Welcome to Gaia! ::

So the story behind why this little boy was even in the desert is quite long. Shall we cut it short? Basically, Lugh followed his elder twin and even though Rei probably could care less about his twin much less even talk or even acknowledge the fact that he was even there. Not that the carefree sage could care anyways. He had an Elwind tome! Sure most of the time he'd have a fire tome..or thunder..but wow! They had wind here! This had Lugh excited to the point where he simply followed the group despite not really being known to others.

Oh well, nothing could really ruin the mood....besides the fact that bandits were attacking! "Wah!!" Gate exploded, everyone charging in, windows breaking.

The group ran one way, Lugh ran the other pretty much screaming as he dodged blades that were coming at him. Mages didn't provide much of a threat to the sage himself...but archers? Swordmasters? Axe users? No!!!! Lugh didn't feel like getting his a** raped kicked in some unknown place!

He turned a corner, stumbling over his feet just a bit before turning to face his pursuers. A green tome flew open, pages turning from the wind around him. The spell finished in a quick chant. From four sides of the swordmaster, wind blades formed, circling the sword user, eventually coming together like a small whirlwind.

Lugh stared for a moment, then watched as his body suddenly went flying back against the walls. His mouth curled into an 'o' as the new spell came to be very fascinating for him. He jumped, throwing the tomb up over his head. Just as he did cheer, that grabbed other bandit's attention. The sage blinked, slowly inched back then started running again.

A figure came to be familiar to Lugh and once he got closer, he was almost too happy to be able to find him. Arms extended, Lugh ran toward the dark figure.

"REI!!! REI REI REI REI REI!!" The boy called. He bumped into the druid and clung to his cloak for a bit. "There are baddies after me! I can't take them all at once!" he cried. One of the fat ugly greasy bandits had come close enough to scare the living day lights out of the poor sage. Lugh shrieked, raised his Elwind tome over his head then suddenly smashed it against the bandit's skull.

There was a slight 'DWOOOOAAAA' when it happened. After a moment, the little sage realized what he just did...That is not how you use a tome but hey....it got the job done.

((I hope it wasn't too late to join in))

Already being in the city, by flying over the walls is a good advantage for some people. Finding the leader of the army you wished to side with really wasn't a good thing. Oh and lets also add the fact that without an axereaver, unless he wished to mainly be bait for archers, Zeiss would be useless against the bandits.

So, the best thing to do is to fly around them, and do his best to pick them off with his javelin. Would this work? Well if there were bandits around it could. Though there were people storming the gates now, so one of them could know the commander of the army here, so hey, bonus.

Well, following them would lead him to some rewards, and figuring out where the hell he was. Objective one: Stay safe. Objective two: Figure out who the hell is who...well that is clear. Objective three: Join the army by getting to the commander. So in other words...Zeiss is a flying green unit, looking around for someone to talk to on the Learanian side, and so now he is following the Learanians to the center of town where the bandits are.

If there was one thing the enemy hated, it was the persistence and determination that the heroes had. Bandits fell to their deaths by the hands of these Learanian freaks. Those that were on the rooftops had ran out of debris to attack them (yet, how could these Learanians manage to dodge their boulder attacks?) They drew out their weapons and ran downsides to attack them from the side and behind.

Somewhere else, bandits ran in fear. No one had told them that if they ever ran into laguz, they would have to fight. They thought that outnumber the laguz would be enough to destroy them. However, the laguz had proven them wrong. Fearing for their lives, the bandits retreated back to the center of Pentheus.

Those fools. Viscen thought angrily as he watched his allies fallen and the intruders heading toward him. Were these Learanians so eager to take back their land after they invaded their land? To what right did they have to enter without their consent? Man, these bastards bruised his pride badly. But before Viscen could withdraw his Swordreaver, he heard a shout from the other side.

”Viscen! Viscen! There are animals in Pentheus!” One of the bandits cried out as they came to the center.

First, it was Learanians. And now there were animals in this city? s**t! It was bad enough that they had to defend the city from these intruders. But now they had some pests to control? Crap, Drake hadn’t told him about animals in Learania. The young warrior had heard about those who could transform into animals, but he had never actually seen or fought them. Well, he couldn’t send his men to investigate if these animals were those shapeshifters or not. He had other issue to deal with.

But seeing that there weren’t enough men to battle against the Learanians, Viscen couldn’t help but cursed. It looked like they had to retreat. As much as he had pride in himself to battle against them and too stubborn to let them take their city back, he knew well enough who won this battle. Damn! Where was the reinforcement? He didn’t send Barsch to alert Drake for nothing.

“Everyone, retreat!” Viscen shouted to his comrades. “Take all the loot you can carry! We’re leaving!”

Although the young warrior is displeased about retreating and ashamed to let Drake down of keeping a simple task, he didn’t plan of retreating empty handed. If he couldn’t win, well at least he had consolation prize to take.

The bandits that heard him followed his orders. They grabbed the sacks of treasures and loots and ran. As the bandits ran to get out of the city and headed to their homeland, Viscen casually walked toward the cart and turned his head to see the battle.

The Learanians had nearly finished killing the bandits and were heading straight to him. He narrowed his brows with fury and he clenched his fists. Oh how badly did he want to battle them, but only being forced to retreat? But then he saw something that caught his eyes. Hanging outside of the armory shop at the entrance of the center was a huge net full of barrels. This gave the young warrior an idea.

“Hey, you!” Viscen shouted as he grabbed the bandit mage that was trying to run with the loot. He then drew out his bow and arrow. Pulling the string of the bow, he pointed his arrow tip above the cargo’s rope. “Cast your spell at that cargo now!”

”But-“

“Do as I said!”

Viscen heard the mage quickly chanted his incantation. Viscen watched his opponents coming closer, waiting for them to come.

“Special delivery!” Viscen cried out as he released his arrow before climbed into the cart. The cart then began to depart to Sentria. “I hope you’re having a blast as much as I do!”

The arrow soared through the air before it ripped half of the rope’s length. With the heavy load attached to it, the rope began to break from its grip. The mage had finished his chant and unleashed his Fire spell at the cargo. The rope suddenly gave up and snapped, letting the cargo fell.

As the spell hit the cargo, it set off the triggered of the gunpowder, causing an explosion before it hit the ground. The explosion had created an impact to cause part of the buildings to break and its debris fell.

Those who were near the explosion would feel the impact of the force and received severely damaged. Those that weren’t near the explosion may be safe, but they would have to climb over the rubble of the now ruined entrance.





((Shitty post is shitty post. Deal with it.))

Oujay ducked as a bandit swung his axe sideways. He gripped his sword with both hands and swung his sword upwards at the bandit. The sword slashed across the bandit's chest in a clean cut causing the bandit to drop his axe and fall onto the ground, meeting his demise.

He slunk his head down for a few seconds as he rested. He noticed shadows that were rapidly increasing in size. He looked up and saw debris throwing down at them. "Watch Out!" he yelled out to the other soldiers as he pointed out to the sky. The soldiers looked and dodged the debris that might have hit them if they had not noticed it. He looked back up and saw one going right at him. He rolled out of the way, just before it landed. Oujay quickly got back onto his feet as he used his sword as support. He turned his sword around and continued charging with the other soldiers as they got closer to the center of the city.

As he was running past a building, he suddenly felt an immense amount of pain in his chest as he flew backwards. He crashed into a couple barrels. He pushed the barrels away from him as he slowly got back onto his feet. "What the hell..." he whispered as he looked forward. He saw a bandit walking slowly towards him with a grin on his face, holding his axe in one hand while it rested on his shoulder.

He wiped some blood off of his face and charged head on towards the bandit. The bandit blocked his attack with his axe. The bandit parried away his sword and kicked him backwards. Oujay stumbled backwards a couple steps from the kick. He finally took a closer look at the axe the bandit was using. "Great," he thought, "A sword reaver."

He took a deep breathes and raised his sword back up, pointing it towards the bandit. "You can do this," he thought as he saw the bandit charge at him. As the bandit got closer, he pulled his arm back getting ready to swing at the mercenary in front of him. The bandit swung with all it's might down at Oujay as he stood right in front of him.

Oujay dashed backwards, dodging the swing completely. The bandit was left wide open and the mercenary jumped into the air as his blade was rest on his shoulder. While he was in the air, he flipped and began falling towards the bandit. The bandit was quickly trying to recover as he pulled up his axe, but it was too late. Oujay landed in front of the bandit with it's sword cut into the bandit. The bandit loosened it's grip on the axe and just dropped onto the ground.

Oujay kicked the bandit out of the way and saw that he was behind the rest of the attacking soldiers. He began running as he saw the soldiers fighting the rest of the bandits near the center of the city.

He was close, close to catching up with the rest of the soldiers, but suddenly a huge explosion occurred and it sent Oujay flying back a couple inches.

"What's the hell?" he said as he raised his head. His face suddenly changed to an expression of shock and terror as he saw the ruined building along with a huge pile of debris.

He tried to get back onto his feet to see the conditions of the soldiers, but the injury from the battle from that bandit was affecting him. "Damn it," he said as he strained himself in an attempt to get back up.

((Ehh, well I posted. so there Rath))

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Learanian soldiers began to swarm the remaining bandits in the center of the city. The brawl picked up in a flash and nobody even saw the young warrior slip passed. Deborah had almost arrived at the scene, when she saw numerous barrels begin to fall and roll towards the fighting. Normal barrels were just an inconvenience if they got in the way during a fight- but there was something inside these barrels. As they hit the ground, the powder fell out and covered the ground. When Deborah saw the power, she slid to a halt held out her arms to block anybody who was running behind her. "Everybody, get away from deh barrels!!"

However, the warning came to late for some. A fire spell hit the barrels and caused a massive explosion. If one had time to think for a moment, a question of why those barrels were there in the first place would come to mind. The sensitivity of gun powder in their current day was extreme and thus it needed to be kept secure in a safe place. Sometimes, it even went off without warning. There was no way that the forge of the city kept it loosely out in the open. A likely explanation was that the bandits had found it and got it out, to utilize it. And they certainly found a way to use it well.

Soldiers and bandits alike who had not gotten away were either killed or greatly injured in the explosion. Even more were damaged from the falling rubble of the buildings that blocked the entrance the bandits had created. The soldiers that were merely knocked back got up and began to rush forward. Deborah saw some of them trying to get around the rubble, as if trying to follow the bandits. "...Let dem go! Get deh survivors outta deh rubbel." She pointed to the soldier closest to her. "You, gather up all healahs and have them ready." The soldier nodded and ran off. There were at least two guild members who could use staves in Pentheus and the guard had a couple who came with them.

There were also stave users in Pentheus. The healers of Pentheus clinic had not escaped, but they were also safe. When the city was invaded, they hid themselves in the clinic cellar which had a rug covered over its entrance, to conceal it from those who were not smart enough to find it. They had injured people, they could not have just left them there. When the Learanian armies arrived, one of the girls had peeked out to see what was going on. They watched the battle unfold and when things had calmed down, they emerged with staves, bandages and other essentials, to help out with the healing. Their help was greatly welcomed.

In the sky, Deboah spotted a wyvern flying towards her. He must have determined that she was the leader by the way she was giving orders, and must have had a need to find her, because he came flying down to her. Deborah looked him over, not remembering his face. "Bern armah..." Though she did not know who he was, nor did she remember him coming with them to Pentheus, he was the only flying unit there. A flying unit was exactly what was needed at the moment. It didn't matter to Deborah whether this man had joined the guard like Mihira had or not, she would make use of him. "You! I want ya tah follow dose bandits and see where deh go. Once ya find out, get back here and inform us." She turned, planning to go help out with getting the soldiers out of the rubble, but stopped when she saw that the man was still there. "...Dere sometin' ya need from me, boy?"

Let the moonlight sign post shine through the clouds to me
____and show me which road to take
______No matter how close to breaking I am today....

I'll re-awaken the distant memory of that day______
So don't forget, keep it carved in your heart.

Having taken notice to the barrels that were coming at him were noted, however the sudden explosion that occurred straight after was not. His reaction was not quick enough to fuly escape despite Deborah's fair warning which eventually got Ephraim caught up in the cross-fire. Buildings collapsed, blocking off any route the lancer had into escaping the falling debris that soon engulfed him. Agh curses, if Ephraim didn't know any better he'd have a good feeling that he'd somehow had gotten hit in the head by something. It was too dark to see, there were cracks from the rubble and just barely anybody who was caught was moving, trying to find their way out. He had just enough space to crawl against the dirt but with the sheer sting coming from his left arm and leg (he couldn't figure out which one was severly injured but he knew one was hurting like a b***h). The lancer was finally able to get himself out and with the help of others on the outside trying to pull bodies and people who were still alive out and tended to.

Great, this wasn't exactly his plan when he volunteered to come along. The sting in his arm caught up with him when the soldiers had set him down against the wall then returned to the pile to resume diggint things out. His left eye was closed from the blood dripping down from his forehead, there was a glass shard piercing his leg that he could clearly see sticking out and a fairly large deep gash in his left arm. The rest of him was either scratches bleeding lightly, bruises or clothing that were torn. His breathing wasn't exactly that of a calm one either. After being in such an explosion and still alive after that? It was a miracle how Ephraim was able to pull such a thing at the last minute. Finding a gap in the middle of that with a few major injuries was better then being dead. He was relieved when one of the healers tending to other survivors approached him, cleaning off some blood before mending the wound with their staves. There was sheer painful cry that came from Ephraim when the glass shard was removed without warning. God Son of a-That hurt!! It hurt even more when some sort of disinfecting medicine was applied before they closed the wound up and bandaged it. Don't walk on it too much they say..huh, that would be difficult since they would need to return to Eyris on foot.

He finally sat up straight when the last of his injuries were tended to and the healer left to give her attention to some of the other ones in need. Ephraim looked up, watching some of the people run back and forth from healer to soldiers then back to the pile of rubble that was slowly shrinking. If he helped the way he was now, he'd just get in the way and possibly get yelled at. He could barely stand for crying out loud (Well....can't stand for too long at the very least).

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The captain rolled her eyes at the man's response. He might have been slow or something. but at least he was doing what was asked of him.

Once the wyvern rider was gone, Deborah went over and helped uncover the rest of the soldiers. Any bandits they dug out, who were still alive, were tied up and put under watch. Most soldiers who had been caught in the explosion had lived, thankfully. Not many Learanian troops had been lost in the battle.

All the bodies were eventually recovered from the debris. It took near a couple of hours to do so. The healers were doing all they could for the ones they could save. The most critically injured were the top priorities, followed by guild members, then Learanian troops, then bandits- that is, if their wounds would cause them to die. Deborah walked around, observing the injured soldiers. One of the clerics from Pentheus' clinic nearly bumped into her as she approached an injured guild member. Deborah recognized him as one of the people who had traveled with her last autumn, though she didn't know his name. Deborah lightly bumped the cleric's shoulder with her hand to get the healer's attention. "He gunna be alright?"

The cleric jumped a little, then turned to the dark-skinned woman. "Hm? ..Oh, yes, he'll be fine. I've looked him over already and gave a preliminary healing. Now that the more critically injured have been helped, I'm back to finish him up." The cleric smiled. "When I'm done, he'll be able to walk around normally and do what needs to be done."

"Good." Deborah replied, nodding to the cleric so that she could get back to work. She looked at the lancer blankly for a moment, then walked off. He was one of the more competent guild members she had run into. It was good that he was going to be okay.

The halberdier then met up with Needles and stood beside her. She stretched her arms up, then placed one on his hip. "Well, looks like we did it. Though I don't 'spect dat dis is deh last time we'll be seein' dem."

A sudden voice came out from behind the two captains. "I will return to the capital and inform the crew of your victory. I take my leave." Deborah turned to look, but merely saw a dark figure darting away. She knew it was Crow, but it was annoying how he was able to sneak around like that. He was a better hunter than she was.

A large shadow was cast over Deborah, who looked up to see a wyvern descending near her and Needles. Once the rider came into view, she saw that it was the scout she had sent out. "Ah, looks like we'll find out what deh bandits are up to."

The rider dismounted and passed along his report. Deborah had been feeling at ease, but was suddenly filled with a sense of new founded urgency. As the last part of the report was given, she raised a brow. "Like hell dey not comin' back here. Dis is deh country's biggest port. Dem takin' it cripples our resources greatly, dat's why deh took it in deh first time." She sighed, then calmed down a little. It wasn't the rider's fault, he was slow in the head after all, or at least that's what Deborah had determined. "Damn it all, dey was already comin' wit reinforcements! Who deh hell in Sentria is smart enough to coordinate dis?!"

She growled and allowed herself to calm down again, which wasn't really working out so well. Deborah looked out at the armies, the injured, and then at Needles. She accepted that even with the advantage of having the city, they did not have enough numbers to fend off a reinforced bandit attack. But the rider also said that the bandits had split into two separate groups. This gave Deborah an idea. "Since dey split into two groups, it might mean dat dey're planin' tah do like we did and attack from both gates. Since deh scout here was gone for as long as he was, it means dat deh bandits should still be in Sentria, right now. I'll take deh guild members and go to deh desert, myself. We'll let deh first group pass us by, but den when the second one comes, we'll take it by surprise. We'll take dis war into dere lands." Her brows furrowed. "Dis will greatly diminish dere numbers and give you a bettah chance at beatin' deh rest o' dem. What ya tink... up for it?"

((Have Roy's permission to control Sunil.))

Damnit, whoever set off that explosion would have a beating of a lifetime. It hurt Rajin's ears when the explosion set off, being sensitive with the ears. And the dust flying around made him wanted to hack too. Damnit, he felt like he had a furball in his throat, only smaller and stuck to the throat.

It was then that he received a punch from the bandit below him. Ticked off of what happened, the tiger gave several punches to the bandit, knocking the bandit out cold after the fifth punch. Once he was done, Rajin got up and grabbed the sack of loot that was a bit far from the bandit.

"I'll take that." Rajin claimed as he threw the sack over the shoulder. He then noticed the blue cat laguz giving him the look. So the smaller one was a cat laguz? But what was the cat giving him the look?

"What? Those stinky humans owe me for breaking my vase." Rajin explained. He then looked around the area.

There was a huge rubble blocking one of the entrances and some beorc were trying to remove the debris. Others were trying to tending the injures. Man, that must have been a serious battle to cause such a mess. What could have caused it?

It was then that he noticed the smaller one headed toward the debris, where the soldiers were having trouble removing the heavy boulders. When the smaller one turned around, he asked Rajin was he going to help the beorc.

To be frank, Rajin didn't want to bother with it. It was none of his business and he didn't give a crap about the war as long as it didn't involve him. He just wanted to go back to Eyris, explain what happened to the artifact, and collect whatever payment he had.

But before he could decline, a healer approached to them and ask if they needed to be tended. Rajin looked at his arms. He had several cuts and scratches, but none too seriously. He told the healer he was okay. Before he could leave, the healer asked him if he was going to help them care the injures. The tiger shook his head.

"Lady, I don't know any s**t about healing and I don't give a damn."

Suddenly, he saw a sad look at the healer's face. He felt a ping of guilt in his heart. Crap, he made the woman sad. The healer sniffed softly and tried to explain about people needing help and how awful the war had made them suffered. Tears were starting to form in her eyes. Not wanting to upset the healer and felt like a bad guy, Rajin quickly told her he'd help out. Damn those sad looks and sob explanation. They had to go and made him feel like the bad guy.

After hours of moving the debris and setting the injures aside, Rajin swept his sweats. Damn it was a lot of hard work, but at least it was over.

His ears suddenly perked when he heard the smaller laguz calling him. When the cat asked him what was he going to do, Rajin replied about going back to Eyris to finish his work. The cat laguz nodded and replied that he had to go too, needing to finish up an errand he had. Not caring what the cat was going, Rajin waved him off that he had to get something first before departing. The cat nodded and walked off, heading back toward Eyris.

Now that the work was over, he would have to get his sack of payment and-

"Hey, where did my payment go?" Rajin asked

He placed the sack of loot against the wall when he was helping moving the debris. Did someone take it while he was cleaning?

"Damnit!" Rajin shouted as he punched his fist against the wall. Small pieces of the wall chipped off as well as a crack was made. With the artifact broken and no sack of loot to made up for it, the tiger would get no payment. This pissed him off badly.

Suddenly, he heard something that caught his attention. Turning around, he saw a dark woman talking to another woman, discussing about planning to split the group and attack the bandits. Although the tiger didn't want to get into the battle, but damn he needed something to let his frustration out.

"Planning to beat those bandits up?" Rajin asked the dark woman as he walked toward him. "Then count me in. These bastards owe me for ruining my job."

((Crummy post. I think I'm losing my touch... .__.; ))