[h2]Anise, Kituo, Simon[/h2]
[quote=Anise]"Tyaelaem! Randold is over that way! I saw him being carried by a group of pirates. I want to save him." Her voice was clearly uncertain and she wanted to hear his advice. "I want to help him get out of here too."[/quote]
[quote=Kituo]"Let's just getting going before those things attack again," Kituo grumbled, his back still facing the group. [/quote]
[quote=Simon] I agree with Kituo that we should go, i don't really want to get engulfed in flames. [/quote]
Tyaelaem perched on the bowed mossy branch, his head down and chest quivering like a cornered rabbit. It was unclear whether he was frightened or simply thinking -- or whether he was listening to something no one else could hear.

The fire crackled. A burning tree branch snapped and fell with a roar and a crash just behind Simon, and the flames flared hotly. The monkeybats screeched and scattered in a whirlwind of dark wings. The air thickened with ash and smoke. The roots of the trees began to writhe and turn the soil like snakes beneath the weeds; they pushed dirt onto the flames, but the fire was too big and too reckless. Their branches creaked and groaned while they stretched to avoid the fire.

Tyaelaem looked up at something invisible in the trees just beyond the fire. His mouth thinned to a grim line; he didn't like this one bit. And then without a word he dropped from the branch and scurried into the woods, toward the purple light.

The Kith was fast. He darted through the brush in the dark, and even Anise would only see the ears of his mask as he flitted between the shadows of rocks and bushes and trees. No amount of calling would make him slow down or look back; it was unclear whether he was leading them or running away.

All around them, the forest was moving. The fire had disturbed the wildlife that hid within the darkness, and everywhere there were fluttering wings, tiny enraged screeches, cackles, warbles, hisses, snarls, howls. Everywhere, leaves shook and trembled, and shadows fled the fire. Anise would see a menagerie of strange small animals running and leaping and flying away from the flames.

Tyaelaem took a sudden turn, skidding in dead leaves before he darted off again in another direction.

There was no shadow and no sign of a presence, and Anise would not see it. But as the green lantern light passed by an empty space in the woods, it revealed the silhouette of a dark figure. It appeared to be a man wearing black, with a black hood and a black mask.

It only existed in the light. As soon as the lantern light was drawn away from it, even to Anise it was gone, like the shade of a ghost. It was watching them still. Tyaelaem was running as far and as fast away from it as possible.

Along their path was a shallow gully that glowed pale blue and white, a soft and tranquil place filled deeply with moonlike flowers. They glowed and rippled with a faint sheen of every color. Upon passing them, Simon would hear a faint voice calling to him from within the flowers: [i]"I'm alone . . . can you see me? . . . Do they see you? . . . Lonely, lonely boy . . ."[/i]

On the opposite side of the bed of glowing flowers were more wide white trees with masks staring out from their trunks: the fox, the deer, the snake.

As Kituo drew closer to the glimmer of purple light in the darkness -- as the [i]thing[/i] in the dark fixed its eyes on him -- the lantern glowed brighter and warmer, eager and more alive than it had been before. Kituo would feel it urging him forward.

Suddenly -- like the snap of a wire -- the purple light ahead flashed brighter, and the green lantern flashed brilliantly in response. Kituo was filled with a memory of flying over a sea of treetops with sunlight warm on his back, spring fragrant wind in his face. For a moment he was there, rushing beneath the clouds. The lantern knew its own power, and it strained against the bindings of iron. It was not, and would never be afraid -- even as the dark [i]thing[/i] in the woods appeared in the light and then was gone. First ahead -- then to the right -- then slightly behind -- never moving but always in a different place, watching them at the edge of the green light.

Behind them, the fire was growing higher, faster, stronger, hotter. Fire roared high in the trees, and no matter how fast they ran the stifling heat caught up to them, warmed their backs, sent the beasts of the forest scattering.

Tyaelaem disappeared into the brush.

Ahead and up a hill there were voices: the pirates, and Talan.

The trees up on the hill were writhing. The ground trembled.

[h2]Talan, Randold[/h2]
[quote=Talan]"Nilto! Tul Chanak desto em? Em nar'herit Na'Ceal-"(Idiot, you dare insult me? I am the son of Na'Ceal-), his words were hateful and angry but he was quickly silenced when the woman brandished a knife. Talan calmed himself upon realizing he was not in a position to throw insults at these people. "...My name is Talan. I do not know anything about these "Kith", I did not even know that was one of their masks! As for allegiances I ally myself with no one" . . . He rolled on his side and ignored the pain for a second in order to build enough strength and with one hard push he flipped himself over onto his chest. The impact of his chest should have been enough to crush or scare off the rats but incase they were not affected Talan did this repeatedly, pounding his chest into the ground he could feel the bit marks from the rats as the impact irritated them.[/quote]
The bloodrats screeched and skittered away to avoid being crushed by Talan's efforts; they scattered, and a few of them returned for a few more nibbles before they darted away again. He caught one under him, and it hissed and bit him deeply in the arm before it darted away with a crippled tail.

The woman watched this mildly. She didn't answer nor move until she was sure Talan had exhausted his efforts. "You're making them mad," she pointed out. But any Kith would know better: she had no choice but to believe him.

"Calm down and stay still," she sighed, grabbing his wrist -- and she carefully undid the knot that bound his hands. "You're stupid if you think you can get by on your own, especially wearing the skulls of vanquished primates. They're not even runed. It's miraculous you're alive." Once his hands were free, she turned his palms upward, in the process revealing a black tattoo of an eye on her right palm. "We've just lost a few of our own. Who were your friends?"

At the edge of the hill, the archer hissed in frustration and the man behind her growled. "You missed! It's looking this way!"

The purple light below the hill suddenly flashed bright, illuminating them all for a moment.

Behind them, a green light flashed among the dark trees.

For a flicker of a moment, a man all in black, with a black mask, appeared in the lantern light and then was gone.

"Move!" someone screamed.

The trees began to shudder and twist; their roots rumbled and cracked and thundered angrily in the ground beneath them, and the hill shook and swayed like an earthquake.

The woman took an iron pendant from around her neck and slipped it over Talan's head, with only a glance that warned him to trust her.

[h2]Robin, Eveline, MC, Elijah[/h2]
[quote=Robin]If they were to leave the ominous white tree, that meant they were to be leaving their only source of light. Robin returned to the lantern and pulled at it insistently, trying to separate the shimmering thread from the iron frame. She took a hold of the string and snapped it in half, severing the lantern from it’s hold. [/quote]
The purple light flashed brilliantly, blinding for a moment.

The ticking stopped.

The owl was puffed to twice its size, wings wide, its eyes glaring murderously up at the spot on the hill where the arrow had come from. The arrow that still quivered at its feet, tipped with trembling yellow feathers.

The trees on the hill were writhing and twisting; from their perch on the mushrooms, Robin and Eveline and MC would hear the ground and the trees cracking and thundering on the hill. Someone was screaming.

A green flash of light sparked from within the darkness of the forest.

Below, they would hear the groan and crack of metal. The runes on the metal platform under Elijah's feet had stopped glowing the moment the lantern had been snapped from its thread. The platform now trembled and tilted and groaned and creaked -- and then it suddenly fell out from under Elijah's feet.

He fell into darkness.

The owl leaped up with a flap of great wings and perched on Robin's shoulder, still glaring at the crumbling hill where the trees still caused earthquakes and the screaming hadn't ceased.

The green light was coming closer.