Sanctuary Disturbed (Open)

[Deleted]

The purple haired mage only looked over her shoulder for a second until she realized the fiery wraith that unleashed over by the poor archers that were incinerated, and Elias didn't seem to appear too happy about it. Well, it was enough to give her a little awestruck expression, as it was quite the...unique situation she'd ever had to bare witness to, despite not knowing half of what was going on, but she kinda rolled with it, figuring that she couldn't make sense of it unless Elias outwardly explained...that. Well, at least it was some nice fireworks from a distance! It would help lighten the mood a bit in this battle, which was becoming a freakin' warzone by now.

...Though a vein was just about ready to pop on her forehead when the mercenary tried to sweet talk her. If that wasn't the most...corny and...most insulting thing to her, she didn't know what was. She was almost half-tempted to laugh, but him looking at her that way on a battlefield was enough to want to send a fire ball directly at the center of his face and not look back. She wouldn't regret it...and it'd be amusing to hear him cry out about his "beautiful" face being charred to a crisp. But the fact that he even offered to make her a "queen" of bandits was the insulting part. Not only did she hate bandits, but they ALWAYS got in her way for some strange reason and it just made her wish she held the power to smite all the punks to oblivion, starting with mister pretty boy there.

She perked up before giving off a annoyed, irritated expression as she pointed towards the mercenary, her fire tome still in the other hand. "Hey, pervert! Stop looking at me like that! You think I'd be dumb enough to join a bunch of killers like you? Say that again and I'll burn your face off!" Quite literally.

[Ryuzaki]

All the action sort of froze as a column of flame erupted like a volcano from the archer's 'nest,' burning the two unlucky bandits to shreds and sending the scent of charred flesh lofting on the breeze as the building shuddered and then collapsed, all of its former shape now gone as it lay in tatters, a smoldering ruin, glowing like an unattended campfire.

"My... My archers! You son of a..."

The mercenary didn't get a chance to finish his sentence as Ryuzaki, seizing his chance, ran toward his former employer and sliced toward the man, his sword parallel to the ground and humming like a tuning fork as it cut through the air. Pedro's blade instantly moved to parry the stroke, and the sharp clang of iron on steel brought both sides of combatants back to their senses as the fray began anew, with increased viciousness. Ryu turned, bringing his blade up, trying to pass Pedro's guard, but the skilled mercenary deflected his strike with relative ease.

"Is that the best you've got? Why, you've no more skill than a novice!"

Pedro jumped into the air, intending to bring a strong strike down on the thief. But Ryu leapt into the air as well, mimicking his move... Ineffectively. The man's superior strength sent the lightweight tumbling backwards, hitting the ground with a bit of a graceless splat as he scrambled to his feet again.

"You've got more strength than I, that's true. But who can last longer?"

[Elias]

Elias cringed a bit as the building came tumbling down. "Whoops. My bad." It's been a while since he destroyed an entire building. Last time it was a fort, so this was a bit less impressive, but still that's gonna take a while to fix. Still for a final show of his elfire tome, it coulda been worse. He gave it a 6/10, needed more explosions. Still it did its job, and it repaid those... those... MONSTERS who ruined the tome. The big problem, however, is it left him without an elfire tome. Which was his favorite spell. Sure he still had fire, but it lacked the... the punch he wanted. Meanwhile his bolting tome had problems already mentioned, he wasn't entire in a good position now magically. He could help, but still.

He had an idea though, something he's always wanted to try... Or at least something he's wanted to try for the last few minutes, it was hard to tell if that was forever or just now. "Hey Vivi, I have an idea." Elias said to the purple haired magic maiden. "I'm gonna help you with your spells, cast one and I'll add my magic to it. Two heads are better than one right? So we're gonna make a new saying, 'two mages are awesomer then one'." She had a fire tome, he had a fire tome, they should be able to add their power to one another and make bigger grander magical results! It's basic math. 1+1=RED!

A small spark of fire jumped in his hand as he channeled the spell, waiting for Vivianne to channel hers.

[Deleted]

Well, both Ryu and the annoying mercenary was going at each other's necks. At least he stopped paying attention to her, and she would gladly go off and do something else to relieve herself from the perv, but she had her doubts that Ryu could handle the guy on his own. Maybe she should take that fire ball-to-his-face idea into consideration after all? He probably wouldn't see it coming! ...Though since Ryuzaki was moving around too much, she might mistakingly hit HIM instead. Too much of that went on throughout her history of using magic...her poor mentor suffered countless fire balls aimed at him purely by accident in the past...minus the few times she did it on purpose since the old man was very mean. There was no need to pluck anyone else who didn't deserve it!

So a bit lost in thought on how to proceed, she opted for just winging it and hoping a fire ball will hit the mercenary, or any of the bandits still here. Hell, she didn't even know how many of them were left. They just sorta...come out of nowhere. However, Elias' idea sort of arched an eyebrow for a second before she fully understood, excitement obviously shown in her eyes. "Wait...we can DO THAT?! Aww yeah! I'm right behind ya on the plan. This is gonna be totally sweeeeeet! Two is definitely better than one...I'm going to write that one down! ...Later." She's never done something like this before, partly why she was excited to try it. Gosh, she should be more focused on the actual battle itself, b-but she couldn't help it! Fusing magic was probably one of the coolest ideas imaginable and given how crazy she was, Vivi was surprised she never tried something like that in the past. Of course, she didn't have too many mage partners, so maybe that's why? Ah, who cares. She needed to get her spell started!

Since she wasn't going to hold back, she formed her largest sphere of fire her tome was capable of, having it float above her palm as she tilted her head towards the crimson mage. "Hmmm...now what?"

[Ryuzaki]

"Me. Me, of course. For I am both strong, and beautiful, and... durable. Yes, Ryuzaki. You'll be the one to fall today. For I am the great Pedro, the illustrious, the bold, the charming, the peerless. I am full of grace and power, brimming with energy and emotion. I am your demise!"

"...Done yet? Let's fight. Put your words into actions. Catch me if you can. Show me your power, you damned ballerina. We will cut you down, burn you, and lay you out to feed the buzzards. C'mon, you coward! Fight!"

The battle began again in earnest, Pedro gaining and maintaining an early lead. His blade was constantly moving, flickering gracefully as he forced Ryuzaki back and forth, constantly on the offensive, pressuring the thief and allowing him no time to counterstrike or position himself. Ryuzaki struggled to parry each stroke. It was true, what Pedro had said... The more experienced man did have more strength and endurance. But Ryu had friends. Pedro didn't pay them any attention, but Ryu took time to quickly glance in their direction. Both seemed to have flames ready, but weren't using them... Hopefully they'd come to his assistance, as the element of surprise would allow them to hit the mercenary completely unaware.

Ryuzaki dodged yet another slash and backpedaled quickly, putting distance between himself and the swaggering leader, hoping for aid in the form of some sort of fire. Any fire. Just something, so that he could catch his breath...

[Elias]

"I've never actually done it, but in theory it's possible. What better time to test theories then the middle of battle after all?" Elias smirked at the surprised mage. Honestly it was something he's been wondering about for a long time, only just recently had he actually considered doing it however. There was something about 'combining magic' that seemed... hrm... what's the word? New, maybe. It didn't really matter, after all they say Ostia was demolished by countless mages adding their magic together, with so many mages they destroyed an entire city. A kingdom. He was by no means expecting to destroy a city, nor did he want to, but the theory was sound and more importantly it sounded fun.

Vivian prepared her spell, a simply firespell, perfect for a test. He needed to be careful, too much and it would overload her spell and cause it to blow up in her face. Too little and what's the point? He needed to focus, he needed to do this properly. Elias took in a deep breath as he focused on Vivian's spell. The fire spirits that swirled and gathered in her spell, saw the flow of magic the dancing of the spirits, the flickering of the flame. He moved his arms slowly, guiding the magic he gathered into the mass of flames and magic Vivian had conjured. What was simply a sphere of flame began to twist and morph as a veil of flames began to wrap around her spell like wreath of brilliant flames, a cloak swirling and twisting around. The sphere grew larger, more active, more vibrant, he was careful though. Vivian should be able to control it, he made sure of that, but when she cast her spell it would be stronger. How much? Well that was something to be seen.

"Alright." Elias' tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth just a bit, like he was figuring out a complex puzzle. (it wasn't really complex, but it was his first time and he wanted to make sure he had the theory down) "Whenever you get an opening, let it go. Be careful now."

[Deleted]

"Whoa, whoa!" If she wasn't already expecting something amazing, she would have dropped her focus and dropped the thing the moment it got bigger and more active. This was...er, quite the large fire ball! But Elias seemed pretty certain she could handle it and she was NOT going to let him down. She didn't just want to aim it and go right away, as she was still struggling a bit to actually move it around to her liking. Her hands and finger tips were shaking out of nervousness, which made the giant sphere flow around a little in the air. But she tried her best not to panic, deciding to see this as some sort of new spell tome or something. Hyper Fire! ...Or something. Ah, that's all she needed to know to calm down. "I know this is like the worst moment ever to say this, but this is toooootally awesome."

Not every day you get to wield a giant super-sized fire ball, but enough of her gushing. Ryuzaki was having a hard time and she would rather this fire ball be used on a more important target instead of wasted on the other barbarians. Her hand was steady now instead of shaky, using her desire to help their ally out to further calm her nerves and focus. Besides...she had a bone to pick with Mr. Pretty Boy over there, chuckling to herself a little as she remembered threatening to burn his face off. Weeeeelll, it'd be pretty mean if the thing was hurled right at his face, but chances are he'd be too charred to a crisp to even worry about that!

But when Ryuzaki made some clear space between he and the opponent, that was her chance. She couldn't let it slip by, and if she delayed any further, there was a high chance the mercenary was going to see the raging inferno from a distance and dodge it. Then all the effort she and Elias placed into this thing would be all for naught! Nope, not gonna let that happen. When she felt like the mercenary was in the perfect position, she released the fire ball with a strong flick of her arm as it shot off like an arrow towards cocky merc, hoping for the best that something amazing will come out of this.

[Ryuzaki]

Ryu grimaced, his breaths haggard and gasping as he wearily raised his sword back into a defensive stance, his previous arrogant coldness gone as the foolhardiness of his duel set in upon him. Pedro didn't even seem winded, and neither of them had any serious injuries... But Ryuzaki was out of breath, and weaker, and that could spell doom for the thief. With his heart still racing, the thief began to slowly walk forward toward Pedro, who was busy spinning his sword and fixing his hair.

"Oh, so you're ready again? Had a nice break?" the mercenary leered. As Ryu prepared to give him an icy retort, raising his sword to the left as if preparing for a lunging slash, he felt the air around him getting hot. Very hot. For a split second, he wondered if he'd finally died and was now experiencing the beginning of hell, that eternal torture which inevitably awaited him. But that too passed, as Ryu saw the cause - a gigantic fireball, which hurtled by him, actually passing through the tip of his sword and leaving the blade glowing a faint orange as it exuded some warmth.

"Aw, yeah!" Ryu crowed, watching Pedro's face go from a sneer to a scowl to abject fear and despair. Ryu started to run towards the man too, expecting to get a final stroke in, when the fireball slammed into the mercenary's legs.

There was a scream.

As the flames burst forth, they made no distinction between friend and foe, and the unwitting Ryuzaki found himself in a world of searing hurt as he too experienced some of the fireball's ghastly might. Briefly ignoring the pain from the tongues of flame licking at his arms, the thief launched himself toward the mercenary, who was laying on the ground, wailing, and trying to beat out the flames covering most of his torso and lower body.


Slashing again and again, Ryu laid into the man, his feeble strikes never doing much damage, but his pain-induced bloodlust allowing him to repeatedly send his sword into the hapless agressor. After what seemed like an hour, Ryu raised his sword high and slammed it into Pedro's skull, then stumbled backwards and fell into the dirt and dust, trying to beat out the flames on his arms as they slowly roasted his flesh.

"That was not a nice fire...ball...

WILL SOMEONE PUT ME OUT?!"

[Elias]

The combination worked! The glory of two mages combining their immense power was a thing of beauty! Ruby red flames of passion! A hyper fireball! This was the power of magic! Elias posed as Vivi tried to handle the thing, it was an opportunity he refused to squander. It wasn't as cool as if he was controlling it, but he couldn't aim that great right now, so it was probably better this way. He'd totally have to be the one holding it next time. HYPER INFERNO FIRE FLAME OF BURNING! She tossed it at the leader over there! YES! The beauty of magic would show this man the light of judgement! It flew and... Well it hit alright but...

Elias sort of cringed as Vivi accidentally, or purposely he wasn't sure, set the blue guy on fire. Blue guy seemed to be on their side, so that wasn't a good thing. He held out his staff, unsure of what to do. At least that one guy is kinda mostly dead, the blue guy on the other hand was sort of freaking out. "Stop drop and roll." Elias said as he urged demon forward holding his staff. He couldn't really 'put out' the fire, it didn't work that way. He could heal the guy, but that wasn't going to put out the flames, so he needed to put them out first otherwise he's just sort of healing something that's gonna get reburned a second later. Which is better then nothing, he supposed. He held out his mend staff, sort of cringing as he did, but healing the man ablaze of his injuries while he waited for the guy to put himself out.

With their boss dead, and that explosion earlier, coupled with the fact they were sort of mopping the floor with them, the mercenaries or bandits or whatever they were calling themselves began to flee. As it turns out, giant fireballs and explosions tended to scare people, and when both happened in such a sort time apart, coupled with LIGHTNING FROM HEAVEN on archers everywhere a lot of the folks were terrified and beginning to run. It wasn't a rare thing, in fact mages tended to have that effect on people. Sure they were squishy and didn't wear any armor and rushing one probably kills it instantly, but if they were allowed to go to work they could be terrifying. No one wants to go up against a mage if they know they can be blown up with flames, blasted to bits with lightning, frozen in place and shattered with ice, or sliced to bits with wind. That's just anima magic too.

[Deleted]

"Yeeeeeeaaaaah!!" She hit her target dead on! And the combined magic made a very impressive and explosive fireworks show. She was about ready to start doing a victory dance until...she realized Ryuzaki got caught in the blaze too. "HOLY CRAP...! Uhhhh...whoops." Guess her aim was still pretty off if it STILL managed to hit him, which she was more concerned about when she let it go earlier. Though...she wasn't really expecting the guy to just run back forward after she released the thing. Couldn't exactly pin all the blame on her, but Vivi decided it didn't matter. Though, she had no idea what to do to help him. Every second of it looked pretty horrid and it made her cringe. Though she looked over her shoulder to Elias before running over to the thief. "S-sorry, Ryuki! Buuuut...that's about all you can do, bud! Get to rollin'!" Well...she couldn't exactly help him roll without burning herself, so she quickly, yet gently placed her foot on the thief's side to help force himself into a roll.

Moments later, the purple haired magic heard loud screams of rejoice as the militia cheer and celebrated over their victory. With the mercenary dead and the bandits fleeing like lost sheep, she was finally about to spin around a bit and do her own little victory dance. Thank goodness that battle was over with. She could see a few of the guards on the ground badly injured from the battle, but it didn't seem like no one was outright killed. That gave her a big sigh of relief. Beforehand, the militiamen's chief ran over as he raised his helmet with a big smile accompanied.

"Thank you all so much! We would have been dead if none of you were here. Looks like this village will finally return to it's peaceful days without those troublemakers harassing us now..." Vivian could tell by the tone of his voice that the man was happy, like a great weight was lifted off of his shoulders. She surprisingly didn't have anything to say or anything witty in mind to lighten the mood, so instead she just settled for giving a warm smile in return. It touched her heart to see peace rising, as the good people here deserved to have their sanctuary restored.

[Ryuzaki]

The blue-clad thief felt the foot gently nudge him, and he quickly spun across the ground, writhing in a frenzied attempt to douse the superflames. Eventually succeeding in doing so, he rose up, covered in dust, his clothes slightly charred on the edges, and his arms covered with some patches of raw and blistering skin. The thief walked over to the mercenary captain, wincing with every step, and gingerly patted the body, looking for anything of use. Nothing but a few grubby coins. Damn, poor luck. Even his sword was too bent by the heat to be of use. What rotten luck. At least Vivi had promised him a meal. That would be nice. A meal and a bath. He felt awful, and the burns weren't helping.

Straightening again, he moved over to the mounted man, the glorious Sir Red, and stood with arms outstretched, as if preparing to be doused with rainfall or sprinkled with a magical powder. "If you could... Fix me... However you did before... Where you took away the pain and closed the wounds... That would... Be... Nice. Erm, thanks?" Ryu wasn't sure what the man did with his staff. He'd never really seen one used before. It kind of... Glowed, and then everything was a-ok. "If I bought one of those, would I be able to... glow it on myself and have it heal me?"

[Elias]

He healed the blue man, who seemed better. That was good, it was just burns. Elias got to them fast enough they wouldn't leave scars, which was fortunate because burn scars were really no fun. He would know, he inflicted them on people very often. "Magic isn't something you can just pick up willy nilly. It requires determination and hard work to get the basics down, and without the basics you'd just have a stick you can whack people with. Sorry pal, maybe if you had like five or ten years to set aside to train yourself to use it, maybe." The blue man asked if he could use a staff, and contrary to the popular opinion, staves were a type of magic. Which meant without knowing how to manipulate magical energy, you're pretty out of luck. "You'd be better off getting an enchanted weapon or something if you wanna use magic." He said with a shrug. Magic weapons were cool and everything, but they were nothing compared to the power of a realized mage. Even the strongest magic weapons paled to the magic they were based on. Of course don't say that around fighters, they get all upset. Blue's words got him thinking though, why couldn't he just use the staff on his self? It never made sense, so he tried. He tried and it worked. It was odd, but maybe he was just mistaken the world was mistaken. Either way, he'd have to remember that for the future.

He looked around, looks like things were done. They did good work. Good indeed. Only one building blew up though, he should shoot for two next time. He groaned though. He was still upset his elfire Volcanon tome was destroyed in the chaos. It was his favorite one, and now he was just stuck with bolting. Ew. Well Bolting was cool too, but it wasn't very accurate. He needed some cool spell for precision spellwork, and close range casting.

The mayor, or whatever, seemed to be talking to Vivian about whatever or whatever. He saw a perfect opportunity to thrust himself in the center and steal alllll the credit. An opportunity he passed upon. Instead he looked at the two who had more or less taken the head of this operation. They were the heroes, Elias was just the fabulous supporting cast. He nodded at them and without saying anything trotted away on demon towards the villagers. He took out his staff and began to heal them of their wounds. "Anyone who's injured, make yourself known. I'll do my best to help you." Elias spoke out, and several voices called in response. So he did his best to help everyone he could.

[Deleted]

With the nod from Elias, Vivian was quite surprised he had nothing to say. Hmm...perhaps she'd catch him later or something. The guy's a very experienced mage on top of a healer. She could probably learn a thing or two from him. That's if he wasn't driven insane by her whacky behavior! She was surprised that there were people that could actually put up with her. Then again, there are always people with high tolerance in general, so guess it wasn't too much of a shock. The villagers here and the militia all seemed to like her despite her eccentric behavior, so there's that too! Okay, maybe she was just thinking too hard about this. She had other stuff to think about...like how they all pulled off this crazy-cool team effort stuff to save the day like heroes and all that goodness! She didn't know what happened to the Sacaean, but given how he just disappeared, there was no reason to look for him.

It was definitely a warm feeling to see the guards celebrating, and people from their homes eventually stormed out and began to cheer as well. It was quite the happy village when they were finally free to return to peace. Guess it was always like this before that band came in and screwed everything up. After the chief finished expressing his thanks to them all after the crimson mage went to help the injured, she bore witness to the man running over to his cheerful allies as he joined in with the celebration. She knew something was funny when even the militia would jump up and down like kids...Well, not literally, but point still crossed!

Well, that ended that chapter! Not a single trace of those bandits were around, so they all must have escaped completely. She now turned around towards the all healed up-thief as she had a smirk on her face. "Sooooo, how does it feel to do the right thing?"

[Ryuzaki]

"Shoot."

Ryu was really looking forward to being able to patch himself up whenever he needed to, but Sir Red over there said you needed practice and magic training. Well, there went that idea. It would be convenient. Maybe he'd have to steal a gallon jug of that Vulnerary juice. That stuff patched you up pretty well too.

Looking around at all of the happy people made Ryu a little uncomfortable. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do in a happy scenario. He'd never exactly been to a party, either. But he definitely shouldn't have his sword still out. That was a no-no, he gathered. So, sheathing his blade, he responded to the cheeky mage's question with a stammer and a roundabout, hedged answer.

"Well, erm, I suppose it's nice that everyone's happy... Right? I mean, they certainly look like they're in good spirits. I feel all right. The bandits I guess wouldn't be so happy... Bah, I don't know. I'm not used to parties and groups of happy people. They make me claustrophobic."

[Deleted]

"The bandits? Bleh. Those creeps should be more torn up by what they did than being upset over the loss." She crossed her arms, giggling a bit, though she was sincere. She honestly didn't care if those troublemakers were on the sad end of the situation, mainly because they brought it upon themselves to go through this wanton violence, and they paid the price as a result. They didn't really mess with her on a personal level throughout her life since she tried to stay away from them as much as possible, but it hurt her equally when they terrorized others. Though she could say the same thing in general for baddies. But as a grown woman, she at least learned that she lacked the power to make any sort of change in the world like this. She'd leave that to the people who actually COULD make a difference.

It was still a gentle feeling tugging at her heart to see just about all of the villagers out and enjoying their fresh air like they should be. She looked back to Ryuzaki, having a rather satisfied smile on her face with the rest of his answer. "You'll get used to it if you keep stuff up like this. I just feel like making others happy than making them feel miserable is much better." And she just loved smiling faces in general. The world needed some happiness from all the constant struggle it goes through. Seemed like no matter where she went, some sort of conflict was going on. She hasn't found a single place she visited that's in complete harmony.

But maybe that was just a dream. There are myths and such going on about secret sanctuaries hidden in Elibe, but there wasn't any solid proof on that stuff. She secretly wanted to find one of those places on her journey, but somewhat ashamed to admit it openly to anyone. But the job for the day was the most important thing, and those bandits were out of these people's hair. That was enough for her to put her mind to rest and join in with the celebrations!

Topic end.