<Thank you, everyone, keep it up, we're going to make it!>
<Mina, you can do illusions, yes? Try to keep them off us. Hide us, confuse them, whatever. They're coming for us!>
<I'm going for the kill.>
<And make sure that song continues!> (Assist actions, pls?)
Tie my bat to my wrist using the normal ribbon from Asha, and tie the rubber one around my left ankle, picking up the other end for free movement. Then burn rubber for the top of the stairs, and the witch. Activate Painless if there is nothing that requires facebashing, CC otherwise.
Sing along with Tooru, if possible while running.
[Joy]You rush over to Asha, not stopping to say anything as you tear the rubbery ribbon out of her grip, then leaning down to tie it around your left ankle. While doing that, you try and join in with Tooru's singing, but you don't really know the song, and you're distracted, so you end up just mumbling along with her. You still keep trying to sing, and as soon as you're done tying the rubber ribbon you stand up and turn around, rushing towards the ice staircase as fast as possible. As you get close, the sheer size becomes apparent--the stairway is very steep, and the hill still growing in height as Tooru sings her song. It's enough to block sight of the witch, and much of the sky. You continue up the staircase without stopping to consider that, taking the steps four at a time
while you focus on using your magic to toughen you. The staircase levels out as you near the top, the hill flatter up here, and you regain sight of the witch, who's
much closer now, judging from her size. You continue forward, Tooru following just behind, her magic causing the steps to form almost as fast as you can climb them.
[Joy]The witch's form shifts strangely in the distance, and a moment later, you see a second light separate from her form, rapidly coming closer. You have only a split second to react, and blindly leap to the right in an effort to dodge. An instant later, you feel an impact in your legs, and a massive shock. You're sent flying back through the air, spinning chaotically through the air, too fast to keep track of what's happening. You collide with a skeleton in midair, its body crumbling in an instant, the ribbons tangling around you as you continue spinning through the air. Seconds later you collide with the ground, faceplanting hard into the ash. You lay there disoriented, your mind still spinning from the sudden trip. You can't feel your legs, or your backpack, but you can feel your hands. There's... damage, most of your skin is burned or something, but you can still get up.
But when you try to push yourself up, your body pivots at the bottom of your ribcage. Your legs are gone. So's your stomach. Shit. You're bleeding out, too, you can feel the blood leaking, slowly but surely. Shit shit. You can still see, the mansion is over to your right, but it's a long distance away, and there's a
lot of skeletons circling above it, now. There's some buildings to your left, a little closer, but still too far, and there's skeletons there too. Shitshitshit. The flowers are ahead, close, but you
don't have your legs so you still can't get over there.
Your vision is going black, your body is weakening by the second. Your magic is slowing down your death, and preventing you from experiencing the pain, but you don't have long at all before your body dies. You've never died before. Not without a clone body. You're scared.<Okay.> Tooru didn't send anything much more complex; it was hard to sing and "talk" at the same time, much less with the screeching and being thrown around. She was worried, her back still hurt and her gem was still dark; she was going to run out of magic soon. Still, if they didn't get this witch down, they were all going to die here. . .
Follow everyone in, keep singing. Only attack if I see a perfect opportunity, or I need to do so to save someone. Do my best to evade.
You wait for Alida as she ties a ribbon around her ankle, your eyes constantly flicking between her and the witch in the distance. At any moment she could attack again. Thankfully, Alida finishes quickly, and starts sprinting straight towards the ice hill that your music is creating. You focus on maintaining your song as you follow her up the stairs, though it's not difficult. You don't even watch where you're stepping as you run up the stairs, your feet seeming to know exactly where to step naturally. Instead, you look all around, at the many,
many skeletons flying around, gradually rising into the air. None of them seem to have even noticed you, it would be trivial to shoot them down, but there's
so many. You still hold a talisman in each hand, ready to throw at a moment's notice. As you climb higher, the witch returns to view, and you lock your eyes on her, watching for any attack. She's still too far away to throw talismans at her, but your music is causing the staircase to grow continually, and you're pretty sure she's coming closer, too.
[Joy]
The witch shifts, and you instantly recognize it as an attack. You drop to all fours, instantly halting your forward momentum, then you watch the projectile coming closer, waiting to figure out which direction to go in. A half second before it hits, you dodge left and flatten yourself against the ice, your momentum causing you to slide further. You hear an explosion as the ice changes shape below you, steps cutting into the ice and giving you traction. You get back up to your feet and look around. Alida's gone, probably down on the other side of the hill, and the witch is even closer, though still too far away to throw any attacks at her.
You feel very exposed; if you just stay on the staircase, you'll probably have to dodge another attack or two before the witch is within range.(I wonder who rolled a 1?)
<G-Guys? What happened? I can only, uh... what do you call this magic sense thing? I can only use that...> Mina said through the telepathic link. She couldn't see, feel, hear... nothing with her body. No pain either, though. That was good? Right? Had she... had she-
Then Alida's voice cut in, and she heard Asha too... ok, she was still here. She wasn't... dead then. Right. At least not all dead? <R-Right! Right... I'll try!> She couldn't think about what had happened. If there was any... damage, Asha could heal her, or she could magic everything back in place! S-She had those pictures, after all... she hoped that those had gone to a cloud save or something... b-but it wouldn't be needed. Probably. Alright, that was enough of that.
She might not be able to see with her eyes, but her soul had a respectable range of perception. Could she still help, even like this? She could try...
The obvious answer is Projection. She could... she could hide them, make it so there was rubble where the group was. Maybe she could make some other illusions to confuse the oncoming monsters as to where specifically they were, too... she had to try. And maybe it'd be easier once Asha healed her.
You try and stay calm, focusing on your magic. You can sense Asha and Aleksandra nearby, but Alida and Tooru rush out of your range before you can gather yourself enough to cast anything. So you don't think you could make effective illusions of rubble; you don't even know
where to place the illusion. So you decide to make illusions of people, you've done that before. The area is mostly flat, so you visualize the shapes of Alida and Tooru far away in several directions, all at about the same height as you.
The illusions quickly take shape, and you can sense them in the distance, blind puppets running through the darkness. You continually fiddle with them, touching up their forms as they animate, adjusting their height, hoping they're close enough to the gorund to look real.
While you work, Asha comes close and kneels next to you, putting her hands on your head and going still. Like always, when her healing magic starts working on your body, your senses go haywire, making your body seem fuzzy and indistinct. It's extremely discomforting, not being able to sense your body, but after a couple seconds the effect fades, and your body is whole once again, your vision returned. You immediately start looking around for your illusions, and quickly adjust them all to be closer to the ground--you screwed up and made them too high. One apparently just ran through a wall, and another is
behind a wall, so you adjust their positions so that they're more visible to the witch, hoping they draw fire.
An explosion at the top of the ice hill breaks your concentration, and you look up to see Alida's body--
without legs--go flying into the air, to your right. She collides with one of the flying skeletons, then lands somewhere out of sight, to the north of the mansion. That area is open, she's a sitting duck... you quickly relocate one of your Alida illusions near her, having it jump up in the air and wave its arms, hoping that it's too far away from her to get Alida caught in the blast if the witch targets that one.
Asha turned livid. "M-Mina! It can't be!" She rushed to the lifeless body of the girl, gasping for air.
She took Mina's body in her arms, staring at the gruesome wound. <Mina! Mina! Keep speaking to me! I... I will do something!> Will... will that even work? It worked on a cat, but... but it was still alive. Oh my god, is she breathing? No- She... her body is dead... But she is still here right? It should work- it has to-
Asha used Soothe on Mina.
You get up and rush to Mina's side immediately, dropping to your knees next to her. Her eyes are vacant, and her head... you gingerly take her head in both hands, and pull it away from the wall to inspect how bad she's hurt. You immediately regret that action upon seeing the bloody dent in the back of her skull, and avert your eyes. You take a couple deep breaths, trying not to vomit, and then quickly call on your magic. You relax a little engulfs you as Mina's soul unfolds in front of you; it's in a little better shape than the others' souls, and reminds you that her true self is relatively unharmed. You scan through the network of strands in an instant, quickly recognizing her physical form's head wound as a minor break in a specific strand, and relax further at the reminder about how minor her injury
truly is.
It's simple to let some of your own magic flow in, blue strands reinforcing the small weakness in her green soul. You stop and take a quick look around as your magic leaves her soul, making sure there's nothing else you can do. Worryingly, some of her soul actually seems to be
unwinding even as you watch, the strands disappearing off into the distance, as if something is draining her away. But... you don't think you could fix that, or at least not without causing more damage to her body, and she
needs to move somewhere safer, ASAP. You release your magic.
When you open your eyes, Mina looks perfectly healthy again, clean and fresh. Her eyes are darting around rapidly, looking at her surroundings, concentration evident on her face, but she's not getting up. You look around at your surroundings, and immediately realize why; Mina's creating illusions of Alida and Tooru to distract the witch! You breath a sigh of relief, feeling much safer, but then you jump and nearly fall over when the top of the icehill--now so tall that it obscures the witch--
explodes, a body going flying to the north, hitting and destroying a skeleton in midair before landing somewhere out of sight. You look back up at the top of the hill, spotting Tooru--easily identified by her stark red clothes and hair--but not Alida. Oh no.
You're about to rush over to rescue Alida, where ever she fell, when you notice Aleksandra, standing frozen in fear and staring at the hill. She's hugging the gun to her chest as if it's a comfort pillow or something, clearly terrified. She can't handle this.
((Next update on the 22nd or 23rd. Character locations are below:))
Gold star is Asha/Aleksandra/Mina.
Red star is Alida.
Orange star is Tooru.
Red dots are
flying skeleton unicorn pegasus biped things, virtually mummified with a rainbow of ribbons. Again, exact numbers and positions only for reference. Most are at least one story in the air, many even higher.
Light blue is water that's frozen over, darker blue is the hill which has a staircase etched into it, starting at the dock, and which ends near the middle.
The witch is far away to the west.
Soul Gem: Glowing with a fading light.
Form and location: Medallion, pinned to her left breast.
Age: 14
Hair Color: Salt-stained blonde.
Health: Gone below the ribcage, horribly burned besides.
Inventory: A magically-lengthened club, tied to her arm with one of Asha's ribbons.
Totem: A fishing club.
Stats:
Bravery: Talented~
Joy: Skilled!
Innocence: Amateur...
Purity: Amateur...
Mercy: Skilled!
Creativity: Cursed ;-;
Love: Cursed ;-;
Abilities:
Mobility Lvl2
Close Combat Lvl3+1
Totem Manipulation Lvl2
Berzerker Lvl3 Active; Crippled! (Cheap discount to power use)
Painless Lvl2 Active; Cheap cost per turn!
Effigy Lvl1
Soul Gem: Glowing with a Bright light.
Form and location: Ring, worn on her left ring finger.
Age: 13
Hair color: Ashen
Health: Wet, ashy, and with a bunch of glass and gashes in her right hand. Has a fair bit of living clay on her, mostly her clothes and right arm.
Inventory: A short rusty metal shiv, broken off from a longer piece.
Totem: A Ribbon. The one her late sister wore.
Stats:
Bravery: Skilled!
Joy: Cursed ;-;
Innocence: Cursed ;-;
Purity: Amateur...
Mercy: Talented~
Creativity: Amateur...
Love: Skilled!
Abilities:
Mobility: Level 3
Close Combat: Level 2
Totem Manipulation: Level 1 (+1)
Heal and Steel: Level 2 (Active; Next attack rolls on Mercy)
Soothe: Level 3
Flagellation: Level 3
Memento: Level 1 (Given to Aleksandra)
Soul Gem: Glowing with a dull light.
Form and location: Ring, worn on her right index finger.
Age: 14.
Hair Color: Bright green.
Health: Fine!
Inventory: A halberd, which is not really long enough to be helpful here.
Totem: A halberd.
Stats:
Bravery: Amateur...
Joy: Skilled!
Innocence: Amateur...
Purity: Skilled!
Mercy: Cursed ;-;
Creativity: Talented~
Love: Cursed ;-;
Abilities:
Mobility: Level 2
Close-Combat: Level 2 (+1)
Regeneration: Level 2
Sixth Sense: Level 3
Semblance: Level 2
Projection: Level 2 (Active; maintaining a bunch of Alida and Tooru illusions; maintenance cost 1/6th Major)
Soul Gem: Glowing with a shadowed light.
Form and location: Necklace, worn around her... neck...
Age: 13
Hair Color: Bright scarlet.
Health: Has a bunch of shallow cuts across her back, and she's a little cold, to boot!
Inventory: Four paper talismans, ready for throwing.
Totem: Ofuda talismans, primarily thrown as manabolts.
Stats:
Bravery: Cursed ;-;
Joy: Talented~
Innocence: Skilled!
Purity: Amateur...
Mercy: Cursed ;-;
Creativity: Amateur...
Love: Skilled!
Abilities:
Mobility II
Mana Bolt III (+I)
Regeneration I
Totem Manipulation II
Invigorating Passion I
Outburst II
Duet with Reality II (Active; Cheap maintenance.)
Ward: Glowing with a foolish light!
Age: 12
Hair Color: Black.
Health: Awake, but very cold and wet, and probably a little traumatized.
Inventory: A cute blue ribbon tied into her hair. She's wearing Alida's coat, now soaked with water, and wielding her grandfather's AK-47.
Stats:
Bravery: Skilled!
Joy: Skilled!
Innocence: Talented~
Purity: Amateur...
Mercy: Cursed ;-;
Creativity: Cursed ;-;
Love: Amateur...