He wasn’t sure what he expected when he had pushed the “Home” app and had landed on his darkened moon. Perhaps a giant monster staring down at him ready to devour him the second he had come here? Rumbles to show that the creature was ready to return?
Instead, he had only received silence. It wasn’t unusual for the moon to be silent. After all, nothing here was living. Only Caliban when he visited on the rare occasion. The air though… it felt different. As though something awful was about to happen. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He had felt this before. It was the feeling he had every time he had come here.
But it was stronger. Running through the gates and past the mostly destroyed village and into the Cathedral he went straight for the courtyard. What he saw there made his heart drop. The statue in the middle was completely black, dripping as though a darkened liquid was coming out of it.
This was it. There was no more time. He would either come out of this alive or… well he just wished he had left some sort of note back home just in case he didn’t.
His hands trembled as they reached for the phone in his pocket and he hastily sent out a signal for help.
He wouldn’t be able to do this on his own, he could only hope that the monster was in a weakened state that if enough allies came, they would be able to take it down once and for all.
Because if they didn’t and it succeeded in destroying this moon, it would only continue its journey to the next Homeworld.
Hello all who have come! Caliban has sent out a distress signal for any Order Senshi, Order Mauvian, and Knight to come and help him with this monster! Something that has been plaguing the moon Caliban since recorded times. And perhaps even before then considering how many times they had to re-build from the ground up!
Caliban has been a moon that was plagued for centuries by this monster long before life was wiped out. In fact, there was only this Cathedral and the village surrounding it that managed to survive until life was wiped out, which wasn’t very long.
Ever since Caliban has come to his Homeworld he has learned three things. The monster had come one day suddenly and continued to destroy every living thing on this planet, and they could only continually re-seal it. His previous life died due to the fight with the monster and the last time it was sealed. And that there has been no sunlight on the planet since.
It’s now time to destroy this monster once and for all! Anyone who can help! He can’t do this alone! Sealing the monster away will no longer work. It has permanently broken out of any seals that could hold it!
Even if you didn't sign up you may throw in any character that you would like!
The next post will be the start of the battle, so please feel free to get your characters there and talk. Or just stare. Or whatever.
a-disgruntled-dragon
Mizuki, Sparta
Epine de Rose
Athalia
Infinities
Charybdis, Imbrium, Scylla
Noir Songbird
Carterhaugh, Izanami
Kyuseisha no Hikari
Beira
Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2021 11:19 pm
Chibi Super Charybdis, Senshi of Seals
It was a Friday night, and Giulia was gearing up to go have a great time out on patrol with Jada, and maybe with Lucia- she hadn't quite double-checked that Ara was going to be coming on patrol with them or not, but she really hoped that she was; inevitably Jada would leave Lucia and Giulia to go be awesome senshi on their own, even if they were chibis, because teamwork. She was not expecting to have her senshi phone go off with an SOS almost as soon as she powered up. It was from Caliban, the other Senshi of Seals- just the other kind. Like magical Ziplocs! She had met him before, he was a nice senshi, and had kept her safe against nasty stone monsters when Destiny City was being all…. Well. Destiny City. However, as she clicked the button to accept the call…”Oh no,” Charybdis sighed, and she was gone.
What was it with Homeworlds and Wonders kidnapping people? Stomping one ballet slippered foot into the dirt, bright blue eyes glared into the darkness, her brow furrowing in consternation. There was almost nothing here for her eyes to catch sight of, and the pre-teen felt very alone as she looked around the space. Even when she looked up, there seemed to be no stars, no moon, no… anything. Was she inside? Was this underground? Had the Negaverse somehow hacked senshi phones and tricked her into coming to some weird, random place of Evil? Was Caliban okay? Had anyone else gotten the call? Fretting, the Chibi Senshi of Seals wrung her gloved hands, reaching up to adjust her cloak around her shoulders and try not to stress herself out before she knew exactly what was happening.
Calming her mind seemed to be something good; as Giulia soothed herself, she began to catch on to some other small details. Big details. Like the runes, which were glowing. The fact that this was a courtyard, and there was a building in view, meaning that she was probably outside, unless Caliban was in the habit of keeping buildings inside their buildings. Which was possible, just probably not very likely. There seemed to be others who had answered the call who were starting to arrive as well, but as she looked around her eyes caught on the statue that was centered in the courtyard where they stood, and she clenched her hands again, nerves jangling as she noticed something that was probably kind of important.
It looked… different. There had been an orb on it, which- okay, courtyard, statue, not unusual, right? But the fact that the statue had CHANGED was something that didn’t normally happen. “Anish Kapoor built that statue.” Giulia announced to all and sundry nearby, seeing that the orb was apparently like… vantablack… but instead of absorbing light, it seemed to be that the orb was going to be absorbing bits of the ground, and the 11 year old felt her blood run cold. “I need to tell Ara not to come, it’s dangerous,” she muttered now, yanking out her senshi cell phone, and then mused- “But she’s the senshi of illumination, and it’s really dark. If we get Hyperborea, Ara and me, maybe we can put on a light show?” Who else did she know who could cast light? “Get all the Transcended knights and senshi too,” she muttered, typing away, “they glow. This will be fine. Absolutely fine. We're gonna help Caliban so hard.”
The call reached him that evening as he was scrolling on his phone by the light of the wisp that didn't quite ever leave him alone. The ringing of his senshi phone caught him by surprise, and Ignacio padded around on his nightstand to pick it up, feeling a tightness in his chest as he was hoping it wasn't a call of distress from Richard - he was at a competition; if it was a distress call from him Ignacio wasn't even entirely sure how to answer - and realized with a mixture of distress and relief that it was another problem in another home in space.
Caliban, this time. He wasn't familiar with the senshi, but he would never reject a call like that if he could avoid it.
"Wisp," Encke, powered up, leveled the wisp with a stare as he sent off a text to his sister, "you can't come with me, alright? Don't know what I'm going to find up there." Why was he scolding his wisp like a child? It danced in front of him, not that Encke could tell if it understood or if it was just playing games --
At the very least, Encke was fairly sure the wisp hadn't followed him into space when he got there. It was dark. He was luminescent, but it was still rather difficult to see much. He blinked his eyes in an attempt to adjust, thinking of his comet before he had gotten the City lit back up. At the very least, it seemed that Charybdis' idea to call in the transcendent senshi and knights had called up one of them, looking uneasily ahead.
Anser received a text from her brother while out on patrol, swinging a broken branch in one hand as she shuffled, looking for youma or, better yet, agents of Chaos she could smash in the face. His text alerted her to the SOS she hadn't yet seen on her phone.
Perhaps that was a good thing because Encke clearly hadn't been looking at his phone when he texted, and there were some strange autocorrections like callous needs heal.
She was going to guess that meant Caliban needs help--
She quickly texted him back with a, Yeah, be right there.
She threw the branch to the side and answered the call, finding her on a very dark planet with a few others nearby. Felt dark. Eerie. Not right. The kind of quiet that fell over her every time she went to her own homeworld, but without the freeing sense that came along when she realized that no Chaos could get her all the way out there. Something was wrong. Deeply wrong.
Guess that was why the call was sent out.
She walked up alongside Encke, obvious due to how bright he was against the darkness, and murmured, "Guess we're here to take out a heartless?"
Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2021 9:58 am
Imbrium, Squire of Castor
Imbrium was having a good night so far, for a Friday. Her parents had already been passed out on the couch when she got home, she’d managed to acquire (through admittedly illegal means) one of the books she had been looking to read for months now, and her face no longer had a bruise shaped like a butter knife on it, messing with her makeup and making people ask her if she was okay or if she just had a really weird relationship partner. (What kind of relationship had people hitting each other with butter knives? Imbrium did not want to know. Bless being completely uninterested in people for any reason other than money and gossip.)
When her ring did that weird little ‘emergency’ thing it did, sending her a scroll that said some dude named Caliban was having a problem, Pythia was fully moving her hand to say that the mission was NOT accepted. She had ZERO interest in going to save a planet that wasn’t even her own, thank you, extra credit as a Knight- well, Squire- was NOT required for a good grade, and Caliban wasn’t HER Prince. And honestly, Castor was such a cold planet she might not go help save that one either. And yet, even as she was looking around at her stupid ring, trying to find the reject mission button, everything around her suddenly seemed to get… well… a little darker.
And Imbrium lifted her red head to examine what had caused the street lamps to go out, and she heaved a heavy sigh. “F-ck.” Of course. She had been kidnapped, again, by The Code, or The Cauldron, or whoever was in charge of telling her she didn’t really have a choice but to help save the universe today, thank you very much, and given her a free lift off planet to someplace that was, yet again, not Imbrium. (At some point her Wonder would probably take notes and drag her back for a visit, but it was cold as balls there, and she was really hoping it would take a while before it realized what was happening.)
So. Imbrium lifted her shield, squinting into the nasty, yucky darkness and taking in the creepy symbols, the creepy statue, the small number of other people who were there- two kids and a glowstick, and probably Caliban themself, somewhere- and her lips thinned. At least the Courtyard was nice and open, but the oppressive darkness was a no thanks on Pythia’s Ranking of Planets I have been Kidnapped To list. It wasn’t a very long list, but it was growing.
With no real desire to talk to the smalls, and one of them really close to Glowstick, Imbrium instead decided to pace closer to the large, creepy, orb-holding statue, squinting to try and get a better look at the orb it was holding, as she realized there was something… “OHGOD,” she yelled, and scrambled backwards as the orb shifted to pitch black, and the ground she had just been standing on seemed to VANISH, and NOPE, this was a NO, she did NOT want to be here even MORE now, who was she going to be filing her complaint with??????
The moment that Scylla powered up tonight, her now-familiar wispy companion dancing happily around her head in greeting, two things struck her as being… wrong. First among them was that Giulia almost always beat her to powering up, yet there were no auras anywhere in sensing range. That was a strange sign all on its own, but right until the SOS went off on Scylla’s senshi phone, the older woman thought that perhaps she was just a little delayed in powering up- maybe a quick bathroom break, or grabbing a snack, or… anything. It was the SOS going off that quickly disabused Scylla of this notion. She couldn’t be that lucky. This was Giulia she was thinking about.
Patrol night, a homeworld in trouble- and Scylla pushed the button to respond to the call without any hesitation, and without bothering to try and go tell Charybdis not to show up, because she would eat one of those ridiculous leftover tea party hats Giulia had stuffed in her closet if the Chibi Senshi of Seals had not already gone to help the Senshi of Seals. Sealing. Technicalities, at this point, probably, and Giulia wouldn’t care anyways. Bonus points if Charybdis was hanging on Caliban’s arm cheering about being Seal-buddies or something, having completely forgotten that this was an SOS call for a reason.
Luckily that didn’t seem to be the case; as Scylla appeared she quickly noticed that she stood out in the darkness like a beacon, the tentacles and waves of her markings casting their watery glow around her like an aura. Another Transcended was there as well, Encke, and she lifted a hand to wave to him and the senshi next to him, before making her way over to her sibling, setting a hand on one thin shoulder. “You’re grounded,” she told the 11 year old, ignoring the fact she was grounding someone almost as tall as she was, “You’re BEYOND grounded.” Behind her, peeking out from Scylla's braid, the wisp looked at Giulia as well, shaking side to side in disapproval.
But how far beyond would have to wait, because things were beginning to happen, and Scylla closed her eyes for a moment to settle her stomach and try not to sigh heavily.
With all the homeworlds and wonders popping up with trouble, lately, she both had the sudden urge to double-check that her own homeworld was not, in fact, still infested with giant Kraken and Devilfish, and two- spend extra time looking for a cure for the holes in the Surrounding... just in case.
Little fish, after all, always showed up before the big ones.
Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2021 1:29 pm
Eternal Sailor Lepus, Senshi of Rabbits
Alise had been doing her usual thing that evening, after a long day of intimidatingbullyingassisting nerds at her new job. Etoile had come with her, as they were going to take advantage of her human glamour to buy up all the ‘good’ Halloween candy that had just been stocked at the local supermarket. Alise, who had been told she was too old for trick or treating, and Etoile, who was… a gluttonous kitten with a bottomless pit for a stomach, had decided to take matters in their own hands, by putting together their combined one brain cell and getting all the good stuff for themselves before it all sold out. Of course, that was before the distress call went out, anyway, and it was on their way back, with their arms loaded full of bags of peanut butter pumpkins, candy corn, and other assorted sugary treats that the SOS call had reached them, both to Alise’s phone, and Etoile’s kitty communicator.
Caliban… wasn’t someone either of them were familiar with, but Alise was a paragon of justice, and she had powered up, the candy stashed away into a subspace pocket for much later, or emergency rations, whichever came first. Most likely it would be consumed within the next couple of hours, as usual, but Lepus wasn’t thinking about that. Hitting accept to answer the call, Lepus was transported… to what she assumed was Caliban’s homeworld, though it definitely looked… dark? Like someone turned out the lights? There were glowing runes that seemed to come from a nearby building, and a statue that seemed to exude bad vibes, but Lepus… wasn’t particularly scared as much as excited
She hadn’t yet met her quota for getting herself into trouble this month.
“Have no fear, the great Eternal Lepus is here!” She declared, striking a pose in the darkness. And then, “So we aren’t here to redecorate or anything, right? Because this place looks pretty cool as is. A little dark, but still cool.”
Well, if there was one thing that could be said for this line of 'work', it was that it was very similar to his actual line of work. He had at least attempted to take a seat in the park, his legs kicked out as he flicked through the app on his phone. His Mauvian had created one he deemed to be rather useful and it did allow him to relax a little before prowling towards an aura each time it pinged on the little map.
His intention had been to conduct himself in this manner this evening. Relax on the bench, wait, and when he saw one of his bugs flare up due to the proximity of a chaotic aura, he would move towards it. Alas as far as plans went it came as no surprise to him when the peculiar little alert popped up on his screen from...well, someone he didn't know.
What he hadn't expected was to be hauled off his bench and ceremoniously cast into almost complete darkness. He had momentary flashbacks to the strange and haunted world he had been hurled in to last year, that hadn't gone well for him. Nevertheless, despite an otherwise ominous sensation he couldn't feel anything inherently chaotic nearby. In fact, all he could detect were White Moon even if he found it somewhat difficult to make out their shapes.
Small favours that he did have something in his arsenal to emit a very low amount of light. The otherwise faint glow of the shimmering carapace that covered his skin provided him with a means to navigate (albeit slowly) without too much difficulty and once he had at least gathered his bearings he began to move further in to the courtyard towards what appeared to be a large and blackened structure.
Was that a statue...?
If it was, there was certainly something off about it.
"I'm going to assume one of you in the vicinity is Caliban," he called out, easily heard in the otherwise quiet world. "At which point it may be advantageous for you to get me -" He paused.
"Us... Up to speed."
He finally came to a halt and folded his arms as he stared up at whatever was dripping from the statue, lips pursed and brow furrowed.
"As quickly as you can if possible, no need for a life story, top line is fine..."
He would introduce himself to whoever was in his company after he had assisted in resolving whatever this threat was - he knew at least one of them, he'd know that boisterous voice (Lepus) anywhere, but the other murmured voices hadn't been familiar to him.
This wasn't a social call and Athalia was a stickler for getting priorities in the right order.
Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2021 2:33 pm
Sailor Mizuki, Senshi of Lilacs
Maybe if she just... stopped powering up she'd stop running into instances were she got into fights. Maybe if she just... put the henshin pen away and never became Mizuki again...
She would not have been teleported via an alert on her phone. Well she thought it was teleportation. To be honest, she wasn't sure except then she was in the cold and darkness and then just the darkness. The Senshi of Lilacs blinked, eyes trying to find any sort of light in the space.
Voices came from her left and she turned, a few forms lit up by glowing markings. Not one she recognized. But it seemed like a better idea to stick with the glowing senshi with the wings? At least, she hoped it was. To be honest, she wasn't exactly sure why she of all people was here but... here she was.
"Ah, um... ex-excuse me? Wh-where are we?" she asked one of the glowing senshi (Encke) timidly from within his little radius of glow.
Seiana_ZI
One timid senshi for Encke
a-disgruntled-dragon
Offline
a-disgruntled-dragon
Offline
Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2021 2:55 pm
Sparta Page of Mars
He was getting better at this whole 'answering the call' thing. He was still sure that Ezra would murder him for this, but at least he wasn't trying to fight a General this time! No, he was just answering the summons of a senshi he had never met in his life. It seemed pretty damn rude to ignore a distress signal though, you know? Someone could be dying or something, and he'd feel really bad if he hadn't tried to help!
Sparta didn't exactly expect suddenly being in the dark. Okay, to be fair, he'd answered no summons he'd just closed his eyes on his patrol to take a moment and then opened them to darkness. Huh.
He took a step forward and let out a sigh, as no giant stained glass circle of a sleeping him or someone else appeared beneath his feet, no stairs populated to the next pillar. So this was not a Dive into the Heart like encounter. Was it bad he was actually... disappointed?
Oh well. This was real life, and not a dream video game. Or he'd blacked out into one of his late night sessions of Bloodborne because good gods those markings and that statue. It was probably going come alive and eat them.
"I... am getting intense Bloodborne hidden boss vibes here, and I'm not sure I like it," he said, to no one in particular because he'd not really noticed literally anyone else in the area, except the yell from the right and the knight? scrambling backwards. "Ya okay there?"
Infinities
Knight buds!
Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2021 3:23 pm
Caliban, Eternal Senshi of Sealing
Caliban only just snapped out of his staring at the statue and realized that there were many more Order auras around him and he took a look to see who had come. More than he thought which was about 2. Excellent, though most of them did not appear to be happy to be here. And only one he could recall, Charybdis, due to the fact that they had faught some sort of gargoyle thing a while back.
It showed just how little he had been powering up since then.
He let out a sigh as he saw that a Squire had gotten too close to the statue for him to warn her. He did cough to bring some attention to himself, hoping that people would listen as he spoke. "I... apologize for bringing you all here but I do need help. I assume all of you have seen the statue. Inside of it rests a monster. Don't ask me what it is or what it's made of.
"I only know, from my various visits here that it' been here for as long as this moon has had recorded history and has continually destroyed everything that it can find. As this planet was known for "Sealing", the monster was continually sealed inside of that statue to stop it from rampaging.
"The seal, always, eventually weakened and the monster broke free. The last time, since now, that it has been sealed my past life lost their life to it and daylight hasn't been seen here since. Every time I've visited since I awakened, the seal appears to have gotten weaker. I assume since I am the next Senshi that the seal is connected to my past life and now that I am back that it is starting to wear down. I have not come here since I was a Super until today.
"That thing is going to be coming out and attacking us any minute, or even any second now. And we can't just seal it away again. We need to really kill it this time. I don't believe that sealing is even going to work on it anymore."
Tochi had been doing a late night vtuber stream, now that she had memberships unlocked for her channel, a subathon where she vowed to do unarchived karaoke requests until she hit an undetermined amount of subs, but maybe 1K. One thousand subs sounded like a good number; if NijiEN’s LazuLight could get roughly that amount in one day, then surely she could too—
Well, that was the idea, but then she’d started having connection problems, and then Morie came in to scold her for making too much noise when everyone else was trying to sleep. Pouting, Tochi had ultimately had to give up on continuing the stream, tweeting an apology to her followers on her @dreamycolorch account, and posting an announcement on her Discord, too. Her family, or Morie specifically, just didn’t understand. She was destined to be an idol! It was in her blood, written in the stars!
It was… why she was Aogashima? That might have been a stretch.
Speaking of, Tochi realized she had a message for her on her signet ring, that Rune had recently upgraded for her. Powering up, she opened up the message to read, and managed to accidentally hit accept on the distress call, being teleported before she could even realize what was going on. Arriving on Caliban during the middle of the moon’s respective senshi giving his explanation, Aogashima only caught part of it, and ultimately was highly confused, both because of the darkness and also because she had no clue what was going on, which, admittedly, when did she ever?
“Wait, um… what are we killing? Do we need to kill it?” the page questioned, waving her hand like she was waiting for the teacher to call on her in class. Couldn’t they try, like… using the power of music? Wasn’t that how things went in Macross or something?
There was another invitation to space. Another person who needed help fighting something on his planet. It was a senshi this time.
Cybele couldn't help but wonder where all of these people were getting their monsters from. She'd gone up to her own asteroid after the last fight, wondering if she'd have to hunt something to prove herself, with her sphere and all, but no. It had just been trees. There had been what seemed like miles and miles of dead, giant, trees, and some purple wildflowers peeking out from under their roots, and nothing more.
There had certainly been nothing there that she could sink her fists into.
Perhaps she was a bit bitter, but not so much that she would ignore a cry for help. It was a name she did not recognize, but that was all right. There were only about four or five people who she did know, and the new connections would be helpful when the tables turned and she was the one asking for aid.
When she felt the tug on her soul, she let herself be whisked away.
She found herself in a strange courtyard, much darker than the one on the moon. It was so dark that it was difficult to see just who was around, or much at all as her eyes struggled to adjust. There were Transcendence markings. She could see those, and that was enough to let her pick out Scylla's tentacles and somebody else's glowing arm rings.
She blinked against the shadows, hoping that this monster did not end up being the sneaky type.
It wasn’t often that Beira was ever on the receiving end of a call for help--not while powered up like this, at least--and in a split second decision, he’d decided to follow it. He was willing to do all that was necessary to help but it didn’t mean he had any sort of confidence when it came to matters like this.
So, it was a relief to find that he wasn’t the only one that--and not the only one asking questions.
He hadn’t been to a place like this before; even his own world felt so different. It was uneasy here, in a different way than his snowy, lonely world.
He was all ears when Caliban gave his explanation, though his brows narrowed in great focus the more he heard.
A monster. An ancient monster.
Sealed, but not destroyed.
They couldn’t stop it in the past. Even with numbers now, that didn’t mean they could stop it in the present.
He shifted positions where he stood, arms crossed over his chest. The hair on the back of his neck had prickled up.
Fighting was a given, he’d known that was a risk, but when his magic was so unstable he still lacked the confidence to use it freely. He didn't seem to have any control or mastery over it and he didn’t want to hurt the people he was trying to help.
But, he was here now, and there was no backing out.
Beira’s brows remained furrowed and he exhaled, even as he tried to ease the tension out of his shoulders and prepare for--whatever this was going to be.
Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2021 8:48 pm
((dun dun dun [insert boss music here]))
Before Caliban could reply to the question of needing to kill it, wondering why anyone wouldn't want to get rid of a monster that destroyed worlds, there was more movement from the statue. He turned around to look and the statue was now covered.
And suddenly it was gone.
And so was the ground apparently. It was quickly pitched into darkness and Caliban only had a quick moment to simultaneously yell "Get back to the columns!" and jump out of the way, unsure if the ground was really giving way or if it had just been turned pitch black.
Suddenly, the monster, in what appeared to be a giant hairy, scaly, dark, worm with arms and feet appeared out of the ground, slowly rising out of it, until the monster's bright toes could be seen. Then the ground was back in place, but the statue was now gone.
The monster bellowed out a roar as it looked with unseen eyes across the courtyard, fixating on Caliban. It appeared to sense the soul that had sealed it away in the first place and it was not happy.
However, the monster's movements appeared to be slow. For all of the time it had been sealed and the damage it had created in it's last attack, it appeared that Caliban's previous life had managed to weaken the creature.
Caliban hoped that it would be weak enough to kill. He could tell it was fixated on him now as it started to slowly stomp it's way over to him. The courtyard seemed so small now. But there was still plenty of room for everyone to run around and take cover and move away if need be. And it would have to be enough.
He yelled out, "It's fixated on me for now! I would suggest everyone do what they can! Even if you can't attack for the moment!" He said before running up to it and hitting it in one of the largest points of attack that he could reach.
The monster's toes. Or at least one.
Quote:
The battle has begun! But that doesn't mean that other characters are unable to join, feel free to throw whomever in still!
Also the monster has points of attacks (hint it's it's digits).
Transcendent Eternal Encke, Senshi of Plasma DMG: 7
The timid voice of another senshi broke him from his thoughts, and he turned to face her, immediately determining that there was no other choice but to protect this one. She seemed nervous. Uncertain. Had she been called to another senshi's planet before?
"We're on the homeworld of the senshi Caliban," he offered, quietly, indicating the senshi up ahead. "He's called us here for an emergency," he paused to listen to some of the words Caliban had said, adding afterward, "to destroy a monster that haunted his world for generations prior. Wants to rid his planet of those influences."
He watched, warily, as the statue disappeared, as it reformed in front of them, as it became -- ah.
That looked like a problem.
A problem he didn't particularly want to leave this poor senshi alone to face.
"Stay with me," he promised, picking up a large piece of debris off the ground and hurling it in the direction of the monster. He backed the two of them up a few steps, scanning to make sure there were spots of cover in range if necessary. "I have a distance magical attack, so I can hit it from afar and we won't need to get into its range."
