[hider=Bullet | Wolven Pyre Guildhall]
Bullet woke to a wave nausea wracking his body, lying face first in a small puddle of his own drool. He pushed his torso off of the wooden floorboards and onto an elbow, having regained barely enough strength to support his own weight. His head felt foggy and his stomach lurched at the smell of sulfur and rot. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness around him, the faint silhouette of a woman against a dim, dark purple backlight in the corner of the room.
Realizing where he was, panic gripped him. He knew the silhouette to be none other than the witch Karla, a grief wracked young lady who, before now, would never have harmed a fly. He remembered Talos and the reason why she had been so distraught. Distraught enough to debilitate him and keep him from interfering with the dark forces she had brought down upon the Glade this day. Her own home.

Even now, Bullet could feel it. Karla’s unbridled rage and sorrow warped the very space around her, creating a miasma of dread and hate that threatened to pull Bullet into it’s dark embrace. He was no stranger to such emotions. Memories of his own father, the catalyst of his own long string of misfortunes and painful experiences, came to mind. He couldn’t blame Karla for such an extreme reaction. To her, Talos was family. A cherished loved one taken right before your eyes warranted such a reaction. There was a time when hatred was all that drove Bullet. Yet even he, engulfed in so much pain and anger, was not beyond salvation. 

He brought himself up onto one knee, pushing off the ground with a strained grunt. Karla’s head turned ever so slightly, enough to see the blackness of her eyes, which wept tears of onyx. The serpent, Nigel, coiled itself around her - equally entranced. They were deep within their spell, her body taut as though enclosed in a giant’s grip. She chanted strange incantations in a tongue that was not her own. Despite noticing Bullet, she seemed to entranced in her own curse to regard his stirring as any significant threat. This was his chance.

Lifting himself into a shaky stance, fists clenched and brought up to the ready beside his face. He ignored the stinging in his side where his injured ribs cried out in pain. He was starting to regret stubbornly ignoring Priscilla and Meredith’s orders to rest over the last month. Perhaps he’d be in better shape to deal with this situation.
[i][color=firebrick]Too late for regrets[/color][/i] He thought with a smirk, conjuring his Hellforged Gauntlets from a flash of bright light that cut through the dreadful darkness for but a brief moment. This caught Karla’s attention, her melodic chanting coming to a pause. Slowly her head tilted backwards, spine curving to accommodate the unsettling movement until Bullet was face to face with her upside down visage.

“[color=Firebrick]I’m sorry Karla.[/color]” Bullet locked and loaded the gauss pistons in his gauntlets, the heat emanating from them further pushing back the dark miasma of Karla’s scornful wrath. Karla flinched, a wheeze escaping her lips as her body twisted and contorted to re-align itself as she began her approach.
“[color=firebrick]I get it, you're pissed. Can’t say that I blame ya, to be honest.[/color]” He stepped forward to meet her approach, locking another gauss piston into place. Now his gauntlets started to steam and whir with intense heat, beads of sweat starting to streak down his torso. Karla opened her arms, revealing sharp, spindly fingers that clawed along the floor. The serpent hissed a command and the witch broke into a gangly sprint, lurching across the room whilst a wretched screech curdled Bullet’s blood with a brief lapse of fear. But he would not back down.

Bullet ran to meet her at the center of the room, fists at the rady. She swiped at him with her claws and he narrowly ducked to avoid them, pushing forward off his back foot and colliding his right shoulder into her abdomen. Wrapping his arms around her torso, Bullet heaved and ran forward towards the wall of the room. All the while Karla lashed at his back, leaving a trail of bleeding lacerations along his spine. With one final shove, Bullet forced her into the wall of Priscilla’s room. Stunned momentarily, she wasn’t able to react quick enough to the straight punch that caught her dead in the chest. The eruptive force of his strike shattered the wall behind her, the fiery blast from his gauntlets sending the witch flying through and into the glade below. Unable to halt his own momentum, his ribs wracked with pain, Bullet also fell from the newly formed exit and into the woods below.[/hider]

[h3][color=silver]Meredith Clagnan[/color][/h3]
[right][color=silver]Wolven Pyre Greenhouse[/color] | Silverbranch Glade
[color=silver][i]Interacting with[/i][/color]: | [color=916C8E]Manami Fuyu[/color] [@Lunarlord34][/right][hr]	Meredith delighted in Manami’s eagerness to hear more of her culture and traditions. An inquisitive soul was truly a rare find nowadays; especially in such a young lady. Young comparatively, anyway. The assistant witches finished bottling up the calming draft, pushing a cork to seal the shimmering concoction before bringing it before the older woman.
	“[color=silver]Very good ladies. I dare say we should make haste and bring this potion to Talos.[/color]” She fastened the vial to her belt, drawing her olive green traveling cloak over her shoulders and fixing her satchel of various herbs and reagents to her hip. She reached for a few spare flasks, just in case she came across the sorely missed treant sap on their way to the battle, when a loud crash and bang from downstairs startled her to attention. Could it have come from the guild hall? No, it was too close. They were quite a considerable distance up in the canopy greenhouse. Then realization hit her.
	“[color=silver]Karla![/color]” She turned to the two witches, offering a curt nod. They responded in kind, rushing past Manami and heading down the stairs towards the commotion. “[color=silver]We must make sure the others are safe. From what? God knows. Let’s go.”[/color]

Meredith took the steps two at a time, surprisingly spritely for her old age. She clutched at the moth brooch securing her cloak, letting it trail behind her as the door to Priscilla’s room came into view. Standing before it, there was no mistaking this was where the disturbance had come from. A palpable malignance wafted from the room, one that was unmistakable to Meredith in its nature. A witch’s curse.

	The two accompanying witches entered first, their hands at the ready to conjure any defensive spells should the need arise. Meredith felt a shiver down her spine as she entered the room. She looked around in disbelief. Priscilla’s quarters were almost unrecognizable, despite no physical difference aside from the gaping hole across the room. The sensation was, regrettably, familiar to her; a witch’s curse. Curses had a way of afflicting the physical spaces they were cast in, an eerie feeling of disjointment that sapped one of all positive emotions. She approached the hole blasted through the side of the great hollow, lamenting the damage of their home for a brief moment before a figure caught their eyes far below in the glade. A young man that she almost instantly recognised as Bullet. Was he responsible for this damage? He didn’t look well at all. Another figure a few meters in front of him was crumpled in a small pile, though unmistakingly female.

	“[color=silver]Karla, she’s hurt. We have to get down the-[/color]” Meredith stopped in her tracks, watching as Karla’s lithe figure began to lift from the earth. Her torso raised first, limbs dangling as though an invisible claw had just plucked her from the soil. Soon her arms and legs followed suit, rigidly straightening themselves up as though the young lady were a string drawn puppet rather than a living being. Standing at her full posture, Meredith could clearly see the physical deformities that her curse had inflicted upon her. 

Panic gripped her and her gaze shifted back to Bullet, lying helpless before Karla. Sure enough, the witch lunged forward and made a charge for the unconscious man with sickeningly sharp claws at the ready.
“[color=silver]Stop her! Quick![/color] Meredith ordered, one of her witches leaping into the fray from the tree, a conjured magic circle beneath her slowing her descent enough to land safely. The other grabbed onto Meredith and leapt alongside her, helping the older woman down to the soil. The pair rushed forward to protect Bullet, arms outspread as ephemeral chains burst forth from their sleeves, linking them to each other. Stepping between each other, weaving their bonds over and under each other in an intricate dance of quick steps  to create a makeshift net that quickly found itself wrapped around Karla. The two witches reeled their magical chains back, pulling them taut and keeping the rampaging witch in place.

Meredith stepped forward, unfastening the calming draught from her satchel. She stared down at it, momentarily thinking of Talos and their allies caught afield. If she used the draught here, there was no telling what could happen to Karla’s familiar. A blood curdling screech brought her attention back to Karla, fighting against her restraints. She could see her two companions struggling to keep hold of the binding spell. 
At that moment she knew there was no other option.
	Karla had to be stopped here and now.

	Meredith moved forward a few more paces, reeling her arm back in preparation to pitch the vial at the rampaging witch. Her aim was poised to hit her mark, if not for the sudden tightening of what she assumed was some sort of barbed rope around her ankle. She winced in pain, looking down to find her leg ensnared in a thorny vine that had sprouted from the ground. The realization spread across her face as a look of pure panic.
	Plant magic was a specialty of Karla’s.

	“[color=silver]Watch the ground![/color]” Meredith called to the other two, but it was too late. Their bindings faltered as both witches found themselves ensnared in a thick bramble of thorns. Karla burst free of the chains, her form twisting into the sky atop an ascending thicket of enlarged plantlife. The vines that had ensnared the three of them were connected to the main plant, lifting them from the ground and letting them dangle like baubles as Karla cackled maniacally.
	
	The calming draught slipped from Meredith’s grasp, landing on the soft earth below and rolling a few feet away. She tried to spin around to find Manami. As far as she was aware, the young lady hadn’t descended with them and was still free to move about. Despite her efforts, her position was too inconvenient to spend much time looking for her.
	“[color=silver]Get help, Manami![/color]” She called out, hoping that the commotion would have drawn the attention of any stragglers at the Guild hall. She prayed that not everyone had departed for the battle.

[h3][color=DarkSeaGreen]Henri Baptiste[/color][/h3]
[right][color=silver][i]Keeper’s Crossroads[/i][/color] | Silverbranch Glade
[color=silver][i]Interacting with[/i][/color]: [color=Peru]Regan Hadou[/color] [@CitrusArms] and [color=ECECE2]Shiro[/color][/right][hr]		Hagar watched Shiro approach him with a bemused smirk, his arms folded over his chest. He was almost a little too cocky, which didn’t bode well with Henri. Yet it seemed as though Shiro was winding up for something big, so he’d do what he had to to make an opening for her. He drew a magic circle in the air with his spare hand, pressing it into the dampened soil beneath him with a quick whistle. The circle made a noise reminiscent of a single drop of water falling into a vast ocean, sending ripples across the watery surface of the arena. Henry watched the ripples encircle his position, a large dorsal fin emerging for a brief moment before disappearing back beneath the surface and silently making his way towards Hagar.
	Now all he needed to do was deal with these bindings.

Focussing his power into his spare arm, a mass of three watery tentacles encased themselves around the limb; twisting around each other to create a singular appendage that was as thick as Henri’s torso. He whips his arm around, twisting the rest of his body to add to the momentum. The tentacle mass crashes into the two swords that were binding the left side of his body, the sheer weight behind the attack enough to disrupt their bonds and free him. He looked over to Hagar who was busy deflecting Shiro’s blows, almost delighting in her enfeebled state. Henri made note of the two swords from his previous spell that were still channeling their bindings onto his companion before letting himself slip into the soil as though he were diving beneath the waves.

	Hagar chuckled to himself, directing his dancing blades to parry Shiro’s attacks with nonchalant hand gestures. He only needed a single hand to direct them, whilst the other conjured a magic circle at his side.
“[color=silver]Step off, love. I don’t need some annoying brat in me face.[/color]” said Hagar, twisting the magic circle anti-clockwise by about a hundred and eighty degrees. The blades that were linked to Shiro’s bound limbs lit up, following the motion of the circle. Shiro would find herself being dragged away from Hagar by the bindings. Hagar had aimed her towards the location he remembered Henri being, only to find that she had just been shoved to the center of the arena; where she stood alone.

“[color=silver]Hah! You’re mate ditch you, eh?”[/color] Laughed Hagar, failing to hide the dumbfounded look on his face. Yet before he could wonder where the larger man had escaped to, a sudden tremor at his feet brought his attention to the ground. Just as Hagar looked down to investigate, Henri burst forth from the depths, blanketed in a churning current of battering water.
“[color=darkseagreen][b]Abyssal Torpedo![/b][/color]” Henri landed a devastating uppercut against Hagar’s chin, the additional force behind the attack enough to send the brute flying. The swords that comprised the arena shifted to ensure they did not harm him.

At the same time, a similar ripple of the currents appeared near Shiro; the massive head of a great white shark constructed entirely of water launching up from the ground and into the wall of swords. The shark’s size was so great it would have pushed Shiro to the side slightly to make room for it’s sudden entrance. It’s gargantuan jaw clasped down around a large portion of the arena, shattering a myriad of swords; including the two that kept Shiro’s limbs bound. Then as quickly as it had appeared, the shark disappeared beneath the depths. 
	The gaping hole in the sword arena was a parting gift.
[hr]	The battle between Talos and Regan raged on, the sword women's graceful movements and strikes proving too much for a beast, even one as intelligent as he was, to keep up with. On top of that, it would seem as though his master’s concentration was waning. Karla was being kept from properly channeling the enchantment that had morphed Talos into the beast he was now, and the power that sustained him was lacking compared to before. The serpent’s tail hissed a hasty command, and the beast looked to take on a more defensive stance.
	Yet Regan had already disappeared from view. Talos was able to quickly identify that she had leaped above them, but not before that sword came driving down into the skull of the boa constrictor tail. Pinned down by Regan’s strike, Talos made every attempt to claw himself away, howling in pain as the animated appendage fell silent. Though it would seem the damage wasn’t as devastating as one might think. The great wolf seemed to be able to easily release himself from the grip of the sword, turning to stare at what he assumed was a dismembered serpent's head.

	Though when Regan’s blade struck the serpent’s head, she would find it to be far more hollow than one would intend. Then the head began to heat up rapidly, little patches of flame melting away what was now obviously a molted snakeskin. The snakeskin grew hotter and hotter, large chunks of it beginning to burst into flame before the entire thing erupted in a large explosion. Talos leapt away, a familiar hissing from behind him catching the wolf’s attention. Slowly, a pink, soft fleshed serpent writhed it’s way from behind the wolf. Left in it’s vulnerable state, the serpent seemed content to remove itself from the battle, hiding behind the great wolf as it began snarling and snapping at Regan once more.