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General Aquamarine - on the western path - Using leader ability on Radon

Aquamarine walked with a determined gaze cast forward, rarely looking back to ensure he was being followed, already irritated by what this mission was revealing about the Negaverse’s forces.

First there was a General using the briefing as an opportunity to get some sleep. Now there was a Captain requesting social time in the middle of a mission, when there was no such time to waste. The Negaverse had always been s**t, but it seemed worse these days. Seven years Aquamarine had been at this; the quality of their agents seemed to drop with each of those years. At this point, he couldn’t say if their recruitment practices were to blame or their training, or if people in general had simply become more intolerable, and carried that over once they were recruited.

At least the Lieutenants gave him no reason to immediately dislike them.

Yet.

Their path took them up, above the mist; Aquamarine gazed into the sky, then ahead where the mist dropped off. Down he went again, continuing on, at which point they came upon a bat-like youma. Aquamarine held up a hand to motion for those following him to slow and remain cautious, then he stopped, leaving plenty of room for the others to pass him if they chose.

“Don’t engage unless it attacks,” he warned them — an unnecessary command if they’d paid attention at the briefing. “And don’t go far. Keep searching for clues.”

Aquamarine locked eyes with the youma (Radon). With a calm, even tone, he said, “We’re looking for one of you, feathered and scaled, though it can change its form. Help us find it.”

Naturally, he neglected to mention they had a semi-nefarious purpose for doing so. Technically, they only meant to strip it of its scales; that didn’t necessarily mean they’d slaughter it, just… leave it a bit naked. Maybe…

Lieutenant Eveite
HP: 50/50

There didn't appear to be any objections to her joining the group on the Eastern path, and it appeared that all of them were now in split. She was quite happy to have her boots on now considering what the terrain was like. Perhaps when she became a Captain she could ask for gloves with her uniform as well. They were sorely needed here.

There was a silhouette in the distance, though she couldn't make out what it was. And it had vanished by the time she had blinked. Now she was seeing things, great! Hopefully there weren't any shadow-like Youma. Ones that didn't reflect any light. Too dark.

Eventually they made it to where holes in the cliffs started to become frequent. She didn't believe that she had trypophobia but this place looked as though it would give her that fear anyway... she made sure to carefully move around the holes so that she didn't pass over any of them, even if that meant hugging the cliff face. She probably looked pretty dumb doing it, but she was not going to look into them. And if video games were anything to go by...

Her fears came true. The General leading them and another were attacked by something from the holes, and she couldn't help but jump as close as she could to the cliff.

No reason to be afraid of holes... right?

General Chalcanthite - Central Path

One moment Chalcanthite had been looking around the path, the next moment he was falling down to the ground below. He heard one of his teammates call out for him but it was too late as he plummeted towards the ground. This was very bad, the options he did have were almost zero but he scrambled to try and grab at the cliffs as he fell. It was then that he heard a voice from below followed by the appearance of a feathered youma. “Thank you!” He waved down towards the general direction that the combat team would be at as a thank you if they hadn’t heard him.

After grabbing up onto the ledge and dusting himself off, he turned back to make sure the others were still ok. “Is everyone else alright? I am sorry to have worried anyone with that little scene. We need to be careful if we can though, with all this slime moving around there may be clues beneath it.” Taking out his bow, he carefully poked and prodded at some of the squishy stuff as he moved forward to make sure the ground was actually solid.

Half-Youma Lieutenant Janggunite - 50 HP - eastern path

“No, it’s fine. There’s not even anything to…” There wasn’t anything he should be upset about, so there wasn’t anything she needed to apologize for. Janggunite had only known Lavendulan for the span of their trek. She didn’t owe him anything, and he didn’t have a reason to feel attached to her. It should even be expected that someone with her abilities would be expected to perform specific tasks. She wouldn’t be able to linger around babysitting him just because he didn’t feel good. “It’s fine,” Janggunite repeated firmly.

He should be fine. More than capable with a general, a youma, and a handful of other lieutenants. He’d be fine. The tip of his tail twitched. His claws flexed.

He didn’t feel fine.

Janggunite shook his head in an attempt to dispel the tumultuous emotions, waving her back to her group with a flick of his fingers and a rippling flutter of the crests at the sides of his head.

Something was abruptly deposited in his outstretched hand before she departed. A marble? A pearl? He wanted to ask, ’What gives?’ But Lavendulan was hurrying back toward her general, though not quick enough for him not to have a conniption right there on the ledge.

He scoffed, rolled the little magical orb around his palm, then tucked it away with a flourish. He had his own group to follow, and even though Maikoh seemed pleased with her acquisition of new lieutenants, Janggunite was anything but. The path at least wasn’t difficult to traverse, even for someone with his swooping and animated extra extremities. Eyes watched them. Something was in the distance. Janggunite coiled his arms around himself and let out a derisive huff.

Something grabbed him.

His impulse was to yank away. He’d never been fond of being touched in general, and that had been increasingly amplified after his time spent as a half-youma. Pulling from the grappling arm meant pulling toward Jet, and Janggunite only had to catch a glimpse of the general to recede away from him.

Let it. <******** let it. Maybe it would just be over after that.

Lieutenant Nobleite - 50 HP - western path

He cast an apologetic look back at the dragon captain. Nobleite was not personally offended by the slight delay, but given their location, he could understand everyone being a little on edge and wanting to proceed with some mixture of haste and caution. Still, she was hardly away from the group for a moment, and there was no harm done. Frankly, he thought that so long as they, as people, could hold themselves together and not descend into petty squabbles, they would probably be alright. ...But that seemed a little far fetched as he caught the look the captain shot their leader.

They descended the path without further incident and began to look for 'clues,' whatever that entailed.

For as much as Nobleite could tell, a lot of their path was just rocky slope, with little of interest to dig into. Probably more important to watch his footing to keep from taking a tumble than to go scouring the cliffside for- artefacts? Hidden messages? Unclear. Either way, the most obvious form of information came in the form of a youma Aquamarine tried to communicate with.

Something else Nobleite wasn't entirely convinced of the usefulness of... He didn't have many experiences with youma, but weren't they... well, kind of stupid? And belligerent? The last time he'd been i the Rift had been to rescue a young agent who'd been abducted by one...

He wasn't entirely convinced they could be helpful, but he lingered just behind the general, anyway. As a precaution.

Lieutenant Reidite - western path
HP: 25/50

Reidite looked from the pissy General to the other Lieutenant (Nobelite) and then over his shoulder at the Captain named Lavendulan, and shrugged. “If this was Russia, we would be one team member short. Good thing it is just Negaverse and Rift,” he said to the other Lieutenant.

He needed something to amuse himself if he was forced to follow Mr. Perfect Nose that he very much wanted to punch. And it was particularly amusing that no one seemed to know if he was joking about Russia or if he was being serious. Well, it was amusing to him. In this case, he was being absolutely serious.

But luckily for them, they had at least a short reprieve from that horrible mist. At least for a short while, until they were back to dealing with some kind of youma. He crossed his arms over his chest and watched, unimpressed as their leader told them not to attack. And to keep searching for clues.

Reidite kicked over a small rock on the path and said, “No clue here.” And then mumbled a few things in Russian that he probably would get in trouble for if Aquamarine could understand him. Thankfully he already knew he did not.

Unfortunately, Aquamarine’s new youma friend freaked out and ended up causing him injuries, which only increased the amount and volume of things he swore in Russian.

Lt. Leifite - 50 HP - 1d6+2 Eastern Path

General Jet was joining them, so Leifite made sure to be on her best behavior with the group. This path was wider and more traversable, though admittedly she was a little off put by the wall coloring. To be fair, she'd never really spent much time in the Rift so it was entirely possible this is what other portions of the Rift looked like. Maybe.

Her anxiety spiked at the toad creature thing, but it disappeared into the mist before anything could happen. Ever vigilant, Leifite peered at the at the weird little holes in the walls.

"General Jet! Janggungite!" she exclaimed as arms shot out of the damn walls. Leif did sort of gasp and squeak, but she'd not at all admit that she did. Nope. Jet dodged out of the way decently, but Janggunite was not so lucky.

No!

Thorite dropped his hands, looking at Chalcanthite with wide eyes.

"I'm fine," he said with a bit of a wheeze to his tone, "Are you fine? You're the one that almost took a header down the cliffs of dover, here!"

His jaw trembled but he clenched it tight. Chalcanthite was okay. He didn't die. Thorite didn't need to freak out anymore. Vaguely, he wondered if he'd been about to have a legitimate panic attack.