The shards screamed out of the mist like knives of glass. Aramis yelped, nearly dropping his staff as he whipped it up in front of him, already bracing for the cut.

And then—shhk. A blur of silver and blue. Yumi spun ahead of him, her scythe and hair carving the water-blades into harmless spray. Droplets peppered his face, cool against the heat of his panic.

He froze, mouth open on the start of a spell he didn’t need anymore. Slowly, shakily, he let the breath out, forcing a laugh that came out too loud, too raw. “Oh—uh, Thanks! Good work, nearly lost it there..."

He gripped his staff tighter, knuckles white as he planted it against the wet stone. The urge to throw a barrier over the crouched woman and her beast tugged at him, but the armored soldier was already there, shielding them with the kind of certainty Aramis couldn’t fake. They didn’t need him—not yet.

But the hammer-swinging madman and the scythe-wielder? They were charging straight into the fog, into gods-knew-what. That was where things would break. That was where someone had to catch them.

Aramis shook himself like a dog after rain, shivering the last cling of sorrow from his shoulders. He licked dry lips, blinked stinging mist from his glasses, and muttered under his breath, "Alright, Endo. Time to earn your keep.”

He surged forward, boots splashing, cloak dragging heavy and sodden at his legs. The staff came up across his body—not elegant, not practiced, but ready.

He risked one glance back, voice cracking as he shouted to the figures holding the rear: "You’ve got them! I’ll cover the charge!”

And then he pushed into the mist after the others, heart pounding, lungs raw, fear and excitement tangled in his chest. Not leading, never leading. But ready, at least, to be the one they could count on when things went bad.

OOC: tricky water man
mentions: @supamusu@Moonberry@JonTheArchivist @Ducksworth @ImaginedBird



The water blades slashed out, jagged arcs screaming through the chamber. Androph met them head on, his hide turning some aside with little more than shallow cuts, but one shard found purchase. It bit into his arm, drawing blood enough to sting and remind him that even his toughness had limits. He would not slow, not willingly. Yet the moment his boots struck deeper water the floor itself seemed to drag at him. The pool clutched his legs like living hands, slowing each step until only his unnatural strength kept him forcing forward at any pace. He drove ahead, hammer raised, only to find the mist so thick that the mage he’d charged was gone. Worse still, the wall of fog swallowed his allies from sight. He was alone in the gray.

Back toward the stairs, Yumi’s scythe spun like a storm. Her blade cut cleanly through the volley of water shards, breaking them to harmless spray before they could reach her or Aramis at her back. Aramis stayed tight to her, but their movement was no freer than Androph’s when they hit the water and in fact it inhibited them more in comparison. Each step dragged as if unseen chains held their ankles, the water clinging, pulling them down with every motion. They could see only one another, the rest of the group lost to the suffocating mist.

Closer to the stair, Locke’s instincts carried him into the barrage. He pulled Evie and Roscoe into a safer line, interposing himself against the strike. The shards ripped across his armor, scoring through plate and flesh beneath. The pain would be sharp and punishing, two deep wounds opened across his frame, but his shield held (armor damaged enough to not offer anymore protection). Evie and Roscoe were spared, the worst of the blast turned by Locke's body.

The chamber seemed to grow quieter after, the air thick with mist that swirled around the pillars. Faces carved into stone wept into the water, their sorrowful reflections shifting with the ripples. From somewhere unseen, the mage’s voice carried again, low and echoing.

“You came to drown… so drown.”

A surge moved through the pool around Androph’s legs, not simple resistance this time but force. The water rose like a living thing, crashing to try and sweep him from his feet, its strength sharpened by the drugged mist. (E grade attacK) And yet the direction of the spell’s master remained hidden, the voice carrying as though from every corner at once.

Yumi's grip tightened on the haft of the scythe, the supple leather creaking lightly. The mist wrapped around her, swallowing her up in a world of whiteness. Every splash from her footsteps was painfully loud in her ears, every ripple in the viscous liquid telegraphed her position.

So she stilled.

Holding out a hand to the side, she glanced at Aramis behind her and placed a finger over her lips. The mist continued to shiver with sorrowful memories conjured from the depths of the past, reflecting off her cobalt irises. Once, such visions might have unsettled her—but they no longer did. The mage wanted to drown her in grief, to cloud her mind, but sorrow had long been her companion, and it would not claim her today.

The water lapping at her ankles rippled once more, then settled as she rooted herself in place in the cold, unyielding water. Her eyes closed, her breathing slow and even, letting the mist and memories swirl around her without affecting her. She let the darkness sharpen her other senses. Every drip of water from the pillars, every faint stir of the fog against her skin, every subtle shift in the chamber was a message she could read.

Yumi had hunted men long enough to know how to wait in silence. She let the mist curl around her, the sorrowful visions swirling uselessly against her calm. Every heartbeat, every whisper of water, every ghost of motion was a signal she could interpret. The mage may have cloaked himself in illusions, but hunters do not chase phantoms — they strike when their prey reveals itself.

And when that moment came, she would be ready.

Androph nearly screamed in frustration when the water and mist got him. He looked down at his bleeding arm.

"Bloody hell!"

He had underestimated the water shards, assuming his hide was tough enough to withstand them. Foolish, foolish, just like his old self. And what's worse, he couldn't see anything. The mist clouded his sight, so he couldn't even see his allies. This was bad. Very bad.

Ugh! This was why he hated MAGIC! It always made things bloody difficult! Too bloody difficult!

"Come back here, you coward. The least you can do is face us like a man!"

He would soon regret his words as the wizard said something in reply. And the water he was under attempted to DROWN HIM!

He couldn't stay here, using all the strength he could muster, he attempted to go back the way he came while keeping himself from drowning!

It wasn't cowardice, he told himself, it was self-perservation.

At least he hoped that distinction was enough!

ABILITIES USED.

SUPER-STRENGTH (E) - I think? It may have been D!

Evie’s breath came ragged against the curve of Locke’s shoulder. For a moment she couldn’t see—just shards, tears, and the echo of that memory tearing her open. Roscoe’s fur was damp beneath her arms, his growl still rumbling against her chest. Then the noise of the hiss of shards breaking on armor, and the muffled grunt of pain—snapped her back.

She blinked hard, vision swimming as she realized Locke was crouched over her and Roscoe, his frame turned into a shield. His armor was scored deep, blood already welling through the breaches.

“Shit—Locke.” Her voice cracked. She scrambled, hands running quick over the torn plating, searching for the worst of the damage. She pressed her hands against the gashes, and applied her [Healing] E skill. Before she shook her head and looked at him. "I'm sorry Locke...Thanks for covering my lame ass..." She rose slowly, planting her boots in the shallow water, shoulders squaring as she forced air into her lungs. Roscoe pressed up alongside her, ears high, nose working the mist. Evie laid a hand on his scruff.

"You think you can sniff him out boy?" Evie looked around the misty room with a frown. "Locke, I've dealt with some fucked up tactics before...But this magic stuff is another level...be careful." She turned her gaze out into the room, scanning for any sign of the mage while gripping her bat.

---

Actions:
1. Heal Locke
2. Stand up

Aramis noticed Yumi’s shift before he truly saw it, the way her hands slowed, fingers curling into deliberate shapes, her movements turning almost ritualistic. She was settling into something careful, something measured, and he knew better than to break that rhythm. His own grip on the staff twitched once, a nervous impulse, before he forced it still and stepped back half a pace. If she was sharpening her focus, then he had to quiet his own.

The silence that followed wasn’t clean. The mist pressed in on all of them, curling low at his boots, sliding cool against his sleeves, tugging at the edges of his hood. It clung to his lashes when he blinked. It seemed to deaden the world, blurring the outlines of his companions until they were only shapes in grey. He glanced once at each of them, well, he would have if he could… Yumi still stood taut and still, but the others out of sight and out of his reach.

It was more than damp. The fog wasn’t natural. He could feel it in the way sound bent, in how it resisted his sight. His jaw clenched, breath hissing softly between his teeth. This damn mist.

The thought carried a weight he hadn’t expected. He couldn’t cut it down. He couldn’t burn it away. But if he wanted to be anything more than a boy with a stick in hand, if he wanted to matter here, then he had to do what he could. He had to know it.

Aramis grounded himself, planting the butt of his staff against the stone until it hummed faintly beneath his palm. His breath came in deliberate rhythm, in through the nose, slow out through the mouth. He closed his eyes halfway, letting the edges of the world blur until there was only the mist before him.

He would have killed for his notes here, but this wasn’t a study desk. It was his memory and his senses that would have to serve. The scholar’s instinct prickled at the edges of his mind, reaching for every scrap of academia he’d poured hours over, every trace of arcana, every ink-stain of Alchemy... His thoughts folded into that familiar cadence of analysis, isolate, compare, conclude, even as he let a faint trickle of his own magic seep outward, brushing against the fog like fingertips on glass.

The staff’s hum deepened, just enough that he felt it in his wrist, a low vibration that steadied him further. He focused, funnelling all of it, mind, study, magic, into one effort.

“Come on,” he whispered solely to himself, voice barely more than breath. “Show me what you are.”

---

Locke lets out a pained grunt as the shards pierce his flesh, but just hearing Evie’s voice… It’s a comfort to know his newest friends had survived that barrage. A quick assessment of their surroundings reveals that most of the team is obscured from their vision. Not ideal, but Evie is not only alive, but lucid again. He lets out a small groan as she works to treat him, followed by a relieved sigh.

Damaged armor. Not great, but it did its job for now. Repair would have to wait. No time. The medic’s warning about the unorthodox tactics of the enemy had not fallen on deaf ears, especially in light of what they had survived just now.

He hefts his rifle and stands, biting back the lingering pain. He turns to cover Evie when his HUD flashes with another notification.

- Defrag progressing…
- Threat Scanner Enabled

He doesn’t waste another damned second. A mental command through the neural interface activates the scanner, and though the system isn’t at full efficiency, he’ll take anything he can get to give them back some battlefield awareness. He sweeps the area ahead with his rifle cautiously, covering Evie as his combat sensors work to provide any data they can. He’s just itching to see that mage’s outline in the fog, finger edging close to the trigger of his weapon.

”HUD Scanner just came back up,”he says quietly to Evie. “Helmet computer is running a defrag and restore… Could get something in a second here. Stay alert, stay mobile.”

- Stands
- Raises Weapon
- Basic Battlefield HUD Scan - Intelligence E, Perception F, Survival F, Appraisal [Isekai] F | 1 Post Cooldown

OOC: androph's superstrength ability was F grade. locke and evie are being directly attacked
mentions: @supamusu@Moonberry@JonTheArchivist @Ducksworth @ImaginedBird



The chamber pulsed with the sorrowful mist, every breath dragging heavier with the weight of it. The fog clung close, curling around legs and arms like grasping hands. Sound seemed to warp in the haze, muffled and twisted, as though even voices did not want to carry far.

In that perfect stillness Yumi achieved, she seemed to melt into the mist. When Aramis glanced toward her again, she was simply gone, no trace but the faint swirl of fog where she had stood.

Androph’s struggles grew desperate as the choking water coiled tighter about him. He roared, muscles straining until his armor tore free in a violent rip. Metal splashed into the depths and the dwarf burst free of the grip that sought to drag him down. He staggered upright, drenched and panting, bare hide glistening with water and blood where the shards had cut him, but he was breathing again.

Near the entry, Evie’s hands would seal Locke's flesh beneath though the plates themselves gaped with cracks. Roscoe’s nose twitched furiously, but the dog gave a frustrated whine and shook his head, the mist bending every scent until none of it made sense.

Aramis's spell hummed in the microspace around him in the fog. The mist was not natural. It pulsed with an alchemical signature he knew: something refined, addictive, the kind of thing that burned a man hollow even as it granted him strength. It had seeped into this place, and the longer anyone lingered in it, the more likely cravings would take root.

Locke swept the haze with his visor, sensors crawling across the chamber. At last, movement flickered at the edge of his readout, a disturbance of form where there should be none. At the same moment, Yumi caught the faintest shadow slipping through the mist across the water’s surface. The mage was not gone. He was circling.

The air shifted. Water coalesced in the fog, rippling into a new assault. Shards hissed to life, not scattered this time but drawn into a focused spray aimed directly at Locke and Evie’s group. The attack came fast and sharp, cutting through the mist in a whistling arc.

The faintest shift in the mist caught her attention. Her head turned almost imperceptively toward the irregular ripples bouncing off her ankles, causing her eyelids to open ever so slightly. The unmistakable sight of a faint shadow against the surface of the water caused the hairs on her arms to stand on end as she forced herself to stay motionless.

Her fingers tightened silently around the haft of her scythe as her eyes followed the shadow, every muscle taut to the point of breaking. The bastard was circling like some big shot that had his prey where he wanted it.

The faintest smile curved the corner of her mouth. He had no idea she was the furthest thing from prey.

The silence shifted, the same way it had before the shards had flown toward her and Aramis. Her eyes snapped fully open, a twinkling pair of sapphires locking onto the direction the sound came from. She charged through the mist toward the sound’s origin, leaping to close the distance. The muscles of her torso relaxed as her lower half turned in preparation. The blade of her scythe flashed as the momentum from her coiled swing brought the steely talon around in a perfect circle, right on the point she had detected movement, her knees bending slightly as she landed in a low crouch.

Roscoe’s warning bark snapped Evie’s head up just in time to catch the shimmer in the fog—shards pulling together again, this time angled straight for their cluster. Her pulse spiked, but she didn’t freeze. Not this time.

“Locke, I'm running in with Giml-I mean Androph and Yumi to try and force him out. If you can get a clear shot, take it. Make sure you can see the target though."

The spray was already whistling toward them. Evie shifted her stance, bat gripped tight in both hands, bracing for the cut she knew she couldn’t block entirely. Still, she could deflect—break the worst of it—buy them the seconds they needed.

“Wiz kid if you have a barrier nows the time to use it!”

The medic’s voice cracked like a whip, sharp with command, but underneath it was raw fear. She didn’t want Locke taking another hit for her. She didn’t want Roscoe torn open. The ache in her chest throbbed with the thought of it. This magic was no joke.

She grit her teeth and surged forward, boots cutting splashes through the shallow pool. It wasn’t smart—not against a ranged caster—but standing still was death. If she could get close, if she could force the mage to shift, it might give them an opening.

Her bat came up over her shoulder as she charged headlong into the spray, every nerve screaming protest.

The shards hissed toward her, glass drawn from water, and Evie swung—aiming not just at the blades, but at the unseen bastard in the mist who was throwing them.

---

Actions:
1. Be bossy
2. Run towards where the spell came from
3. [Swing Batta batta] - [Martial:Home Run Knockout] E, [Incapaciating] E, [Knockback] F: Evie swings her bat and knocks a target silly. (Grade E, Cooldowns 1 post.)

Locke has to bite down a laugh as Evie damn near let that classic name slip. Seems that timeless classic is a common factor across timelines… Fine by him. Gives them something to talk about. He’d look forward to that. They just had to survive this.

Roscoe’s warning bark had already alerted him. The moment Evie gave her command, he was already moving, darting left with speed, weapon still leveled as his jump-kit flares.

He finds an angle that lets him fire past his allies at the detected threat, his HUD lighting both the mage and Yumi up in the mist, and Evie shortly after, tracking their movements in the fog.

He snaps up his rifle after evading what survives of the shards… and praying to God above that Evie makes it out of this engagement in one piece. Target acquired, the mage is in his sights. He aims to cripple him, slow his movement and make him an easier target for the Pilot’s teammates. Zeroing in on the enemy’s leg, Locke’s breath steadies, and he squeezes the trigger. His rifle barks its signature staccato, the sound echoing through the chamber with a vengeance.

- Locke Darts left/evades attack [Speed D]
- Locke steadies his aim
- Locke fires a basic attack at the enemy Mage’s leg. [Precision - D, Fighting Style - Guns - Gunplay E]

The fog swallowed even the sound of his own breathing. The scythe-wielder had melted out of sight; shapes that had been allies a heartbeat ago were only suggestions in the grey. A shout, distant and warped, cut across the chamber and snagged at his instincts. Barrier. Help. Move.

Aramis locked his hands to his staff until the tremor stopped. A blind ward in this soup was a coin toss at best. The mist was the problem. Solve that and everyone breathes.

He dropped to a knee, guilt and determination gripped into his heart in equal measure, his satchel swinging forward. Glass chimed against glass, small, bright, and surgical. He kept his voice at a whisper, a habit from study halls that had nothing to do with fear.

“Okay. Volatile base to kick… carbonates fizz, but I need heat. Better, quicklime analogue.” He thumbed a squat vial stoppered in wax, grit pale as bone. “Hydration’s exothermic. Good. We make steam.”

A second bottle. “But not a runaway.” He snapped a green-tinted stopper free. “A mild acetate will tamp the spike and stretch the burn window.” Liquid ran like thin syrup into the grit. He swirled once, twice, and shook hard. The glass went cold at his palm from dissolution before the grit started to wake and he felt the bottle exhale against his skin, a tiny pressure that said alive.

“Water’s everywhere,” he breathed, eyes on the shallow pool lapping his boots. “H₂O under sudden phase change, latent heat drives expansion. Denser hot vapor pushes, lighter fog yields.”

He palmed open a third vial, clear, sharp, with a solvent bite that stung his eyes. “Primer for wetting. Drop surface tension so it spreads fast, no dead patches.”

The staff braced across his shoulders; he stood just enough to widen his stance. He could almost see the chain in his head: hydration reaction releases heat → water flashes to steam → pressure spikes → steam front expands. After that, chemistry takes its turn.

“And the second push is pure chemistry,” he murmured, steadying his breath. “If the sorrow carrier’s stable in cool, low-energy air, we hit it hot and saturated. Oversaturate the suspension, disrupt the binder. Either dilutes to useless, or clumps and falls.”

He dragged his sleeve over his lenses, then committed. The solution arced from his hand and splashed in a wide scatter across the pool.

He pictured it as it hit: grit taking water in greedy gulps; the mix hissing like a fuse as wet bloomed heat up through his knees; thin solvent racing the reaction outwards so it didn’t stall. Vapor should leap off the surface in a low ring, then heap into a rolling dome, pressure first, shove, and when that new vapor met the sorrow-mist, it should bite, forcing the fog to retreat on contact and destabilize as it mixed.

He hunched behind the staff, jaw tight, counting half-seconds the way he had over burners in cramped labs. “Two-fold,” he whispered, almost to the formula instead of to himself. “Push now. Dilute after.”

His knuckles glowed white as he waited for the reaction to take, ready to ride whatever he’d just woken.

---

Androph gasped.

Bloody hell. Word of advise, avoid the water as long as the mage lives!

Neverthless Androph didn't want to feel utterly useless so he perked up when two members of his party charged into battle. Smiling, he shook himself off and ran toward the mage. Swinging his hammer with an attempt to injure.

Hoping their combined assault will not result in a combined attack against them all!

Actions taken this round!

1. Attacking.
2. Recovering.

Abilities Used

1. None!

OOC: Locke's ranged ability has no range on it so that was a blessing this time around. Evie's fairly hurt from the suicide charge.
mentions: @supamusu@Moonberry@JonTheArchivist @Ducksworth @ImaginedBird



Evie’s charge carried her through the worst of the shards. The water blades struck her arms, her side, her legs, each cut shallow but burning like fire and leaching her strength. She staggered through but she left a trail of blood that spread into the pool around her.

Yumi read the water as if it spoke to her. The faint ripple gave the mage away. Her scythe flashed in a perfect circle, and the mist tore with him. His body was cut clean through, and the pieces slid silently beneath the water. His presence in the room ended in that same instant, leaving behind only the sorrow he had stirred.

Locke’s visor gave him ghosts to aim at. He would fire rounds that bit into the water and stone instead rather than his allies that neither he nor they knew were in his line of fire rather than the slain mage.

Aramis’s mixture hissed and steamed where it spread across the shallow pool. The reaction pushed against the mist, seemingly burning pockets of it away until the center of the chamber came into view. Faces carved into the stone pillars visible as they dripped steadily, their endless tears feeding the pool.

Androph stormed into the space with hammer raised, only to find no enemy left to smash. His armor hung in tatters, his skin soaked and his breath ragged, but he stood among friends once more. The struggle had wrung the water’s grip from him.

The mist thinned, the clutching currents in the water eased, and the room’s cruel hold broke. What remained was still heavy with damp sorrow, but it no longer pressed into their lungs. They could move again, they could see again, and they could breathe without choking on grief.

At the far end of the room, the next path revealed itself. A passage stretched into darkness, mist curling toward them from its darkness. The labyrinth was not yet done with them, and the way forward was open.

Yumi froze a fraction of a second longer than usual at the end of her swing, the scythe hanging low to her side. She hadn’t flinched when the blood splattered on her face, which remained stoic, but the whiteness in her knuckles as her grip tightened showed she was unnerved. Her stomach twisted as her gorge rose, and she doubled over as a dry heave shook her frame. She closed her eyes as she barely managed to keep it down, forcing herself to steady and slow her breathing.

Yumi regained her composure after a few seconds. She straightened up and opened her eyes, her face slightly pale but calm. She swung her scythe once, flinging any remaining blood off the edge before returning it to its place on her back. She reached down, dipped her hands in the water, and rinsed the blood off her face. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly before turning to see how her new acquaintances were doing

The sting came late. First was the rush—the hiss of the shards, the weight of her bat swinging through the fog, the desperate need to move. Then the burn followed, sharp and searing, carving lines across her arms, her hip, the side of her thigh. Shallow, not gutting, but enough to make her stumble.

Her breath hitched, and she went down to a knee with a splash, knuckles whitening on the bat’s handle. Blood curled into the water in ribbons, thin but steady, tugged away by the slow current.

Roscoe’s bark thundered behind her, low and frantic, his paws slapping hard against the stone as he tried to push past her side. She flung out an arm, catching his scruff even as the cuts screamed with the motion.

“No—stay back, boy. I’ve got it. I’ve got it—” The lie tasted coppery as blood in her mouth.

She sucked in a ragged breath, dragging her sleeve across her brow as if that could wipe away more than sweat. Her chest rose and fell too quick, too shallow, but she ground her teeth against the panic clawing at her ribs. She’d seen worse. She’d patched worse.

Still—God, it hurt. And for a split second she felt stupid, reckless. Charging a caster head-on with a bat—what the hell was she thinking? Marcus’s voice flickered in her skull like an echo: “Don’t you ever run blind into fire, Evie. You’re no good to anyone dead.”

Her throat tightened. She forced it down.

Locke’s HUD-lit silhouette cut through the mist, and she caught the sound of his rifle barking somewhere to her flank. Yumi’s blade had already torn the mage apart, and the mist itself seemed to recoil. Evie exhaled, slow, ragged, forcing her boots under her again.

She hissed as she straightened, shifting her grip on the bat, trying to ignore the hot slickness of blood down her side.

“Not my brightest play…” she muttered to no one in particular, her voice hoarse."We all good? Regroup and move forward?" She called out to the others in the mist.

The moment the fog cleared, Locke’s eyes went wide. He safeties and lowers his weapon IMMEDIATELY. Then he takes it all in. The condition of the team isn’t great. By the end of this first encounter, armor is sundered, and there are wounded among them.

His heart sinks when he lays eyes on how much blood is leaking from Evie’s wounds. He rushes to her side, holstering his weapon in place above his jump-kit as he does. He takes a knee beside her, checking her over. When he hears her say, “Not my brightest play,” he manages a tiny bemused smirk… but it’s still tinged with deep concern.

He sighs softly and speaks. ”Guess we both learned some important lessons today. Talk to me, Evie. What can I do to help?” His expression conveys a mix of worry and compassion, sapphire pools shimmering with otherwise controlled and managed emotion.

He had almost lost his new friend and teammate here. In any other situation, he might have had a better lid on the raging ache in his heart. But this isn’t the Frontier War… This is a different reality altogether. He’s only got three friends in this world. One is his Lord and Savior, one is silent and in dire need of repair, and one now kneels wounded before him.

He’s praying intensely to the former deep down. They’ll need all the help they can get in this labyrinthian hell… He quickly unpacks the bandages in his pack, prepping them for Evie’s use.

Heat climbed the bones of his shins; steam shouldered up from the pool and curled hard around his calves, warm enough to sting. It smelled like wet lime and vinegar under old stone, sharp, caustic, clean in a way that didn’t belong here. The fog kinked. It didn’t just thin; it kinked, like fabric snagging on a nail, and pulled back in a rough ring.

He almost laughed the air out of himself. A tight, startled sound punched his teeth. “It worked,” he told the glass grit pricking his palm, told the staff buzzing against his shoulder. “It actually…”

Silver cut the world in half.

A circle of motion where the mist had been, the scythe’s arc precise enough to make geometry jealous, and then the caster came apart as silently as he’d arrived. No speech. No curse. Just a body becoming water, sliding away between the carved faces and their endless tears. It was so clean it felt indecent, like a secret performed in public.

Aramis’ grin held a moment longer than it should have, then softened and tilted. He let it go. His draft had made a hole. Her steel had ended the fight. Those were different truths that lived beside each other without arguing.

The ring of clarity widened another pace on the back of the last bubbles. With it came everything his fog had been keeping from him: the medic half-kneeling, one hand sunk into the ruff of her dog to hold him back as bright ribbons spun off her forearm and hip; the armored rifleman dropping to one knee beside her, visor dead, real eyes bright and human and worried; the dwarf standing like a broken anvil, soaked, armor in tatters, chest heaving, still ready to swing at anything that dared breathe wrong.

He looked down at himself, sleeves damp to the elbow, lenses beaded with condensation, hands uncut. The steam hissed around his boots like a creature pleased with itself. The reaction ran well. The push was right. The secondary destabilization? Partial, at best. He replayed the chain without meaning to: hydration heat was adequate; expansion front reached maybe ten feet; but without a lattice to carry it, the effect broke on the first obstruction and eddied uselessly at the edges. The sorrow carrier still hung in the far air like smoke that refused to be a fire.

“Not enough,” he said softly, no self-reproach in it, just measurement. He could feel the numbers waiting for paper: less acetate next time; swap the primer for something wetter; stitch a mana frame through the vapor so it doesn’t lose cohesion when it meets resistance.

A movement dragged his attention back outward, the scythe-bearer straightening from a brief, private flinch, pale around the mouth as she rinsed the blood from her face. He looked away on purpose, gave her the grace of not seeing it, and wiped his own lenses with the heel of his wrist. When he looked again, the rifleman was already laying out bandage, the medic’s jaw set hard against the edges of pain she didn’t have a spare hand to acknowledge. The dog pressed close, torn between orders and instinct.

Aramis planted the butt of his staff and let it hum until the tremor left his fingers. Pride and relief came in the same breath, and in the next breath the scale of the room put its hand on his shoulder and nudged: you helped; they bled. Both were true.

He stepped once into the cleaner air his concoction had bought and let himself have the smallest smile, crooked, careful. “Good start. Next time, we will do it properly.”

He angled the staff across his body, the old student’s posture settling over him, eyes moving, mind already drafting margins. Phase support, not centerpiece. Keep the path open, keep the people breathing, give the blades and bullets a lane. The new passage yawned ahead, mist tugging from its throat like the breath of a sleeping beast.

Aramis tightened his grip, glanced once toward the scythe’s last glint, once toward the pair at the waterline, and found the center of himself again.

“Stronger.” he said, more about himself than anything else, pitched to no one and to all of them at once.

Evie hissed when Locke’s hand brushed one of the deeper cuts, the sting flaring sharp. She caught his wrist with a blood-slick palm and shook her head.

“Easy, soldier. I’ve got me.” Her voice was rough but steady—hoarse from the fight, but laced with grit.

She slung her pack off one shoulder, fingers fumbling through the mess inside until they closed around a small glass vial. The potion’s liquid shimmered faintly amber in the torchlight, flecked with gold sediment that swirled when she uncorked it. Without hesitation, she tipped it back and drank.

The taste burned like bad whiskey and antiseptic, but the ache in her ribs eased almost instantly. Her breathing evened out, and the bleeding along her hip slowed to a trickle as the herbal cocktail took hold. She rolled her neck once, testing her weight before smirking faintly at Locke.

“I'll be fine Locke. Let's just get the team together and move forward.”

Roscoe pressed close, his fur damp against her leg, mismatched eyes scanning the fog ahead. Evie crouched, brushing her hand over his back. “Good boy. Still with me, huh?”

Then she stood—slow, deliberate, her jacket clinging heavy with water. Her gaze swept over the others: Yumi pale but composed, Aramis steadying his staff, Locke kneeling but alive. They were battered, but they were still standing.

“Alright,” she called, voice cutting through the echoing chamber. “Everyone sound off. Patch yourselves if you can. Hydrate if you’ve got it. We move in two.”

Her eyes tracked toward the tunnel yawning ahead, mist curling out from its mouth like a living thing. She adjusted her grip on her bat and started walking.

“Target’s still Kavros. Guild wants him alive if we can swing it. Non-lethal first, lethal if we’re outta options.”

---

Actions
1. [Healing Potion] - [Healing] F, [Medicine] F: Character drinks a potion and heals themself for 1hp Grade F 0 Post cool down

OOC: moving ahead. this is the guy you were sent to find
mentions: @supamusu@Moonberry@JonTheArchivist @Ducksworth @ImaginedBird



The time blurred together in the twisting dark. Had it been hours or days?

The path beneath their feet wound through chambers of stone that bled water from every seam. Faces carved into the walls watched them pass, their empty eyes filled with faint light. Sometimes the corridors seemed to breathe, narrowing as if the labyrinth itself grew restless. Food soured quicker than it should have, and the torches burned low, the air thick with damp and the faint sweetness of the lingering mist.

They slept where they could. Sometimes under dripping arches, sometimes in alcoves filled with fallen statuary. The silence pressed close. In dreams, voices whispered from the water. In waking, their echoes answered back.

By the time they reached the heart of the maze, the air had changed. The stillness had a pulse, slow and measured, as if the labyrinth had a heartbeat of its own. A final corridor opened before them, leading to a room bathed in reflections.

The chamber was wide and low, its floor a mirror of black glass that rippled with the faintest touch. Pillars rose from the surface, covered in runes that pulsed faintly like veins of molten silver. Every wall reflected every movement, endless versions of themselves watching from all sides. At the center stood a throne that seemed carved from the same mirrored stone, its back spiraling upward in unnatural curves.

Mist pooled beneath the throne, and from it, a figure took shape. The water shimmered upward into the likeness of a man. Calm faced, regal, and wrong in a way that made the skin crawl. Like a thug that took the time to cleanup that morning. His voice came soft and cold, echoing through the mirrored walls.

“So. You’ve come this far.” His tone carried the faint amusement of a predator already full. “Tell me… what is it you seek in my house, if not the gift that keeps the weak from breaking?”

The mist stirred again, shapes forming along the water’s surface. Hands. Faces. The faint glint of eyes just beneath the mirrored floor. The air felt charged, as if the reflections themselves were waiting for one wrong answer.

The figure smiled, faint and sharp.
“Speak carefully. The walls remember every lie.”