[h2]Kituo, Anise, Simon[/h2]
[center][img]http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm243/jelost/burning.jpg[/img][/center]

The fire crackled and spread from the dropped torch, glowing and growing and turning grasses to ash. The spirit weeds ignited and flashed golden for a moment -- wisps of bluish ether sighed into the sky -- before they too succumbed to the flames. The fire licked up the vines on the trees, and the leaves ignited. The darkness began to lighten as the red glow illuminated the forest.

[quote=Anise]She kept swinging until the old man no longer moved . . . She pushed the old man onto his back so she could get a good grip on the handle and remove it from his grasp. With it, she could save Randold.[/quote]
The sword was heavy to her unaquainted hand, but a shiver of electric power trailed up her arms when she held it. Perhaps this tool would serve her better than it had served its previous owner.

The smashed corpse oozed with blood. It trickled along fissures in the ground and soaked the grass and weeds in bright red that reflected the light of the growing flames. The old soldier's eyes stared wide and vacant. The armor no longer sparked nor fizzled as it had before. It had failed in its purpose.

And then came the bloodrats.

It started with a shuffle in the weeds. Then the first rodent -- like the one that had taken a chunk out of Kituo's ear and had bitten a piece off of Hato's finger in front of Simon -- darted out into the clearing to nibble at the pool of blood around the old man's head.

[quote=Simon]Simon decided to walk over to where Anise was with the pirate and since Tyaelaem was still cowering Simon grabbed the hand of the rabbit and started dragging it along with him.[/quote]
Tyaelaem was so distracted by terror that he barely noticed he was being manhandled until he was yanked to his feet. Only then did he realize the fire, and the corpse, and the blood, and he was certain that Simon was behind it all. The thing in the woods was all the proof he needed: Simon would be the end of all that the Kith held dear -- perhaps the end of Tyaelaem himself. He thought Simon must be a pirate, but if that were true he shouldn't be able to carry the wolf-mask. Tyaelaem whimpered and twisted his wrist, but the boy was so very weak.

[quote=Anise]"Tyaelaem." She wanted to get his attention. "What is it?"[/quote]
Tyaelaem lifted his head with a spark of hope, and he opened his mouth -- but he was interrupted.

[quote=Simon]Simon let go of Tyaelaems hand and took two steps closes to Anise. . . "A-a-a-Anise ... I don't think that the pirate was ... l-l-lying about getting home ... ... that's w-w-w-with Tyaelaems help however"[/quote]
As soon as his wrist was free, Tyaelaem bounded to Anise's side and crouched there, clutching at her skirt like a child to its mother -- but his shoulder brushed the sword at her hip, and he screeched in pain and leaped like a startled cat into the tree. The monkeybats that perched there whooped and shifted at the disturbance, and they glared at Tyaelaem with bright red eyes for his intrusion.

The runes on the scabbard glimmered, as if the sword were angered at having been touched by a Kith.

[quote=Kituo]Kituo was just about to make it away free with his lantern when it pulled him back. Forcing his body to turn around, Kituo looked at the other three people and, overlooking the fact that the old man had been knocked down, ripped his lips apart to speak coldly.

"Look up."[/quote]

"[i]I[/i] can take you home!" Tyaelaem screeched hoarsely, clinging to the tree branch, perched like one of the monkeybats that shuffled around him. The little bell swung gently. "All pirates lie! The eye on his palm, look at it, if he were alive it could steal your soul if he touched you. No one with that power would tell the truth. He wanted the lantern." With that he turned the eyes of his mask on Kituo.

"The egg reacts to your heartbeat. It wants you to free it from the iron prison, pull it out, smash it out, the forest is powerless to help until it's free. That's why the Sparrow King made the monkeybats attack you, he -- [i]we[/i] -- want to free it. The egg can bring sunlight. It means the sky turns bright. I've never seen sunlight but I heard it's good, and the Elders say it's good, and you have it, there. It knows you're scared." He crawled a bit closer along the branch, which dipped under his weight. "We should go, Your Highness, before the trees start falling." This he said to Anise, raising his voice over the roar of the flames, though he kept an eye on Kituo. It was clear the rabbit could always run faster, due to the power of his mask -- and he would keep Kituo in his sight.

The fire raged higher, brighter, hotter, closer.

[h2]Talan, Randold[/h2]
[quote=Talan]He struggled hard to break free of the bindings but to no avail. Swiveling his head around he trulied to get a look at his surroundings and found a woman sitting near him, watching him.  . . .  He wiggled over to the girl and once he was close enough began headbutting her leg to signal her to remove his gag. He was acting on instinct now, his inability to get free made him desperate enough to plead with his captors. He hit his head against her over and over until he grew tired and ceased. . . . He tried as best he could to inconspicuously pick up the twig and while on his back began to whittle away at the rope.[/quote]
The woman in the cloak stared curiously at Talan, her eyebrows raised while he struggled and slammed his head against her thigh, as if he were a strange animal worthy of her study. "I don't think he's a Kith," she mentioned to no one in particular. She leaned over and lifted Talan's eyelid with a finger to get a better look at the color of his eyes. "He hasn't used the mask very long, his eyes are pretty normal."

The man guarding Randold spoke up: "He has no Horus eye either. Maybe he's a madman, he's wearing [i]monkeybats[/i] for Rular's sake."

"The Kith don't wear skins." The woman hummed, gave Talan a coy smile, and reached over to untie his gag. "Keep quiet," she warned him. "Tell us yourself: where are your allegiances, pretty boy? Why were you wearing a Kith mask?" She showed him a little silvery knife. "If I like your answer I'll cut you loose."

Meanwhile the fibers of the ropes holding his wrists broke under his efforts, one by one -- but it would be a long while before he could cut himself free.

Their leader motioned quickly from the edge of the hill for their attention. "The owl," she hissed. "The Sparrow King's messenger!" She scrambled to ready her bow and notch an arrow.

"What!" The man who guarded Randold had been peeling an apple with a knife when he looked up. He gave the prisoner a last look, but he got up and went to see, abandoning Randold -- and abandoning the knife and the apple on the ground a few feet away from him.

The woman next to Talan raised her head, distracted by this new development -- so she didn't see the bloodrat that scurried out from behind the rocks. The rodent climbed onto Talan's chest and began to nibble at the pieces of bloody monkeybat skin. Another bloodrat appeared . . . and another. They were attracted to the scent of blood, and some of them scurried over Randold in order to converge upon Talan with their sharp little teeth.

[h2]MC, Eveline, Robin, Elijah[/h2]
Robin, Eveline and MC might see a flash of orange light in the distance through the forest, visible now that they'd climbed high enough to see it. Somewhere the forest was on fire, and that fire was growing.

[quote=Eveline]she briefly meet the state of two glowing eyes perched behind the source of the purple light. Eveline smiled brightly at it, before the jarring words of the foreigner reached hers, another brief look of annoyance crosses the girls face before turning to look below her seeing the strange woman wave . . .[/quote]
The owl regarded Eveline with a bit less malice than it had the others -- in fact, it gave her an intelligent and curious stare. Perhaps this was because Eveline's skin was very slowly but very definitely still becoming less and less opaque, so much so that her bones and veins were visible beneath it -- but they, too, were fading slowly. But her clothes and the flowers in her translucent hair remained just as they had been.

The flowers that she had with her were unique to the forest; there was nothing else like them anywhere. But a mass of small blue flowers grew and glowed ever so slightly at the base of the tree. A creeping vine that spiraled around the tree bloomed high above their heads with bright yellow, red-streaked flowers that almost looked poisonous. And far near the end of one long, dead branch was a single, soft white blossom that reflected a swift glimmer of colors in the light of the lantern.

[quote=Robin]Robin scuttled away from the two and headed towards the lantern. She approached it slowly, not yet climbing the branch, and noticed that it’s light seemed to be constantly changing in intensity. But it was not the flickering of a flame, but the pulsating of an…orb?[/quote]
The lantern itself -- the casing, at least -- was made of iron and etched all over with careful runes. Although it was very old, it was not rusted in the slightest, and the iron was as strong as it had been upon its creation. Inside the glass of the lantern was indeed a purple orb, like an egg. It had another rune carved into it, which glowed a slightly deeper shade of purple. The longer Robin stared at it, the calmer the light seemed to be; it no longer pulsed or seemed agitated, but rather took comfort in her presence -- if such a thing as a lantern had feelings, that is.

[quote=MC]Charms, beads and baubles in her long braids clicked and clacked together. Bracelets, dangling chains and more beads and baubles tinkled and trickled from her arms as she firmly grabbed the fungi's edge. . . . “Hola, Senior Buho... Encantado de conocerte...”she said softly and politely, “I am called: Mia-Canta Suzanne Risalinda Lasperritas. Pero, you maybe call me MC, por favor...?”[/quote]
The owl creaked and snapped, puffed again at the offensive clink and clack of MC's jewelry, its eyes flashing -- but the hopeful calm in her voice seemed to placate it somewhat. It shifted and huffed and glared at her like a grumpy old man. MC would get the feeling that it understood her, but also that it was thinking that her bracelets and baubles could attract dangerous forest spirits or animals. The owl considered the ways in which it might convince her to hide them or keep them quiet -- and MC could understand those thoughts in a vague and foggy way, simply by listening.

And then, faintly and far away, she might discern that there was a very deadly sort of danger pointed in their direction. An intention to kill.

Meanwhile, below them, Elijah was being rained upon by the spores and dark powder that the others jostled loose by their ascent. He was breathing in the spores and scuffling on the metal platform that was humming and vibrating under him.

Elijah might begin to feel jabs of hot needle-pain in his veins and a roiling in his stomach not unlike that which had preceded his earlier mishap. The pain dulled to a hot tingle throughout his body, and heat filled his lungs. His breath was much hotter than it should be, and he was suddenly very thirsty. There was a faint sound of trickling water coming from the darkness beyond the reach of the lantern's light.

Robin would see it coming long before anyone knew what had happened.

To Robin, the arrow moved in slow motion. To her, the arrow took a full four seconds to fly through the air. She would see the owl spin its head around slowly, raise its wing, and lift a claw from the bark in equally slow motion, just as the arrow grazed through its wing and buried itself in the tree branch. At that moment time was at full-pace again.

To everyone else, an arrow suddenly thunked quivering into the wood at the owl's feet, while the owl flapped and fumbled in shock, one wing bloody.

Up on the hill, the pirates' leader hissed her frustration while she notched another arrow.