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Evelyn

Evelyn heard the boy speak, and replied soothingly, patting his head. "Garçon, have no fear. I am Evelyn. I'm trying to help you."

Evelyn

Evelyn, of course, could not understand one word the boy was saying, so just patted his hand and pulled it around her shoulders to better support his weight.

As she stumbled along with him, she spoke to him, to calm him. "Garçon, it will all be okay, understand? Il sera beau. Bien. Understand? Bien."

OKAY GUYS, THIS IS WHERE THINGS END. =D

I know you've all been looking forward to this, fufufufufu...






* Feline, having stolen a mystical jewel from panda's study, began to attempt to find out in earnest a way to take herself home.

* Gwar and Storm were taken in and healed. Gwar was put under house arrest in one of the basement rooms, and has remained there, door flanked by an armed guard, ever since. Storm was praised for defending the Order. Jessie was scolded for being too busy feeling Coline up to defend it at all.

* The combat master, after patching things up with Coline, resolved to ensure that he behaved less intensely towards her; a resolution that came at the same time as a shift of her own, into a more guarded frame of mind around him. The two had a pleasant week of daily interaction, getting to know eachother a little better. The necklace remains in its hiding spot.

* Harata and Alexi stuck together. Alexi's the first person to be able to tolerate Harata for more than a minute! Hurray!

* Bapp is still missing. Coline took Jessie to the cave the next morning, but even his keen eyes could pick up no trace of where the boy had gone. The hole seemed inescapable... but the walls felt strange to the man who'd spent two decades living underground. Just... strange. He didn't know quite what to make of it...

* Maborofel was healed and taken in, and eventually stopped babbling in the strange tongue. Evelyn carried on in her normal cheerful way.

* Lorika has begun to bring meals to the Professor in his study after noticing him absent at mealtimes. She also brought a couple to Jessie, but only once or twice.

* She also found the next morning that a chicken coop had been built... and filled with dozens of the golden, silky chickens she'd mentioned to the Prince. Touched, she searched for him, but he was nowhere to be found. He must have fled, never to return. The same went for Kyo, whose heartbreak over the Overseer must have driven him away.

* The Overseer remains missing.

(((You're all so mean to Harata. She's not that hard of a person to get along with. *wanders off, muttering something about narrowminded idiotic people*)))
"No. He literally was like a child. You are just crazy. Insane." She ammended herself. "You realize there is a difference between the two?"

The boat was buzzing with activity as the Port of Gambino came into view through the early morning mist. It was not exactly a packed day - the captain had seen the boat so crowded the journey took double the time, in the past - but still enough for a hum of activity on the deck, from a couple of groups of people lazily scattered about.

One group was made up of three young men, of the adventurous, well-travelled sort - and not just travelled aroud Gaia, as it would soon turn out. Two were wearing light armour - the third, regular cloth shorts and a vest, a sword slung over his back.

"Apparently that cult has set up on the island," he was saying, hands in his pockets and leaning against the railing. "My sister said she hears the bells every day when she gets up for work."

"I thought you'd not heard from her?" said one of the armoured men, pulling out a box of cigarettes and sharing them round.

"I got a letter back in Barton," he answered, rather sheepishly "Just before we got on the boat. I read it last night."

"I can't wait to meet your sis," said the third, with some implications. Sure enough, he continued with "I bet she's hot. She sounds hot in those letters."

The lightly clothed boy's face gave an understandably irritated twitch. However, the first armoured man blew out a puff of smoke and spoke before he could say anything. "Awful misty. And cold. Not what I'd expected from a tropical island."

"It's like this everywhere this time of year," the sister's brother sulked. "There's no escaping from it on Gaian soil."

"I don't miss Toril, though," the flirtatious bachelor answered, tossing the butt of his cig into the sea "The people there are weird. All edgy, and... backstabby."

"You'd be the same if you lived there. Always monsters, always wars, always..."

The flirt interjected, suddenly excited. "Speaking of monsters, did you see that drow chick?!"

"Drow chick?"

"Drow don't leave their caverns. And even if they did why'd they come to GAIA?"

"People here don't know what they're like," the first man whispered "I bet the ones that leave would give anything to just blend in."

"Yeah! Some do," the third insisted, glancing between them both in amazement "I can't believe you didn't see her. She was like, watching us."

"Did you see her face?" the other armoured man pressed "Are you sure she was drow?"

"Well," he admitted, balking "No. She was under one of those big, long hooded cloak things that they wear. But I saw her, and her hood fell back a little, and she was a drow chick, I swear!"

"You've never seen a drow before."

"Neither have either of you," he pouted. "Look, fine, forget I said anything, and I'll forget that there might be some hot elven wench on board just waiting to-"

The doors to the cabins flew open, ejaculating a very dishevelled man of around twenty five. Flying through the air, he landed with a rather uncomfortable-sounding thwak against the deck. He curled on his side, groaning in agony, trousers and shirt ripped apart... but with no visible marks on his skin.

Out, from the shadows of the stairwell, strode a towering ebony sculpture of a woman, fastening the described cloak around her shoulders.

"You scream like a little boy," she sibilated, words carrying like darts laced with poison. "And ******** like one, too."

"Drow chick!" the man whispered, poking his travelling companions, who just stared on, aghast. "Told you!"

The man coughed and hacked, turning two terrified eyes on her gigantic, stately form. "Y-you're crazy! You-"

He yelled as a bolt of force knocked his head back into the wood, cutting him short - apparently not for the first time. "You have no right to speak to me, male, after such a poor performance. I would have been ashamed to take your seed. We are lucky you lasted, at least. Such a defilement of my person would have incurred heavy costs on yours."

"Woo, baby!" cheered the armoured man. All the spectators stared at him, astounded at his bravery and completely unsure whether it would turn out to be downright foolish. "How'd you like a real man, huh? I can give you what you need?"

The woman turned a somewhat disinterested gaze upon him, arms folded beneath her bountiful bosom. She eyed him for a few moments before smiling and taking a few long, smooth strides towards their small group. The bold man blinked, as if he couldn't quite believe that that had worked, and sucked in his breath as she came right up to him, pressing her body against his. Soon, as she continued to press, he was sandwiched tightly between the railings and her. The crowd watched - tight lipped; open-mouthed; awed; terrified.

The drow woman leaned forward, hands on his chest, forcing him to bend backwards over the railings to an angle so painful he cried out - to which she merely chuckled, unrelenting. "I highly doubt that a man as real as you could sate the needs of a woman as real as me," she purred. "YOU, on the other hand-" she said, arm snapping out to the lightly-clothed boy like a cracked whip. The boy started once and then grew rigid with horror as her fingers closed around his throat, long, snowy nails pressing like needles against the soft flesh. "You I could work with."

"But of all the misfortunes!" she cried, releasing them both abruptly and gliding several metres back, head bowed. "It appears we have reached our destination!"

And sure enough, the stakes of the pier drifted into view behind her; the boat drew to a stop.

"If you'll excuse me," she aggrandised, making a sweeping flourish almost comparable to a theatrical bow towards the crowd at large. With a swirl of her cloak, she bounded back into the cabin, disappearing into the shadows, only to return a few moments later with a large travel bag visible on her hip. She pulled the cowl up and over her head, so that from most normal angles her face was completely obscured, except for a few thin strands of snow-white hair that draped down onto her neck. Most of the crowd had immediately picked up their things and moved to the ramp that was lowered for them to disembark - the injured man, however, still lay on the floor unaided, and the three young men stood looking at each other - gobsmacked. She swept past the three and around the scorned lover. However, her progress was halted as the man's prone form suddenly jerked. His arm was flung out, and her ankle snared.

"You black b***h," he seethed - his last words. A metallic flash, a thump; the drow woman had bent, her robes now obscuring the man from the three observers. She rose slowly and stepped back - the man's hand having released its grip in death - from a rapidly growing ocean of blood.

"Silence is golden," she stated, invisible face inclined towards the man's severed head. She then turned her body towards the three horrified men, her lips curling into an unseen smile. "Good bye, loves. Happy travelling."

Watching the woman float away down the ramp was one of the hardest things the sister's brother had ever done in his life. He took a few steps forward, reaching for the sword on his back, only to have his wrist grabbed and held by the second armoured companion.

"Are you INSANE?!" he hissed, eyes wide "You'd never be able to take her on!"

"Drow are freakin' immortal, dude! She could be like TEN THOUSAND years old!" said the first man, gesturing extravagantly to emphasise just how old she could be,

The boy rounded on his friend. "And you would sleep with that, would you?" he growled.

"Well, I have no problem with experienced women..."

"SHE JUST MURDERED A MAN!" he yelled suddenly, causing both men to jump "He committed no crime - she just killed him! I can't believe you're just going to let her walk away from that! It's NOT RIGHT!"

With that, he bounded off the ship and down onto the pier, weapon drawn. The two remaining men looked at each other, following reluctantly. "Oh, s**t. He's insane. Hes dead meat."

They didn't have to go very far. Their friend ran back up to them as they disembarked, his eyes wide and confused. "I... can't find her... she's just vanished..."

"She must be here somewhere. We'll look for her," the second man said, only to be cut off by the first.

"Have you guys lost your ever-loving MINDS?! That is one dangerous dom, dudes. We do NOT want to go poking a ******** grizzly bear! That's not clever adventuring! No, wait, that wasn't right - a drow is waaay more scary than a grizzly bear."

"We will look," said the first man. "Whether or not she'll let us find her is another matter."

Somewhere to the right, a man looked around sharply, sure that he heard quiet, female laughter coming from some empty space beside him. A feeling of cold fear made his heart beat a little quicker... but appreciating that the sound of the waves was probably making him hear things he went back to telling his wife about the trip, never breathing a word about his momentary paranoia.

((NOTE: The dialogue in brackets <> means that it is being translated from drow. ))

I don't like to think of myself as "evil," as such...

...I much prefer the term "morally challenged."

She could hardly believe it's already been a week since Bapp's disappearance. Coline stood in front of the deep pit, staring into the dark abyss, her mind adrift in thought. Coming here had become a ritual for her; everyday after morning prayer she'd sneak off to this very spot to just... think. As much as they were convinced that the boy was still alive somehow, they haven't had anything to go by to explain his sudden disappearance within that short span of time.

Although... there was this one thing that's been nagging at her for quite some time now. Perhaps she should have brought it up much earlier.

Coline lowered her head for a bow, as if saying goodbye to an old friend, and set off back to the Training Grounds. Should she have stuck around the cave for much longer the Captain, or anyone who cared enough to pay her any attention, would surely take notice of her disappearance.


[Training End: Pin]

[Training Start: Defending Aura]

IT'S NOW EARLY AFTERNOON.

2pmish


And yeah. How the HELL are they gonna get all those boxes back? >3>