Welcome to Gaia! ::

A few angels and soldiers that were nearby overheard this.

"We can handle taking guard fully until the game is done at least, if not longer. If you wish, you can join them."

Galantros was finishing up a few more settings on the holographic game machine himself, giving it a few tweaks here and there. His scythe was compressed into a staff like weapon strapped to his back, held by his tendrils.

"Game's ready. How about everyone else?"

Ma Jian-shen looked at his slippered feet and gave an inward sigh. He wasn't really in the mood for this right now, but with everyone there now and ready it might be his only opportunity to do so. "I am not ready."

He left the room and came back with his shoes in hand along with his dadao sheathed, which he had put in the weapon's closet behind the desk, and a staff which was slightly larger than 3 of his arm lengths. He changed out of the slippers and into his normal shoes once within the halo-gaming room. He made sure no one was too close to him when he put the staff across his shoulders and slid a foot forward and began to stretch his legs.

While he was doing that GL asked if he was ready now for their fight against Dieamos and some of his shadow goblins which caused Ma Jian's head to turn to the said demon and stop his stretching. He remembered being told the the demon was naturally huge, but he's never seen it before. "How big are you?"

Dieamos: "About the size of a mountain."

The vampire blinked. "Mountains vary great in size. How many fit in palm of hand?"

Dieamos: "fifteen totwenty."

Ma Jian-shen turned and looked at Rosemary and one knew if it wasn't in his culture to not point he would have. "You crazy and you two encourage it." He was pretty sure it was here idea or at least partially her idea. "We are insects compared to him and shorter Satan is more powerful?"

"Ita," said Veni in Latin (yes).
"Da," said Rosemary at the same time (yes).

"Even insects can sting. Hao hao (okay okay) I'm ready. "

While Galantros protected them, Sephiroth drew his wings close to his body and drew in white energy from them mixing it into his greenish energy coming from one of his hands. His movements became faster and the energy spread out in a growing dome shape. It would stop growing outside Galantros's wing barrier touching anyone in its wake including any goblins that may have gotten near enough to Galantros's wing barrier. Anyone this spell touched would soon notice that their movement speed doubled. There were enough of them there that he couldn't easily target them all with one spell and touching them all would take too long so he decided to use more energy and make it an area effect.

Galantros eventually caught onto what Adira was doing, and saw the exertion she was going through after removing the powerful twinges of depression and illness in everyone before it faded out, giving them extra time to strike back sooner. Seeing the opportunity before they were assaulted again, he teleported over to her in a flash. Having one of their own out of commission this early wouldn't do, so he used his meager healing abilities along with some newfound energy transfer abilities to feed strength and vitality back into Adira, placing hands on her shoulders. The little orbs in the clasps of one of his forearm bands that Sephiroth gave him long ago only served to enhance this ability. It cost him some of his own energy, but he had plenty to spare after absorbing that last mortar of disgusting dark energies.

"C'mon, we're not done yet Adira... we still got a mountain of a demon to stop!"

The shadow goblins had long since disappeared or been dispatched at this point, but already Dieamos was up to something. He grinned wide in a creepy manner, then his teeth all shattered in sharp fragments. Suddenly inhaling deeply for a moment, Sylin shouted out a warning.

"I've seen this before! Get under something solid, NOW!

All the bits of teeth shards went inside of Dieamos' massive demonic lungs, and he then blew a stream of bone shrapnel out towards the heros. The shrapnel easily ripped through any weak shelter or cover.

- - - - -

At that point, Ophelia had breathed flame near Dieamos... however the pure force of his breath blew her back, along with her fire, barely hurting the demon

- - - - -

The first blade at pierced the shadow goblin in the lung, but it still moved at a demonic speed towards Daphne. When it slammed into Cian's barrier, it became stunned, the dagger piercing further into it's respiratory organ, causing it to growl in pain.

"You... are going... to pay for... Oh s**t.

At that point, the second dagger pierced it's neck deeply... the slithering demon flailed wildly on the ground, gasping for air as it's stench-filled blood ichor sprayed everywhere. Finally it bled out, and collapsed, before it's body vanished with fancy digital effects.

Outside the hologamer, one of Dieamos' shadow goblins slithered into a chair to watch the rest of the fight.

"Damn. They got me good.

Ophelia was blown across the field by the harsh breeze of breath from the large demon. The hell hound flew through the air, twisting her body so that instead of landing sprawled, she landed on her feet, rather like a cat. She heard Sylin’s voice ring over the arena. She dug her nails into the earth behind a large rock quickly, using her fire to burn through some of the layers. Finally, there was a large enough hole. She jumped into it then clawed out more dirt, tunneling through the ground. She curled into the tiny cavern and waited. An earth shattering BOOM! echoed through the playing field and above her. Tiny sharp debris flew into the air from where the bigger pieces landed near Ophelia’s hole. ”Damn.” she growled to herself. She checked her connections…Banquo and Adira seemed fine.

Banquo, on the other hand, was about to attack where his mate left off when he heard Sylin’s voice and tactfully saw the change in Dieamos’ body. Ban’s reaction was immediate. Ice came tearing out of his mouth, sparkling faint aqua in the sunlight. Instead of aiming it at the demon, he aimed it at the ground that surrounded him, then up at the surrounding area. He created a small dome around himself. A small, thick, cool dome. Though pieces of large teeth flew at him, Banquo’s ice house persevered, cracking only slightly under the pressure. The inside was still turmoil. More than a few times the ice hound went flying into a wall because the force a tooth had on the ground near him.

Adira blinked away the tiredness as Galantros appeared before her. ”Thanks, Galantros. I appreciate it.” She smiled, ”I wonder what would work against this thing…” Just then she heard Sylin’s voice and they all went into hiding…in the same spot. Out of Dieamos’ eyesight. Suddenly, Rosemary’s voice was in her head. Adi blinked. Oh right, she thought with a self taught shield in place, She can read thoughts. She opened her mind to Rosemary’s ideas, That’s a good idea… she thought, But what happens if Dieamos kicks out suddenly or sends another fireball flying by accident? Don’t we need some kind of distraction? By virtue of their connection, her hounds heard this entire conversation, although they did not offer their own opinions.

Daphne and Cian were too late. Well…sort of. In the nick of time Cian sent a magical orb flying at Daphne that absorbed her like a big bubble. It protected her as a coating shield—allowing Dieamos’ teeth shards to bounce off her very easily. Unfortunately, Cian could not act soon enough for himself. The vampire sort of smiled when a tooth shard hit him square in the heart. He disappeared. Daphne’s mouth dropped open in shock. Did he just…her temper flared to life. ”DAMN YOU, CIAN ST. CLAIR!” She yelled, picking up a rock and throwing it at where he was standing. Then she took off running, back to where her friends were. She used her heightened vampire senses to locate them and did so. ”Cian’s out.” She informed them moodily.

Cian appeared outside of the game, his clothes a little rustled but otherwise everything was in place. He was still smiling. He was bound to receive hell for his actions when Daphne got out of the game. “Hey.” He said to the shadow demon that he and Daphne had “killed” “Sorry about that. You know how it goes.” Once upon a time Cian may not have followed his instinct to apologize. Being married had truly changed the vampire.

(Quckshot Launcher- Shoots small, thin rocket projectiles that can reload automatically at a rapid pace from Rosemary's dimensional pocket in her suit
Gaming_lord: pricy, but does a lot of small-medium booms over a short time)

Either that attack damaged him (Dieamos) and he's recovering, he's charging up for some large attack, or both. Sephiroth caught Daphne with the quickening spell when she came near.

He's being smart by not sharing everything, plus it makes a game more interesting. Will your transformation hinder your new found ability to open portals at will, GL? Dieamos is able to move what seems to be very quickly to us due to his massiveness. It would be to our advantage if you could open a portal from wherever you are to someone whose let's say about to be squished by his hand or in a spot where they can't dodge a massive limb or it turns out there are more goblins than we see.

Especially for I since you all find it in favor to send me on a possible suicide run and to give out much information, said Ma Jian-shen in a neutral tone hiding in the shadows of his rocks and sneaking towards the behemoth. Even Veni couldn't tell if he was annoyed or not.

Veni can help hide Ma Jian-shen and when he's close fire onto Dieamos with this, she gave him a Qickshot Launcher and a pocket dimension made for ammo, and that would be our signal that Ma Jian-shen is about to strike. Adira I don't know your abilities but if you can create an illusion of a person make one of Ma Jian-shen if it seems that Dieamos is getting suspicious of his whereabouts, however I'm hoping he'll either not miss him or equate his absence to possibly getting hit in that last attack.


Daph...have some ravens peck at those shadow goblins so Eztli can make them go boom easier please. Sylin do what you deem as necessary... to just him she said... though I don't know what kind of firepower you have, but if you get an opening on Dieamos for a finishing move before Jian-shen can get his hit in please don't take it. I really want to know if what I suggested for him to do could possibly work. As the mentioned vampire really wasn't a sadist generally he rarely had the opportunity to just test it on on creatures.

Sephiroth...Fal'Jenul... She made a face of oh how am I going to ask you this.

I'm not going to like this am I?

She explained basically saying that if Fal'Jenul merged with him as one being but separate she could focus on helping others without worrying about dodging while he did so and she could protect him which would remove much of his defensive focusing need to allow him to focus more on offense while she did the defense stuff. She could probably force his body to have the wispiness of hers and those mist tendrils she tends to release. (I think that she nor Sephiroth yet knows the potential of the offensiveness and defensiveness of his wings yet.) Sephiroth basically said it was up to her (Fal'Jenul) though he personally didn't really care for the idea. Morphing his body around made him feel more like a monster than he wanted to.

Where are the hounds? Upon finding out she showed Ophelia where Ma was in relevance to her and asked her to dig a tunnel to him if she could do it hasty enough to create a safer path for him. And I can be used to help enhance Jacob's magic. If GL would open a portal to that graveyard he and I could get started right away.

Rosemary said gave her instructions in matter of fact manor. Though it wasn't drill sergeant voice, it was said in a way that told everyone she expected them to do their part and to basically know what to do or bad things would happen should they fail. Though she wasn't likely to actually do anything to anyone, she liked to keep them guessing. Nervous energy was like candy on her tongue.

High Density Mass Quantity RE Blast explosive packs- remote detonated usually, used for terra forming mostly

Daphne’s thick, golden hair flew up with a slight breeze as she quickly kneeled on the ground, awaiting her instructions. On the way over, she felt the vague feeling of power move across her. She figured it was either Sephiroth, Galantros or Jacob due to its magical nature She was not surprised when Rosemary took charge; the older vampire was a better general in most battles. She often knew the strengths of each of the members of her team. At one point, Daphne might have felt jealous of this knowledge or skill but now she just accepted it. It was part of Rosemary’s personality. Daphne had to accept that she, herself, did not continuously look for the strengths of her peers. She felt them, sure, but she was never one to seek them out. She preferred to wait it out—to see it in action. Some would call this method “lazy” but it wasn’t that for Daphne. This originated from her intuitive senses rather than her senses. Cian was probably better with the tactical thinking…Cian… She almost growled outloud. That b*****d of a husband. Leaving me here. Taking the freaking proverbial bullet for me. He will pay for that. While it was good for Daphne to know how her husband would react in battle, it also bothered her. She didn’t want to know that in any situation his attention would always be divided. On the one hand, it would be on the battle scene at hand, but on the other it would be on his mate. He would always try to save her. Her hand twitched then clinched. No, that was not good to know at all. I just have to make sure he doesn’t die, she decided. She knew that if he died in battle, she would always blame herself.

Daph almost missed the whole battle plan before she tuned back in. Luckily, much of it did not pertain to her except… ”Would it help if I called the rabbits over as well? They could help Ophelia.” she whispered as faintly as she could, she shrugged her shoulders. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Adira (as Ma Jian-Shen)’s mouth open as if she were about to say something but she shut it quickly. Daphne was about to comment about it but her attention was drawn elsewhere. The ravens. Daphne’s eyes closed, blocking out the scene. Her mind sought out the beautiful black birds, their razor sharp beaks ready for the control. There were eight of them. Daphne breathed out very slowly (although she did not need to), focusing their attention on her. Their wings beat in motion. They each took their time, coming in very roundabout ways. But then they were there. They perched on rocks, and other surfaces, one was even on her shoulder. ”Listen.” She started quietly, her voice had an almost inhuman quality to it, ”I need you to attack those shadow goblins. Please. Oh and can you be stealthy about it? You may go now. Thanks!” The birds looked at her, blinked then took to the air once more. They flew as a flock, pausing for a long moment to dig in the ground as if they’d been doing that all along. Suddenly, they flew up again, rushing as bullets to their mark. Their sharp beaks met the shadow goblins and a long caw came from their throats.

Daphne watched for a moment before closing her eyes again, this time calling the family of rabbits to her. There were six of them. They came out cautiously, their brown fur white in places and their long ears raised. The largest male’s nose twitched in anticipation, his head cocked. Daphne leaned toward them, adjusting her tank top on her torso. The twelve pairs of eyes were wide and blinking, staring at Daphne. She cleared her throat, ”I need you to help Ophelia—the hell hound of fire.” She felt someone shift behind her, her vampiric senses alive and alert. ”She’s tunneling. We need you to help her tunnel. Please try to stay descreet. Okay, you can leave now. Thank you.” One of the rabbits actually nodded as they scampered away. Her voice had taken on the same inhuman quality to it as there had been before. Her head felt dizzy and she gasped. There were so many living beings inside of her. It felt like they were all clamoring for her attention. The ravens continued pecking, the rabbits had reached Ophelia’s tunnel and began helping her. There was a slight complication on that front but the rabbits were able to get passed it. Daphne sighed, ”They’re all in position. They’re doing what I’ve asked of them.” She whispered to the others.

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Adira’s dark green-grey eyes took in everyone . Nothing had changed but one was missing…Cian. He must have got taken out. She looked at Daphne, noticing the other girl’s frown and her clenched fist. She tasted the emotions in the air and sensed frustration, disenchantment, guilt and a pinch of horror. Adira realized what Cian did even without Daphne telling her. Cian saved the vampiress at his own expense. Adira grimaced. That had to make Daphne very pissed off…and, yeah, horrified. Adira pulled out of Daphne’s emotions, feeling intrusive. She also did not want to feel those emotions herself. She disliked them. They reminded her of her captivity…

Adira returned her attention to what Rosemary was saying. The female vampire was an excellent leader. Different than Veni—who was friendly enough--, Cian—whose love for books and learning reminded her of her father—or, even of Daphne—who was more of a peer than anything. No. Rosemary was definitely the leader in this campaign. And, Adira was fine with that. Shockingly, Rosemary turned to Adira and asked her if she could project an image of Ma Jian-shen. The succubus shook her head, ”I’m sorry. It’s not…illusions are often unnecessary for succubi.” And they were. To create even an “appealing illusion” would be unnecessary; succubi were appealing because of the aura around them, regardless of their appearances. They could be useful for small things like clothing, however. ”While I cannot create illusions of bodies or most things, I can do this…” Her body’s features began to shift around, her skin color began to change, her breast size shrank and she became narrower. Her hair strengthened and turned from brown to black. The shift was complete and perfect within a moment. An identical Ma Jian-Shen stood in front of the group where Adira had been standing.

”I believe that this is identical to him.”Adira shivered, her pulse suddenly dead inside her body. She took a breath but realized that she did not need it. How could they stand it? This body? Devoid of warmth? She felt no bloodlust, which was, frankly, a relief but the other aspects of the body were enough to make the experience uncomfortable. She reached up, brushing hair away from her face but her hand hit her head much too quickly. She gained some of the vampiric speed upon transformation—not his complete speed but she still had some of it. Her transformations were often just cosmetic—from body types, to warmth and heart beats. She never gained the powers of those she turned into, except for racial physical attributes—such as speed or increased grace or even eye sight (her eyesight, although already stellar because she was a demon, was better now). Even the clothes had changed. This part was the illusion that accompanied her transformations. Though the clothes did not exist, she could think of them and they would “appear” on her body. In short: the succubus was exactly like the vampire. ”I could be a decoy.” She could hear her hounds complaining in her mind and she felt their radiating disapproval but she chose, again, to ignore the emotions in the air.

When Daphne spoke of calling the rabbits to help Ophelia, Adira’s mouth opened to tell her that that was a bad idea. Ophelia had a mild fear of rabbits…of course they were of Hell rabbits (one tried to eat her as a pup) but they had several characteristics in common with their living realm equivalents. Adira’s mouth closed, deciding that Ophelia would, hopefully, be able to tell the difference. She shifted uncomfortably. Suddenly the ravens and rabbits were there but just as quickly, they disappeared. She put a hand on Daphne’s shoulder. The girl seemed to be in tune with every animal she sent out. The poor girl.

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Banquo made up his mind after Rosemary told them what to do. He left his ice house, sprinting to where he sensed Ophelia. He dove into the hole and grinned. ”I’m going to help you.”
”Uhuh. You’re just here to steal my job.” Ophelia rolled her eyes jokingly. Still, two more paws wouldn’t hurt their progress. The hounds tuned out the rest of the conversation happening over near the vampires and everyone else. The two figured they would be told more clearly if anything else needed to be done. They were working in a companionable silence when a fluffy white rabbit entered the tunnel followed by five others. Banquo tried not to let his mate know about the rabbits, knowing it would only upset her. Ophelia did not take notice of them right away. It was only when she almost stepped on one did she howl in horror. ”Where in the name of HELL did these come from!” The rabbits seemed to shake where they were scratching away but they continued to do so as if compelled by something.
”Hush, Ophelia, these are not Hell Rabbits. These are the living world rabbits. They seem to want to help us, anyway.” Ophelia stood shaking for a moment longer. Fire was on the brink of exploding from her body and her eyes were wide. Then the hound sighed. She couldn’t beat them… ”Stand back.” She warned. Everyone took seven steps back and she let out a large breath of fire on the ground, she saw a jet of aquamarine coming from Banquo. The ice and the fire connected and spun together. The ground shook slightly before parts of it cracked. They all approached the wall again and started digging, the rabbits’ tiny paws getting into crevices and the hound’s sharper and tougher nails sunk easily into the earth.

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Cian took two of the vampiric treats—he did not have the temperament for non-vampire foods as his wife did. ”Mm…She is a bit pissed.” he agreed, unwrapping the blood pop. He put it into his mouth and sucked on it once before adding, ”I’m a dead—well, more dead, anyway—man when she gets out of the game. I’m likely to hear about this for weeks. Yes, Dieamos does seem to have them.” Cian grinned, ”But they might be able to handle themselves.” After seeing “the team”—or most of them, anyway—in action a short while ago, Cian had faith in them.

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[Meanwhile…]
In another part of the world—or even in a different plane of existence—Nerissa awoke from a nap. She stretched her short human body before standing. She glanced over at the desk. Nym was asleep on top of the book he had been reading. Nee rolled her eyes and walked over to him, shaking him awake. ”Hey. Are we supposed to be doing something? Preparing, perhaps for tomorrow?” He looked up at her, confused. Again, Nerissa rolled her eyes, impatient for once, for an answer. She turned on heel and left the room, her clothing whooshing as she turned. She glanced at her reflection in a passing window and paused, adjusting her hair and straightening it up a little. She needed to find Duran and figure out what they were to do.