Welcome to Gaia! ::

James recognized her as well... just a little. They had barely met at all, only really passing ways a few times during the Cat's Cradle events of the aftermath in Carter City and the dimensional nexus of Triad.

Perhaps it was the motion overflow fading... or perhaps because of her... but he had a different plan now.

James bent down and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her up before quickly pulling his knife with the free right hand and pressing it against an opening in her damaged armor. He leaned in close and said something to her as sternly and seriously as he could... "Sorry about this."



James shouted it in the direction of the hole, knowing that there were still 3 people up there that hadn't come down yet. His gun was trained on the opening, even as he pulled Eileen with him towards the hole in the wall leading to the other sewers. The shout wasn't for her, it was for the ones on top.



This place needed to end before something worse happened. The rest of the team was up ahead, he had to catch up with them... Shouyin... Perhaps the ceiling had caved in where he'd been. But the kid was ROCK. He might have been okay.

James would catch her with his arm around her stomach while she collapsed. The knife would be turned somewhat so that the flat of the blade was pressed against her, rather than any part that would have cut her. He had made a promise that she would be safe as long as her team didn't do anything stupid. He intended to keep that promise.

Unfortunately, he was blissfully unaware of the ZOMBIE INVASION at this point.

She'd gone limp. It looked like she was out. James would toss the lithe girl up over his right shoulder and continue backing towards the other sewer opening with his gun trained on the hole in the ceiling. If anyone was coming down, he was ready. If not, it was time to blow this popsicle stand.

The explosion rocked the area, causing portions of the rock ceiling to collapse. Shou's (NPC'd) shield would take the brunt of the force for whoever it protected, but it too would be blasted apart, and the rock chunks from that would be a danger, and some of the force of the blast would reach through the shield anyway. James' additional shield would probably put him through okay, though a little crispy.

The palace above was made of sturdier stuff and had a wide foundation, so aside from some minor aftershocks, would not fall down on top of them.

The explosion would not go through the portal, but it would be forced up the piping to the palace upper levels, as well as widening the hole leading to the irrigation sewer.

If Mozz's armor was in fact made of the same stuff that his barrier had been made of, at the very least that bit would be exploding along with him even as he shot into the temple. If he could survive it or not was up to him, but there are repercussions to wearing flammable armor.

James shouted back at the hole a spurt of common sense. If they couldn't come down, then they had to stay up there. Zombies or not (which James was still unaware of), those guys were going to have to go -around-.

There wasn't really a lot of time to be standing around. Shouyin was out of sight... James didn't know his fate, but he knew the kid was tough. Either way, there wasn't anything that James could do for him whether he was dead or just buried under all that rock.

"Let's get out of here before something else happens..."

As far as he knew, Eileen was still unconscious. She hadn't made a voluntary move in about a minute, and was about as heavy as a wet sack. It was time to get out of here and catch up with the rest of the team. His radio was still out of sorts, but there was the sound of gunfire still echoing in the tunnels.

With Eileen slung over his shoulder, James ducked out through the hole in the wall and began trudging threw sewage.

To the Sewers.

Mother was awake again and hard at work, Mozz had lost a lot of blood and his blood belt was no nearly empty trying to stop himself fro dieing. However Mother was all around him now, sucking up the blood from his bruised, splinting his leg, and overall starting to renew is vigor and vitality. He didn’t look like Mozz anymore, his clothes were mostly gone, his every detail covered up by mold trying to renew and reconstruct but the cost in blood was high and Mozz would need a way soon to renew his stores.

Mozz got up off the ground, willing the mold over his communicator watch to die so that he could speak to his allies. There was no video message sent with this communication. Just a sore scratchy voice that sounded like Martin Cortez.

“I’m severely wounded, in the sewers giving myself minor treatment for my wounds. I need an update in the next three days, where is everyone?

Mozz turned to see the monster he had left in the other room had decided to follow him. That wasn’t good. He had no choice but to run, but first.

“BACK IN YOUR HOLE!” Mozz slammed his hand against the ground, creating a foot thick wall of mold about 6 feet wide and four feet tall in the form a title wave of green fuzz. The hope was that it’d knock Vhan back into the portal. However, Mozz wasn’t waiting to find out and sprinted down to the irrigation sewers or at least as close you can get to it with a splinted leg.

Pain aside, this was life or death.

“GWAAAAAAAH!”

------> irrigation sewers

(I'm spiriting with a mold splint, you can probably easily catch up to me...)