Threng readied himself for a charge, but the beast passed him by and lept at Maq. The mage seemed to be fending the monster off somewhat, but this fight called for team work. Threng shouted, and baraged the creature with stones. They hit the creature soudly, and the trennaug was clearly hurt, but they didn't have the deadly effect he was hoping for. Instead they made the creature turn towards him and growl. With large bounds the creature made its way to Threng.

As the beast charged the other way with the mage after it, Ayden turned and ran the other way. Well, running wasn't really the word for it. It was actually closer to a trot, if it was even that fast. With the mage over his shoulder, Ayden couldn't even go as fast as he normally would when sore and bruised and bloodied from a tumble down a hillside.

Not looking over his shoulder, and instead trusting that he would hear the creature returning, Ayden hurried as fast as he could back to the camp. The distance was blissfully small, and he arrived only a few minutes later--still able to clearly hear the roars of the beast, which sounded uncomfortably closer than they had a few minutes earlier. Stumbling into the cave with his burden, he tried setting the mage down lightly, only to overbalance at the last instant. Rather than landing his few-hundred pounds on top of a smaller fellow who already was in somewhat dire straights, Ayden managed to twist so that he fell on the stony ground beside him.

Ow, he thought.

"There's a creature out there," he said as he regained his feet. "I don't know what it is, but two of your mages are out there fighting it, and it doesn't look like they're doing very well. And it sounds like it's coming closer."

Indeed, the ear-splitting roars were drawing nearer. Turning back towards the entrance to their shelter, Ayden lifted his sword in a basic defensive posture, uncertain of just where the creature might be or where it might attack from. As he reached the entrance, he saw it, first charging one mage, and then charging the other--each time, getting a little closer to ripping off vital parts of the target before the other one managed to get it to charge the other directions. There were at least half a dozen spots on its hide where the flesh was charred and blackened from fireballs, and dark mottled bruises in many other places, but the creature didn't seem slowed down by them much, if any.

With a gulp, Ayden went to help. It was probably only going to get him killed, or at least hurt some more, but the mages didn't have hauberks, so at least he would be better defended than they were, and then they could concentrate on wounding it.

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(lol, Ellie, way to renege ... what college are you going to, btw? k, sorry to cut this short, ppl, but we do need to discuss stuff - we have ten pages of straight action already )

Through the confusion and violence with the Trennaug, Dyr'a had escaped the lizard-creature's notice; perhaps it was because she was neither hurling flame nor pointing steel at it, even though she had followed it. She appreciated this oversight on its part. However, this might not last long. The monster was now in the presence of more wizards, but so far it appeared to have an extraordinarily resilient physiology, and more than a few aggressive tendancies.

Physiology was the key. So Quinlan Vos had pontificated in his characteristically offhand style. Efficiency was everything, the experienced war-mage had explained, maximum lethality with a minimum of effort. The body of an enemy was an infinitely complex machine. Throw a pebble in the cogs, and then step back and watch the machine grind to a halt.

Closing her eyes in concentration, the shvat reached out for the trennaug, identifying various bits of its anatomy. It would have been nice if she could have performed this more quickly, and under more stress, but she had been an apprentice - a highly receptive apprentice, true - for little more than a year. Ah, here was what she was looking for - the arteries leading to the brain.

Dyr'a coalesced the blood, forming a tiny clot, and remained in a purely observatory capacity as the clot rushed into the brain - and stuck, forming a plug to perhaps a quarter of the brain. It was more than enough. In a matter of seconds, that portion, deprived of oxygen, shut down. The trennaug's eyes rolled back in its head and it swayed on its feet, then collapsed. She felt the life leave its body.

Reproducing her handfire, Dyr'a looked about at the chaos instigated by the beast. Kicking the firewood into a more respectable pile, she knelt by the fire itself to warm her hands. The night's chill was more apparent to her slight frame. "So," she ventured. "What's next on the agenda? Or do we need to make an agenda?"

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<center>Nothing but the Rain</center>

Maq was just on the verge of getting his neck split open by dirty claws bloodied by the blood of multiple individuals when the creature just went down. He was hardly surprised when he saw it fall, dazed as he was by the last few charges. He let the flames on his sabres disappear, since it was draining him further, tapping into reserves. He swayed, and only narrowly managed not to fall facedown on the dirt, and instead caught himself on his arms. Then he fell facedown on the dirt, breathing hard. His chest had another couple decorations on it, and they were very red. The muscles in his right arm were torn and bloody, and some parts of blood tainted bone showed through. His leg ripped, the side of his head a mass of clotting bloof, and his shoulders were slashed as if cut by his own sabres. He felt adrenaline leave him and tried to prepare against the wracking pain he knew would come.

And know what? It didn't help. He clenched his teeth in an effort not to scream. He was bleeding to death, or will be soon, at this rate. He was so exhausted that he couldn't even force his eyes open. Sweat and dirt mixed with his own blood and ran in rivulets down his face and back, causing more pain that the sting brought.

He barely registered something about an agenda, which he took to mean a plan, which he hoped they had one, which he hoped he would live to see/hear about it, which he hoped that someone might come and heal him so he would live to see/hear about it. At least the fight was over. He felt darkness clamping down on his thoughts, and thought no more as conciousness left him.

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Carlina had just arrived when the rest of the party brought down the trennaug. She sniffed and regretted immediately. Its blood was incredibly foul, not even worth considering drinking. She sighed and said, "Agenda? I have no idea, really. We'll have to wait for the big bosses to make a decision."

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I was cured all right.

Adellis had jerked up suddenly, expression abruptly wary, when she picked up the faint noises of a scuffle. It came as less of a surprise to her when the hideously ugly creature burst into the clearing outside the cave mouth, already stumbling, and seconds later crumpled to the ground. She let out a breath, and realized her muscles were tensed as if to run. It took a conscious effort to relax and she still skirted the beast's carcass uneasily upon venturing outside.

There were significantly more important things to attend to than a dead trennaug, however, and the most pressing one captured Adellis's attention completely the moment she laid eyes on the prone Maq. Even before she could stumble over the uneven ground in her haste to reach him, she was assessing the damage with the same sense of impending dread that had rushed through her earlier at the sight of Dyr'a's mangled body. The white light took an effort to summon this time, more than it had before, but Adellis hardly noticed.

Only when Maq was no longer visibly injured did she sit back on her heels, panting a little, and survey him in some trepidation. He was still motionles on the ground, but she could feel a reassuring pulse. Another few breaths made her realize her muscles were tense enough to be cramped, and she stood to swivel and run her eyes over the dead trennaug.

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OOC: Sorry for not posting in this, I sorta forgot about it. But not I'll try to post here again.

IC: Vos arrived on the scene of the battle slightly before its conclusion, but he stayed out of the way as in his condition he would be more of a hinderance than an asset. As his apprentice, Dyr'a, dispatched the trennaug with very little exertion; he nodded his silent aproval, he would commend her when there was time, but right now there wasn't.

As Illaria cut off her sentence midway through, Vos looked at her inquisitivly. "The agenda is to.... what?"

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Four Gods wait on the windowsill,
Where once eight Gods did war and will,
And if the Gods themselves may die,
What does that say for you and I?

Now, three Gods wait on the windowsill
Where one God's blood was lately spilled
While black tongues lap at the spreading pool
And build the strength they need to rule.

"My agenda is to follow the road until I find some form of civilization, where I will then restock and hopefully rest," Methadox said from where he stood at the edge of the group. "Beyond that, I am not certain. Perhaps I will journey to Ammarindar as Gorm suggested, perhaps I will not, but that is my road. Whether it is your road as well is your own decision."

The beast swung a clawed fist at Threng, catching him on the cheek. Threng rallied with fist sized stone to the chest, throwing the beast off balance. He prepared to kill the trennaug (the earth around him was brimming with his magic, ready for his command) when the beast simply dropped dead. Threng groaned. "Well that's anticlimatic" He complained. "I almost had him" He went over to Maq, but was surprised when the mage collapsed. Rushing to his side Threng noted the blood soaking the ground around him. Threng tried to stem the flow, but before he could make any head way the healer mage had arrived. She seemed to take no notice of Threng, who slunk slowly away to let her do her work. Flesh knitted togeather like it had never been severed. He didn't move, but she seemed at ease.

Adellis straightened, halfway turning to look over her shoulder at those gathered around the fire. Maq's chest was rising and falling regularly, so for lack of any way to move him, she left him there, returning in time to catch Methadox's last words. "We can't go back to the Guild?" she inquired, a little bemused - and obviously not having quite understood that it was the guild who had betrayed them. "Where is Ammarindar?"

She did manage to pronounce the name right this time, and sat to pull her cloak closer around her shoulders and edge closer to the fire.

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Dyr'a inclined her head, frostily, at Illaria's comment, but noticed the woman's reaction to the hawk with interest. Was she frightened of birds? No... those movements were not those of fear. A bird at night that was by nature no evening flyer; strange indeed. Perhaps a messenger of the mage?

Her thoughts were distracted by the healer's questions. "The Guild? Back to those who'd take your life? If you're going back to them, leave me hear in the wilderness. Death from exposure or those dragonmen would be more gentle." Ammarindar... she'd heard that name before in connection with her father's work. "Ammarindar - that's on the other side of the continent, isn't it?"

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<center>Nothing but the Rain</center>

Carlina calmly stood aside and listened to the rest of her party converse among themselves. But a name kept appearing: Ammarindar. Why did it sound familiar? She racked her brains for something. It wasn't usual for her to forget something this easily. Then Dyr'a said that it was on the other side of the continent. Those words brought a flood of memories. She came from the other side of the continent, she was created at the other side of the continent. And Ammarindar must have been.......

"It's a fortress," she declared. "It serves as a protection to the neighbouring towns."

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I was cured all right.

((Beautiful banner and avvie, Caunion ))

"Sounds like a good place to go then" Threng added. He'd propped Maq against a tree on the off chance Adellis had left blood in the lungs: if Maq couph it up on his back, it could choke him. "A stone roof and walls sounds like a very good place"

Methadox did not reply immediately, instead focusing on stilling his mind. Mental discipline was something that he sought both out of necessity as an illusionist and out of desire to retain some shred of sanity, as the present environment was hardly conducive to peace of mind. After a few minutes, he conjured the image of a map in the air before him. "We are here," he said, vaguely indicating the Mountains of Dereksh. Then, moving his finger to the other side of the map, he added, "Ammarindar is here. It is shelter, but it is shelter on the opposite end of the continent. For now, I am content to locate one of the villages in the foothills."

Cirron had been sitting cross-legged before the campfire, meditating and trying to regain his strength, when the feral roar echoed through the night and Ayden came stumbling into the cave. The strange warrior was shouting something about fighting, but by the time Cirron snapped out of his trance and went to look, all he saw was a complacent Dyr'a and a very dead carcass - what he assumed to be the instigator of the scuffle. Oh, and injured companions. Again. The worst of them was probably his fellow druid, who lay prone on the cave floor, blood glistening on his chest.

Wincing at the not yet healed pain in his shoulders, Cirron knelt beside Dharron and gently rolled him over. He couldn't stifle a small gasp. Courtesy of the creature, all that remained of Dharron's chest was a mass of blood. The lacerations gouged by the claws were still distinguishable as canyons of crimson glistening in the firelight. What monstrosity was capable of this - a single swipe that left a man's chest in tatters? Sympathy wrenched at him, though he had no idea if his strength would carry him through another healing. If I faint, at least the warrior can carry me, he thought wryly. Closing his eyes, he fanned his fingers over Dharron's chest.

It was the most taxing heal he'd yet tried. When Dharron's flesh finally knitted back together, Cirron had collapsed, panting and detachedly watching stars dance in his vision. His fellow druid had been closer to death than he'd anticipated. Days of malnourishment in the miserable prison had left him exhausted, deprived of the mental resolution to work his magic. Nothing sleep and meditation couldn't remedy, but from the look of things, neither of those would be close in coming.

A bit of ruddiness had returned to Dharron's cheeks, which meant Cirron had done something right. He would have normally experienced some iota of pride for the difficult healing, but his mind was incapable of much emotion then and there. He gritted his teeth, forced himself into a sitting position, and turned his gaze upwards at the map Methadox had conjured. It took a moment to register what it was, and it took even longer to assimilate the distance from here to Ammarindar. A sizable distance.

"When Gorm died..." he began, before realizing he was mumbling and slurring his words. He cleared his throat and tried again. "When Arant Gorm died, he gave me this." He reached into his pocket and extracted the ring, holding it up for his companions to see. The emerald's multiple facets gleamed, and as he raised it, he caught a flash of... what? It appeared as though it was in the gem itself... Bemused, he inspected it more carefully. There it was. A rune of some sort, engraved into the emerald. He glanced up at the others. "Does this symbol look familiar to any of you?"

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Carlina stepped forward to Cirron to get a closer look at the ring he had in his hand. When she saw, she grimaced and said, "This ring is familiar. Very familiar, in fact." She didn't want to elaborate but she knew her companions will make her. Not if she could help it. She spend a good amount of time trying to stifle away all of her memories involving that rune and Ammarindar.

_________________

I was cured all right.