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Margret completely ignored Soul and moved to Justice. "I don't know you? Are you a fireman? I like those."

Cryptic nodded. "Very well. There are two things you need to do. One I can tell you and one I cannot. What I can say is that you need to help a man named Valentin Petrov. He is in dire need of you. As for the other, you must discover that on your own."

"All I can say is that he's in this city. Don't fret, I'm sure you'll see him soon enough." Cryptic answered mysteriously.

Tara let out an exasperated sigh as she finished cutting the second twin loose. "Listen, I don't have time for quips, I need to find my daughter and we all need to retreat to a safer location."

Tara's thoughts were interrupted by the sudden appearance of another , who had slipped quite silently out of the foliage near the village. Feral approached Tara's position as she spoke to her, "We need to move back now Ridley, we must regroup with the others before we made any attacks."

"Feral my daughter is here somewhere! I am not leaving without her!" Tara almost yelled back to Feral, though her resolve was not well backed as it was obvious she was over exerting herself with her use of her powers in her current state. Though her reanimated warriors had done well in driving back the other giants and killing more than a few most of her creations were began to fall apart or return to a totally inanimate state, leaving the smaller numbers to be slowly overrun by the enemy. This did not elude Feral.

"We cannot say for certain that she is..." Feral began, only to be interrupted by Tara, "Do NOT tell me what is certain Feral, I saw it, Elizabeth is here and I will not let her be taken by these people, not when they obviously would kill her like like these two!" Tara motioned to the twins. "No, I am staying here to.."

This time it was Feral that interrupted Tara, but not with words; She could tell they would do no good at this point. Moving inhumanly quick Feral hit Tara in the back of the head, causing her to crumple on the spot, without time to react. Feral caught Tara and threw her over her shoulder as her undead creations dropped to the ground. Feral turned to the twins and simply said, "We are leaving, follow my lead."

Feral and the twins made a quick retreat, disappearing into the forest beyond the village. Feral kept up a remarkably quick pace for someone hauling around a full grown woman larger than herself across her back. After about ten minutes into the hike they came across a clearing approaching the shore of a river; Chamberlain and the strange man were standing near the water.

Feral slowed her pace as she approached them, gently laying Tara on the ground near the river bed. She splashed water on Tara's face for a few moments before Tara began to come to. As soon as Tara seemed to regain awareness she reacted rather violently to Feral, punching her in the face, Feral's surprised causing her to be off guard and taking the blow to the face. There was a sick crunch as Feral's nose broke and she backed away as Tara propped herself up and then stood, massaging her fist, the skin on her first two knuckles bruised. "The reason I only hit you in the face for taking me away from my daughter while she was in danger is because I have known you for a long time Feral, you have once chance to explain yourself."

Feral made a grunting noise as she wrenched her broken nose back into position with a painful cracking sound. She pointed to Chamberlain as the blood flow from her noise slowed to a stop fairly quickly. "When I say there are more important things I do not say it lightly," Feral said.

Tara turned to Chamberlain, fire in her eyes. "This had better dire."

Chamberlain, who was sporting a bloody bandage on his head, nodded resolutely. "Yes it is. I believe I've discovered the origin of this mountain."
The old man beckoned to the twins. "Come come, I'll find you something to wear." The twins, though perfectly fine with walking around in the buff, shrugged and followed the man inside.
Chamberlain continued. "The explanation is a lengthy one but I think you should hear it." He motioned to two over turned buckets for the two to sit down. "Two months ago I was called to Capital City's Museum of Human History to inspect a curious tablet found in Nepal. It was a remnant of an ancient civilization that mysteriously vanished about six thousand years ago. From what I made of it, it talked of the visitors from above and a gleaming eye that was the key but the rest was just too hard to make out. I can't fathom why I didn't make the connection, especially when the tablet was stolen a week later. Belial must have taken it, and the ruby he stole was the key, not to a magical floating mountain, but a ship."
He let the revelation sink in before continuing. "The race that vanished was merely moved here, for slave labor or other purposes I don't know but they have kept their primitive state. The creators of this place have technology far beyond what we understand, the dampening fields in case of mutation of the people here resulting in powers or the chance that they'd develop technology. It seems that they never came back though. Thomas discovered that." He jerked a thumb at the hut indicating he was talking about the old man. "You see, he's been here over sixty years. He figured out how to get here from a second tablet, one no doubt Belial also had, that described a great treasure that could grant unbelievable power to those who wield it. No doubt that was what he was after. Problem is, Thomas never found it."

"First off," Chamberlain replied while turning to Feral, "It may be self sustaining, which means that the mountain is already returning to its original place. According to Thomas it's very slow going and is hard to notice but I'm sure your people have figured it out by now. By his calculations we have moved three centimeters toward orbit and gaining speed. As for Liz, I imagine they are taking her to some underground area, these tan people where originally a cave dwelling people so having their ceremony interrupted they would probably try to set up a new one somewhere they deem safe."

An eerie child like voice echoed down from the rafters interrupting the conversation between the group of regs and Margret.



After the passage was over a man fell from the ceiling but stopped about twenty feet off the ground suspended by colorful scarves wrapped completely around his head. Libra recognized him as one of the guards that had been keeping watch outside. He flailed and strained to remove the fabric from his face but it held taut.