Welcome to Gaia! ::

((Sorry it took me so long to get back sweatdrop I've been a bit preoccupied. Still, here I am and a post I have!))

Damiano watched as Sai and Kin walked off into the woods. His silence throughout the conversation was caused mostly due to the pleasant view of the clouds distracting him. The way they were spiralling at the time was a beautiful coincidence. By the time Damiano managed to return his conscious mind tot he conversation at hand, it had ended. Slightly disappointed at not being a larger contributor, but otherwise unaffected by the abrupt finish to the conversation, Damiano figured he'd start another one while the going was good.

"Well then, I'm none too familiar with any of you other magi here. I know about as much as your names, and even then I'm not even sure about that. Perhaps now would be as good a time as any to make proper introductions?" Damiano said in light and relatively cheerful tones. He could hear his companion snicker in the background, most likely due to the attempt at socializing. It was true, Damiano had a habit of being a tad out of place when it came to socializing with what his family deemed as 'common folk.'

Ark said telepathically with a bit of a draconic chuckle. Damiano maintained an easy expression as to not alert of the others of his dragon's comment. With a bit of frustration, Damiano replied,

Jania asked in an amused voice.

Rayneer said as he studied his opponent.

"Yes, I would like to use Intruder Combat, unless you have a problem with fighting a woman." Jania said as a slight smile crossed her face. The type that hit on her usually wouldn't agree to Intruder Combat for fear of damaging their potential date. To find a mage that showed interest in her and also wanted to fight in her favorite fighting style was truly rare.

She was starting to like this young mage. "However, before we begin. we should introduce ourselves. My name is Jania McWaylenn, and you are?" Jania said with an air of confidence. Rayneer commented.

Jania screamed back while trying to maintain an assertive aura.

"Alright," Jania said as she backed away from Jryreme. Rayneer followed her until they were at least ten feet away. Jania pulled out a coin from her purse, one that she wouldn't mind losing on the off chance she couldn't recover it. "So we're clear, We will start when this coin hits the ground after I flip it. If you win, you get to take me on a date. If I win," Jania paused, "well then, maybe I'll still let you take me out, it depends on how fun you make this for me." With that Jania flipped the coin high into the air and prepared her first spell.

the second the coin hit the ground Jania cried out, "Suggero Ligamens!" as she pointed at Jyreme's arms with her left hand, one finger from her left hand also pointed at his partner. Her magical strings burst forth from her fingers aiming directly at the elbow of each of Jyreme's arms and Jania prepared to lunge both arms forward once the strings connected. A Third string had shot out of the finger pointed at the partner which was aimed directly at the chest of the partner which she also prepared to immediately force to the side away from Jryreme.

At the same time, as if on cue from Jania, Rayneer took a mighty leap to get to the side that he hoped Jania would be sending Enecio and prepared to shoot some webbing at the cat to hinder it's movements. Jania and Rayneer had fought in Intruder Combat enough times to formulate strategies instantly and immediately react to the others movements and combat flow. Since Jania favored Intruder Combat, she usually held some advantage, and her hand to hand fighting technique would allow her to turn most attacks back at the opponent.

Kin was quietly for a moment. He turned to face Sai and his golden eyes narrowed as he focused on him. "Sai, why did you choose to become a Combatant?" Kin asked seriously, but calmly.

"Unlike most people, my life has been all about surviving. When I was young, my village was destroyed by bandits. So, when I was able to start over in my earliest village, I choose the way I would be able to become the strongest that which would give me the best chance to survive. That was to become a Combatant." Kin lengthily explained as he kept a few important details out.

"You should call yourself lucky. If you were just a regular person, you would have died by now, right? So don't worry about anything until the time does come where you might die. You have the power to survive." Kin added.

"You're right. I am lucky that way, nothing serious has ever happened in my past like in yours. And you're also right, by some stroke of luck or skill I have managed to survive so far, and my master always said sometimes luck is just as good as skill. As for my reason for becoming a Combatant, it was either that or become a blacksmith like my father. I felt I could do more good as a Combatant. I can do more to help people, which is what I want to do. And someday I want to become a Sage like my master, and we'll teach each other things that we didn't know, and we'll teach those things to others as well. And then maybe some of those people that we teach will become Sages and teach more people. It seems like a good legacy to me." Sai said. "Anyways, we should have enough firewood by now. We should head back to the others and get something cooking, the others need to eat, and to rest."


Jyremes magic had flowed into his body and he felt his strength surge.

Ice magic, and more of those weird string things. Can't counter them both fast enough. Time to improvise...

"Geminus Meus Lacertus!" Jyreme yelled out as he spread his feet into a wide stance and slammed his fist into the ground. His strength had just doubled again, giving him quadruple his usual strength. His fist collided with the hard packed dirt of the street and caused it to shatter upwards in a spray of dirt clods, dust, and small rocks which would create a veil that would completely obscure him from a normal persons line of sight. As soon as the veil went up he dropped to his belly on the, now shattered, dirt. He lay prone for a second or two, long enough that he though that the magical attacks would have passed harmlessly overhead. He leapt back to his feet and charged in the direction that he had last seen Jania. He released his concentration on both strength enhancing spells as he did so, both because they were consuming a lot of magic to maintain and also because he didn't want to kill his opponent with an accidental lapse of knowledge of his strength.

Meanwhile Enecio was in hot pursuit of the lady mages spider partner. He was hoping to just catch up and bat it around a bit, though if he could sink his mane of snakes fangs into it, it might speed things along.

Jania might have to admit to herself that this mage was impressing her. To blow up a dust cloud that she couldn't see through meant that he either dodged to the opposite side she though he would or he ducked. It had been a long time since someone had thought to duck. Jania quickly changed her plan and decided that this would be a good time to throw off Jryreme's rhythm. Jania figured that he had ducked out of the way of both her a ttacks and was now going to charge where she had been.

Jania quickly side stepped to her left, towards where Rayneer and Enecio we're battling. Jania muttered under her breath "Videor Iunior," which had the immediate effect of making her appear to be 12 years old. Jania prepared to fire another round of strings in the direction she predicted Jryreme would appear from, which if she was correct would put him in front of where she had been. "Suggero Ligamens," She muttered and 2 strings fired out at where she hoped Jryreme's right elbow and right knee cap would appear in about two seconds.

Rayneer on the other hand noticed that his opponent was slightly faster then himself, which could lead to problems in the run away and prepare to fire webbing tactic. So he switched to jumping next to a building before quickly scurrying up it's side and shooting his webbing down on the ground to make it slightly harder to jump up and follow him.

Kin stopped in front of the waiting group members and dropped all of his firewood to the ground with thuds and cracking sounds. "Firewood." Kin said calmly and then walked over to a tree to sit down and lean against. He again crossed his arms and observed the area as well as the people in it. Groups are so time consuming... We would have been at least ten miles away by now. Kin complained in thought.