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The mighty Magnus was slain, and Sheryl turned to see how the rest of the expedition fared, to venture forth and come to their aid if needed. Unfortunately, the battle seemed to be already over, with most of the wagons in ruins, and the Knightess tossed her head in frustration, cutting loose with a most unladylike snarl. The majority of the creatures left looked to begin fleeing in earnest. A more bloodthirsty warrior might vent their anger upon them, but Sheryl's intentions were to help restore what semblance of order was possible. And, well, she might vent a bit of her anger that way too. Taking flight to the remnants of the expedition by the ruins of the wagons to ascertain the details, she would come across a ranting and raving man, whom she recognized as the reporter assigned to cover the group. Landing lightly a short distance away, the blonde woman strode up to him as he finally fell silent. There was a regality in her step, beauty and presence that was evident despite her injuries and torn clothing, or perhaps because of it. With much more strength then her frame might have suggested, she gripped Soryn firmly by the shoulder with one hand... and slapped him across the face with the other, hard. "Get a hold of yourself, sirrah" she spoke low and sternly. "We are bloodied, but not lost. We still have our lives, those of us who stand still. While we still stand, we still fight. I'll not suffer you to surrender the blood we've spent to despair. So get a hold of yourself, and stand tall sir, or so help me I'll slap you again and this time it'd really hurt" she added the last bit mentally. Knights of the Order of Force Majeure did not give up. Sheryl Wainwright was no exception. @Dolor Aeternum

// Bottom Right: @Dolor Aeternum @Tyler @ChaosLord @Lawman @Akiris @zackrobbman// ...Vlad could sense nothing from without. No numbness of his own body. No coldness of the spear in his palm. No sounds of a wagon destroyed. No words of the reporter who had finally given in to the despair... But from within his senses were at the edge - despite of an excruciating pain. Every single nerve in his body isolated itself from the outer world and focused on the mass of onyx threads writhing within. Soon the chaotic movement of an alien substance had turned into precisely orchestrated swirl around fresh wounds. Vlad watched as bits of lead and blood popped out of holes left by the ranger's gun. The threads jumped across each hole, leaving a thin black trail behind that intersected itself and formed a mass above. In a matter of seconds, each hole had been replaced by a circular scar - a rough and darkened piece of... flesh? Vlad raised his left hand and touched it. The scar was hard and painstakingly cold. The texture of it was completely identical to the material of the spear. The stone of The Spire... When the last wound had been covered in onyx, the spear's threads suddenly rushed downward, along the left side of Vlad's body - toward the bitten leg. The poisonous oily residues had been pushed out from the veins and then from the wound. After that it dried up completely and there was nothing but a stone imprint of the insect's teeth. Finally, the threads had reached Vlad's abdomen where the giant beast had left the first mark. The old scar cracked under pressure, causing additional pain. Yet not a drop of new blood had hit the ground, as the familiar black material was forming a seam on the wound's place. The deed was done. Vlad felt a strange force radiating from the spear; the threads started to retract from his body, still leaving out painful sensations. Only when the last of onyx veins slurped out of his arm and back inside the spear, the pain had gone and he finally regained consciousness... = = = = = The engineer suddenly stood up in confusion as if he was awaken from a lovecraftian nightmare. The battle was still raging on, he was still holding the spear in his hand. He noticed a few cracks on its surface - something he couldn't recall before since he had obtained in back in Tia. He also felt a sudden shift in his state of mind and body. Minutes... no, seconds ago he was bitten, shot and left to bleed out... and yet he stood, more than alive. Vlad could not recall the moment of miraculous healing or the pain it was followed by, yet the black stone marks in place of his wounds were indicating on some powerful magic intrusion... But there was no time to think over the reasons. There was something that affected Vlad's mind, whether it was poison's aftermath or spear's magic. While staying speechless and void of emotions, the engineer still kept the spear in his hand, not showing an intent to back down or regroup. The insects were still skittering menacingly under his feet, yet his thoughts were at the moment fixed on one person. No, not the person anymore. The guy that shot him had grown a couple of limbs, shaping itself into a monstrosity that still held a grotesque human resemblance. A normal Terran would lose his sanity just by looking at this spectacle... Not this one. Not the one that had just risen from the grave that is Yh'mi. 

"So it's not just that they can't use magic, they don't like it. I got that right?" Adime was running a wash cloth over the back of his neck, across his chest, and then under his arms; all of it under his shirt. He wrung it out and tossed it into a waiting pile of like dishes. Around him were the walls of a wooden stall; next to him was another man taking a 'quick bath' in similar fashion. "A-yup. Besides which I heard they got plenty a' work. It ain't like Hell's Gate where they give honest work to someone what don't gotta eat or drink, what don't got a family to take care of. They care about their people there, a-yup. They're a little kooky and soft in the head when it comes to their religion but hey, who isn't?" "Sounds good to me. I'll come with." The man shrugged, though Adime couldn't see it. "Ayup shore, just keep your lanes open, yeah? I been around a while and find its easy enough to talk a good game and harder to play it. We'll see how Norkotia holds up before settlin' down, aye?" "Sounds good to me. I'll come with."

How much of this sorrow had he inherited? How much loss had his parents lived through, how much did that add to the weight bending his shoulders? How many wars had Terrenus seen? Many small parts of him wanted to blame Terrenus itself for all of it. If they hadn't been so great, they wouldn't be so big a target. And how great were they exactly, if they couldn't even stop th – but a unified, much larger, much hollower, part of Adime knew that this was simply what it meant to live life. He was a decent Academy boy, so he knew enough history to count. He knew that nearly a thousand years ago Terrenus had been in a golden age under the diarchy of Ersela and HIldena, and then Zengi came; dark followed light. Levs ruled, the fairies ran away, and light sparked off an assassin's blade; centuries of something which could be called peace relative only to the cruel reign preceding it. After that the darkness – Zengi's rule of blindness, and then the light of the spirit, of the lion's roar, sending him away. And so the wheel turns, again and again and again, and crushes all things down below it, again and again and again. His wagon, just one of many in a caravan carting our refugees from Palgard's fall, came to a stop at a few buildings next to a watering hole. A small family business made a living with homemade sandwiches, free water so long as you drank from the barrels out back, and a thin metal bottle to take some with you for a fee.

All dreams were symbolic, duh. But lately Adime felt the symbols in his dreams were conspiring to a fever pitch, and frankly getting a little out of hand; or maybe he was just remembering them to a level of detail which had escaped him all his life until recently. That wouldn't be so uncalled for. He'd gone through quite a shock, quite a bit of trauma. He lost his whole life. Not just his material possessions, which weren't infinite or anything but which were numerous enough to feel their void like a tangible pressure, but his family too. His friends. His petty little work enemies and the strangers which had become familiar through the various static routes that took him home, work, park, so on. Stress like that tended to change a person right down to the epigenetics; changes like that were so deep and far-reaching they were coded into your double-helixes and you passed it down in your blood, hoping your children wouldn't have to bear the weight of your burdens meanwhile strapping it right on their backs. The animal-pulled covered wagon rocked on uneven ground and shifted Adime in the wagon. His eyes opened to a naked view of the Wilds, trees on either side of them, the sky unobstructed by the reach of complex buildings, and then the smell of soot and burned things invaded his nostrils. This was no dream. Adime turned around, closed his eyes, and got back to it.