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In a spectacular display of dust and darkness, the skull-like face in the shadows gave a silent scream and faded away.

"Sssssomeone aproachessss. Heeee may be the caussssse of that sshadow'ssss desstruction," a shadowy voice whispered Esiri's ear.

"Thank you Tynan," she replied mentally to her currently invisible shade companion.
Turning to the girl, correction, young woman, she said, "there's someone coming this way, and I think he's the one who made that shadow...monster disappear. Would you care to join me in finding this person?"

Esiri paused for a moment. Then it hit her.

"Oh! Where are my manners? I'm sorry for not introducing myself to you earlier!! I am Esiruil Ladarien, Shadowdancer," Esiri said with a semi-formal bow.

(x.x *goes with what silver said* Yep yep)

Felicia carefully sheathed her sword by her side as the shadow creature faded, her ears purking as they tried to pick up the sound of the approaching person. She blinked, watching the woman in front of her; she hadn't expected her to be so polite towards her. Shadowdancer... she thought to herself, hiding her curiosity for now. "Oh.." was all that came from her as the woman bowed to her, making her blink again. "I'm Felicia Drake." she said as she gave a graceful and slightly akward bow to Esiri. Felicia straightened herself in a fluid movement, looking around a bit towards the treetops as she did. "I'll join you, but first I need a moment.." with that she stuck a couple fingers in her mouth and gave a sharp whistle, waiting for a moment before hearing flapping noises behind her. Felicia blinked as something landed on her head, making her look up and grin; a small silver dragon that couldn't have been more than three and a half feet long hand perched itself on Felicia's head, letting it's tail curl part-way around the back of her head. "Alright, I'm ready." she said, looking at Esiri as her grin toned down to a smile.

((I'd like to ask that when I do something, another user does not assume things and then write out an outcome without at least discussing it with me.

I'm not mad. Not at all, but I need to point out that the large skull shadow wasn't solid. It was simply shadows molded into an image, moving in a direction. So, trying to strike it with a weapon would have been pointless.

That, and the image was significantly larger than any one person's body. Consider it at around fifty feet in height, twenty feet in width. Of course, the miscommunication about the illusion's size was no one's fault but my own. I didn't specify it's size.

So, for this post I will roll with what Azeril wrote, but in the future, please take what I said into consideration.

Thank you.))

As the creature called Dorian slashed his weapons into the form of the shade skull, it grew distorted, and then burst out of shape like as if a gust of wind had passed through a cloud of smoke.

What Dorian was likely to assume was that the image's demise was his doing. The truth was that it was the work of its maker.

The shadows blurred, faded, and many faded out of existence. Without specific commands, a shadow without a shape cannot hold its place in the material plane, and so it must vanish.

Those shadows that did remain settled to the ground like sheets descending from the sky, fluttering over the breeze until they nestled themselves in the grass.

This was when the mind's of Aurora's soldiers, particularly the villagers, would be put to the test.

We often overlook it, but every object under the sun has a shadow including a solitary blade of grass. Alone, the size of such a thing is inconsequential. However, consider a field of grass. Millions of blades of grass. Combine these with the remaining shadows that had been drawn from the forest. You have an army.

When next the shadows stirred, it came with a sound. The bane filled shriek of a beast.

Beneath the very feet of Aurora's kin and countrymen erupted the effigy of a great snake. It's scales were onyx, the sun almost waned in the presence of their inky surface. In fact, the whole serpent was black. It's many thin, scimitar length fangs were as black as the forked tongue that lashed out of its gaping maw like a taut rope just snapped. Even the monster's eyes were black, polished and expressionless.

The serpent plunged out of the ground, passing clear through the middle of the army's ranks. What might be surprising to hear was that the soldiers caught in its wake were unharmed. The snake was only an image. An illusion. A nightmare manifested in the daylight.

However, who would know? The army had just seen the one named Dorian destroy the specter of the skull using his weapons. To them, that would clearly state that these monsters were real. Physical entities, that could kill as well as be killed. As such, when the snake leapt from out of the ground (so it would seem, but again it was only out of the shadows) and tore straight through their ranks, one thing would be accomplished.

Chaos.

The snake's body arched backwards, and as it did so, the 'creature' shrieked again. As it did, a slew of shadows were vomited forth from its mouth, spilling out over its fangs and diluting the blue sky above it.

The creature's design was perfect for its purpose. To instill fear.

((I'll leave it to Zaven, Aurora, and all the rest in the army to decide how many of the villagers run/cry/break formation/look up at the thing, unimpressed razz ))

((It being an RP has nothing to do with whether or not a person is simply allowed to dismiss or alter things on a whim. However, now that you've elaborated I'm a little more enlightened to your position. All the same, next time you make a post along those lines, please describe what you are doing. If I had known that the attack was light based, I would have been much more standing at the time. In regards to the attack being Divine, however, please reffer back to the most recent excert from Arch Mage Leonidas' handbook. It will only do as much damage as any other attack, since Nox has neither offended the Gods, nor is against them.))

Esiri raised an eyebrow as a small silver wyrmling plopped down on Felicia's head. How on earth did she convince a dragon to go along with her, and a silver dragon at that?

"Alright, this way Felicia Drake," Esiri said, turning to the direction she last saw the skull-like shadow.

"Tynan, did you see who the person was?" Esiri asked her shade mentally.

"No, I did not Essssiri. But they are ruuuning towards somethhhhhing..." replied Tynan.

"Hmm...scout on ahead and report back if you find them. If you can't find whoever it was, come back,"

"As you wiisssh, M'Lady..."

Esiri felt Tynan's presence go on up ahead and started to walk after him.

Turning back to Felicia, she asked,"What's the name of the wyrmling?"

Felicia began to follow her as the dragon remained perched on her head, her tail flicking a bit as the dragon nibbled on one of her cat ears. "Well, I call him Falcon, because he flies pretty fast..and he likes to make bird sounds.." she added as Falcon began cawing like a crow while flapping his wings, then made some soft whistling sounds like a smaller bird like a sparrow would. Felicia gave a light chuckle at her compain's odd noise-making. "Alright, I think she gets the point.." she said, reaching one of her slender hands up to lightly stroke at one of his wings. At this Falcon made a soft cooing sound, seeming to enjoy it. "Anyway, I'm curious about you, would you mind telling me a bit about yourself or would you rather keep that to yourself..?" slowly her tail swung from side to side as she spoke, her gaze turning back to Esiri.

((Can I suggest that we all just agree that we are in the same general area? That way everyone is within the same distance of the unfolding events in the RP. It seems counterproductive to have so many people off in ANOTHER forest, RPing by themselves or with just one other person.))

Drawing his sword and pulling the shield from his back, Paal stared what he assumed to be death in the face... and didn't even blink. Let the others make it away; I'll stay here. Better to die as a distraction than live as a runner. His sword was in position behind his head, loosely grasped in his hand; his shield just below his eyeline, covering from side to side; his knees bent, his weapon foot ahead of the other, squared slightly towards the oncoming enemy. "Come and get me," he muttered, letting the others rush past him without a comment.