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Kaalnia could see that things were not going well in Neued. She'd stayed in the settlement as before, lifting and carrying and generally making use of her size and strength amidst the smaller earthlings. Kaalnia couldn't figure out exactly when she had picked up her spear, but she had been using it disturbingly regularly since.

She hated the violence, but she danced the dance of war anyway, moving rhythmically and unpredictably and attacking with her spear. She had injured several Obans with her fighting style, and had taken no injuries herself – she always dodged away. She could injure and dodge, but when the moment came to finish off the Oban, to plunge her spear into them or cut them open, she couldn't do it. Kaalnia couldn't kill them.

Biroki had no such issue. He had killed before, and as long as he could cast, killing was very easy. Rage blossomed bright and hot within him, fuelling the heat of his magic. These Obans dared to invade his homeland and take his camp. He had stayed behind to heal, but they would see what happened when a Sage of fire and lightning was roused from his kindly slumber. Lightning arced from his fingers, activating one of his leyline traps. He heard the Obans scream and he did not care.

Kaalnia did. The screams were echoed with her own frantic 'warcries' as she darted through the battle, seeking her sisters for solidarity. She had been one of only a few Akidikes in the camp, and now she felt that loneliness strongly. She had to find her sisters. She had to not be alone, because alone was when the carefully reconstructed Kaalnia; the brave and sensitive flirt of a woman, started to crumble beneath the stress into the nightmare-plagued prentice of long ago.

Biroki's nightmares were all too real and all too waking. He threw a fireball into the hoarde, a magnified explosion of light, fire, and heat. Those on the edge were burned - only singed if they were lucky – but the inside of the inferno was merciless. He could see, briefly before the ranks of the Obans closed in front of the scene, burned and blackened bones and meat – even the distinctive shape of a Raptrix's newly-denuded skull.

Kaalnia had nearly been caught in the blast and she praised Aisha for giving her the luck to not be a few feet to the right. She was sure that it was an Earthling mage that had created the blast, and it became clear to the Blade that being amidst the enemy ranks was prohibitively dangerous. She made her way out, a dance of limbs and spearhead and butte. Crackling light arced over her head and, as she turned briefly to look, lightning charged with a shrieking, wild, primal roar through the tight ranks, leaping greedily from Oban to Oban. She winced at their screams of agony, and ran behind the mage. “N-nice shot!” she managed.

Biroki was, with some dark part of himself he knew he would have to face later, pleased: pleased with the destruction and the pain he caused with just a thought and an action. He vaguely recognized Kaalnia as she extricated herself from the crowd – a friend of Briella's and Dyakidas, or something like that – and he realized it hadn't occurred to him that there could be fellow tendajiians in such a huge crowd of russet faces and gleaming armor. “Thank you.” He said, wary, now, of his next spell. What if others fought amidst the Oban tide? What if he had already killed those that he should not?

Kaalnia, free of the hoarde for now, looked at it as it approached. “Hey, you...” whatever the shifter's name was. She knew him, vaguely. “We should get out of here.”

Biroki threw a lightning bolt, it's voltage down to only effect one person at a time. “Why?” If they retreated, Neued would be lost.

Well, Kaalnia was retreating, at the very least. She pointed to a group of Obans on very cruel-looking Raptrixes. “How about that for a reason?” she said.

Biroki weighed the options. Charge in with fireballs, or run to live another day? To his dismay, only one option worked, and he raged against it. “I see you'r point.” he growled.

And with that, they turned and ran for the jungle.

(729/600)