[center][b][h3][color=#ff8566]Sister Sophia[/color][/h3][/b] Scorched Forest Depths -> The burning Forest King (the king’s pyre?) [/center] She sighed with relief as the buzzing of wings could be heard ascending into the sky. The big one was leaving and had presumably taken Clotho with it. So why wasn’t the big thing hadn't left yet, so she sneaked a peek round the tree and saw the tree thing staring right at her. Her heart caught in her throat, pounding madly in fear. She stared right back, their gazes locked as she waited for it to attack. But it did not, instead she watched in confusion as it left behind a strange glowing orb right between her and her knives, then ascended to the sky. Finally after what seemed like an eternity the big bird left, emitting an chilling shriek as it climbed towards the heavens and was almost immediately lost in the stormy clouds above. She half expected the strange glowing orb to lash out in some way as soon as she emerged from her hiding spot, but fortunately whatever it was it didn’t appear to be some kind of psychic sentry turret. She was still going to give it a wide berth up until the point Geromory decided to knuckle walk right past the thing. Seeing that it was apparently harmless she followed suit and ended up stopping for a moment to examine the strange orb and to rest. [sub][sub][i][color=#FFD700]”touch it”[/color][/i][/sub][/sub] she reached down with her human hand and gingerly reached into the glowing mote. The energy seemed to notice her presence and suddenly raced towards her, embedding itself harmlessly in her body. After a brief moment of panic she noticed nothing bad had happened. In-fact she didn’t feel any different at all. [color=#ff8566]”That… could have gone worse I suppose.”[/color] [hr] After retrieving her fortunately undamaged knives she ended up trudging through the forest looking for somewhere to rest for the night. She was exhausted and had no idea where her next opponent was, so now was perhaps a good time to get some rest. In the end she found a rocky outcropping which was preferable to sleeping in when compared to the ashy slop that was the forest floor. Her power armor made sleeping basically everywhere the same(warm and dry but still uncomfortable) but she would rather not have her jetpack get clogged up with mud if she found fuel for it. She was pretty sure that the vile growth had not compromised the internal pressure of the suit, the twisted growth having interwound with the metal as it broke free, so theoretically she did not have to worry about drowning in the mud either. Also, sleeping out in the open acted as something close to a shower, washing the ash, blood and sap from her armor and revealing it’s original white coloring beneath. And so shere she sat, legs crossed, and waited out the night along with the weird mutant Geromory. [hr] Dawn came and with the ending of the storm of the previous night it really did seem like a new day rather than simply a continuation of the previous that had been briefly interrupted by night. Even from within the charred corpse of the forest she could see some of the activity now occupying the city with her binocular vision. It was ridiculous, the place was supposed to be abandoned apart from the college's research staff, who the hell was flying choppers around. Worse, the massive bird of Clotho’s companions was still in the city, hovering far above. As far as she was concerned the announcements of the second round and its associated participant's threat paled in comparison to that thing which almost certainly wanted her dead. At least she assumed it would, but it appeared that the green orb might have done something after all, because overnight her wounds had healed. It was bizarre, what possible secret agenda did the wooden angel have? Apart from the mutation and lack of supplies it was as if the previous battle had never occurred. Speaking of supplies, she need more if she had any hope of surviving the next bout and so made the arduous trip back through the burnt woods to the forest king. It wasn't hard to find, the great tree still burned, a giant funeral pyre for its Queens ambitions. After the long trudge, made longer by her attempts to be stealthy lest Clotho’s minions were still alive. Reaching the remains of the supply drop she found that, apart from a single melta fuel cell found by Geromory, everything had been destroyed by the fire. She loaded the cell and, assuming that the cautious walk and their scavenging attempt had taken about half an hour she decided to use her first phone call. She retrieved Clotho’s phalecary from where it hung round her neck, hoping to avoid having to pull her own out from under her helmet and tried to get in contact with him. If that failed she would begrudgingly fish hers out from her armor, actually examining the two souls for the first time. They were disturbingly similar. [color=#ff8566]”Good morning. Care to hook a sister up with another supply cache? Also I have a small amount of info about that massive bird in the sky if you're interested. It’s with Clotho, who is somehow not dead, plus a bigger more heavily built creature like her and a winged wooden creature shaped like an angel. The other two came down, revived Clotho and then returned to their massive bird. My guess is they are either going to be looking for revenge against me and/or are going to be coming in last second to try and take the wish by force once there’s less competition. That’s what i would do in their place, but who knows what the twisted minds of those xenos will lead them to do."[/color]