A 3 hour tour......, The minnow would be lost!

[-Darshe]

As Azrael and Uriel left Darshe was about to head off to get a moments rest before their return and his experimentation began. However instead he was headed off by Siran who ran in yelling as usual.

He repressed the urge to sigh and waited to see what she wanted, she held out a staff or at least he thought it was a staff. He eyed it curiously wondering why she'd come all the way to him just to show it to him. Sure it was semi-interesting. But he had too many other things to worry about to figure out what the weapon Siran had found was or if it did anything. Still he put on a smile "good job you found yourself a better weapon."


Behind him the sound of a black portal tearing open and the beginnings of a steady stream of troops returning from Nazca began to pour out. "Well that was quick....Azrael must not be goofing off for once." He commented.

[-Dory]

Siran grinned brightly, and bounced once or twice as she curled the spear back to her chest, oblivious of the sharp against her skin that didn't quite cut, but left white streaks where they would have had they had enough freedom. That meant she got to keep it!

Her head turned as people started through the portal, and her grin grew even brighter. That meant that there'd be no more long boat ride, no more reminders of all the ways she failed and maybe, maybe if they got to Nazca and if they found someone with some strange ideas, one of them would have a cure.


"Siran?" Lun pushed through the crowd, brown eyes scoping agitatedly past them as she tried to move against the flow through the door. With an almost audible pop, she pushed out of the crowd on the side of the door, and edged along the wall away from them, disturbed eyes rivetted on the people.

Slowly, distractedly, her eyes traced the line to the portal and then beyond to where Siran hovered around the leader of the Sash like a gnat stuck to rotting fruit. She took in the womans grin, and her eyes flashed with a moment of minute jealousy as they reached the indifferent leader again-- sacrilege it seemed that this person who didn't give a shit either way about the girl should be the one to leave her beaming, and how? By not taking away her toy? It should have been her-- -her- at Siran's side, should have been -her- that she seeked out of every damned room.

But she wiped the thoughts off of her face, and out of her mind and she offered a wary smile of her own as Siran turned and waved, five fingered guesture of exuberance that wasn't even meant for that moment. Maybe not even for that day; strange creature that the woman was. Steps, careful and practiced brought her to the girls side (She completely ignored "Mr." Darshia.) and she tilted her head at the weapon.

"It's pretty." She stated pointlessly. "You keeping it?"

But Siran was long gone by the time she got to "pretty", golden cores of her eyes locked on the portal and the flood.

[-Darshe]

What seemed like all of eternity passed for Darshe as he watched the crowd carefully until he caught a glimpse of the distinctly lighter, and obviously cleaner fabric of Estel's clothing among the sea of dark color's scanning the crowd he searched for it again trying to keep track of the flicker of white among armor,dark cloaks,and gold sash's. As it neared he spotted the taller figure nearby given away as being Wyndre by the large white wings sticking out of the crowd.

"Wyndre!" he called this was the all important moment. The reason why he couldn't be bothered with Siran and Lunera right now. Potentially curing himself of this cursed plague.

He could see the figure stop as if unsure whether it'd heard correctly but he called out again "Wyndre! Over here!" It was hard to get his voice over the clamoring of the crowd as they took in their new surroundings. But his second call had surely been heard by the woman as soon the white wings sticking out of the crowd like a sharks fin protruding out of water turned and headed in their direction.

Soon the graceful elf and her daughter were before them.She gave him a curious look over and then spotted the marks forming on his body. Her brow raised but before she could speak Darshe cut her off. "I may have discovered a way to cure the plague but I lack the magic needed.....I believe however that you do have the magic needed since you are a healer."

"But I'd heard magic did not-" She began but was again cut off

"Normal application of magic no. But I believe there are at least two ways to cure this plague. The first, and less effective method is to dispel the magic in the disease and destroy the bacterium afterwards. However this is ineffective because the damage done through necrosis remains and in more severe cases the victim will probably die from the necrosis anyway if it's reached their vital organs....The second however is a concoction mixing magic with something else....the waters we found in Moun. I've found that on it's own it's a decent countermeasure against the plague but it only slows it down and the amount needed to maintain a stalemate with the plague rises dramatically after the first two days. But if we mix this life restoring elixir with magic to destroy the bacteria we should be able to not only stop the plague but reverse it's effect in anyone still alive."

She nodded in understanding "Where are the waters? I'd like to get started right away."

"I have a small bit here, we'll use myself as the first test subject." Darshe replied producing a flask filled with the well water. "If this test works we'll use all the rest of our water making the cure and head to Ascantha from what demarkos said they need it more than anyone else."

She took the flask from his hands and began channeling magic into the water within and then knelt down "Estie hunny could you alter the water a bit?" Estel blinked once then twice unsure what exactly she was supposed to do but took the flask and 'felt' the water changing it's properties and entwining the magic more deeply with the water's properties. "I....think I did it." She said though her tone showed glaring uncertainty.

"Well...let's find out." Darshe took the flask in hand, opened it and then stared at the now positively glowing water within. With a deep breath and unspoken hope he gulped down half the flask.

The elixir slid down his throat sending a series of pleasurable sensations through his body as the multiple magics spread outward, it was almost like the high one got from a drug only better as his body repaired itself and slowly the marks the plague had given him began to fade. One could only describe the feeling as something divine passing through you and erasing all that was bad leaving only the pure.

"Oh yes...that's definitely a winner."

[-Dory]

Eyebrow lifted uncomfortably, Siran watched the scene with almost distrustful eyes, attention flickering back and forth among the three as she clasped her spear tightly in her hands, as though simply holding it would keep her silent. She waited, surprisingly quiet for once, in guilty apprehension and when it was announced that he was healed, she let out a breath that she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Shaking her head to herself, she shifted to strap her new spear to her back, and looked back toward the portal.

"Theoretically," She glanced at Lun, "That portal could lead anywhere we wanted it to, right?"

Lun paused, brooding eyes leaving the crowd as though surprised to have been acknowleged. "Pretty much." She stated indifferently.

[-Darshe]

Darshe was enjoying his renewed vigor and strength the looming threat of undeath no longer hanging over him like a cloud he could focus completely on strengthening the troops and combating demons. "Get your healers together and use all the remaining water you can find here to make the cure....Rather than return to Moun I want to try and mix the cure into the water supply."

Wyndre nodded and quickly started off with Estel "I can't say how long it'll take depending on the supply....but we should be done by the end of the day." Wyndre called over her shoulder.

He smirked "The Zaleran empire is going to owe us quite a bit....We'll need to pay them a visit to set up distribution...." He held up the half empty flask. "I suppose this'll do for demonstration purposes...." He glanced over at Siran "You coming?"

[-Dory]

Siran's eyes lit up as though she were an electronic jack-o-lantern that had just been plugged in, and she nodded sharply, oblivious of the spikes jarring against the soft skin of her back, slicing through a few fragile threads of fishnet with ease.

Eyes narrowed, Lun crossed her arms over her chest, irritation burning in the recesses of her irises. For a moment, she looked more like a dark mage than Siran did, silently fuming. That (as meaningless as it was.) wasn't necissary. Blind jealousy set her scales just a little aglow, and the edges of her forearms sharpened slightly, but she held it back, turning her eyes pointedly away.

"Are we leaving now?" The actual dark mage asked evenly, her own gaze wandering toward the portal as she bit her tongue on a few more questions. Who else was coming? What were they gonna do? What was Ascantha like? Were there gonna be bunches and bunches of zombies trying to kill them? Were they gonna have to climb on a roof and shout that they have a cure? Were they gonna see the emperor king leader dude? What was he like? Was he a zombie yet? What about the other people? Were they all zombies? If they were zombies, how were they gonna make them drink the drinky thing? Why did said drinky thing glow? What spell was that that made it better? Were more people coming in from the sash? What if they ran out of water?

[-Cavada]

At around this time another being walked through the portal. Donas returned from the far off Necronus mission. He and his group of three recruits had teleported to Nazca and from there followed a trail that led to the portal. It had been a long joyrney and they honestly had not a single clue what was too be found on the other side. What they found was the majority of the Golden Sash and they were much relieved.

Donas spoke to the troops telling them somewhat friendily, "Go join the other troops, good work men." With his message they all eagerly headed to join wherever it was they were supposed to go too. Meanwhile Donas, somewhat dreading it headed towards Darshe, who he could see by looking over anything in his way. He felt that perhaps Darshe would be a little annoyed that they had failed to retrieve a cure, but he still had to report his return.

The troll worked his way through the troops and came upon Siran, another he didn't recognize, and Darshe. There he gave a greating, "Darshe what have you been up too all this time? I could use a recap. That or a nice mudbath, my age has been catching up with me." Donas decided he was going to avoid the topic until after the greeting at least. After asking he out of politeness spoke a short, "Good day Siran." Donas gave a slight nod as well the common politeness did have to be maintained after all.

[-Darshe]

"Not right this second, but soon." He replied picking a few out of the crowd "You three there and you over there!" He pointed them out 3 lighter armored guys likely donas' men and one who looked like he'd come from Xander's unit each looked in his dirction as he spoke"You four are going to head to Ascantha in advance, and report back what's going on there. If it's been overrun by the plague there'll be no point in the cure."

Reluctantly the more heavily armored of the group started off gathering his temporary squad of four to scout Ascantha. An idea that would've been pointless at another place in time, who'd ever have thought Ascantha would need checking on?

As they headed back for the portal it flared again as Donas made his entrance along with those he'd left with. (for the time being we'll just say Xander came back too since there's no reason they wouldn't have come back together, we'll just NPC him and scoot him outta the way for now though.) Azrael and Uriel returned as well closing the portal behind them and preparing the next one for the scout group about to leave.

"Ah Donas as you'll see as soon as you step outside we've stumbled upon much more than I'd hoped for. A whole city, forgotten and quite advanced, I'd like to take the time to start sorting things out and learning what exactly we have here but for the time being we have more pressing matters that can't be ignored. How did the necronus expedition go?"A careful ear might have caught the cheerier than usual tone in his voice, but he would hold back the most important news until he knew whether or not Donas and the others had already succeeded.

[-Cavada]

Donas's ear was more careful than most as it was his primary sense, and though he almost did pick up on the usual cheeriness he attributed it instead to the city discovery Darshe was speaking of. He didn't want to answer the question very much and showed it quite a bit. Grinding his large teeth for a few seconds and making the Ehhhh noise.

"I am afraid we were unable to turn up any results Darshe. Though none died in the expidition the one who hired us slipped off with the dragon rider at some point in the trip. I am unaware where the two went. None of the party has uncovered anything about the plague. I managed to learn something of personal importance, but other than that little has been achieved." Donas spoke a sort of full briefing.

He was rather uncomfortable with the lack of results, not because he was afraid of what Darshe would say, but because he like most trolls didn't like losing. Rather than dwell on this he instead asked, "But what are these other pressing matters that you have? Perhaps I can assist once more, we must be getting back to business after all."

[-Dory]

Siran beamed brightly at the acknowlegement, and returned it with a slight nod of her own, though she remained quiet, hands clasped behind her back.

Her expression slowly darkened with Donas's news and soon the familiar frown was back upon her face, tugging broodingly at the corners of her mouth. The employer and the mean guy had gone off on their own somewhere? That couldn't be good. She shivered inwardly, and looked down. She didn't like the guy but... he was -sort of- part of the sash, wasn't he? As unwilling as they all were to have him, and as unwilling as he was to be there. She shook it off, wrapping her arms around her waist and casting her eyes elsewhere. She didn't know Mr. Darshia too well but she doubted he'd make deals with the bad guys (pirates excluded.) so it couldn't be -too- tragic. She didn't know why she was getting so worked up over it.

[-Darshe]

Darshe's face didn't falter at the news in fact the opposite was true, as a grin spread over his face knowing he got to be the bearer of good news. "Don't worry about it Donas. It turns out we had what we needed all along, we have the cure here...well sort of it's a combination of magics and we'll need a little time to produce any sizable amount but at least we know how to make it now. Hopefully it's not too late to deliver it to Ascantha."

He'd only just finished speaking when Uriel came back through the portal "Darshe! The situation in Ascantha is dire. Everything's a mess, and from the looks of things someone or something let off some serious magic there."


Darshe's fist slammed into the wall. "But why attack there?" He wondered aloud and if you looked close you could see from his look that he was trying to answer that very question and at the same time trying to determine what move should be made next.

"There's nothing in Ascantha but the plague...and we know the demons aren't immune to their own plague so.....why go there, what's changed?...there must be something we're missing."

He looked up at Donas "Wait, you said the dragon-rider left with demarkos....if they went back to Ascantha then they could be after his gem. That's the only reason I can think of to go there now. We can't let them get a hold of his gem..or him as long as he still holds it. We could wind up with another demon lord to fight." He sighed "I'd hoped to get a break to train the men some, especially these new recruits, but we'll have to go re-inforce their weakened army as best we can. Donas, gather your men we're going to Ascantha."

[-Cavada]

Donas just stared blankly as Darshe provided the good news. After a few seconds he opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. He looked aside and then turned back to Darshe and spoke, "Darn it Darshe..." At this point Donas was seriously considering flopping on the ground and taking a nap, or just dying right then and there.

Chosing to do neither of these Donas was still concious when the news of attack was delivered. He was a bit confused by the news as well, and spoke up shortly after Darshe's determination that the quest for the gem was what the demons had attacked for, "Let's not jump ahead, there are plenty of other things the demons could have wanted with that city, and plenty of details that we know nothing of."

His last reassurance done he gave the Sash commander a nod and headed out the door towards his unit, and called out, "Alright boys, seems there's been some trouble in Ascantha, get your hind ends moving common!" It took the aforementioned troops a while to get their aforementioned hind ends moving, but once they were Donas had his force set and ready for Ascantha.

[-Dory]

Siran's arms wrapped tighter around her midsection and she frowned softly. So much for 'not right now'. Turning her head slightly, she offered Lunera what was meant to be a reassuring smile, but the woman was stubbornly looking elsewhere, pretty lips pursed with discontent. Shrugging uneasily, Siran looked back down at her boots, tapping the toe firmly on the floor as though to shake loose some abusive sand. If Ascantha was that bad.... why were they going?

She shook her head, and her arms dropped, entire posture changing as she stood a little straighter, eyes a little narrower, just a little more grown up. Cause they were the good guys, that was why. And even if they weren't, who really cared? Good or bad they had to get involved. Good or bad they had to fight, had to kill, had to stand up for whatever the hell it was they believed in (Whether she personally believed in it or not didn't really matter.) and standing up meant not being the whiny little bitch she was accostomed to being.

Silently, her eyes trailed toward the portal. Ascantha. She'd heard it was huge. What force were they going up against that had taken down such a place? She smiled slightly, real smile, adrenaline smile. Whatever it was, it was gonna be one helluva fight.

[-Darshe]

Darshe paused in mid-step "Perhaps you're right Donas, but when there's too much you don't know you have to stick with what you do know and from what we do know, the only powers capable of unleashing a high level magic in Ascantha would be a demon lord or a gem and the only things the demons are actively looking for are the gems. So either there's a gem there and the demons are trying to get it, or there's a gem there that's gone wild, either way we need to be there and we need to inform them of the cure to the plague...assuming there's still enough people to use it." His gaze shifted to Uriel asking an unspoken question.

"I only know that we came out on scorched ground, the city itself is still there but....it's like someone carved a chunk out of it on one side."

"I see. In that case we'll wait for Wyndre and Estel, we may need to use the cure in a hurry." He gave a whistle to grab some attention "Grab your weapons. We move out soon."

(since wyndre's back we'll wait for her before we run off to ascantha)

[-Wyndre]

((Someone tell me if I mess this up horribly.. D; First post back in the RP and I almost have NO idea what I'm doing. ._. ))

Estel soon came hovering back to Darshe, a bundle of tiny gourd-shaped bottles clinkling in her arms. They were all corked and filled with a slightly-blue water-like substance. A crystalline reflection shown upon the young girl's saddened expression.

"Here you are," she told Darshe, lying the small pile of bottles at the man's feet, "It's all we could do here. Mother said she was going to Mourn now to continue the work alone. She said I should stay with you, and that she would meet with us later.

"Also..." she added, after a pause, "That cure tonic probably doesn't taste quite as magical as it looks." A playful smile graced the girl's face. It was then that she noticed the clinking and clunking of weapons around her, and she looked around to see the group around her gathering their things. "Leaving soon, are we, sir?"

[-Darshe]

(it's fine wyndre.)


Darshe glanced over his shoulder at Estel. "Done already? We're heading to Ascantha as soon as possible, something's happened over there, what exactly we're not sure since we only have a basic scout report. But we need to get there as soon as possible."

The clatter of someone dropping a spare weapon caught his attention, "Oh come on! Get your--" He paused in mid sentance, the swear word about to escape his lips died quietly in his throat as he remembered Estel was standing there, he wasn't sure how old the young elf was, he'd have bet money she was older than she looked, but from the way she clung to Wyndre probably not by much. Either way her childish appearance was enough to make him refrain from cursing he rarely did it anyway but never around a child.


The soldier in question simply hurriedly picked up the spear and disappeared into the crowd. Leaving a sighing Darshe behind him. "They may be better equipped than they were before but they still need re-training." He commented shaking his head. "Alright, if everyone's here and ready to move head out through the portal to Ascantha." The old dwarf he'd spent half his time arguing with since they found this place decided to speak up then, "Hold on there a few of us'll tag along." Darshe simply nodded not in the mood for yet another argument and a group of Dwarves headed out through the portal first followed by Darshia's men and then Darshe himself.

[-Dory]

((Oh c'mon... I just threw Rowan in a thread WITHOUT Siran and Lun, and you're making me reunite ALREADY.... baaaaaaaaaaggghhh))

The corner of Siran's lips twitched as she spoted dear savior Estel, but her expression did not waver from determined, and she cast a glance behind her, toward her new spear, as though to make sure it was still there. The shift brought the sharp across the skin of her back, but she didn't mind. It made the sight more convincing.

"So...." Lun spoke up suddenly, skipping ahead of Siran to pause in front of Darshe, arms crossed as she lifted an eyebrow. "I guess I'm coming too? Siran's little pet thing?"

((*selfishly staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalls*))

[-Cavada]

Donas merely gave Darshe's parting words on playing it safe, and using what you know a shrugg. It must've taken him ten minutes or so to get the troops off their hind ends and into his nice marching formation. He decided it best to wait for Darshe to head through the portal first and as the dwarves, Darshe's men and Darshe headed through he held up a hand to keep them all still.

The men behind him really had no idea what he was supposed to be saying, about this time the similar thought of them needing training went through Donas's mind. As he prepared to leave he spotted Estel and Siran, gave them both a smiling nod after all he had been gone some time, and headed through the portal off to Ascantha.

[-Wyndre]

Estel returned Donus's nod, slowly moving forward, amazingly, without the use of her wings. She stopped just before she entered the portal, staring into its depths as the crowd of healers waited patiently behind her, now that her mother was gone. It might have been a strange sight for an observer to behold; a crowd of people, all standing behind a single elf, and not just any elf, but an elf child, the entire crowd waiting on the moment the young girl would take her step into the portal.

The saddened expression on Estel's face faded as she took a long intake of cold air; she breathed out slowly, smiling determinedly afterwards. With this determined look on her face, the young elf hopped confidently into the portal after Donus.