[hr]
[center][sub][h1][color=FFE4B5][u]J[/u][/color] [u]O[/u] [u]C[/u] [u]A[/u] [u]S[/u] [u]T[/u] [u]A[/u]   [color=FFE4B5][u]R[/u][/color] [u]E[/u][/h1][/sub][img]https://i.imgur.com/kd7nAfG.png?1[/img][/center][hr]
[color=6B4D8A][b]"Five encounters five,"[/b][/color] said Creep, doing that thing that people of a certain height did, looking down their nose at you in a subtle assertion of power. [color=6B4D8A][b]"One for each of our party to trial against."[/b][/color] It gave Jocasta pleasure knowing that hers was the power to break this arrogant girl should she have chosen. [color=6B4D8A][b]"Agreed?"[/b][/color] The Virangishwoman concluded their one-sided conversation. Jocasta gave her the satisfaction of the eye contact that she so obviously sought. She gulped and nodded. [color=FFE4B5][b]"I...I'll give it everything I have,"[/b][/color] she promised. [color=FFE4B5][i]Or... perhaps ten percent, you peon.[/i][/color] It was easy to turn the smirk that threatened to burst out of her into a brave smile. Then, she watched the children launch themselves headlong at giant tortoises. Jocasta had lived inside one of their shells once. She had eaten their putrid flesh: rubbery, bland, and slimy. What moisture it had contained!

The magics that they hit the halassa with were about what she expected. Slut played a pretty little thing on her flute, splashed some paint and vibrated the sand. [color=FFE4B5][i]Oh,[/i][/color] Jocasta thought, [color=FFE4B5][i]you're a sonic mage. Truly a stunning development.[/i][/color] Still, she slowed the aberration-mad beasts a little, and that made it easier for the others. Subtly, the Tethered began drawing energy.

There was nothing subtle about Bitch, however. It was clear that the sisters weren't on ideal terms - [color=FFE4B5][i]and I wonder so ever why?[/i][/color] Jocasta mused wryly - but they were oh so much alike beneath their superficial differences, pointy hats, and gaudy jewellery. This one just charged in and began jumping and dancing around the biggest oldest tortoise of them all, making a lot of unnecessary noise. [color=FFE4B5][i]Ugh, Virangish.[/i][/color] She was entertaining at least, though her attempts to poke at its shell were not likely to yield any sort of dividends. For a moment, Jocasta considered intervening, but the girl was quick and probably wouldn't die. She'd find her opening eventually.

The boy that the Tethered had hardly noticed earlier - she'd thought there were only five of them for the longest time - she dubbed Sucker (for bloodsucker, since he looked like a vampire). He... started disintegrating sand. This was wonderful, honestly! The vampire was a blood mage! Left to her own devices, Jocasta would've struggled to make something so good up! Thankfully, the nonexistent gods had done it for her. [color=FFE4B5][i]Or just this guy's parents,[/i][/color] she amended. She watched him sweat and strain and set himself as if he were about to defecate in the sand. A barrier materialized in front of the charging halassa and the big old tortoise hammered right into it blindly at a... breakneck pace. [color=FFE4B5][i]Well, not really.[/i][/color] It [i]did [/i]slam hard into something of considerable mass, however, and it staggered, stumbled, and... Jocasta gave it a little bop. It crashed to the ground, dazed and wounded, one of its chunky forelimbs twitching spasmodically.

As Sucker was busy nearly getting a nosebleed and giving a halassa one, Creep, for all her subtly disdainful talk of pulling one's weight - which Jocasta was all too used to being on the receiving end of - attacked the third animal with... a screaming puppet. [color=FFE4B5][i]The Creep is a puppeteer. Let me guess: the priest prays the next one to death.[/i][/color] Just what the second Virangishwoman intended to do with a little black birdy and a cuckoo jester was beyond Jocasta's imagining, and that actually annoyed her slightly. [color=FFE4B5][i]If this one dies,[/i][/color] she told herself, [color=FFE4B5][i]I think I'll let it happen.[/i][/color] Would the sisters reconcile as one lay there, expiring? That would be worth watching. A part of her now hoped that one would, indeed, take a mortal wound, but she wasn't invested enough to [i]make [/i]it happen.

[color=FD5E53][b]“And thus Shune said unto Rakda, I shall take thy sight from thee, so that thou may ponder thine own iniquity…!”[/b][/color] Jocasta felt a distinct buildup of energy in the area of the fourth halassa and the beast let out a horrible braying, hissing yowl. [color=FFE4B5][i]Well, at least one surprise among the group.[/i][/color] Yalen was straining, she could tell. For all of his Tethered powers and enviable degree of ambulation, his RAS was pitifully low. [color=FFE4B5][i]Boiling its brain,[/i][/color] she recognized. He was the smartest of the group, the girl knew, for she had done it the same way. He made the most of his powers and ended its life quickly and mercifully. Animals were stupid things, but innocent, and there was no need to make them suffer for humanity's follies more than they had to. 

Then, one was upon her. She'd been paying so much attention to the others that she'd neglected its approach. There wasn't time for anything fancy. With a speed approaching instinct, her arms flashed out in front of her and, eyes wide, she hit it with a massive kinetic shove. The enormous tortoise tumbled backwards, end over end, and landed on its back some fifty yards distant, struggling to right itself. Mercilessly, Jocasta drew the energy both from its flailing limbs and from the final halassa, which was heading straight for Ayla, and made a slight twisting gesture with her fingers. The inverted animal's neck snapped and its suffering ended.

While her draw had slowed the sixth giant tortoise to a more appropriate tortoise-speed, it was still headed for Ayla. There were three still very much alive and in the fight and a fourth down but not completely out. Jocasta began panting. She used chemical magic to cook up a sweat. Clearly, the Tethered girl had done her part and was rightly exhausted. She reached out with her manas. Even now, she could feel her former prison-mates stirring a ways away. She wondered who the caretakers' favourites were now: who'd told them about the disruption out in the sands. She could sense them moving: on a sortie out to investigate. The other five could handle three and a half halassa and, if they couldn't, they weren't worth having around anyways. [color=FFE4B5][b]"I-I'm sorry,"[/b][/color] Jocasta called, panting as she spoke, [color=FFE4B5][b]"That's one more down, b-but it took a lot out of me. I've got your backs, though! I'll...I'll scan in the distance for any more. Gods help us if there are!"[/b][/color]

That would cover the surge of energy that they might feel from her. Four figures: caretakers, including Mirabel, the Tan-Zeno; Al-Qorrah, the Binder; Esparza, the Internal Chemist; and Gutierrez, the rapist. They would never make it over here. Jocasta drew from the desert and reached out with her energies: she would see to that.
[hr][hr]
[hider=Character Action Opportunities]1. You all pretty much have free reign to finish the fight in the style that you like. Show me and each other what you can do! 
2. Jocasta's a very good actress and chemist, and she's just expelled a lot of energy, so her pretending to be exhausted should not be discoverable unless you are right beside her, not particularly engaged in a fight of your own, paying her explicit attention, and have some experience with spotting acting.
3. When the fight ends, people can start either searching for the aberration that caused this, if there's anything left of it, or head for the Tethered Refuge (both Yalen and Jocasta can probably sense the energies from it from this range).
4. Jocasta's covering up her actions at the end [i]very[/i] well, especially given the heat of battle all around her but, if the caretakers are still alive, you can make it to them and touch base. They probably have information about the problem.
5. You won't want to linger on your killing field, though. Coyotes are lurking and the Froabases on the cliffs will be on their way soon to feed on the carrion. There's also the off-chance of a Sand Wyrm and you do [i]not[/i] want to mess with one of those.[/hider]