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The day darkened as the woods gathered about the small group of people. Regardless of the seemingly impenetrable face of the forest in front of them, Henry led on as if they were walking down an empty high street.

And amazingly enough...it would feel that way as well, gaps the size of Tomorrow would suddenly appear, sometimes even larger then that. It was all about the perspective you took the path in. Come at it from the wrong directions, and there were more of those then right ones, and you were lost. Follow it correctly, and it was smooth sailing. It was remarkably like magic.

There were times when strange noises passed by, grunts and an angry language that would pop in and out of hearing as they moved. But over all it was a fairly comfortable walk, if a bit strange.

Tomorrow took up the rear, keeping an eye out for any undesireables that might tumble into their way - but his sunglasses were lowered, his steps in tune with Ambers, one hand gently linked with hers as he walked beside her, a giant beside a beauty.

Spying Juuni looking over to him, he winked at her, hopefully sending some of his fearlessness with it to her. A small smile spread his lips as he heard her singing gently. He knew the lymeric - had even sung it to Meryl once or twice in Tribal to send her to sleep when she was younger. He also knew a few dirty versions - but that was kept for long nights with more mature company and plenty of FireWater.

"... Fi uyo og tou ni eth swood ytoda, dyo'u rbette og ni edisguis..."

Henry paused. Causing Juunish to bump into him.

He knew this path...he had, after all, created it. The birds were chirping...small animals would move across their path, looking for food...and yet....

Oh...where were the orks?

"Strange...they've moved south...." And then Henry was moving, even as the first volley of needles zipped past his head. A few managed to thunk against his backpack...there was a metallic noise and then a grunt as one of the ghouls fell out of the tree, a few needles sticking out of it.

....

That would probably take a bit of verbal manuvering later on....That is...if the others managed to dodge at the same time he did....

John had heard. Nothing in this world was totally silent unless it wanted to be. And even thin needles whizzing through the air towards his back weren't infallble.

A sudden pingping echoed in his ears, the program in his sunglasses doing what it was supposed to do - before several needles were embedded in Tomorrow's back, thunking into the kevlar of his suit relentlessly.

Movement was fast. His hand already holding onto Amber's, he yanked her up and against his chest, crushing her against him as more needles began to fill the air behind him.

Stepping forward, more needles thunking into his back, he grabbed Juuni by that cute little backpack and yanked her off her feet - before suddenly rolling to the left, off the path and into the brush, out of sight, carrying the two girls with him.

One minute, Amber had been walking quite happily along the wooded trail, hand in hand with her fiance and the next, the hair along her neck bristled as Mere stopped, her wagging tail becoming still and stiff as her ears flickered and twitched beneath her beret as she glanced momentarily off to her side.

"Hey, what's goin-"

Her sentence was cut short as John pulled her hard towards him. She squealed and was suddenly cut silent as she felt the first volley of needles fly by her, her free hand instinctively curling around her waist as she was rolled into the bushes along with John and Juuni.

A ghoul was peppered with needles all across its upper chest, yet it made no noise, for the silence spell, which did just as it was named, made all noises the creature affected by it completely silent, non-existant if you will. And as the group of travellers began to move, so did the ghoul pack, quickly leaping from the upper branches and trunks of the treetops to give chase after the fleeing victims, claws digging into the tree for breif moments as the monsters hurled themselves forward. It mattered not if they were visible or not, hidden in the dense foliage of bushes and branches off of the path, as the ghouls, once humanlike, are now more like animals, tracking with other senses such as smell as their eyesight was poor due to their damaged and rotting bodies. However, though they were magically silenced, that did not mean that their environment was silenced as well; the minor rustling of leaves and thunks of bodies hitting trunks quietly audible in their passing as they went after their prey.

As the man would begin to lunge into the trees, bending his legs to push himself off the ground, he would suddeny find himself under yet another assault, only this was not exactly intentional. The ghoul whose body was littered with needles, the very same needles that it fired out, had fallen out of the tree, it's body completely limp as it fell straight down towards the man who rose so quickly off into the air just as he pushed off. With no branches to grab ahold of, there wasnt any time to really dodge the body as it broke through the canopy before the man would enter into it, quite simply, it was just a collision course in mid air with a corpse.

But why was it dead... well, dead-er? The answer is rather obvious, as anyone with a common sense or knowledge of combat would assume. Needles were awefully useless as a weapon to kill on itself. However, the quick and silent weapons were especially deadly when used in conjunction with poisons or other toxins, and of course, anyone can guess that these needles were coated in such a thing.

And what kind of poison was this exactly? Well, the ghouls werent here to kill, but rather to capture instead. And as such, the needles were coated in a toxin which consisted of the essences of calabar bean, gelsemium, stavesacre, and thornapple, combined and enhanced with black magic. The exact effect of such a toxin? It acted as a highly potent neurotoxin, paralysing the functions of the spinal chord, medulla oblongata, and central nervous system in the brain, causing a general sense of weakness in the muscles, a lowered heart rate, delirium, and double vision. However, the downside of using such a potent poison was the time limit of application against the use of the antidote, as the high powered sedative can cause death by asphixiation quickly. The poison spreads through bodily fluids, mainly that of the blood and spinal juices as it runs its course through the body. Yet, though the animated corpses of the ghouls are technically dead, it was still affected at a slow rate due to the slow movement of bodily fluids and small electrical charges in the brain which allowed its continued body functions.

But an unmoving corpse would be nothing big to worry about compared to the child with the scratched cheek, though minute, was already enough, it would already be transporting the poison through the body. Now if that wasnt enough, there was also a little bit of thought to put into this before charging headlong into the unkown, especially given the hint that a body would fall straight down at the man. Where were they?

Oh my, how gory... to eviscerate a defenseless rotting corpse. Or was it really all that defenseless? Note though, that an unintentional attack was still an attack. Was it so obvious that the body would be torn apart above the man as he progressed through the air that this was all planned out? Highly possible, especially since the pack of ghouls, though intelligent, were still only limited in their thought patterns. Plus the fact that they were armed with such devices and dressed as they were, meant that there was obviously someone pulling the strings as a puppeteer. A puppeteer who observed that such a brute would carry himself just as he appeared; full of violence for anything in his path, no sublety at all.

In the breif moments the body could be seen before it was so gruesomely torn apart, it was evident that it wore some dark clothing similar to what a ninja would wear. Its clothing was dark and form fitting, easily allowing it to blend into the shadows as it moved without hindrances. And as the body was cleaved, some odd effects would quickly become prominent.

This substance called 'blood' in a body, was still evident, though somewhat a little lumpy, but most of it was still liquid. Such a corpse should have had its blood completely coagulated, but it wasnt, as evident that the blood still carried the toxin from the needles to the spinal columb and brain of the ghoul, effectively shutting it down. And from the violent stabbing and tearing, its rotting bodily fluids would simply shower across the immidiate area of which it was ripped up, gravity pulling it down over the man and to the earth below.

But the offensive move wasn't evident until the predicted violence was played out, the two halves of the ghouls flying off into the distance to thunk against treetrunks on oppisite sides, the blood which was exposed to the air quickly transforming its properties as a weapon as the bark on the trees began to burn and fall away. The viscous and somewhat chunky liquid reacted by becoming a highly caustic chemical, laced with toxins as it was exposed to the open air. One would have to thank those who practised the dark arts for this simple creation which worked so well together. The poison, wasn't much on its own unless ingested or so, having no real way of seeping into the body on its own, however, combined with the caustic element of the substance, easily allowed it to enter the body's system as it burned through skin and cloth at a high rate, and steel at one quarter the rate. Though the acidity of the liquid would cause pain through burns, the poison itself was not particularily powerful, acting as a paralysing agent to the burned areas as it inhibited the electrical signals in the nerves to prevent movement of the muscles.

However, though the man, his weapon, and probably his clothing would be splattered with the acidic poison, quickly burning whatever it touched, being one to manipulate electricity, he could probably use his electrical powers to add protons to the molecular stucture of the acid to neutralise it and prevent future burns past whatever was already affected.

With the presence of the leaves and tree branches all around in the boughs of the trees, the ghoul pack did not have clear shots of the man who moved into their area, instead, they waited for a more... opportune moment to attack. Too bad the spell of silencing the ghouls was still in effect, because if it wasnt, the ghouls would be heard growling in their perches, rancid breathe and rotting flesh filling the air of the trees as small animals fled the scene.