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Rhone, lost in thought, barely even notices Azura until he feels the fire start.

"Wait, what are you-"

Within moments of the fire tornado appearing, the blade in Rhone's hand screeches and releases its grip. Returned from the attempted posession, Rhone's eyes return to normal as he sees the blade in pain. Without a second thought, he pulls the blade, along with its arm, into his coat and tucks forward to try to protect it. He grits his teeth as both pain and rage build inside him.

"You think... to light me ablaze... while I try to..."

His eyes begin glowing again, blue this time, as his anger overtakes him momentarilly.

"I'M TRYING TO HAVE A CONVERSATION!"

He encases his body in shimmering mana and throws his arms outward, sending the mana away from him as a powerful force meant not to damage, but to repel.

Solaire watches the spectacle with his sword drawn, weighing whether or not he should interfere

"For someone supposedly posessed, he sure seems to have active control of his abilities... I don't even remember teaching him the Force miracle..."

"Indeed," Jade simply replied with a nod of agreement and led the way back through the masses in search of Zaul.

~~~

Zaul sighed in relief and smiled warmly, glad that Pascal wasn't alarmed at all by his casting. He'd try this on fellow natives of the world, but it was mostly humans who'd run away screaming under the impression that a half-elf was trying to murder them. "Glad ta have been 'f service, Pascal," he replied jovially with a bow.

After which, he sensed two kinda familiar mana signatures moving toward himself and the spunky Amarcian. He turned around to address them. "Ah, Jade? Krystal? What's up?"

Jade spoke as he moved closer, "Zaul, surely you've noticed by now that...quite a handful of our acquaintances have mysteriously vanished."

The one-eyed gunman put a hand to his forehead and let out a deep sigh. D'oh. Way to spill th' beans, Jade, he thought. He wanted to avoid any outright claim of disappearance around Pascal until they were 100% sure about it, so as to not burden her with so much worry about being left in this world without a familiar face. "Yeah...'bout that. This 'ere's Pascal, by th' way. We lost 'er friend Hugh while Ah was tryin' ta find a spot ta heal her injuries." He pointed behind him with his thumb.

Ever smiling, the colonel gave a nod of acknowledgement toward the girl. "A pleasure, Pascal. I'm Jade Curtiss, by the way. A fellow other-worlder, from the world of Auldrant."

Rhone's eyes return to normal as he opens his coat and takes the sword back out.

"Hey, you alright?"

The sword levitates out of Rhone's grip and hovers next to his head, making noise that sounds not unlike metal clanging.

"Well, you seem to be in good shape. Alright, come along then."

The sword picks up its sheathe and sheathes itself inside it before floating to Rhone's left hip, wrapping its arm around him and turning itself into a makeshift belt. Rhone then slowly approaches Azura and Kratos.

"Now look, guys, I get it. I had the sword, you thought I was posessed, whatever. But..."

He stomps his foot down and shakes his fist at the pair.

"Couldn't you have waited a few seconds?! You didn't even hesitate to attack me! And why did you set me on fire?!"

He calms down and crosses his arms over his chest and looks down, shaking his head.

"Do you treat all your allies like potential threats?"

Meanwhile, Solaire is crouched over the creature the sword was posessing, trying to make sure it's okay.

"Are you unharmed, cat-hound? Do you need healing?"

All at once, the creature springs up, seemingly unharmed, and stretches toward everyone else, stopping before it reaches the group.

"Hoi! Tem sorry for Tem's behoivior! Tem didn't want attack humans... But! That's! Okey! Tem can help huuuuuu..."

Temmie's face entire face drifts as she notices and looks at the sword on Rhone's hip.

"Uwawawawah! Tem's super special sword! Why you haz??"

Seeing that the situation had calmed down, Kratos merely shifted out of his defensive stance and crossed his arms, giving a sideways glance toward Azura knowing that she could explain things better. A man of few words, a strong and mostly silent type, speaking only when he thought he had anything of worth to say.

After Azura picked the last of the dirt out of her nails, she gave a huffing sigh and looked up at Rhone to explain with a rather dry expression on her face. "Well, for starters...I've been to the world that creature is originally from. I know it to be a species called Honedge. From what I had learned, not only does it have the ability to possess, it also drains life force doing so. It is of the Steel and Ghost typings, and Steel in particular is weak to fire. So there you have it."

Meanwhile, Kratos silently observed this Temmie creature as it joined them. What peculiar movements, he thought as he made a subtly surprised expression. And now that he had room to, he also began to wonder what happened to a certain childish fox spirit.

"...Has anyone seen where Seishin might have gone off to?" he spoke up. He indeed noticed that the fox child's mana signature seemed to have vanished entirely, but he was testing if anyone else had some insight.

At Kratos' words, Azura did a double-take and turned her head about a bit frantically in concern. She didn't know for sure; perhaps the spirit was older than he looked, but with the face of a child she couldn't just ignore the thought of him in danger. "Wh-whoa! I-I didn't even notice he was gone!" She subtly sniffed at the air as she continued to look around, walking about until she found the one spot Seishin's scent lingered the strongest. It wasn't too far off, it was still close by. She stared at that spot on the ground, brow creased in intense contemplation. She seemed very perplexed about something.

Lloyd's mouth gaped into an O as he listened intently to Dart's explanation while continuing to search for the map. So it's simply that he gets wings and powered-up armor...well, he had wings once but he didn't know how to make it happen again. And the way it happened to Dart sounded so cool! He could even summon a dragon? There were more like him?

"Y'know, you might be able to show me soon enough. I mean, whatever you want to do from here, I wouldn't mind helping you out. You're in an entirely new world here, and I know my way around." Lloyd remembered he did have the Rheaird, but thought that it perhaps would be best to travel on foot for now. He did want to look out for any possible changes at ground level that could hardly be seen from the sky.

"Aha! Found it," he blurted out in the next second, then handed over the map of the combined worlds over to Dart. It was in one of the drawers beneath the bookshelves. Lloyd then rubbed the back of his head with a sheepish look and said, "With all that's been going on, I...actually forgot whether or not you mentioned what it is you wanted to do next. Er...did you?" sweatdrop

~~~



Raine folded her arms and explained. "To put it succinctly, we needed to obtain a legendary, magical weapon called the Eternal Sword, which has the ability to cleave the fabric of time and space itself. It was what the person who separated the worlds wielded. As for how we traveled between the worlds...well, mostly, we had the help of an organization we allied with. They were able to generate dimensional portals over their bases in both worlds, but now that they're reunited they're most likely defunct." A pause, and then she went on to add, "There was another means we used at least once during the journey, however. It's a set of ruins called the Otherworldly Gate, and it would be activated on full moon nights. But now that the worlds are together, they instead lead to a place called the Ginnungagap, where the seal to the demon realm, Niflheim, lies."

Raine smiled amusedly at Tear's suggestion that perhaps her friends had met otherworlders too. "Perhaps they have. We shall see soon enough." Her eyes widened slightly when Tear mentioned some similarities her home world had with Aselia; she was quite intrigued. "Does it, now? Does Auldrant's Gald look the same as ours?" She wasn't even sure how to tackle the subject of the medicinal items with the exact same concept so she jumped straight to, "What would you say is the difference between mana and these 'fonons' of yours? Are there...certain races that are able to manipulate your world's energies to wield the elements? Here in Aselia, it's the elven-blooded that are able to do so." There was a contained excitement in her tone; contained because she didn't want to overwhelm Tear by coming off as overly exuberant. She really was on the verge of "ruin mode", despite the subject not really being about ruins.

~~~



While his big sister was off taking care of a few things in Sybak's facilities, Genis decided to patrol outside of the academic city for any more developments. When they were making their way out of the Gaoracchia Forest after having retrieved a plant that was in a shadow-affected area, he felt a disturbance that piqued his keen senses of mana. Like something else was about to happen there. By now, that something had probably happened already, and he wanted to observe if any sign of it would be roaming around.

Speaking of roaming, he wondered what that figure of black he could see on the horizon was. It seemed to be coming in his general direction quite fast. "What the heck...?" he muttered to himself, growing wide-eyed. He shoved a hand into the pocket that housed his kendama and got into a defensive stance, just in case the thing was going to pose a threat to Sybak.



((EDIT: Added Genis' part. Noting that he's seeing Hiei coming toward the north end, because Team Attack on Temmie would be coming from the south end and I wanted to make it clear they wouldn't be crossing Genis and Hiei out there.

EDIT EDIT: Wow I just realized I edited it into the wrong place. rofl ))

Pascal could feel her fingers tingle with the urge to touch Krystal. Usually, her fingers would only go after Sophie, but things were different now. Upon scanning her new target, she began to speculate. Wowie! That blue fur . . . It looks so soft and gossy. She has to be based on some sort of creature I've never heard of. Maybe a wolf or a relative of a wolf. And those ears . . . they put Zaul's to shame! Oooh! If sis were here, she'd know. She's better at biology than I am. It's more fine on her body compared to her tail, which looks thicker. Her nose is kinda wolf-ish, too. Omigosh! My hands are just itching to touch her!
Despite her infatuation with Krystal, her ears picked up on Jade and Zaul's words. Her mind was conflicted, she wanted to find Hu as soon as possible, but her id was too focued on the furry creature. She slapped her cheeks lightly. Hu's missing and you're looking at a furry?! Focus girl, focus!
She turned to the bespectacled man who towered over her. "Isn't there a way to find out what that wooshy thing was? If it's some sort of special arte, then there must be a way to dispell it."

OOC: Pascal is drooling over a furry.
. . .
I hope this doesn't go where I think it's going.

Location: Open Field / Near Sybak's North Entrance
Currently With: Genis

It didn't take Hiei long before he spotted his destination in the distance. It felt good to move at this pace now that he didn't have anyone to babysit. As he drew closer and closer toward the academic city, he soon spotted a figure just outside taking a defensive stance. Was he expecting him? The three-eyed demon soon came to a stop a few feet in front of the boy, a hand to the hilt of his sword. "Don't get in my way." He said, narrowing his red eyes. He could sense the boy possessed spirit energy like that of a human, yet there was another aura to him that he was unsure as to what. But he could tell that he wasn't fully human.

Lloyd smiled back at Dart's gratitude. "Hey, man, no problem." He went on to add, purely out of habit, "Dwarven Vow #2: Never abandon someone in need." As he watched his fellow red-clad swordsman examine the map, he couldn't help but chuckle a bit at what he aimed to do. Aselia's a whole new world to Dart, how could he even tell where to begin? "Heheh, what gives you that kind of hunch? Were you traveling with your friends before you were suddenly thrown into this world?"

At Dart's last question, however, Lloyd suddenly grew quiet for a bit. Not only was he gathering his thoughts, but remembering those times brought up a mixed bag of feelings. He took a seat at the dining table, feeling he was in for giving a long explanation. As he began to tell his story, his glance drifted elsewhere for a while and became distant.

"Yeah, it really wasn't an easy feat. It's not an easy story to tell either. We sought first to actually have the sword entrusted to me. And for that to happen...I was supposed to strike my dad, I mean my real dad, down in a duel because he was the living seal of the Summon Spirit who had that right. I won the duel, but like...I didn't want to kill him, y'know? He had played the villain pretty damn well, doing things that put someone important to me under a lot of danger, and by that time I learned it was all a front.

But to break the seal, he really had to release the mana that sustained his life. Fortunately, one of his old friends was there to keep him from dying by giving some of his own mana.

It wasn't completely over from there, though. The Summon Spirit still wanted to test my resolve himself, and so I had to fight him too. I was allowed to have some of my friends back me up, but it still wasn't easy. He was the King of the Summon Spirits, after all, so he was very powerful.

Then to be able to actually wield the sword, because it could only be used by elven-bloods, a special pact ring had to be crafted by my adoptive dad. The materials were very rare, but the one who did the all the work already finding them was my real dad. He did all that secretly, again, all while playing the enemy. It wasn't until then that it really sank in how much he cared about me even though he wasn't there for most of my life."

Looking back to Dart as he concluded, he laughed a bit. "Hahah, I think I told a bit too much there. I hope I didn't bore you."

~~~



Raine nodded at Tear's inquiries, smiling. "We sure did. It's a pretty long story." Then, in response to the melodist's question about the Renegades, she spoke in a slightly hushed tone. "Yes, that organization still exists, but for safety reasons, I cannot speak more about them in public. But they're helping us even now in trying to understand the current crisis." Bringing her tone back to normal, she continued, "To my understanding, yes. It's a sealed dimension where all demonkind is imprisoned in order to keep the world safe. Demons are very powerful creatures that could easily overpower humanity if they were to freely roam again. Mana is poisonous to them, but it's still crucial that the demons remain sealed because of the shortage."

The professor took the coin into her hands and eyed it with excited intrigue, turning it over a few times and examining its visuals. Indeed, it was the same metal, but on one side was the engraving of the head at profile of a woman she did not recognize, and on the other was an insignia that was equally unfamiliar. "Even if it is the same material...hm. Have you been able to spend your Gald here yet? I imagine the engravings might have raised some suspicion. What do they represent, by the way?" Raine returned the coin to Tear, then took out one of her own to show to her. "Here's a piece of Aselian Gald, for comparison. The face on this side is an artist's interpretation of the goddess Martel, and on the back here is the emblem of the Sylvarant region."

After she let Tear take the coin, she put a hand to her chin and listened intently to the melodist's explanation about fonons, mentally noting with surprise that the term "artes" is also used in Auldrant. More questions arose in her head, especially about what the seven categories of fonons are (though she guessed they might be the elements themselves) and this prophetic "Score", but perhaps they were better for another time. "So the energy differs in which it's more sound-based...so I take it that artes in Auldrant are mostly invoked by spoken incantation and song, then?" The melodist mentioned "hymns" and her usage of them, so she imagined singing to cast a spell.

Raine nodded in acknowledgement at Tear's unfamiliarity with elven blood. "I see...this is another guess here, but if you possess the ability to manipulate fonons back in your home world, I believe you still may be able to use mana for your artes. That ability lies in your blood, and while you're human, it doesn't necessarily mean your blood is the same as Aselian human blood; do you see what I'm getting at? I think it wouldn't hurt to give it a try when you can. At most, it simply might feel a bit odd casting, and may take a few tries to get used to the feeling."

A pause, to gather her thoughts on Tear's last question. "In regard to healing artes, there are some that rely on mana, which elven-bloods use, and some that rely on an innate power in all beings that does not necessarily require mana. Humans can use the latter but it can require years of training, thus there are very few who know these techniques. I'm currently working little by little on the side project of completing the research of an ancient healer named Boltzman. The heart of his research focuses on the latter concept of healing artes that I described.

As for elemental artes...I know of only two humans who were able to wield them, and they were among the friends I traveled with in the journey to reunite the world. They had to ingest a mineral called aionis, which enabled mana to become responsive to their blood. But aionis doesn't actually exist in Aselia; only on a wandering planet called Derris-Kharlan that comes by once a century. It was last nearby about three years ago."

There was something the melodist mentioned in her explanation that piqued equal parts curiosity and uneasiness, which could be seen in her face. "However...'Replicas'? Copies of humans? How...how was that even achieved...?" Raine wasn't sure she actually wanted to know, but curiosity made her drag out the question anyway. It certainly wasn't an advancement that was achieved in Tethe'alla, let alone the rest of the world, at all.

~~~



Genis' eyes widened in apprehension at a handful of things. Firstly, that this human figure could run so fast. Secondly, that this stranger didn't seem all that human at all. He could sense a fire power within him so immense that it felt like even Tidal Wave wouldn't have so much effect against him. Also, he kind of had a demon-y vibe about him...but that didn't make sense, mana is supposed to be poisonous to demons. He seemed to be standing there just fine. Thirdly, for someone built like an adult, the stranger was pretty short. Genis could swear he kinda had almost a couple of inches on him, if not for the hair. Lastly, the stranger seemed to be reaching for a weapon of his own in preparation.

Okay, Genis, don't go picking fights you can't win, he thought to himself. He was confident in his abilities as a mage, especially since he mastered the Meteor Storm spell, but he knew he could only exercise his full potential with someone else keeping foes at bay. He often needed to stand still in concentration, but if this guy was more of an up-close fighter, he knew he was doomed.

"H-hey...relax, man!" he spoke up, raising his hands to the sides at level with his head in surrender. "You looking for something in Sybak over there? You seem like you'd be new to the place..."


((I feel like I should apologize for throwing this wall at you.
I hope it's alright that I implied some actions for Tear. I kind of needed it to move things along in a way that made sense.))