faderift | [Closed] The Wrong Road

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[Closed] The Wrong Road

WHO: Kallian, Adelaide, Hermione, Ruby, Eirlys and Merrick with special guest appearances by Anders and Norrington
WHAT: Gathering supplies. What could possibly go wrong?
WHEN: Backdated to the beginning of Cloudreach
WHERE: The Hinterlands
NOTES: Warnings for demons, violence, injury and mages being outed, will be updated as needed.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to travel to the Hinterlands in search of supplies and rare herbs. Royal elfroot, in particular, is something that would be more than welcome, although extra supplies of regular elfroot, and blood lotus wouldn't go amiss. The air is warmer than it has been, carrying with it the promise of spring and renewal, and the journey there is easy, allowing for pleasant time spent enjoying a break from winter. The Hinterlands still aren't without their dangers - rebels and outlaws, packs of mabari and thin and hungry bears just waking from hibernation. You never know what you might find...

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Kallian paces nervously, watching the fight with anxious interest. The flashes of the grenades startle her. And then the demon slams into Ruby and the little elf gasps, trying to see how badly she's been injured.

The green light is almost blinding, and yet, she can feel the shifting Fade energies between the rift and the rifters... It's strange to Hope as well. But at the same time, oddly fascinating...

But the demons... The demons have to go first.

Right now, Hermione's concerns lie with closing the rift and in sticking together. If any of them get separated, there's no telling what might have happened to them - especially if she's the one to get separated, given how scared she still is of her own magic backfiring.

So when Jamie gets rid of the demon on Ruby, Hermione comes in and offers her a hand to help her up, casting a shield charm over both of them until Ruby can get to her feet and they can get to work on the rift.

Her hand aches, and even as she looks down at it, she can see it moving towards the rift. The shard stuck in her palm frightens her more than she's entirely comfortable letting on, but she says nothing, seeing that Jamie's already taken her advice to heart and hastily joining him. It might hurt, but it doesn't hurt nearly as much as being torn to shreds by a demon would, so she's only all too eager to get rid of the rift while they have the chance.

Thanks is a breath of a word somewhere in the midst of all that. For the help and the cover and the spell or whatever it is that Hermione just did.

For the moment the demons aren't on their heels, and she reaches it out with her hand again as soon as she's steady, as soon as she sees the others are all right. There's a burn down her forearm and a little on her neck from using the lightning grenade at such close range, but that can wait for now.

"Come on," she urges herself, when she finally feels like she's got it, like she has something she can pull and draw with and force the rift shut, no matter how much it might sting. If they do this together, all the better. "Come on, you guys," Ruby repeats, louder this time, not just for herself. "We can do this."

Jamie may not be the brightest out of the group, or used to doing magic, but he's no stranger to closing rifts. Any trepidation he once might have felt about doing so is long gone. It's just a matter of focusing and not letting the feeling of the power building get to him. Of seeking out that 'edge' to the rift and grasp onto it so they can pull it towards them and get the rift closed once and for all.

That drain that comes along with that isn't the most pleasant thing, but he's felt worse, and even though he knows he'll be exhausted when he's done, he keeps going, the green beam coming from his hand meeting with Hermione's and then Ruby's, the connection between the three of them strengthening as they concentrate together, making it that much easier to sense that edge and start to bring it towards them in a way he may not understand but that he knows will work to get the rift closed once and for all.

The rift twists and turns, the energies shifting and starting to contract, and Jamie's teeth skim over his lower lip, biting down as he concentrates and wills himself to keep going. They're close, he can feel it, and as he fixes on getting the rift closed, he fails to see the other green glow that's nearby - a small, round circle forming underneath his feet. It's only when the ground starts to bubble up and threatens to knock him over that he realizes what's happening, but by then it's far too late.

He'd thought the terror demon had decided to resurface away from this part of the group, but as it turns out, he's wrong. The demon erupts from the ground, far too close for him to have any chance of getting away, and attacks. Spindly talons strike as quick as lightning, slashing at his leg and connecting, ripping it open before he can do more than make a token effort at getting away. His leg buckles and gives under him, sending him tumbling to the ground with a cry of pain that is mostly lost in the sounds of fighting, but the shriek from the demon is easy enough to hear for those close enough to hear it - as is the fact that there's now only two streams of green being sent towards the rift instead of three, the one belonging to Jamie blinking out the moment he hits the ground.

Whether or not the demon is aware of that is hard to say, but it certainly knows that it's felled the creature it's attacked, and with another shriek it advances on Jamie, intent on finishing him off.

"JAMIE, NO!"

The words tear out of Kallian's mouth before she even realizes she's screaming. The elf's mind goes blank and blue light rushes down her through her veins. Teeth bared, she fires off a shot of magic at the offending demon, to turn it into a virulent walking bomb once her spell hits it. Wipe out it and all its vile brethren in one explosion.

Meanwhile, she runs headlong to Jamie's side, aghast as she sees the wound on his leg.
"Oh, Jamie... Maker, no..." She looks at him, eyes bright and fervent. "It's going to be OK, Jamie, I promise, it's going to be OK..."

There's so much blood... It's getting all over her clothes and hands as she examines the injury. He'll die without major medical intervention, but even with the healers they have, there's no time to take him anywhere. They have to act now.

"Hang on, Jamie, hang on... Everything's going to be fine, you'll see..."

No. She needs to act now.

"Don't be scared..."

With a deep breath, blue light erupts around Kallian as she works to heal Jamie's leg, forcing blood vessels and muscles and skin to knit back together. Sweat beads on her forehead from the effort, but Hope is there to sustain her. Finally, the wound closes.

"There... there... you're better now. You're going to be OK..."

Hermione absolutely hates the disconcerting sort of pain that comes with closing a rifts; she'd thought the second time around would be less awful than the first, given that she now knows what to expect. Instead, it seems somehow worse, and she has to bring her right hand up to brace her left arm as that eerie green energy crackles through her palm. All she has to do is keep her hand up a little longer....

The shriek of the terror demon strikes her first, and she looks around, flinching a bit as though expecting it to be right besides her. Instead, she sees what she considers to be a far worse sight; Jamie is down, and the rift's closure feels significantly weaker now that he's no longer helping. "Jamie!"

She doesn't know whether to stop what she's doing and help Jamie, or to focus on closing the rift. That decision is made for her soon enough, though. Surprised, she watches as Kallian throws out some sort of magic, not having known that the woman was a mage. But then, maybe it's common knowledge; she doesn't really know her, after all. Really, in the end, it's not all that important.

What is important is that Kallian is helping Jamie, or trying to, and so it's up to Hermione and Ruby to finish what they'd started so they can be of whatever help they can offer. "Don't let up!" she tells Ruby, focusing all of her attention on the rift now. "The faster we get this sorted, the better."

The sudden rush of events is... it's a lot, and Ruby feels helpless in that moment. She's caught between the Rift and helping her friend, and as much as she wants to run over and help, she's more useful where she is now.

"I'm with you," Ruby replies - or means to reply, because she's hardy sure if she actually says the words or if it she just thinks them. Regardless, she pours all her focus and her energy and everything into this. Each moment it's open is another moment Jamie could be hurt again, when any of them could be hurt, and her eyes glow a brilliant gold.

Finally it closes, with a roar of air, the green light and energy that was wavering between her hand and the rift cutting short, and Ruby almost doubles over with the loss of it.

"You okay?" she asks, looking towards Hermione and trying to get her breathing in check. Jamie has Kallian who has some sort of intense magic thing going on, and it wouldn't be much good to go bounding over if Hermione's not feeling great, either.

As for Jamie, he's only peripherally aware of most of what is going on. The fact that the demon's been turned into a walking bomb doesn't quite register with him, only the fact that it's been shoved away from him, but any relief he's feeling over not being torn in half is lost in the more immediate moments of pain as he tries to push himself back to his feet and collapses again.

He's not about to let the others down when it comes to closing the rift, though, and even though he can't get up from where he is, he does manage to raise his hand again, adding what he can to the energy the others are pouring into the rift in those last few seconds so it'll close for certain and not wind up opening back up a third time. The rift snaps closed and the green light from his hand cuts off, the small amount of energy he has left ebbing out of him as he falls back to the ground.

Luckily Kallian's already there, and he barely has time to wonder what's going on before that blue light surrounds her and he starts to feel things knitting back together. It's more intense than the other times he's been healed - possibly because this time he's been hurt so badly. But eventually it begins to work, the bleeding slowing and then stopping as the wounds slowly knit and then wind up closing altogether, leaving him weak, but alive.

Between that and the exhaustion that already comes along with closing a rift, all he's able to do after that is lift his head, eyes focusing on the blueness that surrounds his friend - who apparently is much more than he ever realized. After a moment he swallows heavily, tongue darting out to moisten his lips so he can manage a few words, ragged-sounding though they may be.

"Kallian? You- healed me?"

"You're going to be okay..." The words keep tumbling from her lips like a mantra. "You'll need to take it easy for a little while, but you'll be okay... I promise, Jamie, everything will be all right..."

The actual closing of the rift distracts Kallian momentarily, her gaze watching the flares of green light, marveling at it in wonder, even as the blue light continues to pour from her hands. The healing light fades slowly as the wound finishes closing, and then Jamie's words bring her back to reality from her transported state.

"I--" She blinks and stares at her hands, as if just noticing the blood and light on them for the first time. "Jamie... You... You're okay now... I... I'm so sorry... I-I can't..." Kallian rocks backward to her feet, slowly backing away from the group.

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry... I have to-- I'm sorry..." Her hands grasped spasmodically at her bloodied skirts.

"Please... I'm so sorry..."

And with that, the little elf turned and bolted for the trees.

Hermione very nearly loses her balance as the rift finally closes, her body achy and her nerves jostled. Otherwise, though, she seems whole, so she only nods absently to Ruby, taking only a second to let out a harried breath before hurrying towards Kallian and Jaime, gesturing for Ruby to follow.

"Kallian, wh-?" She'd been going to ask what had happened to Jamie and what his injuries looked like, but the girl suddenly got up and ran with some sort of blanket apology, leaving Hermione to stare after her in shock. She'd only just met her while going out during this expedition, and so she doesn't know nearly enough about her to know why she would do something like that. Had she unintentionally hurt Jamie further?

That thought makes her close the rest of the difference between her and her fallen friend, and she falls on her knees besides him. He looks better than she would have thought, given the initial scope of his injuries, so that's enough of a relief to make her at least momentarily forget about Kallian's strange behavior.

"Jamie, are you all right?" she asks, settling a hand on his arm as she looks him over for signs of an open wound. There's so much blood, but he doesn't look as though he'd be bleeding out soon, so she'll take that as a good sign. "Does it hurt?"

Without pausing she slips her cloak off her shoulders, bringing it around Jamie's instead to try and keep him warm.

The smell of blood is invasive, the metallic scent smothering her senses and seeming to push everything else down. The Wolf prowls under her skin, and there's the sickening realisation that she's hungry that makes Ruby exhale slowly as she tries to blank it all out as she straightens and stands.

Hermione has Jamie, and she follows a few steps after Kallian, brow stitched. "Kallian! Where are you going?"

The blood is his, but there's no open wound on his leg, nothing seeping out or any other sign that he's been hurt, except maybe for the fact that he's paler than normal - something that doesn't seem at all to bother him as he twists under Hermione's hand, half-knocking Ruby's cloak off his shoulders as he tries to turn towards where Kallian has fled.

"Kallian! Wait, come b- och."

Before he's even completely finished with the thought, he quickly turns back towards the others, the cloak shifting again as he plants his hands on the ground and tries to push himself up to his feet. He's determined to get up, and is clearly ignoring the fact that that he's more than a little bit shaky or that what little color he has left is quick to drain away from his face with even that small amount of effort. Sometimes he's entirely too stubborn for his own good.

"Look, I'm fine. I've got to go after her. Help me up, aye?"

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[Closed] The Wrong Road

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