Through All The Pain and the Sorrow (Part II)

''A somewhat snug, but comfortable house, this home is rather typical of those held by the Wildlanders of Crown's Refuge. On the bottom floor is one big room, with wooden beams to hold up the floor above. A pot sits over a roaring fire, and a few sturdy bits of furniture are spread throughout. In the corner, a stair heads to the upper level.''

Inside the house, something is skulking in the far shadows, slowly and distractedly making its way across the room. It's a demon of some sort, small, and seeming to be made of living shadow. It may, perhaps, be a trick of biology and the light, but the somewhat humanoid creature appears to have tears streaming down its horrible eyes. And as Thayndor comes in, it turns toward him, showing a ghastly smile.

From upstairs comes the sound of a boy crying in fear.

Thayndor Zahir rolls forward once, diagonally, landing somewhat awkwardly with his forearm, knee, foot and forehead on the floor. But he rises, one hand on his half-drawn sword, and faces the demon. His Adam's apple bobs, but that's the extent of fear he betrays, pupils changing shape in the flickering light.

There's a pause; Thayndor remains where he is, his back to the window. "... What are you?"

A note of fear, a flash of steel, and a nobleman diving through a broken window. Maybe it's this last that makes Tahv's greatest indicator that something is very definitely wrong. Very, very wrong. Sword-pulling wrong. Drawing his own rapier forth, he glances once to Muri, offering the Freelander the faintest shrug before following the other two into the house.

It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the difference in lighting, shards of golden lamplight from outside lancing past the splintered window frame and dancing along bits of broken glass. Slowly, his eyes focus on the beast, and he silently draws closer to the Zahir--to defend, to aid, weapon held at the ready.

Sandrim bursts into the house as well, and stares, wide-eyed. "One of them again," he says, tightening his hand around the hilt of his sabre.

Muri comes through the door last, eyes wide. She recoils, but hears the crying child. Licking her lips nervously, she scoots along the wall, eyeing the creature the entire time and makes her way toward the stairs carefully. Her hand goes to her side where her daggers are sheathed.

The creature opens its jaws wide, showing off a set of rather inhuman teeth, hissing. When it spots Muri heading for the stairs, however, it starts scuttling along the ground, directly for her. Where its fingers slam into the wooden floor, holes are left behind.

Thayndor Zahir looks from Sandrim to Tahvron, then back to the demon, after Sandrim speaks. "Good," he says, and only after Sandrim speaks does he pull his sword free of its scabbard. "Then death is not certain." As the creature heads for Muri, Thayndor's reason for barging through the window becomes clear -- it was closer to the stairs than the door. He lunges to get between Muri and the creature, sabre raised defensively. "Take the boy and flee," he urges.

Tahvron doesn't even glance aside to Sandrim as he speaks, but he does reply. "Oh, good, you know what the Shades the thing is? What's the best way to kill it, and kill it quickly?" Barely have the words left his lips than the thing makes its lunge, and anything else he might have said emerges as a hiss of breath between his teeth. Grimacing, he darts to get on the creature's other side--if he's lucky, sandwiching it between he and Thayndor. If not... well, he is a step or two behind the other nobleman.

"No idea," Sandrim says, going to try and move to the stairs after Muri. "They ran before we even had the chance to fight them, last time."

Muri blinks as the creature moves toward her. "Cor," she murmurs. "Light save us." She quickens her steps trying to make the stairs before the creature reaches her. As she moves, she draws a dagger.

Screeching, the creature approaches, tearing up the floor as it moves. Around it, shadow starts to slip away, forming long tendrils. One of these shoots out from the creature's shoulder, aiming directly for Thayndor.

Thayndor Zahir two-steps, one to the side and one forward, bringing his sword down from is position level with his forehead and then up again to slash the tendril as it reaches for where he used to be. As the tendrils fade back into shadow, Thayndor lunges forward, bringing the sword back down again through the momentarily-open hole in his guard to press a counterattack. "Hurry!" His eyes are wide.

Tahvron's choice of words to describe the situation are less than... well, choice. Muttering under his breath, he rounds the other side of the creature, skirting close enough to aim a strike with that rapier. And hopefully get lucky. No time for those black eyes to follow Muri's progress, but you can bet he's listening.

Sandrim keeps his sabre at the ready as he heads after Muri, trying to keep between her and the creature. "Up the stairs," he says urgently. "Hurry, after the boy."

Muri glances at Sandrim and nods, then scurries up the stairs, skirts lifted and dagger in hand. Grim but determined, she searches for the child who cries.

As its attack is deflected, the creature steps back a few paces, still on all fours, and shakes, much like a dog. It shuffles from side to side, growling, and as the two men try to strike at it, it first dodges Thayndor, before striking out and deflecting Tahvron's sword with one of its Shadowy tendrils. The creature screams, even as it keeps that tendril going, aiming to send a sharpened point through the Driscol's hand.

As its attack is deflected, the creature steps back a few paces, still on all fours, and shakes, much like a dog. It shuffles from side to side, growling, and as the two men try to strike at it, it first dodges Thayndor, before striking out and deflecting Tahvron's sword with one of its Shadowy tendrils. The creature screams, even as it keeps that tendril going, aiming to send a sharpened point through the Driscol's hand.

"Don't let it touch you!" Thayndor yells, pressing again with a downward slash against the tendril reaching for Tahvron's hand, clearly intent on slicing the tentacle of shadow into oblivion with his will before it can reach Tahvron's flesh.

Tahvron withdraws his hand with a sharp hiss of breath, his rapier flicking strangely with the motion. Thayndor's sword whistles, connects... and the tendril falls to pieces inches from his hand. The Driscol grimaces, ducking to another side of the beast and aiming another lunge. "Thanks,"--squeezed in between breaths to the Zahir.

Keeping his sword at the ready, Sandrim follows Muri up the stairs. "Where is he?" he whispers quietly.

The dim light and the noise of battle below make it difficult for Muri to search the room. "Ah don' knowd, Messer," she says, creeping forward slowly. She sheathes her knife and puts her hands up. "Lil one," she calls. "Tis Muri de pie-maker, hrm? Comes t'elps." She peers around following the sound of tears as best she can. "Tell me where ye is, aye? Let me take ye someplace safe." Which room? Which room? She goes to the nearest door and tries to open it.

Thayndor Zahir growls. "Quit trying to -win-," Thayndor urges his colleague, turning his sabre's blade and slicing upwards at the new tendril again as he follows Tahvron, the third set of feet dancing a deadly step. "All we have to do is avoid -losing-."

Blades drawn, Thayndor and Tahvron are squared off against a small, shadowy demon, skittering on all fours like a dog. Its teeth bared in an inhuman grin, the fey thing has sent a tendril of the arcane to wrap about Tahvron's blade. Thayndor's sabre touches the shadow with a spark and is repulsed with a strange sound; if steel could cry at being forced into contact with the unclean, this would be its wail.

"Damn," Tahvron hisses as the creature avoids Thayndor's attack, and his own yank fails to jerk the sword free. The thing's hold on it pulls sharply back, and the Driscol's fingers tangle with the hilt guard--wrong angle to pull free completely. He helps, and there's a snapping of bone, a flood of curses. His other hand goes to cover the first, half trying to free himself, half trying to hang onto that weapon. "Deal," he mutters to Thayndor past teeth clenched in pain. "This... not such a good idea."

Which is a little boy. Sandrim starts to step into his fortified room, a sabre drawn and Muri with him. "It's alright," he says to the little sniffler, whose mother, by the way, is probably that woman sprawled out on the floor downstairs. "We'll get you out of here."

Muri steps carefully toward the child. "Gailin?" she says, "Gailin? Tis me, we're all 'ere t'elps." She reaches down to lift the boy if she can into her arms. "Come 'longs now, aye?" She glances at Sandrim. "Ah caint recall, lil Messer, but does ye gots any brofvers 'r sisters 'round dat we should gather up too?" She tries to rock him gently as she talks to him.

If the child has any brothers or sister's, he isn't telling. He just shrinks further back. "He's coming," he whispers.

The boy is lifted into Muri's arms without any real struggle.

Downstairs, the demon pulls away Tahvron's rapier, lifting it high in a tendril, before turning to Thayndor. It hisses again, before striking out at the Zahir with a sharp thrust.

Outside, something larger moves through the shadows. A leathery scriiiitch and sliiiide goes by the door. And back again. Seems whatever it is that lurks is pacing.

Thayndor Zahir's eyes dart from Tahvron to the demon, wordless. He bares his teeth at the demon, fey thing to fey thing. Lines beside his eyes harden. He raises his sword again. Though the fluidity of his movements, the grimness of his face, does not betray whether or not he hopes to defend against the coming attack.

... But Thayndor is quick enough, one more time, and doesn't show the monster anything new straight away. The two-step, avoid and slash, it has seen before. Similarly it has seen the way his sword finishes high.

And in a split second, he seems to make a decision. "We don't have to win. But we can't do this forever."

Instead of moving diagonally at the beast this time, he twists his sword-blade down, his elbow bent, his free hand behind the pommel. Now he steps straight forward; now he shows the beast something new. The point of his sword.

Tahvron jerks free, stumbling back, cradling the broken hand in his good one--back towards the door towards... not escape, but the smallest sofa. Forcing himself between wall and furniture, he crouches, bracing his shoulder against it, one foot to the wall for leverage. "Watch it!" he calls to Thayndor, and shoves. Hard, with the intent to push it right across the floor and into the midst of the battle.

Sandrim starts making his way for the door slowly, once Muri has picked up the child. "Okay... we get out fast as we can," he says.

Muri cradles the boy's head and nods, following Sandrim as quickly as she can. "We gotta git 'is ma out too," she murmurs. "D'ye thin' down dere dat thin' c'n talk? We gotta knowd where de ofvers are."

Through the broken window, scarlet eyes watch, flickering this way and that to track the movements in the room. A purple tongue tickles lightly against the shards, tasting idly the air. "Offssspring? What issss...." Tshepsi hisses, bowing her horns aside from the window's view as Tahvron comes stumbling that way. With caution and a degree of misplaced worry, the tip of Tshepsi's tail rises and embarks on its trespassing by giving the door a gentle shove inward. "Sssshe would not like thissss thing, Tassshep thinksss." The grating cry of the shadow creature strikes a chord deeply in the Archmage's core, lifting the few hairs that dust her human half and rippling the scales along her tail's ridge. Shadow sympathizing with Shadow. But it is not enough to soften another emotion that's swift to stir afterwards. What was once a gentle 'creeeeak' of the door is now a SLAM as her tail whallops the wood with greater force and her coils build up inside.

Thayndor Zahir seems just as surprised that the upholstery got involved as the demon was, though with decidedly less fatal results for him. He pauses for one heaving breath, two, wipes the sweat off his forehead with the shoulder of his tunic. His sword makes that eery wailing noise again as it slides out of the demon, and as he wipes the blade on the piece of furniture that proved the demon's undoing, acrid smoke hisses off the steel. No sympathy from this one. "I suppose I should --" he begins to Tahvron, but stops, turning sharply towards the stairs. "There IS something there!" He cries. "Get the child upwards, away!" But he's not running away from the stairs. He's running -at- them, sword first, though he and Tahvron ended their last battle on the opposite end of the room ...

Tahvron barely has time for a breath or two in the wake of the killer sofa before it's already over, the monster dead, Thayndor shouting about the stairs. Straightening, favoring the injured hand, he ducks across the room after the Zahir--pausing only a second to snatch his stolen sword on the way by. "What is it?" he calls. "I don't see anything."

"Wait, what do you mean?" Sandrim asks as he stops at the top of the stairs. "There's nothing there."

Shift of shadow backed by the screaming child, Muri backs up the stairs. "Sandrim!" she says. "Tis comin'! Up! Up!" She clings to the child and hurries back into the barred room.

The boy clings tight to Muri, obviously terrified over something... And that something starts to move, fast. In the opposite direction. It is nothing but a blur of wind for a moment, barreling past Thayndor and to the imp, where finally it becomes visible.

Seven-feet tall and gray, the creature looks vaguely humanoid, not that any human would ever wish to be associated with it. Gray skin is pulled tight over a skull, and flaps of tissue that vaguely resemble hair attach its head and shoulders, folding up against its neck.

With a clawed hand, the creature reaches out to take the imp in hand, pulling it into its lap as it crouches on the ground. Softly, in a strange language, the creature begins to sing as the imp's chest heaves, and blood drips on the floor.

The ivory scales are soon topped by a rather stern looking Tshepsi. A sharp exhale hisses between her fangs and she lurches forward from her throne of coils to approach the huddling beast with a smooth, steady wind across the floor. The wood feels delightfully smooth beneath her flesh, at least in comparison to the pitted ground outside. "What call yourssself, Ssshadow in offssspring's home? Feasssts you ssseek to bring?" Puzzles the Syladris aloud, one arm outstretching to point a crystaline talon at the wicked pair. "If you bring more children, Tassshep getsss to eat more acaritsss, ssshe doesss..."

Fast movement whips Thayndor's clothing into a stir, sends his ponytail stirring, as the gray thing whips past him. He stops noisily and spins to face the source of the motion, the Shadow-thing comforting its dying cousin. He grips the sabre with both hands when Tshepsi appears, and takes two steps forward, forming another point in a path opening between the stairs and the door. "They're so quick," he says. "But swords cut them. They must be from our world, Archmage."

Tahvron jumps back a pace from the creature, eyeing it distrustfully, but not about to go pick a fight while it's otherwise distracted. Nevertheless, you can bet he's holding onto that rapier with his offhand pretty firmly. Temporarily satisfied that no one is dead, he slips into the stairwell--not to ascend, but to take up a definite guard between anything that would like to. Or anything that would like to descend, for that matter.

At the top of the stairs, Sandrim keeps back, just staring at the creature, before he steps back, to try to beckon Muri. "Quickly," he hisses. "Let's try to get out, while it isn't looking.”

Muri stalls, uncertain, her eyes darting at the emerging tableau below them. She looks to Sandrim and nods, then follows where he leads.

The singing continues, unabated, as a clawed hand brushes the side of the imp's face, humming gently until the imp takes one last breath, and turns its eyes skyward.

And, in the gray creature's lap, the shadow fades away, revealing a human child, a girl of about six or seven, where the imp once lay.

The singing stops with the change, and a transformation overtakes the creature's countenance. Screaming in rage, the gray thing stands, letting the dead child fall to the floor as it searches the room, eyes landing on Thayndor.

"Sssad ssssongsss," Tshepsi laments, closing the distance. Her left hand lowers to her side, palm facing backwards, towards Thayndor. "All thingsss bleed, in one form or another, Deep Fear," She notes softly, head tilted aside to study the angered thing from an equal-eyed level. "Offssspring isss gone," She states, voice falling flat with direct address to the beast. "Perhapsss you ssshould join her?"

Thayndor Zahir's eyes and mouth widen, his sword falling from guard position until the point is on the floor. "But -- you --" He shakes his head. "-- That's Hani. That's Torim Oakstaves' girl. She -- she was --" Speech fails him, and when it returns, his voice is ragged. "It twisted her up and took her with it to death's door. That was a Deeper's daughter." The sword finds his hands again; he sinks into the swordsman's posture, as easy as breathing, but there is an unsteadiness about his eyes, an uneasiness, that betrays uncertainty. "One of us has to die now," he says, and lets out a slow breath. Calm returns. "Whichever one of us unclean things follows her from this world, neither of us will haunt her on her way to the Light." He raises his sword; the tattoo hides one cheek; steel the other.

For a moment, a sharp catch of breath in the throat is Tahvron's only comment as he looks down at the dead child, before his own sword rises to a guard position--in the offhand. But instead of rushing to the attack, he lowers his voice to mutter to Thayndor, "Do nothing rash. This... thing... probably has ways of making you regret it." Turning, he starts up the stairs to meet Sandrim and Muri halfway and stop their progress down. "Don't. Go back up. Find another way out, a window, a back way... Light, chop a hole in the wall. I don't care, but get the boy *out*."

Sandrim goes wide-eyed as he sees the thing downstairs, then starts nudging Muri back. "Go. Go go go," he says, nodding toward a window at the other end of the hall. "No staying here."

Muri's eyes go wide at the sight of the dead child and tears begin to fall down her cheeks. "Nay," she says. "Not'a li'l one..." She grasps the boy closer and dashes down the hall. "Sandrim! Get us out!" She makes for the window. "Not one more chile', not one more!"

The gray creature just ignored everything but Thayndor, starting to lift clawed hands as it approaches him, one step at a time. Jaws open wide and a keening wail sounds through the house - almot enough to shatter glass.

"Sssh, Tassshep," Tshepsi mumbles, her gaze held with rapture by the wailing maw. "Hurt their earsss, you will." Bladeless, the Syladris takes a deep breath, sighs, and taps into the very spirit of that which gives this advancing creature power with a small effort to give Thayndor the advantage. Her right arm curls back and swoops from underneath, joined by the left with a hoisting motion to 'toss' the air whilst she beckons the Shadow to likewise give a little lift to the beastie in bringing it towards a painful intimacy with the ceiling.

The creature stops a moment, trembling... but doesn't move quite as Tshepsi wanted.

Waiting ends for Thayndor when the creature hesitates. Door found, Thayndor charges, the tip of his blade carried by resolve to shiver that door down.

The door being a portal for his sword to enter the beast's chest, the sabre's point hurtles towards it.

Satisfied that the boy will be taken care of, Tahvron turns and galumphs down the stairs again to make himself useful... maybe. "Ah... couldn't we have just gotten out of here?" he mutters to himself. Unfortunately, the sofa has already served its utilitarian purpose. Taking a breath, he gets as good a grip as he can on that sword with his offhand, and moves forward to offer what support he can.

Sandrim, in the meanwhile, goes for the window. He runs right up to it and starts pulling on it, trying to get it open. "Come on," he grunts, before finally it loosens, and swings open. Directly outside is an overhang on the side of the house, shallow enough of a slope to stand on.

Muri lifts her foot over the window ledge and steps outside onto the roof. "Sandrim," she says, her voice trembling. "Don' let us fall, aye?" She strokes the boys head absently.

Doing, surprisingly, nothing to prevent itself from being stabbed, the creature stops as Thayndor's sabre pierces its chest, straight through where its heart should be. It struggles for a long moment, looking as though it is in pain as one clawed hand goes up to clasp the blade.

And then, vitality is restored and it clenches the blade tightly. Eyes go startlingly white as blue lightning crackles along the length of the blade, heading both back into her body, and down the sword's length into Thayndor.

And Tshepsi leaves it at that. Clearly it was a mite stronger than she gave it credit for. Turning away from the anticipated carnage as another kindred (if darkly so) spirit is doomed for the abyssal claim of shadow, she turns her immediate attention to remembering that sprawled presence of offspring's mother that she'd nearly slithered over upon entry and leaves the crackling mess of energy for the menfolk to deal with. "Huntressss...?" Tshepsi calls softly, drifting to the other side of the room in the continued daze.

The lightning stops as it reaches Thayndor's hands, finds it has encountered resolve harder to use than the steel to travel to ground, then passes through him and dissipates against a wall. Thayndor's eyes reflect the lightning as the white streak arcs away, do not wince. He leans in, towards the creature's horrible face, something fey and dark replacing that reflection. A hint, perhaps, of power to come. "Die," he urges, and twists the sword in the creature's body, grasping with both hands to yank it upwards, to rend at flesh and muscle.

Unwilling to stick his own metal stick into the lightning beast, Tahvron pauses a short ways off, rapier still held ready... but not quite thrusting. 'sides, with it already skewered...

Muri scoots to one side to let Sandrim get past her. "'ow many more?" she wonders out loud. "'ow many we lost alreadys?" She sniffles and moves to a seated position. No need to leap if unnecessary. "Ye bes' look t'be sure deres none more down dere, Messer." Old habits return with a measure of calm.

Smelling faintly cooked, the creature's flesh is nonetheless unyielding against Thayndor's blade, even as it starts patching itself up around it. Again, while sword is stuck in flesh, it lets out a roar, and both she and the blade, charging toward Thayndor, light up.

On the ground, the mother groans, and does not answer Tshepsi, but to turn her head, showing a gash across the forehead.

The woman's movement brings a surge of hope to Tshepsi whose expression is already wrought with the pain of the elements clashing behind her. With serpentine finesse, she fluidly goes up and over the couch before creeping ever so gently over the floor to the wounded mother. "Offssspring isss sssafe," She whispers, face dipping low to brush her nose in study over the woman's own. Her snowy mane sends an unruly tress tracing through the blood and becomes stained. "Outssside, maybe we ssshould go?"

Without apparent regard for personal space or plausible pain, Tshepsi's index finger and thumb press against either side of the gash. "Firssst you mussst awake, ssshe who birthed offssspring." Beneath the obvious, better intentions are at work as that which can destroy is now channeled to mend.

Thayndor Zahir cries out in pain as the electricity singes his clothes, burning through the thong tying back his hair and sending the shoulder-length locks into a spiky shock. He pulls the sword out, this time, stumbling back as white lightning still arcs across his body. "All right, then," he hisses, drawing in a slow breath as he swallows back the fear and revulsion his gray-skinned opponent so visibly drew to his paling, worry-lined face. "Maybe it's not that easy." He lifts the sword again, feinting at his opponent's rapidly-healing wound before shifting momentum to his real target, her neck.

The movement of the woman attracts Tahvron's attention, and he starts in that direction before Thayndor's cry stops him. He pauses, looking to the nobleman, the arching electricity, the weapons moving... and moves instead to the fire, reaching to take up the cool end one of the still-burning limbs with small flames running up and down the side, and heading on towards the Thayndor and the Thing. A nice heavy blow would be good... but hey, the primary goal is to burn, not to bludgeon.

Sandrim grabs the sides of the roof, and drops down, looking around quickly before holding up his arms. "It's safe," he calls.

Muri scoots closer to the edge of the roof, then eases the boy down to Sandrim. "Tis alrights," she says soothingly. "Messer Sandrim will catch ye, hrm? Dere's a good boy." She looks down, chews on her lower lip, then swings down to the ground easily.

Thayndor's blade strikes home, slicing through the creature's neck, until its head tips over, held on only by a few tendons.

It remains like that a few seconds, until the creature lifts a hand and nudges the head back into place, before going after Thayndor with another bolt of lightning, as though nothing strange had happened at all.

On the more effective front, the woman's wounds heal, and she looks up to Tshepsi, now awake, but still weak.

On the far less effective front, Tahvron has hit a chair instead, and it has lit on fire, falling back onto the wooden floor of the home, next to a plush carpet. Which does the predictable.

Thayndor Zahir watches, with a mix of horror and morbid fascination, as the creature reattaches herself at the neck. He retreats three steps and slashes with his sword, angrily, redirecting the lightning bolt to char the ceiling before replacing the sword in its sheath. Smoke starts to swirl around him; he looks down, Tshepsi on the other side of the couch from him. "Get the beast into the flames," Thayndor snarls at his cousin, and to that end, he grabs the nearest end of the upholstery, shoving it towards the creature like a battering ram or a sled.

"Outssside," Tshepsi urges, retracting her hand from the woman's head and using both to push and pull at her shoulders. Her tail winds its way in a crescent shape, pressing flush into the mop of disheveled hair in efforts to prop up the weakened head and shoulders. "Your ssson." Gripping the huntress' hands tightly between her silken ones, Tshepsi leans her torso back and pushes her tail into the floor for maximum leverage.

Sandrim takes the boy in hand, setting him safely on the ground, before reaching up to Muri. "Come on," he says. "Let's go."

Muri jumps down easily and gathers the boy back up in her arms. She follows Sandrim's lead, glancing back occasionally to try to see what has happened with the others.

As the limb slides from Tahvron's hand, striking chair, which strikes rug, which... well... Tahvron steps back to survey his handiwork an instant. "...Huh," he muses. "Not really what I meant, but I suppose it will have to do." Knocking the chair haphazardly into the flames, he moves to the fire once more, seizing the pot of hot soup over it and turning about again. "Stand back," he warns Thayndor. "I am apparently... bad at this." Using his cloak to protect his skin from the hot metal, he attempts to hot-soupify the monster. To stun her, to burn her... something. The pot is tossed in her general direction once emptied, but with no real intent of actually striking, unless by luck. "This whole place will go up in a minute. *Quickly*."

As soup goes... /everywhere/, and that does mean everywhere (it'll splatter everyone in the room a bit, and it's hot), the gray creature remains utterly implacable, leaping up onto the upholstery Thayndor is pushing its way, before moving to swipe at him with hideous claws while hands are occupied with pushing.

The boy's mother finally starts really moving now, crawling with Tshepsi for the door.

Was that...soup? Tshepsi slows her own actions for the sake of watching Tahvron slosh the brothy muck maliciously and flinches lower to the floor as he does so. Wide-eyed, she whispers to the woman "Sssorry isss the clumsssy one. I promissse. Wasssting Sssoup." With a final glance to mirror the flames with a heated glare of her own, Tshepsi lurches forward again, tugging on the woman all the while. "You mussst go to find the othersss nearby. Tssshepsi ssstaysss here." Stopping at the door, she twists around the woman to take up position at her rear and seems well prepared to push from that end if need be.

"Gah!" Thayndor cries out as he's slashed across the face and body, soup marring his cloak and burning his off-hand. He staggers backwards, shifting direction so his back is to the wall with the window. "We have to get out of here," he admits, chest heaving as the blood on his face bubbles in the heat. He draws his sword again, keeping the creature between himself and the fire as he tries to get his back closer to the door. "I can't beat her."

...Oops.

Tahvron winces as he effectively splatters everyone--including himself--with soup, not even giving the creature pause. "Good. I am out of soup, and hard-pressed to find more fire than will be here in a moment." With a grimace, he edges around the perimeter of the fire, towards Thayndor and the door.

The fire grows behind the creature as it approaches Thayndor, like a wolf stalking its prey. Hissing, it lifts its claws yet again, aiming to rake them across the Zahir's chest.

The woman crawls even faster now, making it to the door with Tshepsi.

The tip of the Syladris tail continues to shove gentle pressure against the crawling woman until she is out the door. Wheeling to face the soon-to-be roast, Tshepsi braces herself as widely as possible, wedging folds of tail here and there in the doorframe. Her arms spread wide, opting to function as a mitt, should the need call for it. Once more, the Shadow is summoned...slowly. Patiently.

"Should've gotten out of this place *before* I flung the soup everywhere," the Driscol mutters. He shifts his rapier, as if to strike, but changes his mind when Thayndor manages to slow her down after all. Best not to muddle something that finally goes right. Instead, he pauses between the Zahir and the door--close enough move in with the blade quickly, if needed, far enough to get the heck out of dodge. "Let's *go*."

The creature collapses as its legs are cut into lettint out a cry of rage as flames flicker on the rafters overhead, burning closer and closer to it. It watches Thayndor leave with rage in its eyes, starting to get up, but possibly not fast enough to prevent escape.

The creature collapses as its legs are cut into lettint out a cry of rage as flames flicker on the rafters overhead, burning closer and closer to it. It watches Thayndor leave with rage in its eyes, starting to get up, but possibly not fast enough to prevent escape.

"Stop meddling," Thayndor grits out, "there's nothing in here you can throw at me won't kill me." He backs past Tahvron, and out the door.

''Back to Season 8 (2008)