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As Poke gestured over the river, Yuki faltered. "Across the river?" His eyes wandered away from her and toward the water, as he mentally tried to figure out just how they were going to get across. When he gave his reply, it was obvious that he was nervous. "Oh... That's... Good, I guess. Not far..." He murmured the last bit, looking to Hitsu with a bit of a wince. There'd surely be an easy way over, right? People had to pass through, so there'd be a bridge. There had to be. A bridge would make the while ordeal a lot less stressful than it needed to be. In fact, on that note he decided to try his luck. He returned his attention to Poke, "So, uh... How far to the bridge?"

Hearing the girl’s reply and knowing that Yuki was going to tip toe around getting across the river, Neko just decided to make it as quick and painless as possible for everyone. “Ah, for the love of..” Neko turned to Yuki and Hitsu. “Hey, eyes here.” He pointed to his own eyes with his forefinger and middle finger of his right hand as if trying to get their attention to focus on him. What he was really doing was trying to get them both to make eye contact as his eyes began to shimmer with his hypnotic trance.

“We are going to cross the river here and get it over with.” He said the line a bit slower than usual as if trying to get his point across. “Just follow my lead, okay?” He waited for their reactions before he stepped foot toward the river’s edge.

well, she had offered some help. Poke shrugged and was wondering how these guys were gonna get accross, when neko had did...something. to them.

She didn't like what that guy was doing to them. And how they were now just "fine" with getting wet. As they approached the river side poke ran along side yuki and jumped into the water. She poped her head above again and then said to them. "I can tell those two can't swim...so I'm gonna keep an eye on them"

It may of been weird for a complete stranger to want to help them so much, but she was a nice person, and decided she may as well make sure this group got to the town in one peice.

“Don’t worry,” Neko smiled back to the girl as he stepped into the water. “You would be surprised what a person can do when their mind isn’t clouded by fear.” He turned back to make sure Hitsu and Yuki were close. He wouldn’t be able to get too far from them to keep the mind control up. About twenty feet was his max after that his hold would start to become unstable and they would regain their consciousness. Still out of caution he coaxed Hitsu to stay close to him as they crossed. The current wasn’t very strong at this part of the river, which was good, so Neko had very little trouble convincing his two fellow felines that they could swim.

Once to the other side, Neko helped Hitsu up onto the bank and then climbed out right behind her. Seeing Yuki was now in standing water he decided to release the hold he had on the both of them, leaving Yuki to wonder why he was waist deep in water.

getting across the river was no problem for poke. While riyo had doggy paddled and the rest were swimming, she was laying on her back and letting her tail steer her in the right direction. She was keeping an eye on yuki and hitsu, but she needn't have worried as they made their way across.

Once on the other side, poke had remembered something, and ducked into the denser part of the forest. She was gone for about 5 minutes when she returned, holding a knapsack and what appeared to be a blue coloured pole that was almost as long as her body was

"Had to grab my stuff" she simply said, and then noticed the two had returned to normal and one of them was acting like he was high on catnip.

As Neko began to actually count off fingers, Yuki's expression only got worse. How... Many times? He tried to think back. How many times had he forgotten what had happened to him not long after stepping into the tavern? Had the alcohol really been to blame? Yuki's jaw dropped.

Meanwhile, Hitsu was staring at Yuki with a raised brow. "He helped us get across the river... At least we weren't afraid, right?" She tried to explain, clearly not grasping just how evil such a power could be. When she got nowhere, she'd turned to look at Neko, perhaps for input despite how ineffective he'd made himself already. The strange grin on his face only confused her even more, so she just stood there wordlessly.

Yuki let out a shout, scaring his sister half out of her wits as he suddenly threw his arms around her torso and intentionally over just what Neko had been staring at. Yuki had followed Neko's gaze, and taken little time to notice what he had. "How... Dare you!" He barked angrily, glaring hatefully at him as though he really wished he'd burst into flame.

Riyo had stuck around for the beginning when Yuki came to the realization that he had been in water... But when the yelling started, she quickly scuttled away and began to investigate. Riyo was also "soaked" like the other two, but didn't quite care because the thoughts of men weren't really an issue in her mind. What she was really curious about was that sound she had been hearing..

"Nyuu nyuu nyuuuuu~" She hummed as she skipped toward the sound, her hobo sack slung over her shoulder.

[I promise my posts will get shorter once I start interacting with others!! I’s sorry!! ^.^]

Kyo woke up barely able to move. Bit by bit he was able to stretch his muscles enough so that after three or four hours he had pretty much free range of motion. All the while, though, his stomach writhed against his insides and his throat burned with dryness. He moved to the corpses of his enemies and looked at the demon’s remains. He saw where his wad of phlegm had landed, turned his head, and giggled. He then began to rifle through their satchels, securing jerky, unleavened bread, and water. All of these things he devoured with haste.

Having quenched his thirst and sated his hunger, Kyo stood and looked at the sky. He had slept for a full day, and night would be falling upon the forest in a matter of moments. This was familiar territory, though. He began to think about where he was exactly. “The river!” He exclaimed as he ran towards the sound of water.

Now that he knew where he was, he just needed to cross the river. His pace slowed, and then stopped as he reached the riverbank. He began fishing something out of the pocket on the inside of his jacket when he noticed the tracks. Lots of tracks. It seemed as if there was a dance competition, and all the little forest animals were invited. He sniffed. Finned thingies, tailed thingies, and hoofed thingies all seemed to have dance, dance, danced their little hearts out.

“There were several commotions, one broke off and headed downstream towards town while the others were pushing one of them into the ground, presumably pinning them. Then everyone crossed the stream following the one that broke off. It was NOT a dance competition you dunderhead.” Many-as-One said matter-of-factly.

“You got all that just by studying those tracks?” Kyo questioned, obviously impressed.

“No, I watched them from a distance while you were gorging yourself on meat and water.” He replied.

“Now I know why street conjurers don’t tell how they do their tricks.” Kyo muttered.

Having disentangled the item from his inner pocket, Kyo produced a scroll. He was able to swim just fine for a human, but the weight of his sword made the mundane task impossible. He unrolled the scroll, activated the spell written on it, and placed it on the surface of the water. It floated on the surface, not moving with the current. “Excellent.” Kyo said in a very pleased manner as he stood on the scroll. Once his entire weight was on the scroll, he tapped his foot and the parchment began to float across the river towards the far bank.

“It’s times like these that I really don’t wonder at why I decided to study magic so intensely. I mean, when all a man has to do to cross a stream is walk into Barnum’s Scroll Shoppe, lay two silvers on the table and say…” Just then there was a crackle beneath Kyo’s feet as the spell fizzled “OHH SH*T!”

Kyo had just enough time to take in a gulp of fresh air before he and his sword plunged into the water, sinking all the way to the river’s bottom. Standing in the muck at the bottom of the river, Kyo cast an annoyed look to his left. “Little help?” Kyo said in his mind.

“What now?”

“I need you to help me remember a spell… it’s first year crap. Little ditty that goes by the name of ‘aqua-lung’.”

“I’m on it.” Many-as-One replied as he went off through Kyo’s neural pathways to find his memories of his first year transmutation class. “Got it!” He said to Kyo, proud of himself for sifting through so much useless prattling from an elderly teacher so quickly.

Kyo ran the runes through his mind thankfully, as he was almost out of oxygen. His lungs began to tingle as a side effect of the spell to let the user know that it is working. Then, Kyo had to do what is against every human’s nature. He exhaled all of the air out of his lungs and took in a fresh breath of… water. He felt like he was choking on the murk, but he knew that it was only natural reflex. Once his lungs’ little hissy fit was concluded, he began walking along the bottom of the river until he reached the opposite bank. As he was coughing up the murky substance that passed for water in third rate rivers (yeah, he’s bitter) he made a mental note to be wary of vendors and shops that spelled ‘shop’ like ‘Shoppe’ in a ‘ye olde’ manner, as well as a reminder to personally see to it that Barnum’s skull is split the next time he saw him.

Soaking wet and more than a little annoyed, Kyo began walking towards the village. “Hey, M?” Kyo said after he remembered that Barnum’s Scroll Shoppe was located in the town just ahead.

“What?” Many-as-One replied.

Kyo grinned, and focused his magicka so that his sword switched to the other shoulder. “Things are looking up, looking down.”

“Indeed, Kyo.” Many-as-One said with great mirth. “Indeed.”