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Magma. Riv couldn't recognize the scream, didn't know who might have been screeching like that, but the magma he DID know. There was only one Raevan who would conjure up the stuff, to the Scorpion's knowledge, and his eyes went wide, pupils constricting to pinpoints. "Zul!" He'd never considered his Flower might be needing help, because Zul was quite possibly, with the exception of maybe Lazarus and now-deceased Roux, the most powerful Raevan Riv knew. But that scream, and the magma all around, clearly there'd been a fight, and-...

"We have to find them. They are in trouble. Zul's in trouble!"

Frantic, not even really making sure Ronan was following him in his haste to find his most precious person, Riv just took off in the woods, following the magma trail and then continuing in that direction, breathing hard and fast, ignoring the throbbing pain in his wings.

Rivener didn't give two thoughts to what he would do once he found Zul. Didn't consider for one second that whatever his Flower couldn't face on his own, Riv had no hope of beating. All he knew was that Zul and he were more powerful together, and they could face anything. And if Zul needed his help, Riv was going to be there to help him. Hang on, I'm on my way!! he prayed inside, grimacing as his wings felt like two lead flaps attached to his back, threatening to fall right off. There was no time to worry about his own wings! He followed the trail of magma, more frantic by the second, and suddenly he and Ronan burst through the edge of burnt foliage and charred ground, finding themselves in a clearing.

Rivener's eyes went wide and his breath stuck in his throat. He looked around for only a second, barely registering the magma cooling on everything and the charred carcass on the ground. There was only one thing that could have caused this much damage, and when Riv's gaze found that icy rock in the epicenter of this destruction, he felt like the world had dropped out from under him. His insides turned cold. His heart shattered. His stomach twisted into sharp, spiky knots. He trembled.

"No," he shook his head, refusing to believe that this was real. This must be a nightmare. Slowly he floated closer, wobbling, shaking. He passed the burnt corpse without a glance, eyes affixed to a little thing he could see on the ground near that rock. Rivener couldn't see clearly, in fact: water clouded his vision as tears streamed down his face. And when he bent to pick up that necklace, THEIR necklace... "NO!"

The Scorpion collapsed to the ground, clawing at the ground until he'd dragged himself to the icy-hot stone, sobbing and screaming with impotent rage and heartbreak. His hands hovered, shaking so badly, inches from the surface of the impossible object, not daring to touch it in case it needed to be kept pristine for them to remake Zul. He knew they could do it: they'd remade Raevans before. Dayo, Gage...

But they had never been the same again.

"NOOOOOOO!!!!" Rivener screamed, so full of self-hatred as he gripped tight at his hair. He hadn't been able to protect him! Riv had FAILED Zul!!! Uncaring of his own injuries in the process, Rivener curled himself over that magma-ice stone and cradled it against himself, wailing and screaming and sobbing in turn as emotions raged for supremacy.

Rivener's cries echo through the jungle, reverberating off the trees and coming back on top of them, doubling the sounds of heartbreak. The sounds snake their way through the jungle with the strength of Rivener's emotions, falling on a pair of ears that may recognize them...

The rock Rivener cradles burns his fingers and freezes his palms, adding to his trembling, his body trying to get him to let the stone go without his mind's permission. Rain plummets all around, smoke lifting from the stone as the drops hit its hotter end, the only thing keeping it from truly searing Rivener's flesh.

Is there a reason to believe Ronan's words? To cling to hope? The very area seems to forbid it. There is no lie in the pain, in the presence of the magma, in the solid feel of the half-ruined necklace on the ground.

And there's more than that. The feeling of loss and pain that pervades the area is unmistakeable, thick and real. The jungle feels so large, suddenly, so expansive and impossible...

If nothing else, there was something of great power here. Something that still remained.

As Ronan pleads with Rivener, the two may not notice a darkening of the clearing, even darker than the storm. Two hands begin to reach out of the demon's circle, smoky and black, for Ronan's throat.

It took all of Ronan's will to not scream at Rivener that he had seen the skins of his own family nailed to trees and carved up like grotesque trophies, that he was not the only one staring death in the face in this journey. But no, Rivener was not to blame for needing to grieve what looked to be unbearable loss. That landed on the creature causing this.

With a snarl Ronan brought out his hunting knife and stabbed into the hands going for his throat, baring his teeth. Again and again he drove the blade into the black appendages, eventually adding the saw from his multitool into the assault. Fear didn't even enter into the equation; he was too angry. This b*****d, this thing, whatever it was, it didn't matter if it was manipulating them or really had caused these calamities. It was going to pay.

As Ronan stabbed the black arms, smoke rose from every puncture wound he gave it, and the long, clawed fingers let go of his throat, the digits stretching in strange directions. The arms pulled back and returned to their place in the ground, pressing down against the edges of the demon circle like a person who had lost their balance and fallen.

Rivener's cries seem to energize the demon circle, the strange markings pulsing with their eery blue light. The smoke returns to the hands and arms, sucking back into the wounds and stitching back together. The wide hands push against the ground, and, as though lifted by Rivener's grief, a form begins to rise from the circle.

Just then, Eiry comes across the bend, the clearing stretching in front of him like a scene from a nightmare. What he sees can barely be explained by his own eyes.

Rivener, bent and broken, seemingly intent on burning and freezing himself by cradling the stone in his hands. Ronan, still with his knife and saw out. And the figure rising, gathering smoke and magma around it, from the demon's circle.

The creature's face is goatlike and its eyes are ink-black and foreign as it rises, but the three horns upon its head, decorated and glittering with a flinting blue flame, are more than familiar. It blinks, and it smiles, and there is something horrible and compassionate about the curve of its lips. Its wings are bony and long, and there is power in the broad set of its shoulders and naked chest.

There is no mistaking what it is.

A baphomet.

"Hell with that!" Ronan snapped, adjusting his grip on the knife and saw. "If I'm running you're coming with." That didn't me Ronan wasn't going to run - more like he was going to drag Rivener with him if he had to. "I'm not letting you die here like some self sacrificing dumbass. Not while there's still people who care about you." With this last bit his teeth clenched. It didn't matter if it were one person or a dozen, if it was about him or Rivener. There were people who needed them to come home, and they were not going to let them down.

Early on Ronan had identified a flicker of mint and crimson in the corner of his eye, and had eventually identified as a raevan, though he didn't know who. Now he fought to keep his gaze from drifting over, lest it betray them to the demon. As strong as his words had been before, he still wasn't quite sure how they were getting out of this.

As Ronan begins to speak, the baphomet puts one hoof over the demon circle, clearly meaning to go for him. He lifts his powerful arms, one hand in a claw, and hefts his hand as if to strike -- and then a minty Sigel bursts into his face, screaming like a banshee.

The effect is immediate. Like a fly zooming into the face of a bicyclist, the baphomet swats at Eiry and pulls its head back, its large horns swinging with the movement. Its fingers swipe through the ghostly flame of the Sigel's wings and extinguish it like someone pinching a lit wick.

"He always said you were an annoying prat," the demon hisses, his voice clearly that of Zul's. Smoke pours from the creature's mouth as he speaks, as though his very insides are on fire.