As Liana’s words hung in the air, Meiyu’s lips curled into a dangerous, almost flirtatious smile.

“It really is a shame…” she purred, her eyes locking onto Liana’s with a cool, calculating gaze, “…that I might have to disappoint such a pretty girl.”

Meiyu was already in motion when the ship rocked violently beneath her feet. The sudden explosion from the cargo hold reverberated through the floor, catching her mid-step, forcing her to briefly adjust her balance. Her teeth clenched with irritation—not fear. This was becoming annoyingly unpredictable.

She twisted sharply as Liana's dagger sliced toward her. With practiced agility, Meiyu pivoted, narrowly evading the shimmering obsidian blade as it embedded itself into the wall mere inches from her cheek. Her eyes flicked to the weapon, appreciating its deadly beauty even as adrenaline surged through her veins. Close, she acknowledged begrudgingly. “I was rather hoping I’d get you out of those clothes without the mess. But if we’re bleeding for fashion now, I call dibs on the coat.”

The air was a storm now, chaotic with motion and fury, charged by Phia’s animalistic scream of pain and rage. It was raw, untrained emotion—exactly the distraction Meiyu needed. Her calculating gaze darted swiftly across the cramped room, tracking Liana as Phia threw herself forward, staff driving in wild, brutal arcs. Useful after all, Meiyu thought coldly of the elven girl.

She knew she had to act quickly, decisively, before the hooded woman could regain full control. Meiyu’s fingers traced a rapid pattern in the air, her whispered incantation barely audible beneath the chaos. Shadows twisted from beneath sinks and corners, flowing toward her fingertips. She couldn’t blend entirely, not in this harsh light, but subtle illusions were another matter entirely.

With a flick of her wrist, the gathered shadows surged outward, coalescing into ghostly silhouettes mirroring Phia’s furious form. They lunged at Liana from multiple angles, indistinct and shifting, confusing the eye in hopes of creating openings where none existed. Meiyu danced gracefully around the perimeter of their skirmish, her presence now half-hidden behind the hazy forms of her illusion.

She patiently circled, waiting for that heartbeat of distraction. She waited for Liana to react to Phia's attacks, and that's when Meiyu would strike. She darted forward, a shadow herself, drawing her dagger with lethal elegance. The weapon gleamed faintly, coated in paralytic venom potent enough to bring down creatures twice Liana’s strength, assuming it landed true.

She closed swiftly, blade arcing silently toward the cloaked woman’s exposed side, timing her strike precisely as Phia pressed one of her reckless attacks. Meiyu’s pulse was steady, her breathing controlled. This wasn’t vengeance, nor friendship—just cold, ruthless opportunity.

And if Liana was even half as dangerous as she suspected, Meiyu was fully prepared to vanish into smoke and illusion at the slightest indication she’d underestimated her target. After all, pride was useful… but survival was paramount.

Mentions/Interactions: Phia @princess, Meiyu @Tae, Talis @Oso

---

The moment Phia lunged, there was a flicker behind Liana’s eyes like a master watching a wild animal bare its fangs for the first time.

The girl was fast. Sloppy, yes, unrefined and screaming with raw instinct, but there was something undeniably alive in the way she moved. Her staff came crashing forward like the branch of a storm-tossed tree, unpredictable and deeply personal. What Liana hadn't expected in all of that erratic movement was the level of skill underneath...and when Phia's staff caught the side of Liana’s head just enough to pull her slightly off her centerline, she couldn't help but smirk.

Not enough to wound. But enough to impress.

“Oh,” Liana murmured, barely above the hiss of their motion, “seems you fight as well as you bleed, little bitch.”

She parried the next blow with a sharp tilt of her forearm, bracing one dagger against the length of her own wrist as it met the staff mid-swing. The resulting crack of impact rang through the tiled chamber like a note struck too hard on a piano, and it reverberated through both Liana and Phia’s bones painfully. The force of it sent her sliding half a step to the side, heels dragging briefly across the tile as Phia bore down on her with more attacks in mind.

Then came the second danger.

The illusions arrived like smoke trails twisting out of the corners of her vision. Half-formed silhouettes, mimicries of Phia’s fury, began closing from multiple directions, and for just the smallest fragment of a heartbeat, Liana hesitated as she was taken by surprise. She moved to strike one of the attackers, just to have her blade move through it as though it were a ghost. Then came analysis, recognition, and then…she adjusted.

Shadows. Projection. Clever.

Unfortunately for her, that was just enough of an error to give the caster her chance to strike.

Meiyu’s blade was already in motion by the time Liana turned. She caught it in her periphery, just a glint of steel at first, but there was a whisper of something slick on its edge that gave it away. Not just sharp as a razor’s edge, but poisoned as well.

Meiyu closed the distance like a dancer, her strike coming in an arc aimed precisely where Phia’s chaos had just created an opening.

Liana had to admit, It was…well-timed. Too well-timed.

The dagger sliced across the outer edge of Liana’s ribs, drawing a thin but precise line of blood that bloomed dark against the black of her tunic. She hissed...not in pain, but in disappointment. The moment was not a loss, but there was an adjustment.

Her counter was nearly imperceptible.

One of her daggers vanished from her hand in a cloud of black smoke as if it had simply grown bored of being held. Her now free palm snapped forward, fingers curling, and in the same motion she turned her body into Meiyu’s space, close enough to smell the the venom on her blade. Her free hand caught the wrist that had struck her and twisted, just slightly, just enough to send a message through the nerves.

And with that, she pushed hard enough to send Meiyu back into the blur of illusions she had conjured, causing her own magic to flicker as movement and reflection collapsed into one another.

The move gave her a window of opportunity to turn her focus back to Phia.

She twisted low beneath another wild swing, letting her body pivot with a grace that seemed impossible in such close quarters, then surged upward in a clean vertical arc, one obsidian dagger reversing in her grip as she brought the hilt toward Phia’s injured arm with brutal intent. It was not meant to slice. It was meant to punish. To shatter the rhythm.

If it landed, it would hit like a flash of lightning at the nerve center.

She followed it with a high kick toward Phia’s midsection, a movement both graceful and cruel, meant to drive her back and break her stance without delivering a killing blow. Liana’s every motion was precise, every breath measured, every strike meant to teach.

They were both more dangerous than she had first assumed, and so now she moved as if they deserved better.

Her next dagger danced between her fingers before snapping forward in a spinning arc, aimed toward the ceiling...no target, no kill. But as it struck the vent above, the light fixture shattered, casting the room into a flickering, strobe-lit chaos of broken arcane illumination and shadow-play, where perception was now a lie and motion became harder to track.

Neither Eyepatch’s state nor his words brought Scaerthrynne much comfort. The latter wasn’t anything he didn’t already know—he’d already gathered that Callandra was clinging to life by her mere fingertips when he’d laid her out on the floor. He wouldn’t have bothered with asking the man-in-white as to whether or not she could be saved, if that wasn’t the case.

And as for the former, well, it wasn’t exactly reassuring to see the extent of the man’s injuries. The worst of them was likely the jagged splinter—more of an entire wooden shard, really—jutting from his leg, but there more, smaller fragments, peppering his exposed flesh. Judging by the way he’d winced when he squatted to pick Venn up, and the stumbling, staggering manner in which he stood back up, Scaerthrynne was quite certain that he had several internal injuries as well. Particularly around the chest region. Broken ribs, most likely, or bruised ones, at best. He seemed to be favouring one arm over the other, as well.

Their situation was dire, to say the least. And yet, it wasn’t despair, or cynical pessimism, that seeped into the dark elf’s heart, but a strange, but very much welcome, surge of confidence. With it came fiery, burning courage, and stout resolve.

After all, what else was it that Eyepatch had said? “Not here.” That meant that there was still a chance that Callandra could be saved. There was still hope; not all of it had been lost in the explosion. They just had to get out of this dismal wreck of a cargo bay, get to the engineering core, and all would probably, most likely, have a good chance of being well. And it wasn’t as if he had to do everything on his own. As injured as the man-in-white was, he still seemed quite steady carrying Callandra, as he was. And Scaerthrynne felt more than certain that Vallena would be able to lead them back to the cargo hold’s entrance in good time.

Yes, everything was going to be fine.

He glanced at Vallena as he packed up the syringes he had taken out earlier. The girl had already finished bandaging herself, and was busy adjusting her clothes over the dressing. Although there were still hints of fear, worry, and anxiety scrunching up her features, there was a marked sense of sureness, of nerve, in all of her actions. She drew in a deep breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and gave her head a firm shake. With a few light slaps on her own cheeks, she looked straight ahead with a determined gaze.

A thin, mirthless smile pulled on Scaerthrynne’s lips.

Everything had to be fine. Hadn’t he promised her that much, after all?

He quickly slung his medical pack across his body. There wasn’t any time to waste. “Val, we’ll need you to guide us back to the entrance–”

“S-Scratch?” Vallena’s timid, trembling voice interrupted him. All of her earlier poise, all of her earlier heart, vanished, as if they’d been nothing more than a figment of his imagination. “P-People,” she continued, her arm shivering like a leaf as she pointed at something ahead of her. “D-dangerous people, Scratch!”

Scaerthrynne followed her finger with her eyes, and laid his eyes upon the three newcomers. Well, two, at first—the third only materialised into view after he’d looked their way. Heavily armoured, with faces hidden within the shadows of crimson hoods, they were an intimidating presence even without flickering shadows dancing across their powerful forms. Two were well-armed—one with a pair of thin blades, the other with a brutal-looking sickle. The third was a magic-user, with arcane power swirling about his hands.

For a moment, Scaerthrynne felt his spirit falter.

Memories flashed through his mind. Memories of facing long odds; of chaotic battles; of acquaintances, all laying dead, and so many that he could hardly keep count; of his own ragged breathing, his legs pumping hard against dirt and blood and mud and stone and flesh as he, and he alone, fled for safety, as he’d done so, so many times before.

Coward. That word whispered in his head, in his own voice, but it wasn’t his.

No point dying in a lost fight. I lived to fight another day. No shame in that. Now, those words were his, and were also in his own voice, but they weren’t strong, as if even he didn’t believe them. His mouth dried. His blood froze.

Then, Vallena inched closer to him. He could hear her sniffling, hear her swallowing her tears, as she held onto his coat with her little, trembling hands. “S-Scratch?” That one, whispered word was wrapped in fear, a type of fear Scaerthrynne hadn’t heard from Vallena in a long, long time. “W-What do we do? Should we run? O-Or hide? Or…I-I don’t know, Scratch, I-I don’t know–”

And just like that, courage burned through him once more, and resolve stiffened his nerves. His shoulders heaved as he drew in a long, deep breath, and released it just as slowly. This was different from the surge of confidence from earlier. It wasn’t just a sense of certainty, or of optimistic hope that filled him. No, there was another thing that followed it, this time. Something energetic. Something that pushed, that shouted for him to act. Something angry.

“Don’t worry, Val.” His voice was cool, but his jaw was set, as he rose to his feet. With a hand on Vallena’s shoulder, he gently shepherded her behind him. The girl whimpered, pressing herself flush against him as she peeked around him, her knuckles white as she gripped onto his trousers. “Everything will be just fine.”

He cleared his mind. Thinking about the past wasn’t going to help. Worrying about a possible future wasn’t going to help. Only what he saw, what he observed, and what he knew in the here-and-now would help.

And so he glared at each of these red-hooded strangers, at the battlefield, and he analysed.

First, there was their armour—Karrnathi-made, if he wasn’t mistaken. It didn’t matter even if he was; for all he cared, they could be wearing armour from the moon. What did, was their fit. Sleek plates, hammered to conform as much as possible with their bodies. They offered protection without sacrificing much in the way of mobility. Impressive, if Scaerthrynne dared say so himself. But, heavy armour was still, at the end of the day, a great weight. Moving around with them through the cargo hold would be a challenge even when all was in order, let alone now, when everything was in disarray.

Perhaps they might have trouble ducking under, squeezing between, and clambering over wreckage? The dark elf tucked that bit of information away.

Then, there were the fighters themselves. They all looked remarkably identical, save for the weapons they wielded. Annoying, inconvenient, but otherwise inconsequential. Scaerthrynne focused on the one directly opposite him, first. The one with the twin blades. They could be called Two Swords, he supposed. Arcane energy clung to them in a thin, ethereal layer. A spellblade, maybe? They seemed light on their feet, too; a sign that their armour wasn’t as heavy as its appearance suggested, perhaps. Would they be the simplest to dispatch?

No, that was a poor assumption. Better to err on the side of caution and use maximum force. Beides, they had proven that they could teleport, in a way. That made them the most dangerous in a chase through this terrain, and therefore, they had to die first.

Scaerthrynne turned his eyes over to the one facing Eyepatch. This one seemed to be the utter antithesis of Two Swords. They moved slowly, deliberately, and didn’t carry as much as they dragged a sickle behind them. Sparks flew from the wickedly-curved blade. Scaerthrynne clicked his tongue in disapproval. Such a dismal show of care for their weapon. There was magic in the weapon, however, but unlike Two Swords, it wasn’t clear whether that magic extended to its wielder. Scaerthrynne cocked his head slightly. It wasn’t an important point—enchanted weapon or person, they had to be taken care of all the same. He decided that this one’s name was Sparkler.

The last one, the magic user, this one Scaerthrynne called Furnace, mostly because of how the air warped around him as it would around a furnace in operation. He saw the sigils they etched on the floor. Perhaps they were a sorcerer who preferred runes? That didn’t seem right—they seemed to use whatever magic it was swirling in their hands just as much. It was fire-based magic too, by the looks of things, although what they were trying to accomplish with the sigils, Scaerthrynne didn’t know. Did they want to melt through the floor of the cargo hold? If so, then they had his blessings. It’d give their wild friend an avenue of escape.

And that brought Scaerthrynne to the griffon in the room. The creature was still raging, still thrashing about in the small space. They had keen eyes, if his memory served, and were drawn to things that shimmered and shone under light, such as, for example, armour that reflected firelight. They were good fighters, too, a lot better, and far more stubborn than their hippogriff cousins. The ghost of a smirk pulled on the dark elf’s lips. This griffon wasn’t a friend, but neither was it an enemy. He just had to make its madness work in his, and Val’s, and Eyepatch’s favour.

All the while, faint wisps of arcane energy wafted from Scaerthrynne’s body, curling their way to Eyepatch, swirling around the man’s head and sharing all this analytical information with him, to hopefully grant him an edge should it come to a fight.

A plan formed in his head. It wasn’t a good one, but it was the best he had. The best they had.

“Val, go scout a path for us to the entrance,” he said in a voice just low enough for the girl to hear, his eyes still fixed on the three hooded strangers, particularly on Two Swords.

“W-What? On my own?” The girl squeaked, shaking her head. “I-I don’t know, I can’t, Scratch, I–”

“You can, and you will,” he cut in firmly. Vallena whimpered. He knelt and faced her, looking her straight in her eyes. “You survived on your own for years before I found you, didn’t you?” A moment’s hesitation, then she nodded, averting her gaze. “The entrance isn’t far, but we need to be sure that there’s a safe and clear route for us to follow. It’s going to be hectic, things are going to move fast. We won’t have time to pick our way through all this wreckage, so it’s up to you to go on ahead and find a path. Can you do that, Val?”

The girl sniffed, but nodded. “O-Okay, Scratch.”

“Good girl,” he said and ruffled her hair. He grinned. “Look at you, brave little Val. I’ll keep their attention off of you, and you just stick to the shadows and do what you do best. Once you find a way back, come back, give me a signal, and I’ll do what I do best. Alright?”

“I-I will, Scratch!” She breathed in deeply, and looked at him with as much nerve as she could muster.

Scaerthrynne had no reason to doubt her. Vallena had always been a stealthy girl, and a skilled infiltrator who had a knack for finding her way through places that would confuse anyone else. If there was anyone he’d trust with navigating this mess of a cargo hold, it was her.

As he stood back up, he grabbed a length of broken pipe and slid it up his sleeve, hidden from view. Then, he turned back to the three strangers. “Eyepatch,” he said in a low voice, hoping his words would find his, and only his ears. “Fighting here with that thing–” Scaerthrynne tilted his head towards the Griffon “–there would be a terrible idea. Keep holding onto Venn and follow my lead.”

Now, for him to play the first of his parts.

He drew in a deep breath, steadied himself, and took a step forward. “Look, I’m just the engineer,” he said loudly and clearly, addressing the three hooded strangers. “I’ve no idea what’s going on here, or who any of you even are, to be very honest.” He concentrated arcane energy in the hand which held the pipe, and infused the length of brass with the properties and abilities he needed it to possess. It needed to have just the right sound, just the right payload.

And at the same time, he kept talking.

“Well, I’m guessing none of you are interested to know who I am,” he continued, making a show of shaking his head and chuckling. Anything at all to make him seem ridiculous and hopefully attention-grabbing. “But since I’m here, I thought I might just try asking. Any of you ever been to Khyber?” He wracked his mind for the exact type of chemical he needed the pipe to contain. What was its name again? Gods, it has been so, so long since he’d messed about with it. “I don’t think so. Nobody wants to go to Khyber. Not even us dark elves want to stay there. It’s probably why we’re all in such a terrible mood all the time. I lived there for the first fifty years of my life and let me tell you, it was fifty years too long.”

Maybe he shouldn’t start with the payload. Sound, first. He knew that specific screech; those low, growling notes, and agitated squawks well. It had to be loud. Loud enough to catch the griffon’s attention. “Anyway, one thing about Khyber is that we’ve got maybe 1,562 different species of glowing moss. It’s the truth. I’ve counted them.” He went on. This was a dangerous game he was playing. The three strangers’ seemed to be happy enough watching them for now, but who knew how much longer their patience would hold. “One of them, I remember, gives off a strange slime.”

At last, he remembered. Time to finish things up quickly. Vallena should be back soon. “Stone-eater moss, that’s its name. It didn’t really eat stone, though. What it did eat, however, was metal. Bronze, iron, copper, steel, it wasn’t picky.” Now, just a little something to help the pipe fly further. “And whenever it ate, it’d give off this pretty, bright light. Never knew what it was called until I was older. Exoluminescence.”

A hand tugged on the hem of his coat. “S-Scratch, I found it!”

Scaerthrynne nodded, his eyes still on the three strangers. “Where was I?” He asked, and slid the pipe out from his sleeve.

“Ah, that’s right,” he said, his face turning hard. “You shouldn’t have hurt the girl.”

With all his might, he threw the pipe towards them. Dull brass, faintly aglow with arcane energy, spun and tumbled through the air, seemingly gliding on its own until it was above the three hooded strangers. Then, it exploded, but not with a boom. The sound that came out of it was that of a younger, hot-blooded griffon, one that was eager to claim territory for its own. Loud squawks, challenging growls, and daring screeches bounced off the cargo hold’s remaining walls. A purplish slime spattered over the three’s armour, instantly lighting them up in hues of vivid violet and eye-catching teal wherever they landed.

Amidst the chaos, Scaerthrynne quickly drew his pistol. Lingering arcane energy coursed through his hand and into the weapon, seeping into, and infusing the round in the chamber with a sheath of arcane-piercing energy, and shaping it, warping it into something that could punch through the hardest armour. “And by all the Gods and all the hells, you shouldn’t have made her cry,” he added, his voice cold. He took aim at Two Swords. The recoil slammed the grip into his palm, and a bright light burst from where the bullet impacted them. Scaerthrynne didn’t bother staying to see whether or not they were down.

“Eyepatch, let’s go!” He shouted. “Follow Val! I’ll be right behind you!”

Race: Aasimar
Class: Paladin
Location: Stormrider; Cargo Hold
Interactions:Scratch & Val @Apex Sunburn
Equipment: His longsword; Retribution and a healing amulet. A backpack with supplies and his lute.
Attire: Clothing and gloves
Gold Balance: 79
Injuries: New injuries; concussion, fractured ribs, giant splinter in his leg, injured shoulder, all bruised up. Old injuries include a missing eye, numerous iridescent scars, and a knee that aches when it rains.

---

“Eyepatch,”

“Ezekiel.” He offered Scratch his name as the dark elf continued to speak.

“Fighting here with that thing–” Ezekiel turned his head to watch the griffon as the beast continued to rage with the fury of a predator too dangerous to have ever been caged in the first place. “–there would be a terrible idea. Keep holding onto Venn and follow my lead.”

He could not argue with Scratch’s logic; three warriors and an angry griffon were not insurmountable odds, and if it were just him and the dark elf in the fight, he didn’t hate their chances. But Scratch had his child with him, and Val was frightened and injured, and Venn was barely alive as it was; there was no need to risk their lives for a fight that could be avoided.

“Agreed.” He stated. There was the rest of the airship to think about too, the Stormrider’s flight was not as steady as it had once been. The bomb had caused damage that extended beyond the cargo hold.

Ezekiel held tight to Venn as Val scampered off to scout out a safe path out of the cargo hold, and Scratch launched into a strange speech that made little sense to Ezekiel.

“Look, I’m just the engineer,”

“I thought you were a surgeon?” He whispered as Scratch continued, talking about Khyber and glowing moss for some reason. He had no idea what the dark elf’s plan was or how teaching three warriors who seemed to have no interest in talking about moss could help.

The griffon became background noise, its furious cries blended into the persistent ringing in his ears. He zoned out; whatever fun facts Scratch continued to share about moss also faded into noise. Ezekiel cared about one thing: keeping track of the movements of each of the three warriors who could teleport.

If one vanished, they’d have to move fast to find Val.

The warrior nearest him dragged a scythe against the metal floor, and sparks danced around it. Each flicker of light reminded him of every time he’d watched the light in someone’s eyes die out. A spark that flickered and never shone again. The warrior moved with inevitability of death itself, taking slow and steady steps forward.

Every muscle ached with the anticipation of a fight. His heart pounded, a frantic rhythm that had him convinced he could beat death in a fight, right here, right now, if he didn’t have other lives to worry about.

A voice lingered in his mind, louder than the ringing in his ears.

“You can probably save one of them. If you’re lucky.”

Maybe he could have. Maybe he could have saved both. But Venn’s light hadn’t left her. He pulse, weak and thready, continued to beat. He could still save one life. He didn’t want to see anyone else die today.

“You shouldn’t have hurt the girl.”

He caught the end of Scratch’s speech and saw that Val was safe and back with them. He saw the glint of glowing metal and heard the clatter of the pipe reverberating against the metal floor. A second bomb exploded, and it cried out like an even angier griffon. A purple ooze spread across the warriors.

“And by all the Gods and all the hells, you shouldn’t have made her cry,”

For one brief second, Ezekiel smiled as he coughed a single chuckle. “Brilliant.” He said as Scratch fired off a shot at the warrior with twin blades.

“Lead the way, kid.” He said to Val, ready to follow Scratch’s command without question.

Meiyu hit the tile with a hiss between her teeth, Liana’s shove sending a jolt up her spine and scattering her illusions into a ripple of shadows. She landed hard, shoulder smacking the side of a sink as she caught herself with one hand, body coiled like a serpent denied its strike.

She grinned anyway. That bitch was fast. This was going to be fun.

The moment the lights shattered above them and plunged the room into flickering chaos, her heart sang. Meiyu rolled her neck once, slow and deliberate, and then she laughed.

It wasn’t a scream of madness or hysteria, it was controlled, wicked, and melodic. It echoed unnaturally through the tile and metal, layered through illusion and bouncing between each slick, blood-streaked surface like a taunt from a dozen mouths.

And then she moved.

She didn’t charge. She glided.

The flickering lights made her presence shift between real and imagined, shadow and self. One breath, she was sliding low past the stall door. The next, she seemed to flicker by the opposite mirror. Her real form ghosted across the tile in time with the strobe, bending low and silent behind the sweep of Phia’s leg.

Timing was everything.

As Phia’s clawed hand lashed out and her leg struck low, Meiyu followed in a mirrored crouch, her poisoned dagger gleaming like a whisper. She spun into the strike from an angle opposite Phia, boots barely brushing the slick floor as her body twisted like ribbon through a break in the light. And with all the grace of a sigh, she aimed her blade low.

A flash of shadow, an illusioned copy of her form, darted toward Liana’s side from behind, a mere distraction. The real Meiyu came from the blind spot beneath, her dagger slicing in a razor-sharp arc toward Liana’s hamstring with surgical precision.

She didn’t stay. Whether her blade found flesh or not, she slipped away just as fast, back into the chaos of strobing lights and crashing sound. She left only the ghost of a grin and the hiss of her voice behind, one breath away from Liana’s ear:

“Funny how even devils forget to guard their heels.”

Then—she vanished into the dark between flickers, shadows devouring her form once more.

A shudder rippled through the cargo hold’s floor. Crates rattled. Broken girders and catwalks, hanging from the ceiling by frayed cables and mere wires, shivered. Everything, even the burnt, ashen air itself, seemed to tremble before the griffon’s frenzied rage. The squeal of its talons scraping against metal, and the crash of its beak against a blade, echoed throughout the hold. Chilling screeches that could cut a person to their quick, and furious squawks that could freeze blood, echoed off the walls, growing louder and louder until it was as if they were coming from everywhere, all at once.

But despite all this—the terrible cacophony, the gravity of the situation, the danger of it all—Scaerthrynne still allowed himself a self-satisfied smirk as he stabbed an infused spike through the hold’s floor. His plan was going better than what he’d expected. Much, much better. The griffon’s attention and fury were wholly on the red-hooded strangers—for now—and as for the latter, none of them seemed to be too interested, or were even able to break away from the fight.

Perfect. That gave Scaerthrynne a little more time to work with. Time, which he spent laying and preparing a few surprises for any would-be pursuers.

He gave the spike a slight wiggle to make sure it was securely in place before standing up from his crouch and continuing down the narrow passageway. Ezekiel’s shadow was stretched on the floor and splayed on a half-collapsed stack of crates up ahead, and the man himself, around a sharp corner. The former shrunk as Ezekiel followed Vallena further and further into this warren of scattered debris and strewn cargo.

Scaerthrynne quickened his pace to catch up with them, along the way pulling out a short splinter from the squashed remains of a barrel. He infused it as he moved—not with anything fancy, just enough to make it a noisemaker—and launched it in a high, lazy arch over the walls of cargo surrounding him, away from the bulkhead separating the cargo bay from the rest of the airship. The splinter, just like other pieces of debris he’d been infusing and tossing in a similar fashion, would play the sounds of thumping footsteps, shouting voices, and clattering equipment upon landing.

With luck, they would distract the victor of the clash between griffon and red-hooded strangers just enough to buy Scaerthrynne the time he needed to get everyone out of the cargo hold.

And if not, well, he had his infused spikes to slow them down. Of course, they would only work against the red-hooded strangers who, as far as the dark elf knew, couldn’t fly and had to stay on the ground, or close enough to it that the spikes would still work, at least. If it was the griffon that won, and if it decided to chase him, Ezekiel and Vallena…

Scaerthrynne pushed the thought aside. One problem at a time.

“Keep going,” he said in a hushed shout to the other two. Then, he crouched, picked up a broken length of pipe off the ground, and infused it with arcane energy, turning it into an elongated spike with a flat, circular head, identical to the one from before. And just like before, he rammed it into the floor.

He got to his feet and continued on his way.

On and on he went, repeating the same actions. Splinters over cargo. Spikes into the floor. Sprinting after Ezekiel’s shadow. He couldn’t do all of them, all the time, not with the path Vallena chose, of course. Some corridors were bordered by stacks of cargo too high for him to throw over. Others, so clogged and blocked with debris that a slow clamber was the best he could manage. Several didn’t have any materials he could swiftly infuse and mold into anything usable—especially so the closer he got to the exit—and so there was little he could do aside from setting simple tripwires that, in his honest opinion, would only be a very minor, and very mild inconvenience, at best.

But he wasn’t too concerned; it was a twisting, meandering route down which Vallena was leading Ezekiel and him. The dark elf had lost count of the number of corners he’d turned, or the number of times when he thought for sure that they’d been going in circles, only to realise that they were, in fact, inching ever closer to their goal. So obscure, and so hidden were some of the paths Vallena took that, even with the aid of his natural darkvision, Scaerthrynne had missed them up until the point he turned into them. The red-hooded strangers would be hard-pressed to follow their exact path. He’d be quite surprised, and to be honest, also quite impressed, if they could.

And yet, despite making it incredibly difficult for anyone to pursue them, Vallena had managed to get them to their destination in good time. Scaerthrynne let out a sigh of relief as he stepped into the relatively open area in front of the heavy door leading away from the cargo hold.

“Very well done, Val,” he said as he walked past the girl.

She looked up at him with a shaky smile, but a smile nonetheless. “T-Thanks, Scratch,” she replied.

Scaerthrynne pointed to Ezekiel. “You, Eyepatc–” He cut himself off, and tried again. “I mean, Ezekiel, find a safe spot and put Callandra down for now. Depending on how things are, this might take a while.” Then, he gestured for Vallena to follow him. “You’re with me, Val. Let’s check on the door.”

The door was, as expected, locked, and a half-hearted attempt at unlocking it with the runic array revealed that it was held closed by the emergency lockdown mechanism. That didn’t come as a surprise, but all the same, Scaerthrynne muttered an expletive under his breath. Or at least, he started to, but instead chewed on his tongue when he remembered that Vallena was standing right beside him. He huffed and stepped to the side, stopping in front of a panel by the door. “We’ll have to bypass the lockdown.” Annoyance dripped from his words. “Val, lend me your screwdriver.”

Vallena rummaged around her bag and pulled it out. “Here, Scratch.”

Scaerthrynne took it and removed the screws holding the panel in place. Then, he wiggled the flat edge of the tool into the crack between it and the wall. With a few, hard pushes, he prised the panel away, catching it before it crashed onto the floor. “Thanks,” he said, returning the screwdriver to Vallena. After leaning the solid, brass plate against the wall, he took a look at the mechanism that it had been covering.

A spiderweb of circuits, both arcane-elemental and runic, filled the rectangular hole. All of the former were dull, and little more than translucent tubes running from above and into a box in the middle of the hole. As for the latter, they glowed faintly and pulsed with energy. On the left, and arranged vertically, was a column of runes, all of them glowing and pulsing like the circuits which fed them. Two tall, thin objects sat adjacent to each other on the other side; one blocky, like a bar, and the other cylindrical.

“Arcane circuits are dead,” Scaerthrynne grumbled and clicked his tongue. That complicated things.

He closed his eyes for a moment. He had to take stock of the situation.

What did he have to do?

Well, with the arcane circuits dead, the only way of overriding the emergency lock would be to play around with the runic array. That wasn’t a complicated task—runic arrays could be drained of energy, and then the runes would simply cease to work. But it was a tedious one that took time.

And time, as things stood, was a precious resource.

A griffon was a fierce creature, and one that was the end of many an adventurer. But it was still, at the end of the day, a creature. An animal. Self-preservation was still part of its natural instincts—it wouldn’t engage in a fight to the death unless it truly had to, and Scaerthrynne doubted that the red-hooded strangers were here for the griffon. Once they’d injured it enough to scare it away, they would be free to return to whatever task it was that brought them here. The noisemakers would only distract them for so long, and even if he’d filled the spikes with explosives, they weren’t enough to kill. At most they would take off a foot, but only if someone stepped on them directly.

Or, alternatively, the griffon would win, and it’d rampage aimlessly through the cargo hold.

That gave Scaerthrynne two possibilities. Either he’d have to override the lock while defending himself and Vallena, and possibly Ezekiel as well, from three well-equipped enemies coming at them with unknown but malevolent intent, or he’d have to override the lock while being on the lookout for a very, very angry griffon that would have only just tasted blood, and would likely crave more.

And what did he have, to do all this?

Firstly, he had himself. One dark elf with a musket. Hardly much of a threat, or a guarantee of safety, when they were facing either two or three enemies, or one very big, and very feral creature. Vallena didn’t count in his calculations—the girl had many talents, but fighting wasn’t one of them. She’d only get in the way, or get herself into trouble. Either way, she would have to be kept out of combat no matter the cost. And then, there was Ezekiel. The man-in-white seemed like he knew his way around a fight. At least, he had a sword that looked like it’d be useful in one. And he’d kept a level head this entire time, so that meant he wasn’t a stranger to such situations, more likely than not.

But he was wounded, and badly so, by the looks of things. Scaerthrynne couldn’t treat him, not if he had to work on the lock and keep watch. Even if it was just between those two choices, he could realistically only do one, if he didn’t want to lose any efficacy.

“Scratch?” It was Vallena. She sounded worried, her words carrying a slight quaver. “C-Can you get us out of here? M-Maybe I can help? If you need help to over…Override that thing!”

He chewed on his lip. There was only one thing he could do. He didn’t like it, but it was his only option.

“Yes, I know what to do,” he said, then looked at the girl. “But you’ll have to do it, Val.”

Vallena blinked at him. “M-Me?” She pointed at herself. Scaerthrynne nodded. She swallowed, then shook her head. “I-I can’t, Scratch! I-I don’t know how, I’ve never even seen how it’s done before!”

“I know, I know,” Scaerthrynne said, placed both his hands on her shoulders, and steadied her. She looked up at him, their eyes meeting. “If I could do it myself, I would, but I can’t. It’s very likely those people in the red hoods are going to come after us, and somebody’s going to have to keep an eye out for them, maybe even fight them off.”

“But the griffon–” Vallena protested.

“It might win, it might not.” Scaerthrynne shrugged. “Even if it does, it just means we’ve to keep an eye out for it, instead of those three in red.”

“Ezekiel can–”

“He’s wounded. Even if he can fight, I’m not going to count too much on him.” He let go of her, and knelt to pick up the brass plate and tuck it under his arm. “Don’t worry, Val,” he said and patted her head. “You can do it. I know you can. I’ll talk you through the whole thing. Every step.”

Nervousness was painted all over the girl’s face. “I-I don’t know, Scratch…”

“You’re a smart girl, Val. I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I didn’t think you could handle it.”

“How are you so sure?” She asked.

Scaerthrynne gave her a little smirk. “Because I taught you everything you know, Val.” That pulled a giggle out of her, and he couldn’t help but smile warmly at that. He patted her on the head again, and helped pull her goggles down over her eyes. “Just in case,” he said, then tilted his head towards the runic mechanism in the wall. “Now take over. Get your tools out, and let me know when you’re ready.”

Vallena drew in a deep breath, her eyes closed, as she visibly steeled herself. There was still a great deal of uncertainty and a lack of confidence on her face when she looked at him, but her words weren’t as filled with nerves as before. “O-Okay, Scratch. But don’t speak so fast like you always do! It gets confusing and I can’t understand you at all!”

“I’ll try not to,” Scaerthrynne said with a chuckle, and walked away.

He carried the plate and walked around for a while, eventually settling on a spot not too far away from her, where he had a good view of every avenue of approach towards the door. Very gently, he set the plate on the floor, laying it flat. Then, he placed his hand on it, and channeled arcane energy into the metal, but not to infuse it, not this time. Rather, he wanted to change it. To form it into an object that combined magic and technology into something more. Something that could help them fight. He closed his eyes, and painted a picture of what he wanted, from the largest to the smallest components, in his mind.

It wasn’t anything too complex, although it was something he’d only seen in person a few times. The firing mechanism was simple. Two long rails, separated by enough space for a projectile, and both etched along their entire lengths with runes of attraction.

Somewhere, from under a crate, a pair of pipes rattled as they slid and rolled towards the plate.

The weapon would have to be able to turn in a full circle, of course, and have good angles of elevation, in case it had to fire on a flying griffon. That also meant it needed a fast rate-of-fire, which, therefore, needed an ammunition feed system that could keep up, and hold enough projectiles to be of practical use. Luckily, the good thing about this sort of firing mechanism was that it could accelerate just about anything, even a small chip, to ridiculous speeds. Scaerthrynne recalled reading that a simple screw could be propelled fast enough to hit with the force of a cannonball.

Gears skidded over. The plate itself warped and bent, forming shapes that didn’t look possible with its size and amount of material. It changed, even, from golden brass to dark steel.

“Ready, Scratch!” Vallena’s voice almost distracted him, but Scaerthrynne managed to maintain his focus.

“Cut out all the elemental-arcane wiring,” he called back, a slight strain to his words. “They’re all dead. We won’t need them, and they’ll just get in the way when we’ve to re-reroute the runic energy.”

“Okay!”

Scaerthrynne returned to creating his object. Almost done, now. He knew how it had to fire, and how it had to load, and how it had to turn. He just needed to give it a proper shape. Gritting his teeth, he channeled a little more energy into the plate and all the odds-and-ends that it had attracted. They clanged and scraped and squeaked as they bent, warped, disassembled and reassembled, before finally coming together into a turret, one formed according technological theories, but with magical means.

Scaerthrynne finally opened his eyes and looked upon his work. It wasn’t as impressive as what he’d seen in his mind, but it would do. The exposed ends of its rails glowed with blue scrollwork, and were set into a blocky, but sturdy-looking body. Quiet whirrs echoed from within as it turned, sweeping its lethal gaze from left-to-right, then back again.

“Okay! The wires are out. Now what?”

Good timing.

“Alright, do you see the arcane battery on the right?” Scaerthrynne asked as he pulled his musket off of his back. After a quick check of its mechanism, he popped open the breech and loaded it.

“Um…Oh! There it is!”

“Remove it like how you’d remove any other arcane battery.” The dark elf hefted his weapon, pressing it to his shoulder, then lowered it to adjust its sights. Then, he pulled out a battery from one of his pouches and pushed it into a slot carved out of the forestock of his weapon. It was just a precaution, in case he needed one of his shots to have a stronger punch.

“It’s out!”

“Pass it here,” Scaerthrynne called to her. Vallena turned and lobbed the cylinder over to him. He caught it out of the air and pushed it into a hole in the turret. A low hum emanated from it, and for a brief moment, it glowed a faint blue. “Now take out one of your empty batteries. The biggest capacity you have. Type three would be best, but a type two would work as well. Replace the battery you just took out with it.”

There was the sound of rummaging. Then, “Okay! Empty type three going in!”

“You’re doing great so far. There’s a box in the middle. That’s the runic array regulator. There’re a few tabs on it, but you only need to find the green one. If it’s up, push it down. If it’s down, push it up.” That was the reset switch, used when there was an imbalance in the circuit. It didn’t do much, usually, but Scaerthrynne had found out that by turning it off and on again, with an empty battery hooked up to the circuit, the system could be fooled into thinking that the capacitor—the bar—was overcharged.

“Okay, done! What’s next, Scratch?”

Now came the hardest part of all. “There’s a red tab next to the green one. Again, if it’s up, push it down, if it’s down, push it up.” That told the regulator to start redistributing runic energy through the system. With a drained battery in the circuit, it would start siphoning power from the capacitor to recharge it, a side-effect of the array’s internal logic systems demanding that the arcane battery shouldn’t be depleted. A type three battery, however, was very power-hungry. It would empty the capacitor, and once that happened, it would start drawing energy from the runes themselves.

“Done!”

“Now we wait,” Scaerthrynne said, his lips pressed into a thin line. “Val, find yourself somewhere safe, and hide until I call for you. Eyepatch–” He grunted as he caught himself again. “I mean, Ezekiel, we’ve to hold here for a while, and we might have to fight. I don’t know how long we’ve got until that happens, but if you really, really need that leg seen to, let me know. Otherwise, make yourself ready.”

Scaerthrynne’s gut told him that he had to hurry, and so he did. With a quiet sigh, he scrounged around for a few lengths of broken pipes, and set to work turning them into more spiked mines, to trap every one of the approaches. He had a feeling that they would need every advantage they could get.

Race: Aasimar
Class: Paladin
Location: Stormrider; Cargo Hold
Interactions:Scratch & Val @Apex Sunburn
Equipment: His longsword; Retribution and a healing amulet. A backpack with supplies and his lute.
Attire: Clothing and gloves
Gold Balance: 82
Injuries: New injuries; concussion, fractured ribs, giant splinter in his leg, injured shoulder, all bruised up. Old injuries include a missing eye, numerous iridescent scars, and a knee that aches when it rains.

---

Ezekiel’s focus stayed singular: following that flash of red.

The air was thick with hazy smoke, lights sputtered and flickered out, and the ground shook and shifted beneath his unsteady feet. He could barely make out the shapes of crates and falling debris as his pace matched Val’s without effort. Every sound that ricocheted through the room threatened to split his head open. Talons scraped against metal, cargo flung through the air, and the oversized rooster never ceased its screeching. The griffon raged, and the aftermath was utter chaos.

But that red piece of cloth tied around Val’s arm kept him anchored in the moment. Kept him from getting lost in the labyrinth.

His one focus.

Ezekiel kept moving as they weaved in between tight spaces that narrowed until he almost couldn’t breathe. Places a child slipped through with ease, but that to him might as well have been an unescapable passage in a collapsing cave. He was careful to keep Venn’s head from knocking against any crates, kept her shielded from any debris, and, by the grace of The Flame, he managed not to trip over anything as he hopped and weaved around every obstacle in their path.

That flash of red told him when Val climbed over a fallen box. It got closer when Val slowed to make her way through a tight corner. It dropped when they needed to duck. It was the only thing his eye needed to focus on.

He kept his ears locked on Scratch. Every breath, every thud of metal molding together, the echo of his footsteps: the comforting reminders that he still followed.

Their path ended at a door, the way out, which of course was locked. At Scratch’s command, he found a spot close enough to the door to lay Venn down. One with a few boxes stacked high enough that he could grab Venn again in a rush, without the added effort of lifting her up off the floor, and save a few precious seconds in the event of a mad dash for an escape.

Scratch and Val discussed how to unlock the door, he let their voices dim to a distant murmur. If something changed, if the fight caught up to him, he’d just needed a sound louder than the ringing to snap his focus.

But until that happened, his focus stayed on Venn. A glove was tucked into a pocket, and his amulet slipped around the shaking hand of his injured arm. His hand rested against her forehead. It took several shallow breaths until he nestled into the headspace needed to block out everything around and within him. The chaos. The pain. It all settled into a whisper.

The radiant energy of Lay on Hands flowed, warm and familiar, as the magic glowed with soft healing light and gently hummed through the air around him. Head, neck, and spine. Heart, lungs, and abdomen. Whatever he could heal, whatever time he had to try, was devoted to doing whatever he could for Venn.

He spoke to The Flame, and all honored fallen who burned inside The Flame, like he was asking his dearest friend for a favor. He praised Venn for the one thing he knew about her: a willingness to sacrifice to protect another. She may not be one of The Flame’s faithful, but she had acted as they were expected to and thrown herself in the path of destruction to save a life.

His prayer continued on, asking not just The Flame, but other gods and pantheons too, any that he’d heard of who would take interest in his plea. A vast collection of faiths and deities invoked with the same level of veneration as warmth as his own. So many gods looked favorably on the pure of heart, acts of sacrifice, and bold displays of courage; Venn could use all the help she could get. Somewhere in his heartfelt patchwork prayer, he hoped he reached whatever god she prayed to.

“Eyepatch–...Ezekiel, …fight.”

His focus ended, the last of his prayer a rushed whisper, but worthy of divine ears nonetheless. His mind caught only the important parts of what Scratch said, and quickly the amulet slipped back into his pocket, and the glove was pulled back onto his hand. The light in his eye dimmed with exhaustion.

When he returned to Scratch, he looked notably paler. Far more energy had been expended in trying to heal Venn than he’d expected, and even only a few years away from the war had left his skill a bit rusty. Still, he stood sword drawn and ready, both hands gripped and refused to shake as his focus stayed as sharp as his blade. He looked at the large gun device Scratch had managed to put together in only a few minutes as the dark elf had kept watch.

“I like it.” He nodded once at the turret. “And Eyepatch is just fine.” He added.

He’d had a good feeling about Scratch from the start. Seeing the man’s quick brilliance and willingness to stand at the front, readied for danger, only confirmed his belief. At least he was one for two today.

He waited, a few more shallow breaths before whatever was coming for them broke through the wreckage. Three warriors? One griffon? Both? They’d know soon enough.