Skaia

Fen simply smiled at Fiona as the girl still seemed ready to go for another round of cards. Musing aloud at one of her comments, Fen said, "oh they change size? The magic used in this game is really something." The girl looked over to Melissa as she started stating her preferences as to what to do next, simply nodding along and having no issue with changing venues from the park to a cafe. The two of them had been out for awhile and having something to eat and being able to sit down while playing the card game sounded fun in its own quaint way. Though given the strange illusions that did appear she couldn't help but wonder if they would be disrupting everyone at the place they went to, but Fiona seemed to think it was fine so Fen was inclined to not worry too much about it. Melissa then went on to talk about some kind of bet, loser buys lunch and all. As she started to stammer after making the suggestion, however, Fen was taken a bit off guard by the girl. "Eh? Well, I uh, I mean I don't think being the leader has anything to do with it? Does it?" After a moment of thinking this over, the girl then cleared her throat saying to Fiona, "well, um, I'm not usually the most competitive type but that sounds fun, yeah. I'm still not entirely sure how to budget myself here in this world though so, well, maybe just drinks?" Looking back to Melissa the girl said, "oh uh, not to mean that I plan on losing or that you'll lose or anything, just, well you know?"

As the group continued to make their way southward in an attempt to find the resting place of the first Accursed, Sabrina had spoken about figuring out their route going forward. Though they had no map to follow, no road to travel, no compass to use and no sun to see they were not without landmarks. Were they under the assumption that they were in fact heading southward and westward they would be able to use the spire behind them, the one they had passed on their way to the shrine, as a sort of visual indicator as to which direction north was. Using that as an indicator of North they would then know that north westward, they could just barely make out another spire or two. It was difficult to see them fully as there was quite some distance between them and the hilly topography of the land they were in certainly didn't help. Westward was also the direction of the lion they had been observing. They would notice that the pack of gazelles it had been chasing would soon be apprehended by smaller, yet still crackling with lightning, lions as well. Further southward, though it was difficult to make out for the same reasons as the westward one, they would also be able to notice yet another tower stretching into the air. This one, however, was much less clear as the distance was much greater between them and any of the other towers they had noticed. Really, it was only because of the sheer height, unique coloration of blackened stone and inference making capabilities that they would even be able to tell this was another tower at all. This path had seemed to be one without any immediate dangers in its way, and most of the animals that were not predators seemed to recognize that they were in immediate danger being near the lions. However they did not run eastward as what sounded like a cross between a screech and thunderclap could be heard from that direction. Were they to turn that direction, they would notice far away from them - further than the lion yet not further than the southward stone pillar - was an enormous creature. Its size dwarfed nearly every animal they had seen thus far, both in height and width, such that even from the distance it was at they were able to clearly determine what this creature was. An elephant. Yet, though the elephant bared similarities to ones from their world, it notably seemed to have an enormous black rock almost growing out of the top of its body, one that seemed to be the same color as the pillars they had been seeing dot the landscape. They would also be able to notice furry humanoid figures near the elephant, not any specifics of them but they all seemed to be down on the ground. And the elephant grabbed one of these humanoids off the ground with its trunk, casually throwing one of them into its mouth. All of the other non-predator animals had decided to run, either northward, southward, or simply into the hills themselves, seeming to have some degree of burrowing capacity and the hills themselves seeming to have tunnels already set up. The Exalted were in no immediate danger from any form of wildlife, in fact even the scared animals fleeing in their direction never actually ran towards them and veered away, seemingly afraid of them as they would be a hunter.

After it was clear that the two combatants couldn't fight any longer, the two of them having fallen unconscious in her grip, Sibyl let out a sigh as if all the emotion she had been experiencing at that point had just been breathed right out. "Well, that's that," the girl said nonchalantly, a smile on her face as she idly tossed the two to the ground. Her shadows then retracted back into her body proper and the girl stretched her arms. "Man that was pretty fun. I wonder if there are more that'd be down for this." With the two other heroes having won their fights the girl waved joyously saying, "rockin' job guys." As the conversation turned towards going to Goodale for some kind of big formal talk party, Sibyl looked up and said, "well, that doesn't sound like a place for me. So I'll probably bounce from here." As she was getting to leave, she pulled her phone out of her pocket, seeing a slew of messages from her long time bosses. The girl looked at them, seeing "sup gamerrrr so you know see you soon bestie" Followed by "hey just to let you know bring all four hands" Ending with "got an all hands on deck thing going on at goodale or as many hands as you cna manage these days lol *can" The girl raised an eyebrow at each of them, seeing that they were all sent at the same time and wondering if this was some kind of puzzle. Sibyl was never particularly great at deciphering the Fates messages, and they were prone to send them in either code or some kind of puzzle, and often times she just tuned it out anyway. So, she took all three of them at face value. She was going to see them soon, she need to bring all four hands, and there was something going on at Goodale that had as many hands as she could manage. Nodding to herself, she said, "never mind, looks like I'm coming with! And well," she walked over and hoisted up Hellhound and Censer, with more difficulty then she had previously during her battle saying, "bosses wanted me to bring all four of them so guess we're dragging them along after all. I can handle this much myself, and if an enemy does try to fight us well, then I'm armed! Ahahaha," she jostled the bodies in her grip as she laughed before starting to walk out the door, dragging them along with her.

Carmen had backed away after Brian had grabbed the seal from her, feeling that it was certainly his time to shine and defeat the ghost. Which is to say that she didn't feel the need to step in the line of danger, nor did she have any want to get anywhere near that thing's face, especially not after the bloodcurdling screech it had just given out. As the man continued to flail though, and swing the seal towards the creature's arm, it became a lot more difficult to keep track of things as the two of them were now in the bathroom stall. She could still see Brian and the light he was shining from the flashlight, but she could no longer see the ghost. Of course, Brian was probably able to see the ghost and since it seemed like he was trying to converse with it she could be reasonably certain that it was in fact still there. However, as her experience with planting her face into the table earlier had proven, just because she couldn't see something didn't mean she couldn't be afraid of it. In fact, it was the lack of her own visual confirmation that made it all the scarier. Add to that the lights that had completely shut off and her being surrounded by darkness as a result. And so, she slowly creeped up to Brian, just for safety sake, and had once more gotten a clear view of the ghost at hand. The girl gulped, trying to swallow her fear though all that had really happened was that she had begun shivering instead. While the anticipation of what was going to happen next was certainly killing her, Carmen felt like she was in quite the odd position. There it was, a man killing ghost, driven into a corner and whimpering. Carmen had never really been on this side of the equation in all her life, and so she wasn't really sure how one was supposed to be when confronted with a frightened creature. Perhaps if they just approached it it'd eventually hide back in its toilet like all the other times? That's what she certainly would do - if she could reasonably fit in a toilet of course. And if it retreated back into its toilet then she wouldn't have to deal with it directly, and if she didn't have to deal with it directly then she could get the job done easily! After all, this was still a job that she had to do or else face whatever wrath she might incur from Shiki. "Okay, okay, okay, okay, I can - I can do this, yeah, yeah," said to herself. And so, boldly, for once in her life feeling the strength of a hunter instead of the hunted, the girl took a step forward. "I can do this, I can do, I can do this. This." And then another. "This, I can...I can do this." And another. "I can- " The ghost shrieked as she got close enough, lashing out with its hand as it had done so many times before and grabbing onto her wrist, pulling her towards her. Eyes widening as she saw the ghost's void face once more she shouted, "I can't! I can't do this! Ahhh, B-Brian, Seal! Seal!" She flailed her arm back towards the man, practically whacking him and really preventing him from moving forward in the stall before he finally managed to hand off the seal to her. With paper in hand, the girl flailed her arm about before finally going for a decisive swipe at the creature's torso. The paper seal had landed on the ghost. The ghost let go, shrinking away from the girl and curling up as its body slowly started to vanish. Then, when it had finally completely vanished, the paper seal that had been placed on it burned up entirely. With neither ghost nor seal left, the girl took a deep breath and stood up straight. Or, as straight as she normally did, asking, "d-did we win?"

When all was said and done, Chester wasn't really sure what to make of the situation. Jirachi's explanation did little to assure them of their success in actually being able to save the world at large, with the only assurance that they could at all being that it was Jirachi's wish was what brought them here in the first place. Jirachi already had the power to cleanse areas from this endless maddening mist as it were, so he wanted to believe that their wish meant something, but that something wasn't necessarily them being immune to the maddening properties. He was also a bit curious about the structure of these "mystery dungeons" as well. He had known about such things from his time discussing such games on the forum they were from, but he never seemed to actually be bothered by the fact that in those games the pokemon in the dungeons were all aggressive all the time. Perhaps maybe someone made a comment about it, but it was almost always in jest or a thought that had no real answer to it. He wondered why he never thought something like that was strange, especially when his first instinct here was to try and talk it out with said pokemon. And add to that, why it was the mystery dungeons seemed to drive pokemon to madness as well when they made it their place of residence. Well, quite like a question cast into the vast sea of an otherwise indifferent message board, it was pointless to ponder such things by himself right now. Instead, he wondered what it was that they could do here and now. The Chespin looked around and saw others already getting food, self directed that they were in doing so, and decided to walk over to the nearby stream to instead refresh himself. Looking into the water, Chester once again examined his newfound body. He thought it was newfound at least. There was this bizarre sense of complete unfamiliarity with it, while contradictorily as if it had been his body his entire life. Nothing about it seemed particularly odd to him. Two arms, two legs, two eyes, a nose, a mouth, enormous front teeth. Of course, none of this was actually in view of the stream, only a vaguely distorted image of himself going through the water if that. Everything else was truly checked by him using the aforementioned arms to make sure that all of those things were indeed there. A task he found more difficult then he would've normally expected, as his arms seemed to have a hard time going across his entire face with how stubby they were. All the same everything checked out, so he wasn't really sure what the off feeling was but perhaps in the end it was just an insecurity he had about having to fight some kind of maddening mist. After taking a drink from the stream, the Chespin stood back upright ready to reconvene with the others.

Fen was a bit surprised to hear that Melissa had already had violent dealings with the group they just dueled. She wasn't really sure what manner of gang it was that Fiona was running, between seeming to resort to throwing things at young girls at first meeting, as she hardly doubted Melissa was the kind that would've provoked them to do such, to also using cards to flex their muscles within the same few days. The Spike Brothers were truly a mysterious gang to be certain, and more then that was their mysterious leader. All the same, as the duo mentioned her dueling both of them at once, Fen spoke aloud saying, "are you uh, able to duel two people at once?" As Melissa spoke about what to do next and responded to Fiona, Fen thought about it for a second, before saying, "well, I certainly wouldn't mind another duel. Oh, that uh, goes to both of you, really." The girl looked to the both of them before saying, "I thought it was, well, pretty fun, so I'd be glad to go again. And I don't think my duel was particularly long either? I'm uh, not sure how long these things are usually supposed to go on for, admittedly." Thinking more on it the girl asked, "are you allowed to play this game in a cafe?"

Getting into a fighting stance, still ready to brawl with this sham of a maid, the boy briefly looked over to see that the door had opened to reveal yet another combatant into this mayhem. On the one hand, Alois was relieved that it was help for his side rather than some other lethal housekeeper come to kill him. On the downside it was Penelope. He had every bit of confidence in her ability to give orders but her ability to stop a trained assassin in a melee was something he was certainly skeptical about. The maid also seemed to take this as an opening to escape, bolting away from him almost immediately, prompting the boy to shout, "hey! Get back here!" Thankfully the maid had little interest in actually fighting Penelope, first charging through her wind spell and then literally jumping over her head - "what the -" recovering from the surprise of the acrobatic stunt Alois shouted, "already on it!" Alois began running towards the exit of the room as Penelope attempted to stop the maid herself. The maid twisted herself away from the sword swing, only being shallowly cut by the attack. Before the woman could continue to run or attack back, though, she was met immediately with the full force of Alois's charge. The woman was knocked back by the attack, with Alois continuing to charge going to ram into her again. The woman brought up her arms, as if attempting some kind of maneuver against the boy, but the raw brute strength of his tackle had completely ignored whatever it was she was trying knocking her off her feat and onto the ground. Moving to pin her arms to the ground to keep her from running Alois shouted, "got you! Wow that was way easier then I thought it'd be. Do you just throw knives, is that your only job here?" With the duo having veered away from imminent collision, Tsetseg brightened up as she shouted, "green man!" seeing the other rider that had come with them. It didn't take long for the rest of the militia that she had talked to come as well, the whole group all chasing after Gaston now. With everyone reaching the back gate, Tsetseg continued to hold onto Cora as they hastily galloped towards him but looking past her could see that they weren't gaining on him any. If anything Link had already continued to move past them and Tsetseg was concerned that she wouldn't be able to do much of her patrol duties, so to speak, to stop the dastardly man from getting away. Then, as Cora spoke her eyes brightened and she nodded, "right right!" Letting go of the girl and balancing on the horse more freely, the girl pulled her bow off her back. She herself wasn't exactly an accomplished horseback riding archer, not like some of the people she knew from back home. She had barely known how to ride a horse and the one time she tried to free fire from horseback on her own was something of a miserable failure. After the others saw her flop on the ground, though, she had received some help from the village people in an attempt to cheer her up, riding being nothing more than an archer with an actually seasoned rider to help her. The results still weren't nearly as good as when her own two feet were planted on the ground but they weren't nothing either. And here, with the wind rushing past her, she once again had to trust all the technical work of riding the horse to Cora with her simply having to aim and shoot. Gaston was still riding away on a remarkably fast horse. And to make matters worse Link had already begun to converge on him, making his back more obscured. And to make matters even more worse there a wyvern - another wyvern! - that attacked the horse as well. While Tsetseg had half a mind to take the flying thing out of the air she had a job as a self appointed temporary member of the Phar Patrol. To take down the villain that was running away! Tsetseg wasn't exactly skilled with one shot kills and her shot was fairly obscured but with her task only being to stop or inhibit the man it made it a lot easier. After all, he wasn't just a man, he was a man and a horse! So, pulling back her arrow, the girl fired it towards both Gaston's leg and the horse's flank, trying to find its mark there to slow the rider down at least.

Both Rus and Jacklyn did a synchronized, "tsk," as the hidden power knocked the fire bunny back. Recovering from the attack and seeming raring to go still, Rus got into a battle ready stance again as it called out to Jacklyn. Nodding Jacklyn shouted, "oh yeah? Well, we got some power of our own! Rus, go and Ember that Abra!" Complying with his trainers orders, the fire type let loose a small burst of fire from its mouth, towards the Abra. "Teleport." The Abra instantly vanished from its position only to then reappear having shifted to the side and dodging the attack entirely. "Hidden Power." With yet another blunt command the Abra unleashed yet another orb of energy towards Rus. "It can do that?!" Surprised, and then bright eyed Jacklyn shouted, "that's so cool!" Rus, meanwhile, was surprised and then, calling out to its trainer Jacklyn said, "oh, uh, right. Ember! Show it who's boss!" And Rus will Ember the Hidden Power. "Yes. It can." Fuyumi replied. The two attacks met largely cancelling each other out, though some of the embers continuing on and striking the Abra. Fuyumi didn't seem to respond and simply seemed to be waiting for something. "Heck yeah! Go on Rus and use like pound or something!" Rus, to her trainer's unknowing, did not know the move Pound. So it instead just ran towards the Abra and knowing what worked before and trusting its own intuition, stopped short and let loose another Ember. "What." Fuyumi said, indicating surprise even if she didn't show it. The Abra was hit by the Ember and seemed to be taking some damage now. "Again." The Abra launched another Hidden Power and, with Rus being closer than before, struck the Lepash dead on. "Oooh, not bad!" The Lepash shook itself as if to shake off the attack before the girl shouted, "alright well if it worked twice then let's do it a third time. Rus, Ember!"

Taking down one skeleton only showed that there was one more undead for the girl to worry about. A zombie had slowly walked towards her from the mist and - the girl's eyes quickly looked to the side thinking that she had seen something there but only for an instant. She was only further startled when she heard Chris's voice call out to her, looking back to see that she couldn't in fact see anything aside from Estelle and this accursed fog. Annoyed and spooked by all of this, the girl shouted back, "I hear you! I've got something else here first but uh, ugh." Looking back to the zombie Lana had a half mind to go charge it and try to kill it one attack. However, she had already been cut once in her reckless actions in this floor and she was pretty sure reducing the number of injuries she was getting was something she had wanted to work on when coming into the dungeon today. Something she had been failing at considerably at that. Now annoyed at herself, the girl decided not to just charge into the fog and instead hold her ground. Once in range, the girl swung her axe down into the creature's head, burying the blade into the skull of creature though, being already dead, it didn't seem any bit in pain from the attack. Instead, it continued to push its way towards her in spite of this critical injury, still trying to reach her. "Not on your life," the girl said to the zombie, putting a considerable amount of strength into her arms and pushing the blade, and thus the zombie, to the side and away from her. Pulling the blade out as she had essentially shoved the zombie away, the girl swung the axe again, completely destroying the head of the zombie. Letting out a sigh of relief the girl shouted out, "alright I'm coming over now!" Slowly, she took her step into the fog as she started to move where she thought Chris and Ziun were likely to be. Out of the corner of her eyes she was pretty sure she saw something, again, coming into view only to vanish once again. Being put more on edge by this the girl eventually looked over and was able to see both of her other party members. Being engaged with the undead, Chris seemed to be already fighting a zombie, though coming eastwardly another skeleton appeared from the fog and looked poised to join the combat. Lana had a half mind to rush in again to try and help him, as she was wont to do when someone else was in danger, but looked back seeing that if she was too reckless she would also leave Estelle behind in the fog. Not to mention she didn't know what else could come out any second. So instead she stood her ground again and said, "Chris! Look out there's a skeleton coming at you! Uh," looking back she said, "Estelle can you shoot it?" Knowing that the mage was more able to respond to situations like these from a range she decided to leave it in her hands, only to then look back from where she saw the figure in the fog before. It wasn't there now, but she wasn't sure when it would appear again and there was no assurance that something wouldn't pop out to try and attack Estelle again when she made her move.

The Earth Chosen was glad to have more companions along with them in this dangerous forest, smiling a bit as the young dragon purred. She had only ever known them to be creatures of legend with enough power to essentially effortlessly claim and rule an area if they so chose. She had never thought that they would start out so...cute. Perhaps Sparky was a fitting name for the creature after all, at least for now. The girl then backed up in surprise as Cym jumped and exclaimed, asking about their guide. Calming her own nerves after that Ryia then thought about it. Damien was certainly familiar with the area that much was for certain. But he didn't seem to have any of the tell tale features of an elf and as they had just learned elves, at the very least, weren't able to just leave and escape this place as they pleased. Unless he left a lot longer ago? Or perhaps the barrier just had no affect on humans. But it wasn't as if they had seen any other humans since entering this forest. The girl thought about it some more before finally verbalizing it to Cym. "Um, well, I don't know. Our guide, Damien, has been with us for awhile. We uh, um, met him in the desert and I guess he's always had a worldly sort of, uh well, feeling to him. Oh, he's human too so he probably doesn't know anything about this barrier if well, that's the thing with it." Trying to think of more to say she then frowned. "Sorry, I don't actually know all that much about well, him, in general. I don't even know he's well, um, from here. I guess he'd have to be, but uh, yeah." The girl trailed off awkwardly.

Sibyl could hear the two conversing through the smoke but what they were saying didn't really matter to her. If they were scared shitless of her then that was whatever, but if they were planning on doing something to her then she couldn't wait to see what they were about to hit her with. The hand continued to push its way through the smoke until finally there was no more hand. Sibyl's eyes went wide with surprise as a light cut through the smoke, destroying the shadows that made up her enlarged hand in an instant. Dumbfounded for a second, Sibyl looked in awe before finally breaking into a much wider grin. "That's what I'm talking about! Come on, show me more!" Her other arm had turned into a tentacle which she swung at the two as her other arm retracted back to its original size. As Censer threw up a wall of smoke to block her tentacle arm, Sibyl decided to finally move from her position and run towards Hellhound. Meeting them mid charge, Sibyl threw a punch towards the villain's face with them throwing their arms up to take the punch for them. "Nice block, but let's get those out of the way!" The girl's hand changed into a crab claw as she went to grab and pull the villain's arm. Hellhound, being agile as they were, ducked under the swing with Censer now coming around the side of Sibyl. The one in front of her balled their hand up and went for an uppercut. The one to the side went to kick her leg. Sibyl's expression turned wild as she said, "ganging up ain't very nice. But I like the hustle!" Hellhound, thinking they were in prime position to strike Sibyl didn't realize how dangerous their position was, as an arm suddenly grew out from Sibyl's stomach, punching them in the face before they could even go back up with their own. Sibyl's leg then lurched to the side as Censer kicked her, only to swing her tentacle arm and swat the smoke generating villain away. Turning to face Hellhound the girl then did a direct punch with their third arm into the recoiling villain, following by striking their face with their original arm. "Come on, come on, I thought you were both gonna bring it in close to beat me! Hahahaha!" A tendril shot out of her back, wrapping itself around Censer's neck as they had been trying to recover, strangling them. "Is that it? Any more smoke? Any new forms for your dog? Any more punches you want to throw?! Come on, come on, come on!" The girl started swinging Censer around by the while continuing to repeatedly punch Hellhound until the both of them would lose consciousness, having the time of her life while doing so.

As the group continued to creep along through the misted room Chris was the first to advance as a zombie came into view. With him taking it down pretty quickly, giving a warning to the others as he started to engage with another undead, Lana began to move up. Getting her axe ready, the girl was about to join the fray when Ziun had passed by her. Turning back as he walked past, the girl then noticed that there was someone else bringing up the back. Not just Estelle, but a skeleton as well that was getting ready to strike at. "Watch out," the girl said, her voice not a shout but very clearly not a whisper either as she brought her axe down, smashing one of the arms of the skeleton. It had managed to avoid the brunt of the attack, and instead turned its attention from the mage to Lana. Taking a swing at her, Lana stepped back to avoid the swing only for the skeleton to go for yet another. Bringing her axe, the girl countered its swing with her own. The sword cut her arm only for the axe to still smash through the arm of the skeleton, destroying it completely. Wincing in pain from the cut, she said, "why you," before swinging her axe into the skeleton's head, smashing it instantly. With the skeleton dead, Lana looked over to the north seeing something else, and letting out a sigh. "I am sick of all of these ghosts and zombies." Looking at Estelle she said, "well, I'll watch your back so let's keep going."

With the talk of all the camping supplies ready Jacklyn said, "don't worry, if we don't have enough to sleep in then I can take the ground. I'm pretty good at taking dirt naps after all." The girl had in fact slept on the grass several times, typically in a park, both sometimes due to relaxation but as well as more recently a means of "wilderness training" for her upcoming journey. Once it was clear that they were all ready to get going and leave the girl just gave a thumbs up to the two and said, "good job on the shopping, with this, we're all ready to start adventuring! Haha!" With a joyous smile on her face the girl marched out ahead of the other two, completely unaware to their plight with the weight of the pack the two were having behind her. It didn't take long until they had made it to the edge of the city, ready to properly make their way into the first true step of their adventure. Just as they were, though, they were intercepted by a familiar looking trio. Sizing all three of them up and thinking on it for a moment, Jacklyn couldn't help but feel a bizarre sense of deja vu and familiarity, but she just attributed it to having seen them on the boat and just looking the type. As the man proclaimed himself the future champion, Jacklyn huffed and said, "is that right?" Before she could go and challenge him, however, Anima stepped up. "O-oh...well I- I kind of wanted to..." He looked like the leader of the bunch after all, and as the leader of her own group it was Jacklyn's duty to square off against him. However, as the two engaged in smack talk with each other, prompting an "oooooh" from Jacklyn, she had decided to leave the battle to her companion. "Alright Anima, take him down!" After saying so Jacklyn then shuffled to the side, looking for a different person to battle. Getting close to the girl of the group, Jacklyn sized her up once again. The girl grimaced at what she had seen though. Her tall and slender figure. Hair covering one eye. A cold gaze mixed with a decisive one word sentence as the only thing she said. Jacklyn knew it for sure. This girl...was cool. Standing on guard, as if against her natural enemy she said, "well, it looks like it's me and you! So I'll show you how I'm gonna be champ!" The girl then grabbed her pokeball, tossing it out saying, "come on, let's get 'em Rus!"

With the two of them having sealed two bathrooms together now, Carmen let out a sigh of relief at the defeat of the ghost. She had found it strange that such a creature, that was as easily able to kill them would retreat after at the sight of just a paper seal, but she just chalked that up to the seals themselves being that strong. Whatever they actually were. With the two bathrooms having been sealed, though, Carmen was ready to leave the school with a job well done, no longer having to worry about a ghost trying to haunt her back at home for her transgressions in entering a bathroom she had no place in as well as from Shiki scolding her, or much worse, for failing at her job. It was then, though, that Brian mentioned other bathrooms in the school that she had realized her cause for celebration had come far too soon and was far too baseless. With the building as big as it was, it was natural that there would be more than two bathrooms in the entire building. Add to that she started to wonder about something else. What would happen if they actually removed the seals from these toilets? They weren't exactly functional like this - at least as toilets, one could still very easily sit on them when hiding from whatever form of authority or socialization they were trying to get away from! Though, the more she thought on that the more she realized she would be just as likely to run from a bathroom that looked like it housed some kind of unspeakable sealed horror. Realizing just how far their job was from being done, the girl let out a defeated, "uuuuggghhhh," before walking over and grabbing the toilet plunger out of the toilet. "Th-there's...yeah...more...I wanna go home..." Taking a weapon for self defense, one that seemed to serve its previous wielder no good, the girl slumped her shoulders as she walked out of the bathroom. In spite of the fact that they had gone through two bathrooms without much difficulty, the girl wasn't any less on edge as they continued to go and seal all of the other ones throughout the school. She kept expecting the ghost to do something different, or to grow more angry with them and just try to kill them outside of the bathroom, or for there actually to be one ghost per bathroom and they were actually just corralling all of them to have to fight a horde of ghosts at once. She also kept bracing herself for the seal to not work or for Brian to disappear every time any of them entered a new room or turned a corner or anything really. Thankfully, none of this had actually come to pass. Though she had become completely unbothered with both of them entering either bathroom. Once they had gotten to the last one the girl said, "th-this is uh....this is it..." Gulping as she took the first step into the bathroom, her plunger in one hand and seals in the other she let out an immediate, "gyah!" as the lights started flickering. She had done this every single time, but she was certain this time there was something more to it. As if the lights themselves were starting to flicker on and off with more intensity? Frequency? Both? She didn't really know how to describe it and she really didn't want to think too hard about what it meant. As such, she continued to put the seals on the toilet as she had done several times before. Once the second to last toilet had been sealed up, it was then that the lights went out fully yet again. "Eep!"

"Cym and Pan," she repeated, trying to remember the names before nodding to the two. Unfortunately it seemed that the two of them didn't have any more knowledge on the lycans but their confirmation that that was what they were looking for was enough for her. Besides, it was probably for the best if the two of them hadn't run into such scary creatures. As they were all getting ready to go their separate ways, Keres and Reinaan spoke up and talked about joining forces. Thinking on it for a moment, the girl mused aloud, "true, we um, we only really knew where to go because someone told us about these - wait he's gone?" Ryia's voice raised at the news, a little shocked but then letting out a sigh of resignation. That he would suddenly disappear on them wasn't all that surprising in all honesty. And he was a capable individual who knew his way around the forest as it would seem, so she was hopeful that he was able to hold his own against whatever dangers were in the forest. Still, that didn't make this any less annoying and upsetting. Getting back on track in the conversation, the girl said, "well, um, yeah. We're in uh, need of a guide to start uh, knowing where anywhere is. I guess." Still upset. "And well, uh, yeah, we have experience fighting all kinds of things. So Reinaan's right in that we can, well uh, help you keep Sparky safe." Though, she couldn't help but think about what might happen if they ran into an elf patrol in the forest but they were also probably fairly skilled at avoiding them as they had up to this point. "We uh, also have a mage - the uh, girl who just left - who's really good with barriers so maybe she can uh, help?" Though she wasn't sure how willing Madelyn was willing to work with them, given her previous temperament, but she at least hoped they could all get along. Then, looking at her two companions, both very interested in the dragon in general, she smiled before looking back to the elves. "And besides, I uh, I think Sparky has grown on us."

Fen frowned as the man seemed to still not be over his loss. She didn't mind that he was upset about it, such was the nature of competition, but calling a pair of relative strangers "freaks" as a result was hardly respectable. She was about to get ready to give him an earful when he called out to his mysterious boss to take them on next. The girl looked around at first, a bit confused as to who this "Big Sis" and "Boss" was as there was nobody else around currently. It was then that from behind the fountain came this mysterious figure, causing a surprised look to cross Fen's face. Fiona wasn't exactly first on her list of suspects, and she had hardly seemed the type to be the leader of some kind of gang at that. She supposed it made sense, as far as people who knew about their interest in the card game and also had their phone number, Kelsey and Fiona were the only ones that fit both of those. She didn't know much about Fiona at all, outside of their brief interaction, but she was sure that Kelsey would not have been so roundabout in actually challenging them. She either would've gone to the shop with them in the first place or just proudly stood by the fountain and waited to challenge them directly. So, while the suspect made sense in the end, she still couldn't help but let out an awkward, "um, hello." As Fiona went on Fen was able to see where the misunderstanding had come from. As she apologized Fen held her hand up and said, "oh, no, it's really uh, no issue. Melissa is actually quite a good teacher at this and I wouldn't have been able to win without her." Fen smiled at her teammate before looking back to Fiona saying, "and um, besides. They say that live experience is one of the, um, best teachers there is." She waved to the spike brothers, "so thank you for setting this all up. But uh, I suppose there is well, one thing I'm confused about. If you uh, just wanted to teach us how to play, then uh, why were you hiding? Since um, well, I really wouldn't have minded shopping with you, or learning from a match from you either."

With her and Anneliese left to the shopping of other assorted items, Jacklyn was smiling looking at all of the wares that the store had to offer. There was any numbers of medicine around, but Jacklyn hardly any idea what they would need a burn heal or antidote for. And she loosely knew what potions were for but all that mattered was not getting injured to have to use them in the first place! As such, the only thing that mattered to Jacklyn at present was getting another member for her team. After all, a pokemon journey was only a real journey when you had a full team to go explore with! And as such, she was sure that she knew just what it was that she had to buy. Walking back to her team members as well, a bag in hand, the girl said, "I'm back! And look what I got!" Anneliese had already shown of her own findings to the other two, as she said, "I also bought a bunch of pokeballs. In fact, lookie here!" Showing the bag to everyone else it was clear that there was a large amount in there. "Ten of them to be exact. But, fufufu, if you think that this is it then you're in for a surprise. Because you see," the girl rifled through the bag before pulling out a white pokeball. "It came with this! An eleventh! They're called Premiere balls I think. I don't really know what's all that special about them and like sure it cost me everything to get one of these but it looks different! Which means it has to be special right?" The girl proudly presented her Premiere ball again, before putting it back in her bag. "So, how'd shopping go for you Anima?"

The answer that was given to their questions was less than ideal. They had no idea how it was they were going to get back home and they barely knew where they were to begin with. Add to that, that it had seemed that they were all chosen at seemingly some cosmic whim to come here in the first place, with no rhyme or reason as to why they were selected to do what was the biggest part of the news that they had received. They were summoned solely to save the world. Such an idea certainly struck the Chespin with awe. Chester never really thought about helping others in such a grand sense, instead always focusing on the problems that were always right in front of him. His memories were hazy and all he could really remember was the responsibilities and efforts he took to maintain peace around the forum, but he felt like there was more to that instinct beyond just resolving disputes between members and deleting the unrelenting flood of bots that frequented the site. As such the world seemed grand to him in comparison, something that he as a simple moderator couldn't possibly affect in any meaningful capacity. But now it was the problem that was put before him and it was something he could actually do something about. "Of course I'll help!" Chester shouted, seeming much more enthusiastic than he was a few moments ago, before clearing his throat and reigning it in. "I mean uh, yes I have no problem with aiding the world at large here." Thinking about it for a moment, hearing Hector and Es's questions about the current problems they faced before saying, "if we reason that the area we were just in was a 'Mystery Dungeon,' then it would be safe to say that we're already protected from the madness of living in the world no? But this doesn't seem like a problem we can simply brute force our way through like finding the exit to a dungeon." Not like they had actually found the exit themselves anyway. "You said the power of Wishes cleansed this area, right? What exactly does that entail?"

Slither Wing Carbink Houndoom Galvantula Appletun Clodsire Sawsbuck Ribombee

After having had her arm wound restored and her strength revitalized, Lana was ready to get going on to the next floor down below and put the whole hulking abomination thing behind them. Her nerves were no longer quite as frayed as they had been after leaving the red smoke, which she was glad for, but that anxiety was filled more so with dread and loathing as she approached the last floor of their run here. After being attacked by skeletal dogs one after the other, being forced to butcher enormous eyeballs and zombies, and now having been stabbed and drained it was safe to say that Lana was both ready to leave the dungeon and also not at all looking forward to whatever heinous creature that they would find at the end. The last time they had gotten to the end of one of these dungeon runs they had to deal with a giant bipedal bull man with an equally giant axe. That was, while terrifying, at least straight forward. Lana wasn't so sure that she was going to have such a luxury in the coming floor. The girl sighed, clear annoyance in her tone as the fog had obscured their view of everything once again. She briefly imagined herself with an enormous fan, swinging it around to clear the fog and make it no longer a hassle, but unfortunately such things were only for her fantasy. The reality of the situation was that there was a few undead scattered about the room, two of which seemed to be just a plain old zombie and skeleton, and the third of one which only served to unnerve Lana. It's grotesque appearance and the fact that it was watching the group already brought little comfort to her, and the fog only added to its creepiness. But worse yet was the fourth thing she saw. Her irritation had immediately been replaced by a moment of terror as she saw the elongated face of the undead that had been shambling about. She couldn't make out much details about it, in fact she wasn't even sure if there were many details to make out, but the sight of it took her breath away both figuratively and literally; the creepiness of it causing her to grow silent and a strange sensation not dissimilar to that of the magic the cultists used washing over her at once. Nervous and anxious, the girl's annoyance returned with her now clearly on edge as the creature vanished. Following Chris's lead and slowly making way towards the zombie she said, "yeah, I have had enough of creepy things jumping out at me."

Fen stood by, curious to see what the Spike Brother had planned with his turn though with nothing having come to pass she simply went over to her turn. "Okay, draw." The girl took a moment, standing by, before taking stock of the field. While her opponent had a card face down he also had a monster that had the same attack as her own. She wasn't sure what exactly a tie in attack meant, thinking that it may have just resulted in a no result stalemate, but that was why she kept her rule book on hand at all times for this. After looking more into the rules she nodded saying, "hm, alright." Taking a card form her hand she continued, "so um, for my Main Phase I will normal summon Oyster Meister." The bipedal crustacean wielding an enlarged oyster like a chakram had been summoned onto the stage. "And then uh, going to my battle phase, let me just - sorry," checking one last time to make sure she continued, "I'll attack your Cyber Raider with my Mystic Tomato." "I ain't letting him go out like that, I activate my Trap Card!" He then revealed his face down, Armory Call. "And with it I can get an Equip card and put it on my Monster, check this out, Mask of Brutality!" "Ooooh, I hadn't seen that coming." The girl remarked, then frowning she said, "though, those arms look awfully uncomfortable coming out of its eyes," she remarked at the design of the card. "Hm, I suppose that puts me in a bit of a uh, bad situation." Her Tomato had been destroyed by the counter attack of the monster, causing her to lose 1000 life points as well, bringing her down to 2400. Frowning she said, "well, it is uh, unfortunate but with it I get to activate my monster's effect. When Mystic Tomato is destroyed I can bring out another Tomato, see." Pulling out the card Inmato from her deck, she summoned it onto the field in attack mode before commenting, "this deck sure has a lot of tomatoes in it, hm. Well, that appears to be all for my battle phase, so on my main phase 2..." the girl looked at her hand before finishing her turn saying, "I'll uh, place 1 card face down, and end my turn." "Yeah yeah alright lets get this done then why don't we, shoulda already blown you back by now." Seven drew and as he entered the Standby Phase said, "I could get rid of the mask but I ain't dumb, I can take the damage." And the Mask seemed to shoot out some sort of energy towards him, lowering his Life Points to 2300. "Looks like I drew a card that'll put an end to you for sure. I summon Spiked Snail! And then I give him the Axe of Fools!" Instead of holding it the odd snail creature had one arm replaced by said axe. "I attack your tomato with my snail, cut that freak in half bro!" Smiling, clearly a bit excited, she said, "oh, but this time I uh, activate my trap card! Reinforcement. With it, my Inmato gains 500 attack and so he's stronger than your snail. Who uh, salts your snail now." Inmato's attack jumped up, bringing it to 1900 and greater than the axe wielding snail. as the tomato convict headbutted the snail into nonexistence and bringing the spike brother down to 2100 life points. "Oh come on! Fine, get revenge, Cyber Raider, kill that freak!" "Oh, that's a shame. But good work Inmato," she said encouragingly as her monster was destroyed, bringing her down to 1900 life points herself. "Then, my turn. Draw." After a moment of looking at her cards she said, "oh, I drew it." An excited smile formed on her face as she said, "well, uh, right. Main phase. I activate my face down Spell Card, Hamburger Recipe. And so I uh, discard the Ancient One of the Deep Forest in my hand, because it has uh 6 levels or more - well, it just has 6 levels. And so I can summon Hungry Burger." Falling in one piece at a time, a burger formed on the battlefield, only to then have the buns open up to reveal their sharp teeth. "Ugh, now I'm getting freaking hungry..." Giggling a little she said, "well, I'm uh sure you're about to be served your uh, just desserts. I activate the spell card, De-Spell. So, it destroys your mask lowering your monster into uh, burger range. So, get vengeance for your fallen tomatoes Hungry Burger. And next, Oyster Meister attack him directly." When all was said and done, the Spike Brother was left with 100 life points left. "Oh, I suppose that wasn't quite enough. But um, now with my battle phase done, I enter my main phase 2. And uh, activate Sparks. Which means I uh, I win?" "What, no! That's freaking impossible, what kind of stupid deck is that?" "Um..." The girl wasn't sure how to respond to that at first, before remembering something and pulling out the box that it had come in. After reading it for a moment she said, "um, it's 'Burger Beatdown.' See," she showed the man the box and traced her finger across the name on it.

Seeing the hound that she had just been fighting come back in a new form, the girl grinned wildly. "Oh, so you got a second dog huh? Let's see if it's as awesome as the first!" The tendril on her shoulder whipped downward towards the hound, only for the dog to vanish from its position and reappear instantly more forward. As her tentacle smashed against the pew, now, behind the dog a laugh escaped Sibyl's mouth. "Ooooh, now that is freaking cool!" Sibyl wasn't exactly sure the mechanics of the dog's power, though it seemed similar to Alder's now, and she didn't really care to get into the nitty gritty of it. She just wanted to see what more it could do and wanted to push the mutt even further. As the dog landed on her arm, beginning to run up it she yelled, "going up!" Whipping her arm upward, the girl watched as the dog was flung up and off of it only to then disappear. Looking downward, she brought her arm back to her and saw the dog safely on the ground. "That's what I thought...well, standing around isn't gonna do anything!" The girl moved from her standing position, running towards the dog which in turn moved towards her. Reeling back her hand, she shot her large shadow fist towards the dog only for it to blink to the side once more. "Ugh, fine!" Sibyl's attention then snapped to where this voice came from, seeing that Hellhound, annoyed, had come back into the fray and tossed a wire that latched onto the other side of the aisle she and the dog had been running down. "Joining back in huh!? Glad to have you!" The girl laughed as she skidded to a stop, her arm she had just punched with growing larger then before. Turning it to the side, she swiped the enormous clawed hand towards the dog, the beast not avoiding it this time and being swatted away from the battlefield. Her arm didn't stop, however, as she continued to tear up the room and crash through several more pews in an attempt to grab at Hellhound themselves. The villain had ample time to react as a result, scrambling away from the arm and into the isle. "Okay, I got it!" Censer had stepped back into the fray, only eliciting more manic laughter from Sibyl. "Another one!? Oh this is great!" Sibyl grabbed a chunk of the broken pew before shouting, "then let's play catch!" The chunk of wood went flying into the large cloud of smoke that had been up in front of the two villains, which had stopped the projectile completely in its tracks. Seeing the wood harmlessly fall to the ground Sibyl said, "oooooh, you can make hard smoke huh? I wonder if that makes us a good fit for each other, ahahaha!" The girl stretched her arm quickly towards Censer, only for the smoke to get in the way of her shadowed claw and stop it in its tracks. Then, while still pushing against it, her fingers slowly started to sink into the smoke. Rather than brute force her way through with rapid punches, Sibyl instead just kept pushing her arm, which slowly grew larger still, with each clawed looking like it was trying to close up into a fist to grab and crush both the smoke and anything behind it.

Jacklyn put her chin in her hand, thinking intensely at Anima's suggestion. Splitting up was a staple on adventures, and the number one to get antics ensued. Not to mention that Jacklyn could hardly contain her excitement to go buying things for a camping adventure. But on the other hand - Jacklyn switched which hand her chin was in - she finally had an adventuring group to go doing things with and had barely been anywhere but a boat with them yet. Splitting up so early seemed like a waste to her. It was then that her train of thought was broken by Anneliese looking at some nearby pokeballs. Whistling she said, "well, I don't have the money for that on me. But they do look pretty cool. Hmmm..." As the girl pondered she then perked up saying, "wait hold up. You said those looked like Leopold's ball right? Can I see it?" At her behest Anneliese showed the Shinx's pokeball which Jacklyn compared to the ones in the case, seeing that it was exactly the same kind of ball. "I see. That's no good Anneliese you shouldn't be using these kinds of balls to catch more pokemon. Because, you see..." The girl paused, as if for dramatic effect, before shouting, "that's Leopold's ball!" She emphatically pointing to the ball in question. "My sister told me all about it, you know. There's all kinds of pokeballs that they make these days and they all look different and have different looking effects when you send the pokemon out of them. It's really cool! And since there's so many kinds of pokeballs, don't you think that makes the one the pokemon was originally caught in like, super special? It makes it like its own and makes them unique! Your own personal trainer flair!" Smiling, proud of her own logic, she said, "so, let's find as many different kinds of pokeballs as we can to catch as many different kinds of pokemon as we can!" She wasn't mindful of her voice in this public environment, but settled before saying, "but you know. I heard that they sell special pokeballs if you buy ten of the original kind." She looked between her two companions as if to say, "pretty sweet huh?"

With their trial finished and all of the exposition they wished for given, the gang had reconvened outside of the shrine and begun to plan their next course of action. Though there was some difference in opinions the majority had decided upon going directly to the castle they had been told the Accursed was in. None of them actually had the map on them and they had only seen it once, but from what they could recall the castle was roughly south west from their current destination. It was also fairly big so it was reasonable to assume that, quite like one of the many spires on the landscape it would be easy to tell see it on the horizon once they were close by. And so with the ever present thunder sounding in the sky above them, a sound that they would only now realize was entirely absent within the shrine, the group began their journey. All that there was to see as they started was more hills and flat lands. Grass with few trees and many shrubbery along the ground. Going further ahead they would notice various animals, mammals often found in plains and prairies yet signifnicantly larger, trotting across the ground. Some, mind their own business, some grazing, some being chased and some being mauled. Ah nature. They were currently far enough from all of this wildlife action to not be in any pressing threat from them, such as the lion with a mane crackling with lightning charging at a pack of gazelle, but their current course certainly put such dangers as a possibility. Their current course would also reveal something else to them. While they had decided on taking presumably the most direct path from the shrine to the castle, there was no direct road from where they left, so they had no means to tell if they were on the correct path or not. There wasn't even a convenient glowing light or quest marker in their HUD to tell them either. With no pressing danger and no idea when they were going to get to their destination, for the time being the group only had themselves for company and distraction.

Ryia frowned a bit as the elven duo didn't seem to have any information on the Demon Gate either. With no leads to go on on their own and with not wanting to help them take the two back, and get the baby dragon killed in the process, they had hit a bit of a stopping point in their investigation. She supposed that there was one other lead that they had to go down, one that seemed much less pleasant to her but another one all the same. "Well, um...I guess you weren't the, well, only thing they asked us to do. Do you uh, either of you, know anything about wolves around the, uh, forest?" They looked at each other and the girl answered. "There's plenty of wolves, isn't that normal in a forest?" "Eh? It is?" Ryia supposed that wolves in forests were common in the cautionary stories that were told to children, but she hadn't ever really thought about them in reality before. "Well, I uh, I'm not sure. The city elves asked us to uh, deal with a wolf pack that was attacking their, uh, hunters. That." The girl frowned and looked distraught for the first time. "I...don't think they told you the whole truth. If there are wolves that are attacking the hunters it's gotta be them, right?" She looked at the boy who slowly nodded. "The Lycans. They want you to wipe out a Lycan pack." "L-Lycans?" The girl paused as she thought about it. She didn't know much about Lycans, other than the common stories of them being humans that became ferocious wolf monsters. "Well, uh, that certainly sounds...dangerous." Of course it wasn't as though demons and giant pincer clawed monsters weren't dangerous, but she had already signed up to fight demons and Lycans were something of a fairy tale monster to her - more so then wolves. Though it wasn't literal the term "wolf in sheep's clothing" applied to them fairly well and such duplicity in the way something could attack never sat well with her. Not to mention the savagery and insanity they were told to possess in such tales. Of course, Ryia only knew stories about them and didn't even really know if such a thing was real until now and thus asked, "um, well, do you uh, know anything about them?" "Oh yeah of course, they're super strong, super mean, and super smelly." The girl said, nodding knowingly. "They look human until they transform, and become more, well, wolf-like." The boy added. It more or less went along with what she already knew, though the smelly part was new. Ryia nodded all the same and said, "well, um thank you for your uh, directness about all this," something that their first experience with the elves of this forest certainly had lacked. "I suppose we should go look uh, the Lycans. Now. Unless uh," the girl looked back to the others, wondering if they had anything else to do before looking back to the elves. "I uh, hope things work out for you two or uh, you find out more about the uh, barrier. But it was a pleasure to meet you, Miss...uh..." The girl then trailed off as she had realized that she didn't know the girl's name. She then figured she'd say the boy's name as well only to find that that was something that they hadn't been informed of either and something she hadn't learned herself yet. And so, feeling more ready to leave then ever now, the girl looked to the elf as if asking for her name.