Out on the sidelines, Arhra was still busy maintaining her spell for when the Caryatid was defeated. She wriggled slightly on her cushion - the snake she'd forced to swallow its own snake basket. It was becoming a little awkward to sit on - the snakes from inside the basket seemed to be approaching full size, making Arhra's cushion-snake ridiculously bloated.

It was already fat enough that sitting on it was getting a little precarious. Arhra drummed the fingers of her free hand on its stretched skin, thinking she heard a snake cough inside - possibly making another basket. She wondered how long it would take for the wheezing snake to become spherical. Perhaps it would explode first. This was not cruelty, it was Science!

Of course, checking her spell and preoccupying herself with snake theories meant she wasn't very ready when the sprout from before erupted into a wickedly barbed length of angry plant life and lashed at her. Hydra suddenly appeared, blocking the whip-like strike with an arm, letting it wrap partially around her. She wrapped it about one arm and grabbed lower down with another then heaved, tearing it off near the base. Another arm - Oh, she has four arms now. I guess they're kind of like heads. Arhra noted - pulled the vines off where it clung to her limbs, leaving nasty looking long scratches in her scaly skin from the thorns.

Arhra was impressed. She hadn't even had to call out something like "Minion! Save me!" That metamorphosised to concern and Arhra rose up to look at Hydra more closely. Five serpentine heads looked back, from a much greater height than before Arhra noticed. The tent-like expanse of clothes that Hydra had been swathed in when she'd gained human shape was looking much less baggy now. She'd really been gorging herself on snakes. Aside from the thorn wounds, she looked as healthy as an ox, sleekly muscled and long limbs moving gracefully.

"You must take after me." Arhra said with something approximating maternal pride, "Although you seem to be much better than me at shedding shortness." She permitted herself a moment of internal rage, "Let's take a look at those wounds... Revivify!"

* * *

Meanwhile, the other NPFers were struggling with the vines. Inbred was caught on the pinnacle itself, trussed up and wicked, inches long thorns biting into him. He was trying to pull on a vine stripped of thorn, hoping to tug the Caryatid down to his level from her more elevated position. But the vines where well rooted down the rough sides of the rocky pillar and the Caryatid of Earth proved as immovable as stone. Funny that.

Mauve had called upon icy missiles that conducted supernatural cold to crush the vines beneath their frosty, crystalline edges. But, seeing the hot sands already beginning to melt them, she then invoked magics to call up the power of lightning instead. Electricity arced along the vines, driving up steam as the water saturating the plants flashed off, the vines themselves giving strange poping sounds as the moisture in them was also partially turned to vapour. Flaccid from their weakened structure, they thrashed slightly, new growth creeping along their lengths slowly renewing the parboiled sections.

In the shape of a mighty gorrila, Tarrin charged heedlessly towards the rock the Caryatid perched upon. His chagre was unhalted by the thrashing vines but there was still the dangers of the swirling sands about the pinnacle. He began to flounder as he reached the edge of the maelstrom of sand, footing treacherous and the currents in the sand seeking to suck him under. He could feel the sands shifting at the Caryatid's will as she enacted her own plan, the patterning pulling more inwards and down.

Eyes a fiery red, Flare cried out to the Caryatid, "Damnit! I was NOT going to do anything to your precious vines you stupid construct! Caryatid, listen to me. What these people are trying to do is save this world, and you are impeding their progress. If you kill them here, then this world, along with you, will be destroyed. None shall be spared, regardless of them being on the side of Law or Chaos. The people aren't just doing it for themselves, or for the Forces of Chaos. They're doing for everyone."

"You will bring Chaos." the Caryatid repeated with serenity, "The spawn of Chaos leads you and Chaos is all that will come of your actions." The Caryatid had risen to her feet, verdant mane of hair cascading down her back, turning into the vines that engulfed the pinnacle, and mana flaring off her as she held arms outstretched. The sun rays were spiralling inwards, their paths making up some complex pattern and above her, the light prism scraped and rotated in its mooring. "Thus you must be unmade."

Steel's captured beams made a grid of spearing lights, some solar spikes striking the Caryatid. Blossoms of sunny radiance shone out as they hit her cool stone flesh, and leaving the fabrics of her clothing charred and smouldering at the points of impact. But the Caryatid remained rooted, immobile - the light rays seemed to have little effect on her. Still, Steel's intent of heating her up was fulfilled.

A tunnel of wind opened, Hawk releasing a gale to clear the air. The path was open, Rei could clearly see even the glittering gaze of the Caryatid. The Caryatid's arms edged up fracitonally higher, as if ready for some swift gesture, sun rays entering a holding pattern revolving in a ring just in from the whirlpool's edges. The moment was now.

OOC: Dun dun dun! I wonder if anyone spots what's going to happen.

I sighed. Nothing was going to get through to her, so I closed my eyes, and started to focus on using my most powerful spell: Firestorm. As I brought the spell into effect, overhead dark clouds started to form and started to cover the celing.

Tarrin felt the sand starting to grab at his feet, he judged himself close enough and jumped.
straining every muscle in his primate body he reached out for a bunch of the closest vines, he anticipated their movement and hoped he had allowed enough of a varience to get a grip on them. (upto you to resolve Arhra lol)

(OOC: Because I feel like doing something a little different...)

"D'oh," Mauve said forlornly, looking at the new life flowing into the previously electrocuted vines. "That's not cool."

Her magic having failed her, and the army of evil flora closing in, Mauve fell back on the age-old tradition of frantically searching through one's inventory for any special items they'd been saving. She delved into her Pockets of Near Infinite Holding (which can only hold 99 of each type of item) and began pulling things out, muttering to herself as she went...

"Lesee... KitKat bar. Mini Etch-A-Sketch. No. Tape measurer. Plastic Smurf. Green rubber band. Nenya. Sandwich bag full of Oreos. Broken wristwatch. Black Materia. Camcorder. Bottle of... Ah! Here we go." She held aloft a small black bottle victoriously. A Recall Potion.

"Recall," Mauve commanded as she threw the bottle to the ground. A spiral of white light swirled around her, and she was gone.

A moment later the mage appeared in front of a large white door. This was a place where few dared tread. Yes, this was THE GARAGE OF THE MAUVE MAGE. Mauve opened the garage door and stepped around her car to the item she desired. Yes, it was still there, half-buried beneath a tarpaulin and the box of halloween stuff that still needed to be put back up in the rafters. Meh, she'd get around to it eventually. Kicking the other stuff aside, she grabbed what she needed and ran back to the recall point.


Mauve re-appeared on the battlefield with a large object in her arms. She changed her grip on it and pulled a cord. A loud mechanical roar escaped the object as it jerked to life. Mauve raised it above her head, challenging the vines around her to do their worst.

BEHOLD THE CHAINSAW OF THE MAUVE MAGE!!

It was kinda heavy for her, and it probably wouldn't last long before the recall magic ran out and pulled it back to her garage, but damn, was it gonna be fun while it lasted.

She advanced on the ill-fated first group of vines, grinning maniacally.

Syttulg looked around, a plant , in a room full of plants. In nature, plants fight constantly, day after day in a never-ending battle of survival, albiet a battle so slow that it is hard for human eyes to percieve. But now both sides were moving quickly. Syttulg glanced around. The enemy had numbers on their side. He heard the chainsaw rev and glanced at it, then grinned as he held out his arms, sprouting long curved bladelike thorns. But he could evolve much faster than they could.

He began slicing his way over to Mauve, devouring vines as he slashed them.

Rei, having assumed that Skyshot had already cast float on himself, hucked him full force at the Caryatid. It was awesome. Woo.

Drop the bomb
 

OOC: In hindsight, that was not a very good spot to end a post. Oh well, hoping to wrap this battle up by chapter end.

Skyshot was hurled by Rei. The clerical thief was flung at Caryatid, straight through the vortex of clear air, passing unscathed through the circling, interlaced grid of the sun rays. It was all very dramatic.

But the Caryatid, arms still raised let them drop to her sides with an abrupt gesture. This was a moment she had been waiting for. The prism above her suddenly lurched, and then it fell, the sun rays now all tilting inwards and upwards from their holding position ringing the pillar. Before Skyshot's trajectory could bring him into contact with the construct, a maw of stone rose about the Caryatid, sealing her beneath a dome of rock. It sheared off where the Caryatid's leafy hair cascaded down into the vines that coated the pillar. The vines that attacked the NPFers suddenly grew sluggish in their motions as the direct link was severed. The sandstorm lost its energy, dying as the Caryatid directed her power elsewhere.

The bright beams of the solar rays passed harmlessly over the dome now capping the pinnacle, angling further up to form a blinding spot of light where all the beam converged in the empty space above the column. This focal point, a nexus of their energy rose into the air as the lens continued to tilt.

With a vast and terrible majesty that spoke of the premeditation behind it, halfway between the ceiling and the pinnacle, the falling prism fell directly into the rising converging point of the beams. The boulder-sized crystal flared into incandescent brillance, a rainbow of colours brighter than the sun...

About this time, the not so dramatic events of Arhra tending to Hydra's wounds were going on. Far, far away from any present battle - just a few meters away from the cavern walls - Arhra looked at the torn induced scratches worriedly. They'd resisted the healing magic somewhat and were looking puffy around the edges, "The vines are poisonous too?!" she said, "Its like they think too much overkill is never enough around here!" Seeing Hydra's worried look, she added, "Not too bad though. It's not like you've been doing something stupid like eating the vines."

About to go off in a rant about the excess amount of poison around here, Arhra found herself engulfed by a cloud of poisonous gas. Choking and eyes burning, she stumbled out of it, the blurry shape of an enemy to her left. Blinking furiously to clear her vision, Arhra saw the new foe better - a great serpentine trunk branching off into nine long necks, last wisps of the purplish - poison is purple - miasma trailing out of the hydra's jaws. It was massive.

"I thought they weren't supposed to go up to that number of heads." Arhra mumbled to herself. Checking her snare spell was still safely wrapped about one arm and in no immediate danger of unravelling, Arhra looked about, trying to see if Hydra was okay and trying to think of some way of fighting this beast that didn't involve giving it a chance to repeatedly bite her.

In the distance behind the monster, even through the concealing mists of the dying sandstorm, Arhra saw something dramatic. There was a flare of dazzling light, blinding as the sun and then that erupted into a bigger flash. Thin, almost invisible lances of killing energy glinted randomly out of it, striking nearby. Typical of such explosions, it made a sphere of solid light, bulging out slightly before that exploded.

Arhra raised one arm to shield her eyes, braced as the windborne sand blow out from that point with stinging speed, pelting like a rain of tiny needles. She heard the world shattering boom of the pre-explosion before the roaring white noise of the actual explosion drowned out all sound. The shockwave followed on the heels of the silent roar, lifting her up as if she weighed no more than a feather - only semi-true - and sending her flying. She had a blurred impression of the same happening to the hydra and what she thought was Hydra before hitting the cavern wall knocked all sense out of her.

Needless to say, actually being close to the explosion was far, far worse. But, even as crystalline dust wafted over over a bleached expanse, sand swept up into weird shapes and, in parts, half melted into weird formations, the blacked, brittle dome of the Caryatid's refuge cracked open. Long hair trailing behind her like a banner, she charged, skidding down the crumbling rock of the pillar and magic crackling about her as she launched her attack.

OOC: Well, I've been waiting to pull that out ever since the Caryatid hopped up on that pillar. To use my foresight, fire resistance won't let you shrug the blast off and you'll probably want to use your ingenuity to help reduce its effect on the NPFers. Particularly those unfortunates caught in the epicenter (This means you Inbred, Tarrin and Skyshot!).

Oh, and for the response to the charge, remember the Caryatid starts using earth manipulation before getting into melee. Kicking up rocks, veils of sand, making stalagmites burst up, rocks falling from the ceiling that kind of thing. Stylistically, its meant to echo her motions.

As the blinding explosion consumed the room, Hawk did the only thing he could. He took cover behind the nearest available piece of cover... in this case, REI! However, having a robot stand between you and an oncoming blast is not as effective at saving ones arse as one might expect, although it seemed to serve his purposes... mostly.

He was still somewhat exhausted and the explosion still managed to both deafen, blind and throw him backwards somewhat, even with his human(oid) shield between him and it.

He took a moment to recover his sense of direction and get back on his feet, his eyesight recovering faster than his hearing, which was still pretty much non-existant. But hearing didn't matter, fore at that moment he saw, and sight was all he needed now. He saw his enemy charging at the NPFers and headed out to meet her in battle.

"It's ONN bitch!"

She saw him and turned. No doubt she thought herself, a stone earth wielding golem of Law, was far above a tiny, flightless, exhausted bird. As she charged, sand and dust whipped up around and in front of her. Her intent was obvious; she was going to smother and choke him to death with sand.

But there was something about this enemy she did NOT know. While at this moment in time he may be a tiny, flightless, exhausted bird, there was also a burning fire within him. THIS, was the thing that Hawk lived for! Charging into a one on one duel with a ferocious enemy, there was no other thrill like it! In a moment like this, there was no time for fear, there was no time for emotion of any kind, there was only the thrill of the battle. It gave Hawk strength.

The Caryatid finally came into attack range and unleashed her barrage of sand.

"You're not the only one who can control the sands around here BITCH!"

The sand surrounded Hawk, momentarily obscuring him from sight. But with a deft flap of his wings, the sand fell back. Another beat of his wings in the direction of the enemy and the sands around him were lifted upon the wind and blasted back towards the Caryatid. She re-doubled her efforts and so did he. A duel insued as the two foes struggled against each other, wind and sand versus the power of the earth itself. Hawks muscles in his wings strained harder as he attempted to create stronger, galeforce winds. The Caryatid began forming the sands into solid spikes of earth, but before they could obtain solidity they were blasted back to grains by the power of the winds. It couldn't last for long. The struggle continued, but it was clear there could only be one winner, and it wasn't going to be Hawk.

Hawk sent a telepathic message to every person in the room:

"Quickly!! While she's distracted, hit her with everything you have!!"

Urgh, head hurting, was Arhra's first confused thought as she staggered to her feet. Being poisoned, knocked around and mildly concussed was not a good combination she decided. She cast her eyes around, trying to see where Hydra and that hydra had gotten to.

The ringing in her ears beginning to subside, she heard the sound of a struggle and staggered in that direction. Cresting the dune she saw a thrashing serpentine mass - Hydra and the nine headed hydra locked in combat, heads and limbs entangled and flailing at one another. Hydra didn't look like she was doing well.

Arhra raced forwards in a stumbling run and promptly tripped over the partially buried bulk of the snake she'd been using as a cushion earlier. A thoughtful expression crossed her face. The snake and the numerous (dead?) snakes inside it could be used to strengthen Hydra. The problem was how could one eat it? The creature was looking spherical! Then again, the other hydra had the same imperative to devour scalykind. Perhaps it could be a distraction instead. With a heave, Arhra tossed it into the fray.

Several of the hydra's heads turned to regard this delicious morsel, Hydra managing to partially squirm out of the creature's constricting embrace while it was distracted. Heads bit at the snake ineffectually but were unable to pick it up. Then one head dislocated its jaws, gathering the bloated snake up and slowly cramming it in.

"Oh, I forgot they could do that." Arhra said sheepishly as the massive bulge began to slowly make its way down the hydra's neck. "Well I have another trick up my sleeve. Let's change the odds a little. Grow!" Arhra called up a powerful surge of chaotic magic and a twisting bolt leapt from her hand. It coiled through the air towards Hydra, but then its erratic path and a sudden movement of the struggling pair made it hit the hydra instead.

Arhra swore violently, words blistering the air and curses flying out to buzz in angry clouds as the hydra suddenly glowed. Scaly skin split open like rotten fruit as its coiling length swelled to monstrous girth. The neck bulge of Arhra's cushion snake vanished as it made its way into the beast's stomach. Hydra went limp as spasming loops of the hydra's body squeezed her. A head came down, jaws distended, and it began swallowing her whole.

Arhra was furious at this development. She had been becoming fond of Hydra, in more a way than a vague sense of duty for being directly responsible for her creation - it helped that she liked things that reminded her of herself. This was obviously universal conspiracy. The forces of Chaos should know better than to backfire on her in such a way. Incandescent with rage, she approached, summoning magic again.

Unformed magic writhed in her vice grip, yearning to be free. Arhra fed power into it, spell-shape blooming into odd patterns that ran along its length. "Switch." she quietly, beginning to release the magic. It shifted, she could feel its subversion of her intent. "I'm in a bad mood." she told it in the same quiet tone. The spell quaked at the deadly undertone, terrified as only an inanimate wisp of energy can be.

It forked as Arhra released it, a crimson bolt striking the hydra square at the junction of its many necks and a sapphire bolt striking the bulge in its neck that had just passed below that. The glows moved outwards, bleeding together into an opaque purple haze. It began to recede, blue at the outside, red at the center, before it blinked out.

Hydra lay there, heads waving aimlessly. Her belly was ridiculously distended, seeing how her recent enemy was inside. She couldn't even get up. Arhra limped to her side. "Oh, uh, I guess you'd better take it easy while you digest that." Arhra said, patting the great mound of scaly flesh gingerly. She hoped she hadn't looked that obscenely inflated when they'd been fighting the Capitalist. Thankfully, she was fairly sure there had been no witnesses inside him.* "You sleep that off, I'd better get to the others - my important dramatic event sense is tingling!"

*The perceptive will remember Flare was there.

* * *

Hawk had been the first the first to respond to the Caryatid's charge in the wake of the devestating explosion the guardian of the seal had orchestrated. While blooded, dazed, weary and bruised, Hawk still showed excitement at the oncoming battle. People of his nature loved the giddy thrill that came from the activity generally involving wearing lots of metal and swinging lumps of sharpened metal at one another. A fire for battle burned within him.

The Caryatid's mind was the calm, patient strength of the earth. There was no hatred, no anger, merely the calm determination to destroy all threats to the seal that dwelt inside her. The slow, poisonous tendrils of the rising Chaos within her and her Temple that sought to corrupt and unmake the Seals she faced with the same steady will. Even now, concentration refined to a needle sharp focus, there was something that could be called joy as she felt power flow into her stony body out of the deep places of the earth, circulating through the branching conduits within. It was all around her in this cavern, each racing footstep that alighted on the ground, a pulse of that pure, elemental power. Her leafy hair was a trail of greenery behind her, vivid with life and verdancy.

A hypothetical observer, watching the battle might have found it amusing to see a bird and a stunningly beautiful stone woman charging towards each other. Anyone who doesn't think hawks and other such birds look funny when they're running around on the ground with their little bird legs is dead inside. They would probably also have popcorn. A well choreographed fight scene can be fun to watch. If you're here to observe, you might as well enjoy it.

The Caryatid gave a short leap and skidded, kicking up a mass of sand, arms suddenly in motion to swirl it around. She vanished into its murky brown depths, sand cloud moving to envelop Hawk too. Both defense and choking attack it was.

"You're not the only one who can control the sands around here BITCH!" Hawk cried in defiance. With a great sweep of his wings he blew the suffocating sands back at the Caryatid. She motioned, redoubling her own efforts and turning her full attention upon her tiny adversary.

Sand wasn't the only trick in her repetoire Hawk found. A spike of stone burst out of the ground beneath him, hopping to the side just enough to save him. Fist sized rocks came out of the swirling sands, Hawk forced to kncok them aside with blasts of wind. Still he strove against her for control of the sands, feeling her other attacks slack as she turned her efforts elsewhere.

Hawk charged forwards, keeping up blasts of wind, dodging one person sized boulder that tumbled slowly through the air at him out of the sands, passing through a rift of clear air where the turbulent currents of wind collided. He lunged sideways and with a mighty surge of his wings, unravelled the tangled knot of air.

Hawk had won, the sands blew away and left clear air, revealing the Caryatid. Her arms were raised up over her head, not really in a position to defend herself. If she was the type to make any real display of emotion, she would have had a broad and terrifying grin on her face. It is a matter of intense debate if the serene expression she did have on her face was actually scarier than the alternative or not.

As the billowing sand cleared a little more, the large shadow over Hawk would help explain why this debate is relevant. The parting sand clouds revealed the gigantic stone slab that hovered there, torn out of the earth by the Caryatid's power. She let several tonnes of solid rock drop.

OOC: Just in case it isn't clear enough, its 'Pile on the attacks for a dramatic finale' time. Most of the Caryatid's attention is taken up by Hawk. Though you lot really need to get the coordination together in the future. Oh, and someone may want to help Hawk - wind's not going to do much to that rock.

Something came flying out of the sand, end over end. The object in question landed with a thud, sticking out of the sand. The object was the Wind Edge, but a new feature was on it. From the middle and along the edge close to the top, there was a sizable crack. From this crack, a magical leak could be seen, releasing a lot of vile energy.

From the source of the Wind Edge, another buldge of sand was seen. Slowly the sand fell off, revealing IC, in a bit of a pissed off mood. His color was back to a normal orange, but it somehow seemed darker. The fact that around IC, everything seemed to shimmer, as if heat waves of some awesome heat was surrounding him. Whatever it was, it called the Caryatid's attention. And so the Caryatid turned to face this opponent.

Slowly, IC started walking towards this golem. The golem, in turn, took one step back, unsure of what to think of what was going on. To be sure, it shot forward, having a huge boulder come rolling out of the ground at IC. IC in turned ran at the boulder, jumping at it, then kicking off sending him in the air. He came down with a fist at the Caryatid.

The Caryatid jumped out of the way in turn, shooting a pillar of rock up at the strange warrior. IC connected his fist with this pillar, and destroyed the rising rock, sending smaller stones flying across the area. Though when he landed, he didn't stay still long, he jumped at the Caryatid.

She responded with smaller rocks being hurled at him. Who in turned knocked one that was about to hit him aside and landed on the Caryatid landing a solid blow into her face. Strangely, a small burst of fire, in a blackish-purple kind of fire, came out of the punch. The Caryatid took the burn in a very strange manner, falling backwards.

Whatever that attack was, it gave the Caryatid new initiative to kill the chocobo-man. She lifted both arms in one huge motion, sending IC upwards ontop of another pillar of rock. IC jumped off this column, and went to nail the golem again. The golem brought her arms up in a defensive position, creating a shield of rocks. IC's fist flared with that strange flame again, and then broke through the shield, grabbing the golem as the rest of him landed against the shield.

He hurled upwards, throwing the Caryatid into the air, leaving her very exposed to attack. Though this time IC paused, instead watching the golem fly through the air. Clearly he was waiting for someone else to attack.

It felt like someone took a 10-lb sledgehammer and smashed me in the face with it. With that blow, I was knocked out, my phoenixform going away, leaving me in human form. After about 10 minutes, I started to come around, my face windburned some.

The explosion had been dramatic. That was good. Dramatic explosions were flashy and slow. Plenty of time to shield. Steel took a deep breath as stopped time covered his body. He was exhausted. The coffee was beginning to wear off. The fight was going to end for him soon, one way or another.

Steel didn't know how long the explosion lasted. By the time he let his shield down it was over. He fell a few inches where the sand had been blown out from underneath him, but stayed on his feet, wobbling slightly.

"Huh... I didn't... fall over..." He gasped, his oxygen starved lungs gulping down air, "..my day... is finally... looking up!" He clutched his head. He was losing focus. His legs felt like they could barely hold him up. His sword was fading in and out of existence again.

"Oh no you don't" He muttered, staring at it intently. If it disappeared now, he doubted he would get it back for some time. He concentrated. Slowly it settled back into reality. And that was the last of it. He was out of power. No more shields, no more telekinesis, all he could do was hold his sword here. He felt weak.

"Guess this is it then." He panted, wearily scanning his surroundings. "Do and die." He hesitated. That hadn't sounded right. "Whatever. Stealth didn't work. Planning didn't work. I guess it's time for brute force!" He charged.

His brain kicked into gear. Trying to focus on something other than the pain in his shoulder every time he took a step and the unbidden thoughts like "Oh my god what am I doing I'mgunnadieI'mgunnadieI'mgunnadie!", he tried to remember everything he'd learned about the opponent. It wasn't much. Made of earth. Knew when you were attacking as long as you were in contact with the ground (Steel wasn't sure about that one, but this wasn't the time to get into a debate), could control the earth with just her will... He would have to avoid that one. Just watch how she moved and dodge accordingly. He'd seen how she moved every time she controlled the earth directly. It was the best defense he could think of. What did he have to lose?

He ran forward, the caryatids course through the air coming right at him. He watched as Skyshots jar smashed into her. When she came close enough to the ground, he was already there waiting. His sword swung around. It might not have been the sharp instrument of doom it had been a few seconds ago, but it was still made of the hardest substance in the universe. Like a very twisted game of baseball, it smashed into her with enough force to send her flying once again.

Mauve was depressed. The vines had dissapeared, rendering her beautiful, beautiful chainsaw useless.

"I used my recall potion for this thing," Mauve said sadly to a dead vine on the ground. "Now I can't use it. Do you know how sad that makes me?" The vine, of course, didn't answer, having been long since severed from its roots by aforementioned chainsaw.

She sighed and hung the chansaw from her shoulder, so it fell across her back. No-one asked how she managed to keep it there--Mauve figured that if Dante could hang a giant sword across his back without any type of sheath, then so could she. Nevermind the laws of reality or whatever. Minor technicalities.

But enough about the chainsaw. This looked like a good time for everybody to do what they did best... Namely, throw out random, uncontrolled violence until the offending object was no longer a problem. Mauve could do that.

She ran forward, towards the sun lasers. As she ran she moved her hands in front of her and started whispering something under her breath. This would either work, or be an incredibly stupid way to kill oneself. She was kind of hoping it would be the former. She promised herself a long time ago that she couldn't die until she found out how Jack Sparrow escaped from the Kraken.

A sun laser was racing towards her. Rather than swerve or dodge like some sort of sane person, Mauve grit her teeth and ran towards it. She crossed her arms like an X in front of her and braced herself with her feet.

BLAM!! The laser hit her dead-on. Rather than turn her into a sort of crispy mage flambe, however, the laser bounced off what looked like a glowing transluscent dome that formed above Mauve's crossed arms. The laser reflected off it as though it was a mirror and hit the ceiling.

"Hmm," Mauve said. "Well that's nice. Guess it works." She stared at the Caryatid and adjusted the position of her arms.

BLAM! Another laser hit the mage, and the beam shot off the glowing shell and arched towards the caryatid, impacting with her ribcage. Assuming she had ribs.

Tarrin's head hurt infact his whole body seamed to be burning with pain, the large primate lifted it's head to spy the large gaping hole in it's chest, the blast had missed any vital organs but frm te amount of blood that really wasn't a problem as soon he would be joining those he could commune with.

"see what happens, i leave you for one moment and you get into shit" the voice of Tarrins guardian rang in his ears. "If you had waited i could have told you that was going to happen and now your fubar'd"

Tarrin gathered what ever strength he had left and called out "LITTLE HLP" then his head droped and darkness overcame him.

Syttulg, still attempting to charge towards Mauve, slowed and dropped as the poisons in his stomach rendered him paralysed.

Mauve reflected one more laser bolt at the Caryatid, crossing her arms like Ultraman and yelling "Shuwatch!!" for good measure, just because she was a nerd and found it funny to do that sort of thing.

Her bad superhero impression was abrubtly halted as she heard someone yelling for help. She lowered her arms and looked around, confused. There was a half-dead gorilla on the ground to one side of her, and a paralyzed plant dude on the other. Skyshot looked pre-occupied, as was Flare. That left her as the resident healer person. Oh well. She could go back to lasery fun later, she supposed.

She had to lower her reflective sheild, otherwise any healing spells would bounce off and hit her instead. It shattered and fizzled away into nothingness. Now the mage raised both hands towards Tarrin, who didn't look particularly healthy at the moment, and commanded "Cura! Regen!" That ought to hold him for a while. Don't ask why Mauve knows Regen but not Curaga. That's one of the great mysteries of the universe, which probably has something to do with the fact that Mauve was stupid and half asleep when she wrote her character sheet for these games. But I digress.

"Okay, now for the electric plant dude," Mauve said. She held out a hand. "Thunda--HOLYCRAPIFORGOTABOUTTHELASERSOWOWOWOW!!!!" That, of course, is the sound that mages make when they are interrupted mid- thunder spell by a sun laser impacting with the sand at their feet because they were stupid enough to stand in the middle of a field of lasers without a sheild. Everybody recognizes that sound, I'm sure.

"Fate dislikes me," Mauve said crossly, brushing sand and ashes off her skirt. "Let's try this again. Thundaga!" A bolt of lightning impacted with the Newb. Mauve quickly worked to rebuild her shield.

"Ok...time to get out of this hole..." I said, then had an idea. Closing my eyes, I slowly changed over to lamia form, the increased size due to my tail helping me to push out. I was faly well spent, as I used a Fire-1 on myself, since I knew I was low on MP, not being a magic-using class could suck sometimes. I looked around, and saw Mauve nearby. Noticing the lasers around me, I bunched up my tail, and used it to shove myself into her, just as once crossed across my tail. "YEOW!!!" I said, looking at my tailtip, which was singed. "Damn light element....."