[center][img] https://fontmeme.com/permalink/210131/53a200cc81a754fbfea32363291eca9d.png [/img][/center] [indent][indent][indent][color=gray][sub][right][color=92278f][b]Location:[/b][/color] The Dungeon -- The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria[/right][/sub][/color] [hr] The Moonlight Potion had tasted bad enough that she nearly preferred the darkness. Nearly. While Alex drew his bow and took aim at the “weird stones” across the room, Seele meandered to the chasm’s edge, giving Graves a warm smile as he passed, and joined their tank at the cusp into the dark. Before the glitch, a pit like this might very well have gone on forever, and players unfortunate enough to take the plunge would just be code falling into code until the system decided to spit them back out at the entrance. Now though, she wasn’t so sure. Was there suddenly a bottom? Had the glitch tacked on one more pointed, ugly facet of reality to this place? Or was it still as she’d imagined it was; bottomless, not from code but from…well, magic, she supposed. That was the only explanation in her mind. The saying was: [i]“It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the landing,”[/i] but they appeared to have found the exception. It made her teeth itch, made her brow damp, but it wasn’t fear. She was no stranger to heights, in fact there had always been something serene about them to her. [color=#2E2C2C]…you…[/color] [color=#2E2C2C]…promised…[/color] She would have taken the moment to chat Rael up—they hadn’t said too much to each other so far that wasn’t strictly-business. The girl at least looked like she was holding up spectacularly well, but it never hurt to reach out and make sure. It’d have to wait. Expecting there to be [i]only[/i] the puzzle was perhaps a bit naïve, it hadn’t even been deadly. When the direbat’s shriek filled the room, Seele backed away with the group, only to find gnolls waiting for them. She’d mispositioned herself wandering off from the backline, but while she was here she might as well make herself useful. [color=92278f]“Alja! Rael!”[/color] With a turn of her wrist and a flex of her fingers, Seele cursed their weapons. Ghostly vapor drifted from the haft of Rael’s spear, warm to the skin like mist from a bath, and the sharp point of its tip glinted with an uncanny glow. Her Moonlit eyes would find sudden difficulty in defining its edges, as though they were sucking what little light there was away. Alja’s great flail was touched differently, being a thing of magic. Umbral light budded within its icy frame like the embers of a newborn fire, growing steadily into a violet roar that emitted no heat. The same ethereal mist wafted from its bulk, thicker than Rael’s spear, almost like smoke. That would do for now. She’d gleaned that the direbat was wounded—strange, but undeniable—so she hoped they’d be able to handle it well enough. Part of her wanted to throw Alja an extra shield, but with how close those gnolls were getting, she had to trust the icy warrior would be able to handle herself. To her relief, Kazuki stepped in and with a curt incantation, brought a fury of wind to bear against the incoming creatures. It granted Graves a moment of reprieve, and herself an opportunity to compound Kazuki’s efforts. Seele took a strong stance and whipped up her hands, aiming finger-guns at the recovering gnolls. Dark-bright light flared in her eyes, and she invoked the Fivefold Path. [color=92278f][i]Denial.[/i][/color] Thin, quarter-sized rings of arcane light flashed into being at the tips of her index fingers. She flexed her thumbs, the rings flashed violet, and one by one the gnolls caught in her manicured crosshairs would find themselves fighting a devilish affliction to their speed. The amulet’s effects were beginning to show themselves. The spells she’d casted were minor, but she’d thrown a fair number of them out, and the frayed end of her inner power was closer than she was used to, or comfortable with. She’d have to be a bit more conservative with her efforts going forward, or risk running herself empty.[/indent][/indent][/indent]