my vision began clearing, I could start to make out the features of the three figures stranded on the beach alongside me. One of them, a woman with porcelain skin and fiery red hair sauntered her way towards the treeline. The other, a very nondescript man dressed up as your copper-a-dozen ninja, at least had the decency to make eye contact with me before running off. These were to be my allies in this venture? Can I take a mulligan?

A gruff voice came from next to me. "Flint," it curtly said in reply. I looked over, and what I had to guess was the fourth man in our little group; a short, stocky, mean-looking son of a bitch. His head was shaved, and his pitch-black beard ragged and unkempt yet impressive in its presentation. It was a style that matched up with the rest of him; cold hazel-colored coals for eyes, visible scars on his arms and hands, and the leather-saturated dress code of a common thug.

Briefly meeting his steely gaze, I could sense a very dark presence inside of him. This... Flint? He was a man very much like myself. Somebody who had seen and perhaps done many terrible things over the years. Someone who would do anything within his power to achieve his goals without remorse, no matter what the cost was to himself or others.

"Madison," I offered in kind.

I made a quick mental note to keep an eye on him at all times. The ginger seemed to be too showy and dramatic to be any threat, and the ninja... Well, he's just a ninja. I've killed their kind before with pieces of philosophical literature.

As Flint sauntered towards the heavy jungle that laid ahead of us, I stood and brushed a few grains of sand off of my smooth sifan cloak. In spite of the head, I wrapped myself up in the warm fabric and pulled my hood over my head. It was a minor detail, but after being suddenly teleported and unceremoneously dumped on some island and being stuck with a motley crew of utter nobodies, I didn't want to be sliced up by errant thorns and tree branches.

Before I could take a step, I heard the familiar twang of a bowstring, followed by the distinct thunk of a steel arrowhead embedding itself in a tree. I looked up to see our ninja friend guiltily holding his bow, much like an overweight child who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Not fifteen yards ahead of me, Flint had scooped up a coconut that had fallen nearby. I could only imagine what was going on in his head. As the thug cautiously stayed his hand, the redhead performed some sort of magic that caused a layer of wood to form over the arrowhead, then jammed it into one of the palms of the ninja.

It was then that I decided that I wasn't going to have any of this. Nope, no sir, not at all. Let those kids play their silly little games; I have a mission to accomplish. Without a word, I trudged up the sands and pushed myself past the ninja and the pale redhead. I could hear Ginger begin to protest, but I ignored her.

The deeply green jungle foliage was healthy and dense; but with no small effort I was able to push my way through a good portion of it. A small clearing in the brush ahead of me revealed my first obstacle. For a good several hundred feet ahead of me and to either side, the jungle had been flooded--perhaps by heavy rains. The incessant buzzing of insects filled my ears. A mosquito was able to sneak a drink of blood out of my cheek before I snuffed out its life.

I scanned the bog, searching for a logical and easy way to cross it. I spotted several V-shaped ripples in the water being made by only the Thayne knew what, so simply slogging through it was out of the question. Downed trees were poking their dead and decaying trunks above the waterline in several places; while other, more intact trees littered the bog.

A silly idea popped into my head; one where I could sort of leapfrog my way across the bog, but it was a highly illogical one. Even if I could get my wires to wrap tightly around the branches of the living trees, these particular ones didn't look healthy enough to support my weight without snapping and causing me to take a nasty spill.

So, I stood there, thumb and forefinger against my chin, and pondered what my next move would be.

[black shadow]

Black Shadow felt a little pain from Isylle jamming the arrow into his hand. What did I do, I just tried to give her an idea to cross the bog. Why that little son of a... Calm yourself Ardon, She's your teammate not your foe. Oh forget it I'm pissed off at her. He then grabbed another piece of paper to write on and began his next message.


What the fuck is your problem? I just shot a tree, why do you care so much? You my friend need to chillax, I didn't shoot you. What, are you one of those plant lovers, or maybe you're a plant itself, that doesn't give you a reason to ruin a perfectly good arrow and bruise my shooting hand. I'm half tempted to just shoot all the trees I see just to piss you off. now how are we going to get through this fucking bog without getting ourselves killed, ask yourself that and maybe we can get to our objactive and never have to see each other again, because I don't want to see your ugly ass face right now.

He then stuck out the note and shoved it in Isylle's face.

[Isylle]

Paper products.

Isylle understood perfectly well just where paper came from. She had taken the trouble to ask, the first time that she had run into the stuff. Amazement of amazement, she had not broken every bone in the victim's body, including some of the small ones that are particularly difficult to break, and lay him out with a hundred honey-filled cuts for the ants. She had given thanks and went on her own way. This is because Isylle, though militantly plant-loving and a sadistic psychopath, was not insane enough to believe that pointless violence was going to solve anything. Some days later, a park ranger came across a mass murder of loggers just trying to make a living, but that is besides the point. The point is that Isylle did not fly into a sweetly smiling rage of destruction when black shadow presented her with even more paper, right after she had requested that he stop hurting the plants.

Fairies don't understand market forces very well.

Isylle collapsed her parasol, hung it from the crook of one arm, and picked the note from his hands. She glanced through it, carefully folded it in half, then tore the note in half. This continued until she had a handful of thumbnail-sized shreds in her palms. She closed her cupped palms together.

"You might call it that." She opened her hands. There was a fresh flower there, its just-blossomed petals the color of black ink, edged with cobalt blue. Most unusually, its bottom appeared to be firmly rooted into Isylle's flesh, like it was part of her. She let Black Shadow absorb the sight for a few seconds, then kneeled down to the side of the path to plant the flower.

[Warpath]

Flint watched Madison shove past the quarreling ninja and wizard-apparent, and let his arm relax. If she intended to – what? turn him into a petunia? – she likely would have done it already. The moment to strike had passed. For now. The brute wondered at the content on those little letters, but thought it best to keep his mouth shut, especially as Kicky Redhead began tearing the second letter up.

When she revealed the most intriguing flower Flint had ever seen, he was torn between the urge to applaud slowly and to gape in honest marvel, so he did neither. Instead, as the magic gardener bent to plant her creation, he lifted his gaze to see what Madison was up to. By that time she was gone, and he tapped his finger on the coconut rhythmically as he tried to decide if he wanted to follow her or not. He had more in common with her than either of these two, yes, but that was probably a better reason to not be alone in a strange jungle with her.

“Impressive,” Flint said after choosing to stay. “But unless you can grow a very large bridge from his to-do list, we’re still stuck on the wrong side of a swamp.”

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

I ventured a glance behind me to see what was taking my teammates so long to catch up. The ninja had hastily scrawled a note--a note!--and shoved it into the face of the redhead, who promptly tore it up and mashed the shreds into a ball in her hands. The stocky thug, Flint, had lumbered his way up the freshly-pioneered path and planted himself next to the others, staring at them with a gaze that was either calculating or empty. And here I was, hoping that out of the three, that he would've been the most useful. He certainly appeared to be the brightest of the bunch aside from myself; but with the passing glance, I wrote him off as utterly worthless to me.

Idiots to the left of me, jokers to the right, I thought to myself. A line from a pretty popular tavern song. Seemed to fit my situation pretty well.

I turned my attentions back towards the thick browns and greens of the expansive bog ahead of me. The incessant buzzing of insects filled my ears. Another mosquito made a play for my exposed cheek. This time, I was prepared. With a swift wave and a light clap!, I slayed the aggressive pest and unceremoniously wiped her guts off on my pants.

A quick survey of the area verified that going around the bog was going to be impossible. Flooded wetlands stretched as far as the trees would allow me to see to either side of me. The only feasable way through the bog, without wasing considerable amounts of time, would be to plow straight ahead. But how? Trudging through the waters would be out of the question, for many obvious reasons. What if I got stuck in the muddy earth below the waters? What if whatever was making those big V-shaped wakes was hungry and looking for lunch? No; spending the next week or so digesting in some reptile's stomach was not in the plan.

So, I had no choice but to go up.

Spread generously throughout the bog were a variety of trees; from the rotting husks of dead trees that seemed eager to fall as soon as given the word to numerous different types of trees that were alive and thick with leaves and branches. I wish I could tell you what kinds of trees they were; but as far as my studies were concerned, I still had a lot to learn on them. Point is, they are trees, and there are a lot of them and a lot of different kinds.

With a sigh, I threw back my cloak and pulled my hood back. I took a quick survey of the forest canopy above me, picking out a branch that was high enough where I could get a good angle when I would inevitably swing my away across the water like something out of an adventure novel. Picking a thick branch that looked healthy enough, I commanded the wire wrapped around my right arm to snake its way out from underneath my sleeve. It swam through the air and wrapped itself around the branch several times, with room to spare. Deciding that a quick test would be smart, I gave the cable a couple of quick, solid tugs.

Snap! Crack! Kersplash!

The branch broke away from the rest of the tree, falling helplessly into the bog waters below. I had freed the wire from it in mid-descent. No sooner than when the branch resurfaced and began to float away did I catch a glimpse of a flash of thick green scales snap up and over the branch, dragging it under water. Several seconds later, three pieces of wood rose to the surface, their edges absolutely shredded.

So, yeah. Going directly through was out of the question. Going up and over was going to be just as dangerous.

I gritted my teeth as, against my better judgment, I searched for another branch. This time, hopefully fully-attached to the tree itself. A healthy-looking specimen, about as thick as my torso, showed itself. I commanded the wire up in the air again, wrapping it around the branch several times. I gave it a quick tug. I gave it a harder tug. Then, I gave it a yank with all my strength. The wood did not give, and I was satisfied.

I looked around for a good jumping point, as what happened to the first branch made me suddenly afraid to even so much as let my cloak trail through the water. Several feet away from me sat a rotting stump, the remnants of a tree that had fallen long ago. I climbed up, and scanned the flooded waters in front of me for a decent tree to swing to. Once I was ready, I wrapped a length of the commanded wire around my right hand, just in case the other lost its grip. I prayed that wouldn't happen.

I closed my eyes briefly and said a quick prayer. I took a deep breath. I took another one. What I was about to do was highly illogical; but it appeared that my teammates, still playing with themselves several dozen feet away, weren't going to offer any alternatives. I gave another quick pull on the cable--just to make sure--before throwing myself off of the rotten stump and over the dangerous waters below. The wind whipped through my hair and stung my eyes as I flew in a near perfect arc towards another tree in front of me. A split second before impact, I spread my legs out, hoping to wrap myself around the relatively thin trunk. When I hit it, I hit it hard. It knocked the breath right out of me. The sharp bark left a few scratches across my right cheek, which began to bleed slightly. I wrapped myself tight around the tree, allowing myself to catch my breath before continuing upwards.

But hey, I made the swing, and I was in no danger of falling into the waters below. So that must count for something, right? It was time to focus on my prize, which presumably lay past the other side of this flooded jungle.

[Isylle]

Black Shadow stared at the insane lady in front of him. He had heard the occasional story about people who got caught up too deeply with practicing magic. They start having trouble distinguishing between reality and fantasy. Once someone goes that far gone, it's all cackles and gingerbread houses afterwards. Inevitably, the community has to put them down like a rabid dog. It was all fit very neatly to Isylle.

She thought she was a plant. She hurts people for sticking arrows into trees. She's got a constant smile that, while not exactly a cackle, was somehow all the more disturbing. She. Though. She. Was. A. Plant.

Black Shadow's hand twitched towards a few sharp implements secreted about his person. It would be safest to put her down now, before she did something that he'd regret. She didn't walk like a fighter, she was entirely unarmed save for an umbrella, and she was already turning away from him to say, "Please launch that arrow across the water."

Yeah, sure. After pulling free the sprouted arrow with some difficulty, Black Shadow quietly retrieved another, steel arrow and walked up behind Isylle. His palm sweated a little - if she was allowed to react back, then he'll probably spend the rest of his life as a bowl of petunias or something equally horrible, with excrement shoveled over him regularly. He was two steps behind Isylle when he lunged and struck.

A powerful arm, hard from a lifetime of archery, wrapped itself around Isylle's chest and pinning both of her arms to her side. Black Shadow's other arm snaked out and drew the broadhead across her throat in one smooth motion. He held her unstruggling body there for a moment, then let go. It landed face-down in the grass with a dull thump.

Well, that was straightforward. He turned and began to write a note for the remaining party member, to briefly explain how he had just saved them all from being turned into petunias.

If he hadn't turned, he might have noticed that there were several things unsettling about the whole dead-crazy-sorceress business. She hadn't let go of her umbrella handle but then again, some death grips were not metaphorical. The arrowhead didn't have the faintest trace of red on it. There wasn't a spreading pool of blood under the corpse. The corpse was not venting all of its bowels in a horrible, stinky mess.

Isylle laid very still on the grass and continued the train of thought that had started when the man had first grabbed her from behind. It went like this: Well, that was rather sudden. I wonder what possessed him to do that? Maybe he thought that I was going to kill him. I hadn't decided yet, but I think I'm decided now. But first, the humans are can be rather useful; I'd much rather have someone to send headlong into any traps than going in myself. Still, they do need to be brought under control. Terror, fear, and perhaps a little garden in the ear?

You weren't crazy if what you believed was true. Isylle had been a flower fairy for so long that she was, for most purposes, plant. She didn't have a pulse, she didn't have a heart, and she didn't have much importance on neck. Precious little fluid had spilled before she had maximized her growth powers. The same power that could grow a six-foot tree in under a minute mended the deep, narrow cut in the blink of an eye.

Isylle pushed herself to her knees and then stood up. She turned slowly around to face the scribbling Black Shadow. Her umbrella was still in the same position as ever and her face had the same sweet smile as ever. A thin, pale line was fading away fast on her neck.

"If you would please shoot the arrow across the water?"

Black Shadow froze, spun, snapped up his bow, and drew it. The writing effort fluttered to the grass unnoticed. Ohhhh rancid butter, I don't want to be a petunia!

"No, the other arrow. And please refrain from doing that again. I don't like being suddenly closely held, it's embarrassing."

One tense minute later, Black Shadow had shot the arrow across as far as he could see. There was a distant thwock. The very long vine that trailed from the arrow was so thin and light that it almost floated in the air. Isylle grafted it to the trunk of a tree with a mere touch and stood there for a good minute while the vine thickened and shortened, pulling itself out of the water. The two-inch-thick path over the water was draped over the branches of the trees that the arrow had been shot over for support.

Isylle removed her hand and faced the other two members, her face lightly flushing in the process, "Can someone please carry me across?"

Behind that smiling face, Isylle was thinking happy thoughts now. Letting animals stew in the terror of promised future pain was a form of enjoyment that she could only derive from those apes. The stupider animals were boring that way.

[black shadow]

Carry her, what is she crazy? Forget that i'm going across, I'll leave it to the other guy. Black Shadow thought as he turned away from Isylle and began running across the vine towards the other end. He suddenly felt strange, like something was watching him. He looked down into the water only to see something moving underneath the water. What is that? he thought. I don't want to stick around and find out, I better keep moving. He began to run across the rope again hoping Flint could carry Isylle without them falling into the water. He then turned his head to continue running and spotted Madison. Hmm, what is she doing? Oh she'll find her way across.

[Warpath]

Flint watched the black-clad archer bound up onto the one-rope bridge and begin running across, and wondered to himself if it were fear or skill that carried him with such inhuman balance. He was, himself, entirely disinterested in attempting to kill the wizard now that he knew it wouldn’t be in any way quick or simple, and thus that he had little chance of doing so before she turned him into a petunia. That meant if it came down to the wizard or the ninja, his side was chosen. He let the coconut roll off of his palm, then approached the vine.

“I did specify a large bridge,” he told her dryly, reaching up to test the tensile strength and texture of the vine. It was relatively smooth, waxy without being overly sticky. He determined the safest way across, and then he sighed.

The prospect of showing off his strength to a pretty redhead in close quarters should have been a sign that someone up there liked him. It seemed more likely that he was well and truly cursed. Flint hopped up straight and caught the vine overhand, then effortlessly pulled himself up so that his chest came even with it. He hoisted his left leg up and over, and then motioned the she-wizard over.

She raised one hand up to him daintily, which he took – her skin felt abnormal, but he sort of expected that – and then he drew her up into the air and over his shoulder in one smooth motion. It took a great deal less struggling than he expected for her to settle onto his back, and then it was done and he was fulfilling his job as a pack animal of above-average intelligence.

Granted, she was sitting the wrong way, but that suited her. Flint was lying atop the rope on his stomach, with his left leg extended for balance and the right hooked around the vine with the foot slightly drawn in. His left arm wrapped beneath the vine and the right wrapped over it, which he hoped would give him enough control to prevent falling. Isylle, meanwhile, sat quite contently on his upper back in ladylike fashion, twirling her parasol and looking about as if she were at a lovely picnic and not lurching precariously over a pool full of gods-know-what.

Skovik did not complain out loud. He dragged himself forward quickly and steadily, and he tried to ignore the way the vine was rubbing the skin off his chest. He supposed it didn’t matter where he wore his shirt; he was going to get burnt before the day was done.

[Isylle]

Since the situation was a basket of food, a tablecloth, several seating cushions, and an ant colony short of a picnic, the loveliness of it all begged to be evaluated by standards that didn't involve sandwiches. Here was a beautiful jungle, full of birds, trees, flowers, and other things that are trying to kill you. Here was a well-matched couple, one who could throw coconuts very hard and one who could see to it that the coconut was a tree by the time it suddenly stopped at something trying to kill them. Generally, they were enjoying themselves; that is, one of them was enjoying things twice as much as the other was not enjoying them.

Isylle considered the motion on the other side of her undergarments; it was a fascinating sensation, so different from the knotted and spasming motions that she usually felt in the humans in contact with her. While they usually had a very good reason to be writhing and screaming, it did limit the fairy's exposure to more ordinary functions of humans. Having a docile and obedient human from the outset promised all-

The flower fairy's thoughts disintegrated as much more interesting things seized her attention. A passing branch donated a few thin leaves and a bud. Then a hanging vine did the same. Over the course of the next several hundred feet of travel, while Flint sweated and grunted between her thighs, Isylle assimilated twenty-odd new species of plants, including two that were particularly interesting for their carnivorous behavior.

The pair neared the other end of the bridge, where the arrow had landed amidst the knobby roots of a tree quite a ways past the water's edge. There had been only one obstacle; a curious dark brown snake had been crawling along the vine, its deeply triangular head advertising potent venom glands. An ungentle swipe of the umbrella later, it splashed into the dark waters below.

"Oh, that looks painful. Does it hurt badly?" Isylle said, having disembarked, turned around, and noticed the angry red stripe of a contact patch on Flint. She reached out and touched a finger to it, "It's hot! Well, you're not going to go around with it like that. Sit down."

It took a little time before Isylle cudgeled her brain into remembering what those guests of hers did to treat the wounds that she inflicted on them. It took a little more time for her to adjust part of her to secrete a much more potent and elegant blend of tea tree oil, alcohol, latex, cocaine, and other ingredients. She leaned forward, her face a few inches from Flint's chest, and bid the clear liquid to flow into her mouth.

The sharp, burning sensation on initial contact was rapidly quenched in a cool numbness. With lips and tongue as applicator, Isylle applied the liquid bandage down the entirety of the ropeburn, which was essentially the entirety of Flint's exposed torso. There was a minute of complicated scents, then the substance dried to a clear, rubbery layer. Isylle took out a kerchief and wiped herself.

The big cat hidden amongst the foliage tracked the three below it with great yellow eyes. Unlike a cat trying to drive off threatening intruders to its territory, a hunting cat made no sound at all. Given that this one's pelt had proven invulnerable to any and all attack, there have never been the need to make any sort of warning growl in lieu of just fighting. Silently, it padded out to the end of the branch and coiled itself.

Four hundreds pounds of Nemean Jaguar lept for Isylle's back. The unsuspecting fairy was still standing over Flint with a pleased smile.

[Warpath]

It was a long crawl in the sun, carrying what was essentially a magical time bomb. Isylle was by no means an exceptionally large woman, but even the tiniest person would have quickly become a burden under the circumstances. Flint endured, and thought back to happier times – like when he and the other gladiators would be forced to carry two hundred and fifty pound logs on their shoulders, in the sun, for three hours twice a day.

As it turned out, there weren’t many happy times to choose from.

He paused and felt his face go slack when he realized there was a very unpleasant looking snake coiled around his one path forward, but the she-wizard did away with it by means of her parasol, and the torturous journey continued without further incident. After that point though, he figured it could have been worse. He had never been quick, and animal bites administered one of his least favorite types of pain.

Flint didn’t actually realize they’d reached the other side until Isylle dropped down off of his back and landed without a splash. He was relieved to swing round to hang from the vine by his arms, and then he dropped his legs before letting go. His legs threatened to go out from under him as he landed. Indeed, he was so intent on the near-failure of his legs that he hadn’t noticed the rope burn until Isylle pointed it out and sat him down on a log. At first he didn’t resist, and then he became immediately tense. He now had the wizard’s undivided attention. He glanced around hoping to find the ninja while the odd-eyed redhead seemed lost in thought, and had no luck.

She leaned forward and down abruptly, and Flint tried unsuccessfully to lean away while muttering monosyllabic protests that never came out to real words. There were plenty of thoughts, sure – ‘what are you doing?’ and ‘that won’t be necessary’ and ‘please don’t lick that’ and maybe ‘can I buy you dinner first’ – but what came out was more ‘wuh-nuh-puh-err.’

But then he realized the friction-pain was fading, subsumed by a satisfying coolness, and something in him suggested that this creature was not a wizard at all, but something else entirely, and the pleasant sensations were all tangled up with the fear response. Toward the end he decided he could get into this, if she didn’t say anything creepy. He peered up at her to think about it, except now all he could think about was the surreal image of a giant cat hanging suspended in the air above and behind her.

The animal part of his brain reacted while the civilized part was still stuck on the absurdity of it, and he shoved Isylle aside even as he tried to stand up. The jaguar, of course, was faster. Its bulk forced the fairy aside the rest of the way, which meant it landed squarely on top of Flint and carried him immediately over the log to the ground beyond. It went for his throat, as predators do, and as someone accustomed to that instinct Flint was prepared for it. He brought his forearm up in just enough time that the cat bit down on that instead of his head.

The friction burn had hurt. This pain was something there aren't words for.

To his credit, Flint used the pain and the panic as a potent motivator, and began striking the jaguar on the nose with his free fist, growling and spitting and struggling. The big feline was not injured or even bothered by the blows, but it was just confused enough not to bite the rest of the way through his arm and take it off.

[black shadow]

Black Shadow had gone ahead of Isylle and Flint in order to scout out the area ahead of them, but quickly turned around and drew his bow at an unusual sound coming from where they were. Shoot, I better get back there, I'll never accomplish this task alone. He thought to himself as he began to run back towards his arrow and the vine.

He was in the trees, his favorite place to be, and spotted the two easily. He just as quickly spotted a Jaguar. He drew his bow and began to make his calculations on where to aim. Target is 79 meters away, adjust height by 3.958 centimeters. Wind moving west at a speed of 7.37 kilometers per hour, adjust angle between bow tip and target by 1.85 centimeters. Deep breath, and release. He thought to himself as his arrow flew through the air and struck his target, barely missing his lungs. The jaguar released Flints arm and looked at Black Shadow. Bearing it's teeth the jaguar began running towards Black Shadow in which had already draw another arrow. He released the second arrow and this time it had struck the left lung. Come any closer and I'll stab this arrow through your throat. He thought to himself as he pulled out his next arrow and held it out like a swordsman would with his sword.

[Isylle]

The jaguar was a little surprised at being punched in the nose and barely noticed the mild pelting in its flank. The heavy arrows struck the hide with a dull thump and promptly bent under the impact shock. They fell into the ground to pose a danger to the barefooted, leaving no mark on the cat save for a little ruffled fur.

They say that no weapon could cut the pelt of the Nemean lion or its smaller cousins, save their own teeth and claws. For some reason, the question of how they managed to convince the lion to bite itself doesn't seem to have come up in the legends. This particular legend was very quickly becoming intimately familiar to Black Shadow. In fact, one could say that this was the primary thought that flashed across his mind as the extremely large jaguar closed the distance in a few bounds and lept for him in an eyes-shut pounce, completely dismissive of the bit of metal in Black Shadow's hand.

Isylle had been violently thrown aside twice and had, in the process of maintaining a death-grip on her umbrella, managed to smack herself solidly on the cheek with the tip. She spat, mostly to get the taste of human out of her mouth, and two gleaming white molars came with it. A look of horror came over her features: horror at very nearly losing her head, horror at the apparent betrayal by her umbrella, that ancient companion, and horror at the great big thing with the teeth and claws that had very nearly torn Flint's forearm in half.

She hadn't seen a big cat before. Large predators didn't survive in Tenger Jerhal; they would have become the focus of daily hunts, for fun, and gone extinct.

Then anger struck her like a truck of burning clathrates. The animal did not know its place; attacking her, she could understand, but it had attacked the one that served her. Somewhere in her subconscious, Isylle realized that she was fond- no, that is the wrong word. She was protective of Flint like a chicken farmer was protective of her coop.

As the jaguar bounded up towards Black Shadow, Isylle retrieved a small envelope from a vest pocket. It was stiff, black-bordered, and decorated on both sides with a simple glyph. She unsealed the top and swung it overhand, letting its contents - hundreds of little black seeds - sail out towards the target.

Flower Sign: Reflowering of the Silent Forest

By the time that wave of seeds began arriving, they were no longer themselves. A great wave of sharp, many-spined bamboo shoots was raining out of the sky and between them was a solid net of rhizomes. The effect was not entirely dissimilar to having a small forest dropped on someone. Scattered all over the mass were flowers, beautiful pink-and-white flowers.

Isylle was not smiling.

[Warpath]

Flint stared at the empty sky for a moment, fighting against the urge to abandon consciousness. He inhaled and then he hissed, cringing and squeezing his eyes closed, and then he forced them open again. A heady mix of hormones flooded his system, led chiefly by adrenaline, and reality seemed more real – colors saturated and intensified, certain sounds faded away and others leapt to the fore. Water rippled and leaves rustled, and the ocean breeze was both sweet and salty.

And then Skovik growled and forced himself to abruptly sit up, and was still for a moment as the world spun around him. He was familiar with shock and blood loss, but it still took a great deal of effort to make himself focus. He couldn’t concern himself with the animal, not yet. If it finished killing the others and came back for him, there was nothing he could do to prepare. If they managed to defeat it, blood loss could take him before they could help.

He needed a towel, a rope - anything tougher than he had available to him. He used his good arm to pull the shirt off of his head, and then he put his teeth to use too and began shredding the cloth into strips. Even his jaws were brawny, knots of muscle standing out the size of small kiwi fruits behind his cheeks as he bit down and pulled. He fashioned a sloppy tourniquet out of those strips and a small stick, and then he bound his arm as best he could.

Only then did he look up to try and find the cat. By then though, the area was blanketed by a brand new forest of strange flowering plants, and the monster was obscured within. Flint began to wonder if blood loss ever caused hallucinations.

[Isylle]

The slash across the jaguar's throat disappointingly brought no blood gushing forth. It did click the jaws shut and, judging from the thin rivulet of blood dripping down one side, possibly cause the creature to bite its tongue. That didn't help Black Shadow very much with the problem of thirty stones of cat landing on ten stones of archer.

Black Shadow fell over. Falling over wasn't such a big worry because there were four great big claws trying to make his insides hit the ground befor his outsides do. They were disconcertingly sharp, shredding right through his trousers, shirt, skin, muscles, sinews, and dignity with ease. His shoulder hit a protruding rock and then the rest of his back hit it, too. It was in this compromising position, with a great big cat on top of him, that he glanced past and noticed that the sky had suddenly gone dark green with pink stars.

A small, pointy forest fell on the jaguar. Nothing penetrated, but the impact did shift around quite a lot of its insides. It yowled and released Black Shadow in quite some shock. This mistake was very quickly punished when the archer reached up and thrust his arrow into the creature's open mouth. Surprisingly, the impromptu tongue piercing did not result in an impromptu amputation of all of his fingers at the wrist. There were still other things to worry about, like how there was a great big heavy net of interlinked roots cast over the jaguar and how he was on the wrong side of said net.

Isylle walked a little unsteadily to the struggling bundle of jaguar, net, and jaguar dinner. The slight light-headedness from growing the forest would pass in a minute. She leveled her closed umbrella at the netting and considered all the ways that this attack could go horribly wrong for the cat. There were many places where a tendril could enter the animal and then grow into something lethally painful. The poisons could have it rolling around in agony and itchiness until it expended itself. She could study it later, figure out how this all worked, and perhaps duplicate this very interesting inconvenience.

"So, you're impervious to sharps? Such a shame that you had to go jumping on Flint. That's naughty. Punishment time~!" A smile appeared on Isylle's face. It had too many teeth.

Vine Sign: Intrusive Nettl-

The small forest fair well shattered into pieces, cut apart in a flurry of claws while the jaguar bounded out of the net. It was trying to vocalize its fury, but having a big arrow stuck sideways through the tongue was an unsurprisingly effective gag. Isylle's umbrella tip moved a fraction and pushed through one huge yellow eye with a disconcerting 'squish'. It shook its head and the umbrella was torn out of her grip. Then a huge paw disarmed Isylle at the shoulder.

A fierce, half-blind rage clouded the jaguar's mind, which was still shocked at having received any injury at all. It was upon the soft, strange-smelling creature and its claws raked at every inch within reach, which was every inch of Isylle. The only red in that bundle were the tracks flowing from the jaguar's mouth and from its newly-blind eye. The fairy bled clear.

A thumb bounced wetly off of Flint's cheek.

[black shadow]

Black Shadow lay still after recieving all the slashes from the Jaguar. So this is what it's like to die, I'll be with you soon brother. He then closed his eyes but opened them quickly when he thought about the Jaguars attack. My mask, he tore it off. He put his arm over his face to prevent the others from seeing his face, closed his eyes, and fell unconscious.

[Warpath]

Only one thing was instantly and immediately clear to the one-time gladiator: he was not going to kill this animal. He did not have the means. With a spear and a set of armor, and more luck than sense, maybe he would stand some chance of survival beyond 30 seconds. With his sword and shield, maybe he could have held the monster at bay for long enough that his erstwhile companions could have escaped before he inevitably fell. Hell, if he just had his seax…

So when the monster fell upon the one person that might have stood a chance of killing it, when he saw all hope slipping away, then he became…well, let’s call it nervous. It was as close to panic as Flint Skovik was liable to get.

He swiped the back of his hand on his cheek where he’d been struck by…what had that even been? He tried not to think about it. The wizard had survived an assassination attempt already, how much damage could she take? He had to act fast, which didn’t leave a lot of time to think, so he reached over and grabbed the nearest thing he could find.

It was a coconut.

He threw it as hard as he was able even as he scrambled to his feet. It struck the enraged beast on the top of the head, which was enough to get it to pause and look up mid-mauling, drooling frothy red foam: a mixture of its own blood and whatever stuff filled the veins of his bizarre ally. Flint took a step forward and roared, and the jaguar was not amused. It swiped in his direction, but by then he was running away, and his legs had never pumped so hard.

The Nemean Jaguar was an old beast, experienced and, for a cat, disturbingly intelligent. It was, however, woefully unaccustomed to pain and injury. It was so infuriated by the gall of these little creatures – to resist it was enough, but to hurt it – that the instinct to chase overcame all caution. It needed to pounce, to feel the skull crack and crumble between its mighty jaws, and no force on the planet could stop it.

So it pounced.

Flint leapt at the same moment, his good hand extended, and he heard a thunderous splash behind him. He caught the vine, and his momentum carried his legs forward just enough that he could hook one over the vine and pull himself up. He cradled his injured arm to his chest and hugged the unnatural rope-bridge as tightly as he was able, and the jaguar thrashed in the swampy water below him. It sank a few feet, and then it lunged straight up with a low, frustrated sound, and its outstretched paw narrowly missed his back. He cringed, and struggled to swing himself over on top of the vine – he needed every centimeter, every iota of distance he could get between himself and the monster below him, because it would not fall short a second time.

When he got himself turned around and up on top of the vine, now able to look down at his bestial foe, Flint realized how futile his move had been. He struggled to slide backward across the vine, farther out over the swamp, but the jaguar was already surging up out of the water, and this time it would reach a height above the vine.

Skovik thought to kick, but too late. Instead, he pushed himself up off the vine and his entire body tensed for the oncoming pain – the brief but agonizing struggle to follow.

Except something else emerged from the swamp from beside and below the invulnerable monster, something primal and scaly. Flint only got a momentary glimpse of it, but its eyes were cold and utterly unfeeling, devoid of thought or pity, incapable of warmth or affection for anything at all. It was more jaw than body, and those jaws snapped closed on the jaguar with a disquieting finality, and dragged it beneath the murky surface.

The water churned and bubbled as the beasts struggled, and Skovik held his breath. The jaguar had been immune to all their attacks, but could it drown? He had to hope so, though some part of him actually pitied his would-be killer. He couldn’t wait to find out.

He grunted and huffed as he struggled back across the vine, one-handed now, silently urging the jaguar to remain occupied. He dropped down and looked across the water, which was tinged red, and he could see dark shapes lashing just beneath the surface. He hurried to where Isylle had fallen, but did not waste time checking for a pulse. Had she even had one to start? He lifted her body and hoisted her up over his shoulder, ignoring the wetness that seeped over his back and shoulder, and then he hurried away from the marsh and toward the trees.

He paused as he came upon the black-clad archer, who had fallen with his arm thrown dramatically across his face, and then bent down and curled the fingers of his good hand into the ninja’s shirt. Flint huffed, lifted the gangly man by his clothing, and then dragged him into the trees without a glance behind.

Adrenaline carried them for what seemed like an eternity, until Flint’s lungs burned and his legs ached, and he began to stumble with every few steps. He pushed on, clinging to his inborn fear of the jaguar, forcing every step, no matter how slow. Eventually the ninja slipped out of his grasp and fell to the forest floor with a quiet thump, and the brute fell to one knee.

He let the wizard slip off of his shoulder and gently laid her on the ground beside a tree trunk, and then he sat beside her and let himself breathe. He didn’t know if the jaguar was alive, or if it was in any condition to pursue them. Wouldn’t it have caught up by now?

Flint began to examine Isylle, already cringing. No wonder she’d seemed so light.

[Isylle]

It would have been simpler and shorter to list the bits of Isylle that had not been subject to a vicious mauling. Of limbs, she had an arm with two fingers left. Her spleen was untouched despite the thorough evisceration. Her chest was simultaneously crushed and torn open all along the right side. One good eye, the red one, looked out dimly from the side of the wide, parallel slashes that had pulped the rest of her face. The lack of a pulse had prevented any fountain of arterial blood, though her (sap? ichor?) drained steadily onto the soil and had already soaked most of Flint.

Neither grass nor flowers suddenly grew from the ground where she was laid down.

The eye focused a little and fixed on Flint. Isylle's tattered lips moved but no sound emerged; a little air wheezed from the ragged gap where her throat used to be. A ghost of a smile appeared and then the eye closed.

"Isylle?" There was no answer. The bleeding slowed to a trickle all over the mangled body.

"Isylle!" Flint reached out tentatively and shook her by the shoulder. The eye opened halfway, unfocused, and stared up into the sky. Where does one begin to heal someone who, by all rights of human biology, should already be quite dead? Whatever it was, just letting her sleep and drift away was definitely not part of the process. She has got to stay awake.

The lips moved again. They silently said, it hurts.

The eye looked aside, towards Black Shadow's unconscious form, and the hand laboriously reached out towards it. The two fingers wrapped themselves around one of the many spilled arrows, failing the first try because there was no thumb. She gritted her teeth, or what was few teeth she had left, as she dragged the thing through the dirt and into Flint's hand.

Then the fingers moved up to the torn blouse and opened it the rest of the way. She weakly pushed Flint's hand, holding the arrow, onto her bare chest. The sharp point nestled between one breast and the mangled remains of the other. Isylle said again, it hurts.

She closed her eye, still smiling.

At this point, Flint noticed that there was a beating inside her chest, transmitted through the tip of the arrowtip. It was slow and irregular, sometimes pausing for several seconds between each beat. It was right beneath the tip.

[Warpath]

For a trained murderer, a mercy killing is a trifle – a side job requiring no effort, no investment, and no integrity. Flint knew countless ways to end animal life. He was aware of veins he did not have names for, tiny bones and soft spots he privately called “agony buttons” that only needed to be pushed in just the right way. He was a breaker of bodies, a torturer of spirits. He had vivid, visceral memories of tearing a man’s throat out with his teeth – he could describe, at length, what arterial spray feels like when it hits the tongue.

So why was this so hard?

Outwardly, he stared down at Isylle pitilessly, holding the sticky-wet arrow loosely between his fingers. His countenance belied the confusion he felt. How many broken bodies had he seen, been responsible for? And yet, this one disturbed him. He decided it was because he needed her. If the jaguar survived, and caught up to them, he was doomed without the queer witch. He tried to drum up some anger for her weakness, but it wasn’t there.

The accusation was a hollow one, but it led to the truth. This dying girl disturbed him because she was not weak. She had been the strongest of them, stronger than him, and yet the monster had butchered her. He looked down at his mangled arm, and the corners of his lips turned downward. For all of his precious might, the world had shown him where on the food chain he fell, and Isylle’s brutalized remains embodied that lesson.

He did not hesitate because he pitied her. Pity was for the weak. He hesitated because she deserved better.

He tightened his grip on the arrow, waited for that irregular beat to pause, and then he pushed. In the end, for all the danger she represented, her body offered little resistance – almost as if the jaguar had crushed everything of substance inside her and left nothing but a shell.

Flint stared down at her for a moment, and shifted. People usually had something to say in moments like these, poignant words to mark the passing.

“A shame,” he rumbled, and hoped that was enough.

He sighed and sat back, stretching his legs out in front of him. He nudged the ninja with his foot, but the gangly man did not wake or stir. He glanced out over the jungle and strained his ears, now that his breathing was slowed, but did not hear the jaguar coming. He imagined that he would not. Even enraged, it would probably ambush them silently. Something caught his eye, and he turned back to Isylle’s corpse.

He stared at it for a long moment, again struggling with what he felt. It was not often he respected another…well, person wouldn’t be the right word here, would it? He still didn’t know what to make of her, and was sure if she’d survived he would have ultimately ended up a petu…

But wait, there it was again.

He narrowed his eyes and watched the arrow closely for another long moment, and sure enough it happened again. The arrow was shifting ever-so-slightly, wiggling almost imperceptively from side to side every few moments. Flint reached out and curled his fingers around the shaft of the arrow and hesitated. Logic told him her heart was still beating, and that he must push. Instead, he pulled the arrow out.

And then the empty wound burst explosively outward, and Skovik fell backward cursing breathlessly in Salvic.

[Isylle]

There was the ugly sound of thin, frail bones crunching. In the midst of the new gap that was Isylle's chest, a small arm, no more than perhaps four inches, waved in the air. It was perfectly formed and had the proportions of a grown person, or perhaps a doll, rather than an infant. The skin was pale white and faintly glistened with moisture in the weak light of the forest floor.

Finally!

The arm's counterpart emerged, wiggling, through the same gap, and together they took a hold of the sides and began to push. Isylle's ruined chest moved apart wetly. The hole enlarged. A patch of sodden, whitish hair appeared, followed by the rest of the head. The head tilted up, the eyes opened and locked onto Flint.

One was red. The other was green.

"You should be careful where you look." said the small one. A very familiar, benevolent smile came over its face. The exquisitely fine hair darkened in the air from white, through pink, to auburn. Isylle didn't give Flint any time to look away or even ask questions before she gave one more hard push, one more hard kick, and came free of her old husk.

As she laid there on top of a soft mound to recover, a slight wind blew past through the forest. She shivered, but not just because of the cold. This was the first time in a long time that the flower fairy had to regenerate from seed. She didn't like to do that because there was a terrible pain and an even more terrible empty feeling as she consumed all of her insides to shape into a new, perfect body to grow from. Though it was all over now and all she felt was a draft, the memory of the last few minutes seared itself into her memory, right next to the last time. That time, she had just managed to crawl out of a blazing inferno, her body burned to little more than a blackened mass wrapped around charred bones.

Isylle paid Flint no heed as she crawled over the corpse and wrapped herself in the tattered remnants of her blouse. It took perhaps two minutes to dry herself of the womb juices, one of which was spent in involuntary shuddering as she fought to suppress the fresh memory once again. For the first time since setting for on the island, Isylle whimpered.

By the time the six-inch fairy walked out of the fabric, she had brought herself under control by distracting herself with pressing problems at hand. Where is my umbrella? I dropped it...?" Then a second, more immediate problem presented itself.

Isylle looked up at Flint and stretched out both arms towards the towering giant, a pout on her furiously blushing face, "P... pick me up."

[Warpath]

Flint stared. It didn’t even occur to him what he was staring at until it was already inappropriate, so he went on staring. The redheaded wizard was alive, in a manner of speaking, and was currently traipsing about naked as a jaybird on a corpse – her corpse. And she was in miniature, but amidst the rest that seemed almost normal.

The brute thought he was coming to terms with this until she raised her arms out to him like a needy toddler and he said, “You’re alive.”

She gave him a look that said, “Duh?”

So he slid up onto his knees and reached out with his injured arm, and let the little monster sit herself down in the palm of his hand. She didn’t seem so much like a great and terrible wizard anymore. Now she seemed faultlessly alien and ethereal, dangerous but natural, inhuman but nobly beautiful. She was just the right size to be a fairy.

Realizing what she was inspired some form of awe, mainly derived from mystery. He didn’t know anything about fairies, and this was the first one he’d ever met. Wizards he understood, as much as a person can, but fairies? Flint began making mental notes, but the end result was that he didn’t need to treat her any different. If wizards were hazardous and bat shit insane, then so were fairies.

He bent down and picked up the unconscious ninja again with his good hand, hoisting the taller man up and draping him over his shoulder, and then he held Isylle up and began walking deeper into the jungle. The jaguar seemed a distant memory now.

“That,” he told her after a few minutes, “is a good trick.”

[Isylle]

To her later and eternal shame and self-loathing, Isylle snuggled happily in Flint's hand. It was warm and comfortable, except for the calloused parts. She had even improved on the situation by tugging on his cupped fingers until they formed a very meaty blanket to curl up under. Isylle was tired to her core from the last few minutes. If it wasn't for the intense smell of ape, she might have taken a long nap there and then.

For the next two hours, the three walked through the jungle, with one doing all the actual walking. Isylle was impressed with her mount's stamina and disappointed with his apparent unwillingness to put down the resolutely unconscious ninja. If it had been her doing all the walking, she would have been dragging the fellow along face-down by one ankle at best. More likely, she would have just tossed him aside on the poor excuse of a game trail and gave her blessings to whatever flesh-eating monstrosity arrived first. She could even drop Flint off as the second course.

Could Isylle noted with surprise. What had happened to would?

While she was still contemplating this uncharacteristic and traitorous thought, the trail ended at a small, beaten-in shack almost invisible under the heavy foliage. It used to be thatch roof over a wooden cottage, but now it was just so much collapsed and rotting boards. It was going to be a long and tedious task to shift enough of the wreckage to find what's buried beneath it.

Except that they didn't have to.

"Put me down." Isylle said, pointing with one tiny finger towards a small gap in the pile. When she set foot on to the moldy wood, sprouts erupted from all over the house and quickly turned it into a very good approximation of a small, flowering, grassy knoll. Isylle smiled to herself; she was recovering nicely.

Ten minutes passed, then twenty. When Isylle emerged again, she was quite filthy from the bits of dirt that rubbed while she struggled through tight spaces inside. She climbed free of the entrance and then turned to pull at something inside. Soon, she came up with a tightly rolled-up sheet of vellum tied with a blue ribbon.

"I knew this was the right one. It wasn't all covered in dirt."

[black shadow]

The next thing Black Shadow remembered after falling uncouncous was waking up to the lttle fairy holding a sheet of vellum ted with a blue ribbon and saying "I knew this was the right one. It wasn't all covered in dirt."

Did I hit my head that hard or did the fairy shink? he thought to himself as he slowly stood up. The pain from his injuries felt like a thousand needles being stuck through hs neck, each indvidually. He quickly tore off a piece of his shirt and placed it over his face before anyone noticed what he looked like. What is that? It must be important. He looked back down towards Isylle and wated to see what Flint and Isylle would do.

[Warpath]

Flint was hot and tired and his arm hurt. At first the sensation of being a giant was nice, but the novelty wore off around the same time he realized Isylle was trying to take a nap beneath his fingers. He told himself that he was tempted to squeeze.

The jungle seemed endless and their trek seemed pointless, but he marched because enduring was better than trying to puzzle out an answer that may not exist. He didn’t like puzzles.

Sweat stung his eyes and he began to miss his shirt, but at least the canopy kept the sun off. The humidity was stifling, making all the myriad scents of nature – good and bad – stand out boldly. Here was a flower with a scent that made his mouth water, but there was most certainly a dead animal rotting beneath those vines. Unless the ninja was dead and it was him.

Flint was giving some thought to taking a break when he noticed an opening between two trees, so ideally framed with flowering vines that the way seemed designed. He turned and passed through this opening, and on the other side was an overgrown ruin. The brute made a low, thoughtful noise and muttered to himself, and then unceremoniously dropped the black-clad archer.

As he approached the wreckage, his pintsized passenger pointed out a gap between two rotting posts. “Put me down,” she said. He obeyed, and marveled at how very delicate her little hands were.

When the fairy met the ruin, it leapt into grass and bright, sweet-smelling flowers. Flint watched it happen for the briefest moment, and then he watched Isylle wriggle in between the cracks and disappear beneath the rubble. He waited for a few minutes, watching the gap and listening for calls for help. When she didn’t immediately return or request aid, he sat himself down and checked his wound. It didn’t look good, but he had no idea if it was particularly bad. His hand was pale, but surely that was due to the tourniquet. Was it too tight? He didn’t know. His experience was limited to battlefield triage. He hoped he wouldn’t have to amputate it, but he refused to worry about it.

Instead, he tried to clean the blood and sticky sap-like residue off of himself, imagining what he’d do if he needed to cut his hand off. He settled on the idea of finding a wizard – a real one - to make him something out of stone or steel. He’d have literal brass knuckles and an iron fist. That cheered him up.

Flint was just about ready to cut his hand off, just to be safe, when the fairy emerged from the grassy mound. She was covered in dirt or soot or who-knows-what, and he grunted at her. “I thought you were a marmot,” he said.

She ignored him, and began tugging a rolled up sheet of paper through the opening she’d emerged from. Flint heard the ninja stirring, but paid him no heed, and instead moved forward and helped Isylle free her prize.

“I knew this was the right one,” she told him. “It wasn’t all covered in dirt.”

He let her crawl up into his hand again, and then he sat himself down with his back to the rubble. He did a double-take as the ninja approached, wearing a shredded sheet of his own shirt over his face. Flint felt the urge to pull it off just to spite him, but figured the opportunity to see what the gangly man was hiding had passed. It didn’t seem important. In fact, not much did seem important right now. At the moment, a nap seemed like the only viable course of action.

He shook it off, muttering to himself and attributing it to blood loss, and set about undoing the blue ribbon and unfolding the vellum one-handed as his allies looked on. His eyes blurred, and he yawned wide. “It’s a map,” he said.

He expected Isylle to say something snide about his grasp of the obvious, but she was already asleep with one little arm hanging down between his index and middle finger. He turned and watched dispassionately as the ninja wobbled, and then swayed one way, overcorrected in the other direction, and then slowly collapsed to the grass, fast asleep.

Only then did he taste the midnight blue feeling tickling the base of his spine, and he muttered “son of a bitch wizards” to himself before his chin dropped to his chest and he was already dreaming.

What an adventure that was.

Thank gods it was over.

[Revenant]

Round 1 closed for judgement.

Good luck!

[Revenant]

Plot: (12)

Storytelling (5) – A fairly straightforward plot, incorporating the required prompts for the tournament. The inclusion of the Nemean Jaguar was interesting, but there wasn’t much life to the story. You gave little reason for what you were doing aside from the fact that you were on an island so why not move forward. Put more focus into adding some creativity and purposeful direction to your story to increase this score.

Setting (4) – There were certain elements of the island that were very well described, but for the most part there was little to define the space around the individuals. Isylle, you did the best in this area, with Black Shadow having the least amount of description. The encounter with the Nemean Jaguar in particular happened almost completely in a void. Once your group made it across the swamp there was little to judge the scene by expect a bit of foliage. Not every post has to be devoted to meticulously details, but you should at least give a solid view of where your characters are at all times.

Pacing (3) – More than half of this thread was spent reacting to one another rather than moving the thread forward. It wasn’t until the end that things finally started to flow together as a coherent story. Interaction between characters is important, but it should still add to your story rather than being an aside.

Character: (14)

Communication (3) – For the most part there was very little communication between the characters. You all seemed to take each other’s presence for granted and had no further discourse about each other or the situation that you were in. Black Shadow in particular, the entire tone of your second note really threw this score off. Using words like “chillax” really pulls the reader out of the flow of the story. The rest of the note didn’t really come across as a way your character would react. Perhaps this is how your character would react, but you really don’t give much in your writing for people to judge Black Shadow’s personality from. To improve this score, try to put yourself in your character’s frame of mind and react the way that they would.

Action (5) – There were some good starts in this thread, and Isylle’s manipulation of nature added some good flair to the thread. Warpath, I was somewhat surprised at how quickly your character was willing to go along with Isylle to act as her pack horse. Black Shadow, you need to elaborate specifics on what you’re doing. Don’t simply say “Black Shadow shot an arrow into the tree,” note specifics of drawing back the bowstring, hearing it hum, feeling the tension, etc. Try to paint life into your actions.

Persona (6) –Isylle, you wrote your character wonderfully, evoking plenty of emotion, and your aloofness was spot on for the character. Warpath, your writing really made me feel your character’s gladiatorial/slave background. On the other side, Black Shadow didn’t really give much life to his character other than Black Shadow’s insistence that no one see his face.

Prose: (14)

Mechanics (4) – Mostly solid, but there were numerous spelling and grammar errors in the thread. Remember that you can go back, re-read, and edit your posts. Again, Black Shadow you were the worst offender in this area.

Clarity (5) – There wasn’t much that was too unclear here, but there were a couple of times when the actions between characters caused some confusion. Working actions out amongst yourselves is a good way to clear that up.

Technique (5) – This was a pretty basic thread with a straightforward plot, but it didn’t seem very smooth. Focus on bringing the story to life with your characters and working together to create a smooth, well directed thread.

Wildcard (5)

Total: 45

Isylle receives 731 exp and 120 gp.
Black Shadow receives 394 exp and 65 gp.
Warpath receives 563 exp and 90 gp.
BlackandBlueEyes receives 110 exp and 15 gp.

[Silence Sei]

Exp-GP added.