"We can't fit. Because we've got armor. Unless you have a BETTER idea, mr I'm-a-cat-that's-smarter-than-you."

"Then make the hole bigger."

"AREA'S CLEAR! stop arguing and get moving!" Cid continued further his sword providing light like a torch.

ooc: a bob cat is about the same size as my cat since he is 1/2 bob cat. He's a little wildman, but he can be really sweet too.

The smell of smoke was stronger, and farther down the hall, they could see fire making it's way slowly down the hall. it looked like it was still small enough forthem to jump through with only minor burns....

"If I can get through the hole in full armor it's big enough." Cid said as he waded through the smokey hallway.

(can I use my power to supress fires?)

"Screw you all, i'm not going to burn to death in here!"

And with that Thid charges the hole on the wall and does a drop kick through it, using his lead boots as a ram to widen the hole.

Through the hole you can hear Thid cursing about how he hit his head.

[OOC] the holes big enough now [OOC]

Tamakatari jumped over the flames, with only the ends of his cloak getting scalded.

"Hurry up, and let's go! We have a mission, remember!"

OOC: How big is it then(Your cat)?

"I suggest we hurry." He nimbly jumped over the flames, only a slight little burnt patch of fur on his belly.

Dawn followed the others through the hole, but stopped, coughing a bit as she continued to walk along the smoke-filled hallway. She soon turned back, starting back towards the room. "Smoke's too bad that way... There has to be a different way somewhere in there."

*gets up from the ground cursing* "Smoke bad, go other way!" said Thid.

*runs (if you could call it that, s'more like a fast walk) in the opposite direction of the smoke*

OOC: Wouldn't that be running back into the room we were just trapped in?

OOC: That's how it looks to me too...

Vace said, "Unless you have an immediate plan for a new route, hold your breath and get ready to jump," Vace said to the two remaining that hadn't jumped.

"I don't think there's any other way." Cesia said, venturing into the smoke filled hallway, "It's probably a trap, after all. Just cover your mouth with your cloak and run for it." Cesia did as she had just insructed and ran and jumped through the fire; her legs getting slightly burnt. The stairway leading up had been drenched to keep the fire from spreading upstairs. "Come on you guys!" She yelled to the others who hadn't jumped through yet.

*sees that there is only one way out*

Thid: "Crap."

[OOC] i gtg eat get/dinner, i'll be back in 45 min. Just assume my character silently follows along, and runs though the flames. [OOC]

"Take one good breath, then jump," Vace said, then followed his advice, leaping over the flames and avoiding major injury.

(OOC: I need to get off soon. God, it's hard being the hard-ass all the time. I'm tempted to be helping the girls get through, but I can't.)

"Let's go people! Unless you WANT to be burnt alive!"

She just stood there for a moment, then took a short breath as she cover her hand with her robe, then covered her nose and mouth. She took and running start, then jumped over the fire. She didn't fair as well as the others though, and slammed hard onto the floor.

She whinced, coughing again since her hand was no longer covering her mouth. As she started to try and get up, Dawn realized that the bottom of her robes had started to catch fire, and frantically tried to put it out.

[edited due to my stupidity... that's what you get for only reading the first page of a 3 page thread and thinking that's the last post...]

Vace helped Dawn put out the fire, then helped her up. "See, no problem Dawn, now we all need to get out of here," Vace said, coughing in the smoke.

OOC: Umm, Dante, you seem to be way off where the rest of us are, since smoke is filling that room and the rest of us just got out of it...

OOC: Dante... You might want to read it all, instead of just skim... Or skim more then you do already...

"Thanks.." She choked out, raising her hand to cover her mouth as she coughed. Dawn started to follow the others again, praying that they would be able to get out of here before she passed out from all this smoke.

[OOC]
Gotta go shopping now.. hopefully be back in about... thirty minutes..
[/ooc]

Kazuki took out a small piece of cloth and soaked it in water, but as he was about to clap it to his nose he saw Dawn struggling with the smoke.

Oh well. Time to see how long I can hold my breath.

He handed the wet cloth to Dawn.

"Hold this over your mouth and nose. It should help with the smoke."

Then, he nimbly jumped over the flames and landed with the rest of the group.

Cid was the first one out of the smoke. He held his position and waited for the others helping them to get to fresh air, and out of the smoke.

Vace got out of the smoke, and when his eyes stopped tearing, he realized they were now back in the main entrance, back through the first secret door. He drew his sword again, and said, "I hope this isn't a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire..."

"I think I'd like that better. I'd rather face my assailants directly."

The large form of the werewolf lumbered close to the group and saw them trying to get out of the fire. His form changed back to his original orc form. Kalimare walked up next to Cid, who had gotten out first.

"Does anyone need any help getting out? Oh, and sorry I am late, big first meal today."

Dawn looked up, taking the wet cloth and holding it up over her mouth and nose. She shut her eyes and ran blindly through the smoke the rest of the way back up.

As she came to a stop back at the first doorway, she pulled away the cloth and took in deep breaths. "At least..." she huffed out between breaths, "..we made it out of the fire."

Lynx(New name, since no one named him) came out, completely black from the smoke. He settled himself a nice spot in a corner, and began to wash himself as best as he could, coughing up a lot of hairballs.

"Where are the others?"

(ooc: good night.)

(ooc: same here, see everyone tomorrow. just have my character stay with the group[he'll be quiet until i get back on])

OOC: Poor Taim. I head off to my Chem Final and the poor guy has to sit quietly through 9 new pages of posts.


"I'm right here," Taim spoke up for the first time from behind the knight, "if anyone cares, that is."

Kazuki looked back toward the billowing cloud of smoke.

"Is anyone still inside?" he said to nobody in particular.

Thid examins the recovering group. Wimps, that's nothing compaired to a level 3 fire ball. *shudders with the memory* the pain....

*sits down next to Lynx* "I told you we shouldn't have come here."

"And how were we to know this was a trap. We are servants of the kingdom, it's our job to protect it's people."

Kazuki looked around. Thid was sitting beside Lynx and complaining about the trap they had walked into. Cid the guard captain was talking about duty, though nobody seemed to be paying attention. Kalimare the werewolf had just lumbered in, from god only knew where. Vace was still with Dawn, whose robes were singed from the fire. Tamakatari was still glowering at everyone. And Celes was looking back at the flames.

Kazuki shook his head. They'd walked straight into it, and it was pretty much their fault too. There wasn't a lot of teamwork - hell, there wasn't any teamwork here. Tamakatari didn't seem to care about the group, Celes had trouble relaying her premonitions to everyone, Lynx was as bad as Tamakatari sometimes... and then there was the matter of himself. He'd somehow tuned out of everything while the group had followed the old man, and when disaster had struck, he'd acted just like any other commoner, struggling to save his own ass first.

Clueless, self-absorbed, useless to the group... God, I'm pathetic beyond words!

It was time for affirmative action.

Kazuki stepped up to the fire and reached into his gi for a scroll. He unrolled it and laid it on the floor, then he concentrated, feeling the familiar tiredness as his strength was drained to produce chakra. As he forced the chakra into his hands and fingers, he rapidly made the series of gestures needed to focus the mystic energy more fully.

"Fuuinjutsu... Fuukahouin!"

He slammed both hands down on the scroll, and the flames were drawn into it. Kazuki rolled it up and tied it tight, still feeling the heat from within.

This fire may be of use to me still...

He turned back to the group.

"Well," he said, pointing at the smoky hallway and the staircase. "Shall we go back, or shall we go up?"

"That's a nifty trick. Too bad you couldn't have done that BEFORE we got through. I'm getting out of here. And hopefully, you guys will do the same. I'm not coming back for you."

Tamakatari began to head up the stairs, keeping his katanas and his new warhammer by his side.

Dawn just tossed down the cloth, giving a glancing look at Tamakatari as he started to leave. Her eyes then shifted to look back towards the area they had just come from, it still being a bit smoky down in there.

She let out a bit of a sigh. She would suggest that they continue on since they no longer had to worry about the fire, but who's to say there wouldn't be any other traps down there? And was it really worth their lives to try and go back in there again?

Of course it is... There are possibly others down there who need your help!

Torn between what to do, she turned and looked at the others members of the group now.

OOC: I like how whenever someone lists the party members they conveniently forget Taim. : P

Taim shook his head sadly. No wonder it was so easy to fleece people. They were apparently all stupid. But that was fine. It meant that he might be able to get some kind of recompensation when he escaped. Although, unfortunately, he was pretty sure that in the middle of a hostile fortress wasn't the correct place to make a break for it.

He spoke up. "Well, if this /is/ supposed to be a funneling trap, which is what I'd do, then I'd vote for going back the way we came. Since, you know, it isn't on fire anymore."

Lynx stopped cleaning himself long enough to respond to Thid. "It's good that we came here. No one is injured, save a few small burns the mage can heal. And I now know some new things about some of you. Take Cid for example, his solution to being trapped is to burn things. And Tamakatari's solution is to smash things." Lynx began to clean himself again.

"I honestly doubt there are anyother people in here." Cid made his way up the stairs.

"First off, where did that guy go?" Vace said, looking around for the guy that had led them into this trap. After not noticing him, he decided he was probably still in the room. "Second, we can't just back off now, we come against our first challenge and say 'Ohh, that was scary, I give up', well if we do that now, what are we going to do when instead of a band of thieves and robbers, it is the dark wizard himself? We can't tell him, 'Your too scary, please let us run away'. We have to draw the line somewhere, and if we can't even stand up to a band of bandits, how are we supposed to complete our quest?" Vace said, angry that the others were just going to give up.

Taim made another note to self: obviously self-preservation was not a trait these people were familiar with.

"Of course. And if you lot get yourselves killed by walking into a trap, then i would imagine the princess is perfectly capable of rescuing herself." Taim said under his breath.

"I have a solution it just requires us to get out of this building." Cid yelled back.

*Gets up and looks down at Lynx* "Ya know, I’ve been on the receiving end of plenty of traps. And it seems to me that if these bandits are worth their wage they'll have a backup plan." *looks toward the top of the stairs with apprehension* "And i bet it involves a lot of pointy objects, some of them moving at great speeds through the air."

*thinks for a second* "So i guess it's a good thing Tamaki's volunteered to take point."

[OOC] for those who aren't swift, Tamaki = Tamakatari. I'm thinking this is going to be how i annoy Tamakatari. [OOC]

Taim had decided that Lynx and Thid were the most sane individuals on this little expedition. So he walked over to join them, just in time to catch Thid's comment about the sharp pointy objects.

"Actually, if this is a thieve's den, then it probably involves sharp pointy /poisoned/ objects at high velocities. We thieves do have a reputation to uphold..."

"I don't know about you... but I never want to return to that room." Cesia shivered at the thought of how they almost got burnt alive. "The sooner we leave the better. Plus, we have a wizard to find." She said as she climbed the stairs after some of the others.

(OOC: this chapter will be over shortly with everyone going upstairs if that's alrighty, there's not gonna be anything else really in the room you came from. ^^ We're already past the 100 posts locking-point. (they lock the threads for RPs at 100 posts) and this would be a good time to start a new chapter anyway. ^^ )

OOC: OK, started the new thread... And now I have to go to work. I hate my life. :(