Dyr'a's lips tightened, in frustration as well as annoyance. "Of course I know what I'm doing," she snapped back at Illaria.

She thrust another pick into the garden door's lock and cursed as it slipped out. Her hands were shaking, slick with sweat as she fumbled on the ground for the needle-thin pick. She put it down to shock. Sure, her father had trained her well in the finer points of silent violence. Applying it in a melee setting was a completely different story. And she had a spectator, which she never enjoyed.

This wasn't working. The apprentice was too high-strung and too nervous for the calm, stoic challenge of the tumblers.

Right, then. There was more than one way to play this game. Not as pretty, perhaps, but effective.

Laying her hand on the planks around the lock, she let the feeling of the wood grain seep into her fingers until they became the wood, fiber and weathered sap. A tightly-focused burst of sheer concentration wrenched the wood out, leaving a six-inch-diameter hole around the lock. She pulled it out, and the door swung free, clearing the way out of the castle to freedom.

No guards yet. From the deep shadow of the wall, Dyr'a waved at the group emerging from the kitchens, motioning them to hurry.

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<center>Nothing but the Rain</center>

Airithnu had been standing in front of Vos when Cirron knocked him over. She too was knocked over, taken out by her knees. She quickly recovered, though, and offered a hand to both Vos and Cirron as the group was escaping.

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Just became a college freshman; be on sparingly

Thankful for the freedom, Cirron stepped out from the courtyard. He wanted nothing more than to leave the oppressive shadow cast by the Wyrmlord's bastion, but quickening his pace on this precarious foothold was tantamount to suicide. The sunset did little to warm the barren mountain peaks and jagged palisades falling from the narrow path. It was bordered on one side by a cliff, atop which perched the fortress, and on the other side by a sheer drop to the rocks below, where lay a few skeletons, vestige of former fugitives and forgotten by the world. The druid shuddered and, bracing himself on his staff against the frigid wind threatening to knock him over, followed close behind Illaria.

That was before Illaria jerked and and murmured something under her breath. Alarmed, Cirron put a tentative hand on her shoulder. "Are you all right?" The path only allowed room for single file, and he was the last one in line. Was it just his imagination, or was the wind waxing more frigid with every step...?

Shadows fell over them.

Cirron looked up in time to sight the winged monstrosities, hovering above them, silhouetted against the darkening skies. Slender and reptilian, they wheeled and shrieked their hatred. Scales glinted. Sunlight filtered through membranal wings. One of them uttered a fell screech and dove. He glimpsed talons raking for his head, before he brought his staff up, bringing it slamming upwards and across.

Suddenly mindless of the precarious mountain path, he cried to the others, "Run!"

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Carlina, thankful for the escape Dyr'a provided, followed close behind her as they descended on the narrow mountain path. At first, Carlina thought it was fine. Compared to the events that had unfolded earlier, it would be fantastic but then someone behind her screamed, "Run!" amidst the shrieks of an unknown flying beast. Beasts, to be accurate.

Terribly alarmed, for a vampire, Carlina unhooked her crossbow from her back and began to load it. In her wanderings, she had never seen these creatures nor heard anything about them. She crouched behind a rock as she waited for one of those winged monsters to come into range. Then a giant roar that could not have come from the winged beasts. She peered over the rock to see a giant humanoid pick up Illaria with a hint of satisfaction and fascination. She must have done something to hurt him badly, thought Carlina because the beast lost his grip on her and moaned painfully. A short gasp escaped from Carlina's mouth as Illaria fell ten feet onto hard rock.

She sprang from behind the rock and stood defensively over Illaria, guarding her from the giant and the winged beast as she recovered from the fall.

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I was cured all right.

[school's starting tomorrow so I won't be able to get on during the week if at all. just thought I should drop in and tell you. you don't have to wait for me. if you have any plot ideas, feel free.]

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Adellis's immediate reaction to being set upon by monsters - the likes of which she couldn't put a name to - was to fling up her hands as one swooped low over her and run full-pelt as fast as she could. This worked rather well until she skidded to a halt, almost falling, and felt her gaze fall down, down, down to a dizzying height. Arms windmilling to keep her balance, the slight, unarmored and completely weaponless half-elf whirled to find a hideous winged thing land behind her. Her hands flew to her mouth, indigo eyes huge and petrified and mind snatching hopelessly at the well of power beyond its reach.

It made a strange cawing sound and sprang forward, towards her. Even as she stepped back and felt only air beneath her foot, Adellis was aware of talons closing around her forearms where she'd instinctively flung them up to protect her head. The next moment she was in air, terrifyingly aware of the sheer drop below. Even so, it was beyond her to control her wild, spasmic attempts to break free. The creature dropped several feet through air and this time Adellis screamed, a high keening cry.

A violent jerk of her arms and talons loosened with a squawk. Adellis curled herself into a ball as they let go, knowing she was dead - dead -

Rock knocked the wind so completely out of her that colors and stars swam before her eyes, tear-filled in her efforts to gulp air. Adellis forced herself upright and the world spun. She stumbled and nearly fell, catching herself on a low point of rock. Something sparkling and white glittered in her peripheral vision and Adellis turned groggily, reaching out to touch it.

BOOM. Something hit her with such force that she stumbled and fell to her hands and knees, clinging to consciousness by only a thread. Slowly her vision cleared, and with it came that relentless clawing for the power she couldn't reach.

Except she could. Adellis stared at the white flame dancing from her fingertips and whirled, looking from the smooth point of crystal-tipped rock to the cliff above, where the rest were still fighting for their lives. This would give them their powers back!

"I found it!" she shrieked, hurling a globe of white lighting at the nearest monster and screeching at the top of her voice. "Look! Down here!"

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(@ Ellie: Dyr'a is actually five. Due to the short lifespan of the shvat this is roughly equivalent to twenty.)

At the cry of Run!" Dyr'a scrambled for cover, no questions asked. As the enormous black shadows swooped low, obsuring the dying sun, she found a space behind a boulder that offered reasonable shelter while she strung her recurve bow. Nocking an arrow to the string, the sorcerer's apprentice drew it back to her ear, aiming for the chest of one of the half-human monstrosities.

She reconsidered. Taking the reptilian hide into account, her arrow would probably just bounce off. Dyr'a retargeted, sighting on an eye, and loosed. Her arrow hung from the eye, dangling like a splinter with pretentions to lethality. Bad.

Now what? She couldn't give her arrows any more force than was in her bow and arm .... Unless... Dyr'a squinted through the clouds of cliffside dust that the creatures' wings had raised. Drew, fired, at the eye again. With a thought, she ripped open the air in front of the arrow, straight to the eye. The weapon rushed forward into the vacuum ten times as fast as it had traveled before, the air behind filling with a small thunderclap. The arrow dove into the eye.

Dyr'a didn't see what happened next. The half-elven woman screamed something about power - she had somehow ended up further down the cliff - and most of the company scrambled to hear her. Dyr'a was about to follow, but her plans were interrupted.

With a feral wail that must have wakened the dead in six nations, another of the dragonspawn dug its talons into her exposed back. It had made its dive while her attention had been elsewhere, and now she screamed, loud and long; half in sheer pain, half in absolute terror, and completely in surprise as the ground dropped away, the creature's claws buried in her back.

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<center>Nothing but the Rain</center>

Methadox swung his staff and, more by luck than by design, hit one of the flying creatures squarely in the face. The beast shrieked in pain and retreated momentarily, only to be replaced by another larger one. He was aware of sharp talons digging into his shoulder and lashed out reflexively with his dagger, only barely managing to free himself in time. These creatures - he hadn't a name for them yet, as he'd never seen anything remotely similar to them before - seemed innumerable. It was as if for every one he struck down, another two appeared, all the more enraged and raring to fight.

Suddenly, a ball of white lightning shot up from below the nearby cliff, intercepting one of the monsters and killing it on impact. Methadox frowned. That wasn't right. None of them had their powers currently, so how....Fending off another flying creature with a sweep of his staff, he ran to the edge of the cliff and looked down. There, at the base of the cliff, the half-elf - Adellis - was hurling lightning at the creatures with surprising alacrity. And a short distance behind her was...

A shrine. White and shining like a beacon of hope, were Methadox one to apply such descriptions to objects. He wasn't. But, nonetheless, he had to admit that he'd seen few more welcome sights, though it would have been far more welcome on the other side of the cliff.

"Shrine!" he shouted tersely to the others, gauging the distance. He immediately determined that it was much further than he would care to jump, even with magic and without an injured leg. He'd simply have to find his own way down.

Adellis could hardly see past a haze of white flame, blinded by the explosion of her own power. The frantic grasping she'd done in order to regain it had resulted in a nearly uncontrollable burst once she actually did. This had its good points, one of them being that several charred carcasses of winged monsters plummeted to the rocks upon chancing to stray too close to the suddenly empowered half-elf. But Adellis could see white blurring before her eyes, and hear sound fading to a distant roar, and it required all her concentration to remain halfway conscious under the immense amount of power she was channeling.

"The crystal," she panted, without breath to shout, and whirled as wings beat behind her. She could catch a glimpse, faintly, of Illaria's face through a white haze, but not comprehend what she was saying. "Touch the crystal!" Adellis shrieked, to nobody in particular, and grasped at that thread of consciousness.

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((Wow! I missed a lot. Can some one fill me in please?))

Let's see--I'm not sure where you left off, so basically, everyone got out of their cells, but were then pinned down by several fire and water elementalists. A good mage named Gorm then showed up and took them out, everyone escaped with him leading them, meeting up with Valera's character on the way, then they lost Gorm to a Fire elementalist, though he told them to reach the shrine. Then they escaped the fortress/prison thing, were running along a mountain path, and were attacked by weird humanoid flying beasties. Basically everyone's been clawed by them, and some are currently in the air with them, and Melda's character has reached the shrine and gotten her powers back, so she's blasting flying beasties, and everyone else is trying to reach the shrine (it's a good ways below them, and they can't exactly recreate the tumble that took Melda's character there in safety). And Ellie's character has also reached the shrine in his last post.

I think that's about it right now.

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Carlina heard someone cry out, "I found it! It's down here!" and raced towards the source of the voice, wondering what he had found. She scanned for the source of the voice and then had to dive out of the way of a raging white fireball. At first she thought the mages from the fortress had pursued them but closer examination revealed that it was one of her accomplices. She also saw Illaria touch a shrine that was lodged in the cliff face. Putting two and two together, she realised that by touching the shrine, you could regain your magical powers.

Eagerly she climbed down the cliff face, hoping that the dragonmen wouldn't take notice of her. Her hopes were in vain. One of them, who had been eying her carefully, dove down towards her unprotected back. She tried to unsheathed her knife but that became impossible when you were climbing down a cliff. Instead she tried to dodge its claws and nearly did. But the claws raked her quiver that contained all of her bolts, sending them down to oblivion. She swore and personally made sure she was the one who killed that particular beast. Then a small pain at her back told her that the claws also ripped a small part of her skin. She grumbled more as she descended down as fast as she could. Finally she found the altar just as the beast wheeled around for another attack. She leaped over a crippled dragonman that Illaria had struggled with and with her eyes bursting with glee, touched the crystal. Her magic, that had before only returned in small amounts, flooded her mind and she quickly finished off the crippled dragonman by freezing his blood.

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I was cured all right.

Threng groaned much to sarcastically for the dire situation. "Flying beast men again?" He wondered out loud, still letting his sarcasm take the edge off his fear. A flying, winged...beasty...flying thing came diving at him again. Threng held his knife at the ready, but the beast twirled away before Threng could strike. The earth elementalist growled. He had been slashed, bitten, clubbed, and taunted. The most damage he had inflicted was a nick to the beast's hide, and even that almost jerked him off the cliff. There was just so much stone here! If only he had his magic. The shrine below seemed to have the power to give it back, but there was no way to get to it. He glanced to the side, alarmed to see one of his cell mates hurtleing towards the ground, while fighting a dragonman. He noted, however, that she had gotten the upper hand and had ridden him somewhat safely to the terra below. That inspired a daring, insane, and all around Threng-ish idea. He picked up a large stone by his side. Even without his magic it felt natural, like an extention of his arm. As a dragonman flew past, he threw the stone, hard enough to get the thing's attention, but not so hard as to kill it. In a typical reaction to being hit with a stone on the head, the dragon-man gained altitude, then dove. Threng barely missed being clawed, but wasted no time in leaping off the cliff. He caught the dragon-man as it pulled up, hitting the best square in the back. The noise it made was anyhting but pleasant. The beast tried to roll and dislodge his rider, but Threng held on knowing his life depended on it. Of course, he was quite a bit larger than Illaria, and her dragon-man did appear to be quite a bit larger.....Threng realized the ground approaching at a very fast velocity, even though the dragon-man had given up his attemp to throw Threng, and was now flapping vainly. They both hit the ground with a thud, though Threng noted that the dragon-man made more of a splat. He was shaken, but not broken, not dead. He lurched to the shrine, grasping the fisrt part he could reach. He felt the magic flood back into him. This was good. This was very good.

Adellis was vaguely aware of shapes plummeting to the ground around her, though how they escaped the uncontrollable surges of magic that seemed to be exploding out of her, she didn't know. There wasn't much space for thinking in the white haze that obscured her vision and somehow also obscured much coherent thinking. She was no longer hurling spheres of lightning, just trying to stay conscious under a staggering surge of power. Her diamond-tipped staff was hot to the touch, but she couldn't persuade herself to let go of it, only clench her fingers tighter and tighter.

Through the veil of white surrounding her, Adellis could sense other bursts of power regained. She fell forward onto her knees, now trying to stem the flow of lighting crackling from her fingertips rather than reach for it. It disappeared all at once, leaving the air hot and crackling, and her staff fell from her fingers to clatter on rock. Even with the magic gone she felt dizzy...and the white haze wasn't gone, it was coming back...

The thread of consciousness grew thinner...and thinner...and thinner...until it was barely there, just an imagined connection to a world where Adellis didn't feel lightheaded and dizzy. It dissolved entirely and she toppled, crumpling to the ground with one hand outstretched toward the fallen staff. There was a faint burst of lightning into her mind before it all went black in a roll of imagined thunder.

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OOC: Sorry for not posting recently, I've been sick. I'll post tomorow, I'm just letting you know I'm still here.

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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.

Methadox finally came to a part of the mountainside that wasn't a straight drop. It was still a fairly sharp incline, but anything was better than the sheer cliff. Still using his staff and his dagger to fend off their relentless attackers, he braced himself and slid down the slope, the wound on his leg protesting the entire way. Finally he came to a stop - if a bit less gracefully than he would have liked - and whirled around, ramming the end of his staff into the stomach of one of the creatures. If he could just get to...

Methadox ducked, only barely missing the sharp talons that had been aiming for his head. Shrine. Right. Slicing at the wing of yet another airborne opponent, he ran as quickly as he could over to where several of the others had already gathered. One sweeping glance over the situation told him all he needed to know, and he hurriedly placed a hand on the crystal. The immediate impact of it sent him reeling, his vision blacking out for a moment, then slowly clearing even as his head continued to spin.

Above them, one of the creatures spotted Adellis's limp form on the ground and immediately recognized easy prey. Letting out a piercing cry, it dove in for the kill, closer and closer until it came to an abrupt halt, ricocheting off of some unseen barrier and falling stunned to the ground.

Smiling grimly, Methadox flexed his hand experimentally, then whirled around to meet his next opponent.