World Tree MUSH

Essex County, Ontario - the southernmost part of Canada, south even of Detroit. In a part of the world heavily ploughed over by farms and festooned with wind turbines, few remnants of native Carolinian forest remain among the fields and furrows. Yet here one apparently lies - a seemingly inconspicuous copse of trees nestled at the eastern end of a rural route just outside the town of Amherstburg, where the road gives way to a ravine cradling one of the little streams feeding the River Canard on its pathway to the Detroit River. A scrap of mostly natural space hemmed in by farms, a winery and an old cemetery.

The local whispers are what drew Neviah here, on a brisk November night - late enough to be a brisk November morning, now. They are what prompted her to discreetly pin up a request for assistance. Whispers of shrouded phantoms shambling through the woodlands; of witches and devil worshippers performing profane rituals in the woods; of a headless horsemen riding through the trees; of forgotten massacres of Indigenous warriors, or railroad workers still toiling in the woods in the afterlife. Tales and urban legends of the haunting of Texas Road.

The road ends on the cusp of the woods at a gravel cul-de-sac fringed with large concrete blocks. At the mouth of the cul-de-sac, a single police cruiser sits, lights on and aimed down the highway. A couple of bored cops can be seen behind the windscreen, their idle chatter whiling away the not-so-important duty of keeping troublesome kids from trespassing nearby.

Neviah is not a troublesome kid. Out of sight, she crouches in the ditch on one side of Texas Road, peering into the darkness at the illuminated cop car ahead. "We need to get them out of here," she whispers as she looks back to those along for the ride. "I don't know what we will find in here and I'd rather not have police breathing down our necks while we look."

There's a theory percolating in the back of Neviah's mind. The sketched map in her left hand doesn't fully make it clear. She's drawn out a general topography of the area, with much of the woodlot circled and marked with a '???' in red ink.

>> SUMMARY[Neviah Younger] >> TASK FOR THIS ROUND: Get rid of the cops.

    Whatever the arc of Neviah's life, Matsu is not in a position where she can turn down helping an ally - not when that help could be parleyed into political or court assistance down the line. So where Neviah Younger asks, the young 'head' of Clan Shuzenji is there to assist. Hell, it's even in Matsu's wheelhouse, what with the issue of possible angry ghosts.

    Admittedly, all this more modern infrastructure is still foreign to the tiny Phoenix Maiden, but she's willing to trust her allies on handling all of these... 'black-topped roads' and 'concrete blocks'.

    And, for that matter, the town guard.

    "I have no idea how to handle town guards in worlds like this," the silver-haired young lady says simply. "Somehow, I don't think setting them on fire will help our cause any." She's crouched right beside Neviah, features drawn into a faint frown. "Does anyone have any ideas?"

    Lether has never been to Canada.
    It's questionable if she's even been out of her homeworld-- except for that one weird time that a video game world blossomed onto the Tree and had a sand witch appear.
    That was a really weird day.
    Nevertheless, Neviah has something she wants to look into and... Well...
    Lether and Neviah are NOT friends.
    ... But Lether wouldn't feel quite right if something happened to the (usually) scantily clad cleric.
    Lether is crouched in the ditch with Neviah, but this time the plucky lizardfolk girl has traded her normal outfit of tattered overalls and a handmedown short.
    Lether has been making money.
    Mostly due to the fact that Neviah keeps throwing gold at her but...
    That DOESN'T make them friends okay? Even if she IS eyeing the others who came along that she may or may not know like potential threats to her or someone who is DEFINITELY NOT SOMEONE SHE CONSIDERS A FRIEND.
    Seriously, as tsundere as this pose is, Lether has re-outfitted herself with a thick black leather jacket worn over a black tanktop and a set of sturdy denim jeans. It's a new look, but it's not just for style judging by the metal studs and spikes on the jacket.
    It is, legit, leather armor.
    "... Sec." She mutters while eyeing the cops and crawls out of the ditch, moving slow, cautious, creeping along as to not be seen with stealth skills honed from years of being abused by rogue trainers and footpad teachers.
    Once she's ensconced in a thick patch of grass elsewhere...
    Lether bellows.
    It's a loud, guttural, almost fucking *monstrous* noise the builds from low in her chest to rise in her throat. It's the kind of sound a VERY large 'gator would make to convey its size, threat, and territory, to try and scare off the cops.
    It's an idea.

    The coolest thing about this whole 'Tree' gig is the field trips! Like, how else was a New England girl like Belle going to see such exotic locations like... um... Ontario.

    ...

    Look, Ontario is nice and all, but Belle just spent weeks exploring a massive colony ship fighting off alien invaders and helping malfunctioning androids. This is kind of a step down that has her sulky.

    Nonetheless, this DOES happen to be an area that she's good at. "We had to do this sort of thing all the time. Let me give this a try..." She flicks her wrist so her bow comes out and...

    Oh good, there's a gator making noise nearby. That just helps her out. She draws her bow and lines up a shot. No, not at the cops or Lether, but a shimmering arrow of light appears and is launched toward a trash can down the street. Conveniently making the noise of... well, a trash can being bowled over, while not leaving behind a suspicious arrow.

If Joanna hadn't known better she would have guessed she was back in Unova. Just a little north of Castelia if she was to make a more specific guess. The plants, terrain, infrastructure, even the air was similar, carrying much of the same chill. 

 It had been a long time since she saw Unova last. Even longer since she saw *her* Unova. Sure this gig might have been clutching at straws a little but this potential lead was no doubt as good as any other. 

 She had taken cover in that same ditch, being careful to remain concealed from sight while she listened in. Those large Jolteon ears weren't just for show as they twitched and tried to hone in on just what those coppers were talking about. Probably nothing too interesting, but, perhaps it'd give an indication when they were going to go off shift. 

 "Setting them on fire isn't an option, but setting *A* fire might." She let a subtle spark flicker between her fingertips, barely visible, even at this close distance. "I might be able to make it look like a freak lightning strike, but I don't think that would buy us that much time."

There are worse places in Ontario to be! The worst case scenario would be to be in Harrow. (It's ten minutes from here by car.)

Neviah looks back over her shoulder. The last time she saw Matsu, it was on less than ideal terms. The professor purses her lips. "I'm not always used to them either," she murmurs before offering up a faint smile. "Thank you again for coming."

Someone, at least, has a plan, and it's Lether. Neviah smiles. Increasingly, she finds she's comfortable bringing Lether along - and not just because the little nipper responds well to occasional drops of treasure. The lizardgirl is surprisingly resourceful and self-sufficient for someone so young.

The lizardgirl creeps up, unseen in the dark... and *bellows.* And just as she does - and just as Belle follows with a well-placed arrow - Neviah weaves her fingers together and unleashes a spell.

Up the road, the two cops are in the midst of sipping their Tim Hortons double-doubles when that bellow rips through the woods. The officers jump in their seats, the one in the passenger's seat starting at the sound of that nearby crash. And then the fog starts to roll in - a suspiciously heavy fog rolling out of the trees, spurred on as Neviah adds her touch to the mystery. Behind the dash, the two cops look at each other, then out towards where they spot a spark of fire, then back.

"I don't get paid enough for this, eh," the cop behind the wheel states, trying to sound brave, before rolling his windows up, putting the Dodge Charger in D and peeling off down the gravel road at a pace well above the speed limit.

As the cops pull out of range, Neviah climbs out of the ditch and tosses her long dark curls back. Sneaking aside, she picked out her "armour" ensemble, really an assemblage of bronze panels, straps and capelets that looks more like a fashion piece than a practical melee outfit. "That's helpful," she approves before turning towards the trees.

"Keep your eyes open for anything that seems out of place," she says in a quieter tone as she moves past two of the large concrete blocks, making her way down the barely-visible tracery of a dirt trail leading into the ravine. "If I'm right, this woodland may not be part of this world at all."

The woods are dark - oddly eerie. Somewhere in the distance, a crow caws.

    Matsu is not sure what to expect when Lether goes creeping out. She gives Neviah a faint, curt nod of acknowledgement - no words, but at least it's something. But mostly, she watches Lether disappear into the darkness briefly-

    And then just about jumps out of her skin at the bellow. "Gya-?!"

    Hopefully that alarmed squeak will be lost in all the other noise. Lether may be getting a grumpy glare when she gets back.

    But with the cops gone, life is a lot easier. And from there, she's quietly following along behind Neviah, almost distracted... mostly because she's reaching out with her own shrine maiden's senses, trying to see what she can see about this place.

    Now that the whole matter with the cops is solved, Belle whips out her glasses and pulls them on, so she can better use her spirit-sight. She moves forward with the others, listening to Neviah's warning and frowning. Still... this is kind of her natural element. She is the tracker in her supernatural hunter team back home, after all, so she sniffs the air and also casts out with her senses.

    "That way," she murmurs, keeping her voice low but not quite a whisper. "I saw something. It looked like a horse. Are there horses out here? I don't remember a lot of woodland horses in Ontario, but this IS Canada..."

    She creeps forward, trying to get a better view... and wracking her brain for what sort of cryptid it could be. "Maybe a pooka? Water horse? What would that be doing in Ontario...? Hmm. Maybe native myths... assume it isn't safe to ride."

Joanna blinked a couple times, both out of surprise at how quickly that made them peel off and out of an attempt to get her eyes to adjust better now the darkness was more complete rather than lit up by the cop car's lights. "Hah, that worked. Nicely done." The Jolteon woman continued to scan the treeline, her eyes starting to cut through the darkness far better now. They were, much like her ears, also not for show. 

 "I didn't hear them calling for backup. I think we're in the clear." 

 It was at that point she spotted, well, something. She couldn't say what. Pale, perhaps gaunt even, in the treeline up ahead. Instinctually her hand reached towards her sidearm, though she paused, rationality taking over instinct. "Movement in the treel-" She turned slightly to look towards Belle, from what she was saying, sounded like she might have gotten eyes on it better than she had. "You saw it too?" She asked, also moving stealthily forwards. "I didn't get a very good look, could have just been a deer or something."

    Well that worked like a charm.
    Once the cops pull away and drive off, Lether stands herself up from her hiding place.
    That glare from Matsu?
    Lether just stares at Matsu-- no that's not quite right... She stares at Matsu wordlessly, in the same manner a hungry gator would stare at a chop of meat.
    She then blinks sideways.
    More specifically it's a nictitating lens; a biological feature of crocodilians (and some birds) to protect their eyes while underwater.
    "What?"
    Stuffing her hands in her jacket--- armor pockets for a moment, rocking on her toes while waiting for the others to come out of hiding.
    But then Joanna sees movement.
    In an instant Lether slips into a nearby shadow and starts creeping *towards* the treeline, the glint of a knife in her hand.

To the sensitive, the energy here is... off, somehow. It's not just that the woods are dark, closed-in and strangely quiet. It's that the /feel/ of the place is different.

Neviah has conjured up a small light cantrip, but she's keeping it shielded with her free hand as she maneuvers down the slope and into the ravine. At the warnings from Belle and Joanne, however, she draws to a halt in a space near the little stream, rippling sadly over the cool rocks amidst the half-bare autumnal trees. "I'm not sure what it really is," she admits in a whisper. "If I'm right, those local myths might be trying to give shape to something completely out of context to this branch."

As a cautious Lether slides into the brush, an owl somewhere in the distance hoots. There is silence for a moment as Neviah tries to take stock of the situation. She scans around, free hand half-raised.

A cold breath touches Lether's shoulder. This is odd because she can see everyone in the group in front of her.

A look behind her reveals that she is not alone.

A hazy, pallid form, humanoid but just barely, is phasing /through/ the underbrush around her. Its scarcely-substantial hand reaches out for her, skeletal mouth agape and eyeholes empty. To look into its face is like a jolt to the heart for reasons entirely beyond the personal - like a sudden /compulsion/ trying to force fear upon the little lizardfolk.

It did not come without company. With a hollow sound like wind through a crypt, they begin to emerge from the trees - about a half-dozen filmy shapes, draped in rags, skeletal, insubstantial, reaching out with hands veiled in ghostlight. Their empty faces do not instill the fear that Lether's assailant does, but their touch is cold, withering.

There's a sudden flash, and one of the phantoms dissipates as Neviah blasts it with a lightning burst. "Damn! Ghosts," she hisses.

    The glare lingers for a moment longer. Surprisingly enough, the nictating lenses don't seem to bother Matsu as much as they do most. Her only response is a brief, faint shimmer of harmless flame that flickers up along her body. It's a silent, but surprisingly blatant, 'try me.'

    But the information provided by Matsu Shuzenji's senses is more important, and subtly worrying. "Something here is... wrong. It shouldn't be here," she agrees with Neviah, inclining her head a little. "...but if it's some manner of outside myth, it will still have to conform to rules. It's the price of taking a shape. The shape will shape you in turn." Already, the silver-haired priestess is palming a handful of ofuda, strips of paper marked with prayers of banishment and purification. And some subtle instinct urges the Phoenix Maiden to fill those ofuda with the purifying flames of Suzaku, even before she can see a particular threat.

    It takes only that eerie noise to have the tiny girl whirling around, almost reflexively flinging purifying ofuda at anything that looks remotely ghostly. "EI!"

    Matsu has fire.
    Lether continues to stare for a beat longer before she makes her decision.
    Getting turned into grilled 'gator is not worth it.
    So moving on! An owl hoots and Lether is stone silent. She creeps closer to the trees but then pauses.
    The cold breath on the scales of her neck halts her. Golden eyes blink slowly.
    Everyone is... Over there. So who could that be?
    Slowly, stiffly, the runty Lizardfolk turns her head.
    And she's suddenly face to face with something *absolutely fucking horrifying*.
    She stares at it in bald slack-jawed bewilderment at first as she processes what she's seeing. Bewilderment gives way to sudden, mounting, existential dread.
    The sound the 'gator girl makes is not the same monstrous bellow she had made before.
    It's an awkward squawking noise of pure distress that escapes her throat- a sound *very* similar to a toy laser gun going 'pew pew!' as she lurches, stumbles, and topples back onto her ass, scrambling away in Neviah's direction.
    A tumbling backwards roll however puts her on her toes, and rather than run away in terror, the surprise gives way to adrenalin as fight or flight instincts kick in and...
    Lether is not a runner.
    No no, indeed, the scrappy little gator bares her teeth and snarls as she lashes out with the blade in her hand.
    She lashes out for the perfect stab- the kind of jab that would slide her favorite knife right into her target's kidney if... It were a living target. This would probably not be effective with a normal knife.
    Lether's favorite knives are, however, enchanted.
    "Bollocks... Coulda warned there'd be actual ghosts!" She snarls.

Joanna's sight was well adjusted to the darkness by this point; so much so in fact that looking towards Neviah's cantrip caused her to squint slightly, the light reflecting back off of her eyes. Even with the spooky surroundings and talk of local legends, Jo was still more convinced that the thing in the woods was more natural than supernatural. A deer perhaps, or maybe even a moose, something that actually would be a danger out here. 

 "Yeah well. I ain't 'fraid of no ghost." It was barely a few seconds after that little movie reference left her mouth that ghosts actually *did* in fact show up! 

 "Contact!" She was still trying to be somewhat stealthy about it, not yelling that, though her voice still carrying enough to hopefully get everyone's attention. Of course the lightning she threw at one of those spirits was a little less subtle, two bright flashes and *boom*, likely followed by the shattering of a tree behind it should it punch clean through! "Case in god damn point."

    Distracted by adorable gator sounds or not, Belle makes a face. "Right, infringing on this world... so a Stage 2 hostile manifestation with it looks like... at least a Class 3 cryptid, as that was definitely a horse but not necessarily solid, and-"

    Oh, there are ghosts.

    Backpedalling quickly, Belle's bow manifests an arrow of shining light, sending one launching toward one of the ghosts. "And at least a Class 3 haunting as well! So we need to find the source of this instead of just messing with all the symptoms I think!" If she can catch another sight of the horse that might be a clue.

It occurs to Neviah that bringing Matsu along was a really, really good idea. The ghost reaching for the tiny priestess gets an ofuda to the face. With a shapeless utterance, the filmy shape collapses in on itself, only a swirl of energy left to dissipate into the air.

Joanna brings lightning of her own to the party. A pair of phantoms attempt to converge on her, hands outstretched. The electric blasts rip right through them, the tree behind one of them shattering in a burst of cinders and fragments of smoldering bark. Belle's arrows snap out expertly; one phases through the ghost nearest her, its insubstantial form swirling around the hole suddenly made in its chest. It looks down dully before fading from view, evidently struck down. Another of Matsu's seals captures a ghost as it attempts to come at her from the side, and it too vanishes into nothingness, banished.

It's the high-pitched squawk from the treeline that causes Neviah to whirl. "Lether," she immediately hisses with alarm, hurling another wave of thunder even as the tumbling lizardgirl lashes out at her phantom assailant.

The enchanted knives help. The phantasmal shape looming over Lether flinches momentarily at the jab to an organ it does not have. A blade should pass through it with minimal harm. This one stings. It's enough that when Neviah brings her Thunderwave to bear, the ghost is fixed to the spot. The flash of energy reduces it to a fading whorl of ectoplasm, lost in the dark of the night.

There is silence, for the moment. Nothing else rises to meet the group.

"...Is everyone alright?" Neviah asks, lowering her casting hand.

She checks over the group quickly, eyes lingering a bit longer on Lether, before she begins to descend towards the deeper trees. "That horse is still out there... be vigilant. And if you see anything unusual...."

    Lether's startled laser yelp is unexpected enough that Matsu whirls around and very nearly flings an ofuda her way. She manages to catch herself, though, and this time at least she doesn't shoot any cranky looks. The tiny miko stays on her guard until nothing else attacks them, and even then, she relaxes only slowly (and never completely). "...I am fine," the Phoenix Maiden replies to Neviah, taking a slow and wary look around. Nothing more for the moment, at least; and out of pure habit, Matsu's eyes turn skyward, as if to reaffirm their location by the stars, if only briefly.

    "...where are the stars," Matsu says, tension slipping back into her voice. "We should be able to see them. But they're not there." Already, she's infusing another handful of ofuda with her flames.

    Lether can't sweat. But if she could, she'd be *drenched* right now.
    As her knife pierces the phantom just long enough for Neviah to obliterate the ghost with a Thunderwave, the roguish little snapper hops back and lands in a crouch, ready and waiting for anything else to present itself for a good knife-jabbing.
    When nothing appears for a poking she slowly relaxes. Not completely. Never completely, and especially not after that Spooky's Jumpscare Bullshit. But she slips her blade back into its sheath at her hip.
    "... Elf ears." She says with no context at first, before explaining: "... The one I jabbed had elf ears."
    How curious.
    But then she does that creepy-ass sideways blink again.
    "... 'm fine." Added on a little sulkily before she looks up as Matsu points out the *stars are gone*.
    "... Okay I'm a little spooked."
    Just a little.

    "Elf ears...?" Belle huffs. She doesn't seem that out of breath, but she's glad to have an exorcist-sort here. She can SHOOT the ghosts, but here we have an exorcist and some kind of military specialist with Joanna.

    "So they're not modern at least," she murmurs. "Which means tech just isn't a thing... anyway, yeah. You saw it too you said?" She looks at Joanna.

    "Well... everyone keep your eyes open for a white horse then," Belle says. "Or your ears, it might actually make noise if it has a physical form. If so, it'll be easy to hear. In the forest it doesn't have a lot of room to move easily, so it'll be loud. It isn't a little horse."

Joanna kept her arm raised a little longer, her hand still crackling with a readied thunderbolt as she cautiously swept the treeline, only lowering and 'disarming' it with a flick of her wrist when she was good and satisfied nothing else was about to go bump in the night in their immediate future. "Clear. Looks like they don't hold together too well." 

 Jo was a little out of her element here. Sure, ghost type pokemon, even ghost type 'morphs existed and were common enough it was fairly safe to say that these weren't following any of the rules she knew of. "I saw lights. North of us." It was at that point she noticed the lack of stars. At first she thought it was perhaps just cloud cover the weather taking a sudden turn for the overcast, but, the sky was as clear as ever. Not a cloud in it. She was about to make a comment on it, at least, a comment more audible than the 'what the f...' muttered beneath her breath when she heard Belle talking to her. "I'm not sure what I saw. Something in the trees. If it weren't for all this I'd have just chalked it up to a deer or something like that."

The situation around Neviah is bettered immensely by the knowledge that Lether can in fact be incredibly cute.

Matsu points something out, then, and Neviah looks up with eyebrows raised. Sure enough, the sky beyond the tree branches isn't particularly cloudy, and out here in the country there's not much light pollution... but the stars are nowhere to be seen. It's as if the heavens were simply no longer present, the skies of Essex County giving way to a cosmos that doesn't exist anymore.

Lether's report merely heightens Neviah's suspicions. "Elves and no stars... then I think my hypothesis looks stronger," she murmurs as she guides the way down past a few stones that have tumbled into the ravine, towards where Joanna had noted the light. Indeed, from within the underbrush there is a faint, blue-white glow, the shadows of branches and stones keeping it from being fully seen.

The once and former professor leaves her cantrip-light hovering near her as she opens a pouch at her hip. She comes out with an odd-looking device, like a pair of spiraling metal pieces affixed to copper wires that extend into a vial of liquid, all connected to a handgrip. Holding the device up to the air, she steadies it, then flicks something at the top of the handle. There's a brief spark of light, the smell of burning ozone - and the colour in the vial starts to change.

It shifts from the bottom up, gradually segregating itself into two distinct bands of colour - a bit of muddier green that sinks to the bottom, much more of it blue-green and floating to the top.

Neviah peers at the device intently. She does not notice that the shadows between the group and the light have shifted - that something is emerging behind her. The professor squints a moment - and widens her eyes.

"I was /right,/" she whispers triumphantly. "This area was part of Faerun. It's the--"

She trails off with a gasp as she's abruptly hurled off her feet by a phantasmal greataxe striking her across the back and shoulders. The weapon shimmers in the hands of a ghostly figure in elaborately graceful armour, astride a phantom horse that rears with forehooves momentarily raking the air. The ghostly rider would almost be beautiful... save for its neck ending in a stump. So does the horse's.

The steed's hooves come down, and the headless rider wheels its two-handed axe, sweeping it towards Lether and Matsu. When it whirls about again, it raises a hand, and ghostly blue-white flame billows in the air, cold fireballs casting towards Belle, towards Joanna.

>> SUMMARY[Neviah Younger] >> OBJECTIVE: Defeat the Headless Horseman of Texas Road.

    When the axe sweeps Neviah away, Matsu Shuzenji lets out an alarmed shriek and stumbles backwards. This is the only thing that saves her from being bisected. The axe just barely clips her, knocking the young Phoenix Maiden back and off her feet. Surprisingly enough, even with her shrine maiden's robes showing a worrying amount of blood, the tiny slip of a girl pushes herself back to her feet, with gritted teeth and a determined expression. Few know it these days, but she's no stranger to pain, not by a long shot.

    Rather than unleash an attack of her own, however, Matsu weaves her hands through a rapid-fire series of gestures, before flinging an ofuda directly at the ground in front of Joanna. Where the talisman lands, a barrier erupts, directly blocking the blue-white ghostfire ball.

>> SUMMARY[Matsu Shuzenji] >> Matsu does not enjoy being axed a question. Defends Joanna with a barrier rather than attacking.

Joanna took a couple steps towards Neviah, the Jolteon trying to get a better look at the strange contraption she was holding, the cantrip's light still glinting off her eyes in a way that'd probably look plenty spooky if there weren't actual ghosts in play to compare to. "What is that?" She asked, tilting her head slightly as she watched it at work. Fortunately, she wasn't quite distracted enough by it to be caught off guard like the scientist seemingly was! 

 She span around with barely enough time to catch the horseman ready its fireball! She tried to duck away, diving behind the most substantial piece of cover she could find, but a fallen mossy log probably wasn't going to do much more than provide concealment rather than any sort of resistance. Especially when she saw how it blasted against Matsu's shield! 

 Ears ringing she moved around the side of the log, raising her arm and steadying herself as she got into a shooting position down on one knee. 

 A double flash rang out, followed by a boom that sounded like it might as well have been cannonfire, then another. She could smell blood at this point, though she couldn't tell if it was hers or one of the party's at this stage, focused only on laying down a steady withering barrage of lightning! "We got company!"

    "WOAH!"

    Fireballs headed toward her? Not great for Belle! She doesn't like being on fire! She's one of the more combat-oriented of the 'Chasers, though, and dives to the side so she's not turned into a crisp... she just has to roll a few times to put out the fire on her hip. "Ow ow ow ow!"

    That's a bit of an understatement, given she literally caught fire, but she flashes a glimpse of fangs before getting herself under control. A few magical light-arrows shoot toward the rider, first, before she ducks behind a tree with heavy pants. "Okay, I vote we don't try to talk this out! Unless there's something about this Faerun place that will make this REALLY listen!" A pause. "But since there's no ears here, I don't think that'll work anyway!"

    This is getting spookier by the minute.
    Like how the shadows shift...
    Sure this place is a part of Faerun-- but that doesn't make the headless horse and headless horseman any less creepy.
    Wait.
    Wait what?
    Lether's pupils contract into thin slits as she opens her mouth to try an warn Neviah. She's too slow and the Cleric is axed down.
    Then it comes for Lether herself before she can even see if Neviah is okay. This makes her strangely unhappy.
    For the Lizardfolk, time seems to slow as her reflexes kick in... She lurches, tilts her head and arches back as the axe sails for her neck.
    Several strands of silvery-white hair are neatly clipped from Lether's head as she tumbles backwards onto her hands and in a tumbling flippy-roll...
    That hooks her under the headless horse, using her momentum to swing up from under it and into the saddle behind the headless rider.
    "Bloody ghosts... See how you like this." She growls as she unsheathes her knife. It twirls on her finger before she clutches it in a reverse grip as she hooks her free arm around the rider's torso to hold on.
    One jab to the kidney, yeah that feels right...
    Lether jabs to try and insert her enchanted dagger into a chink in that armor.
    Talk this out?
    Nah she's on the same page as Belle.
    She'll let her blade do the talking.

>> GAME >> Lether spends an Edge for: Uncanny Dodge and then a shanking.

Sprawled in the damp leaves, Neviah groans and begins to push to her knees. Part of her armour has been dented; it's spared her being beheaded or slashed open, but the impact was agonizing in and of itself, and she gasps as the pain of movement blazes along her shoulders and upper back.

The horseman's fireball splatters against the barrier Matsu hurls up in front of Joanna. Stymied in that direction, the rider whirls to put focus on the little priestess. It seems not only to have no trouble sensing where she is, but to be /fully aware/ of the blood soaking through her robes - it's as though it knows it's dealt a blow and sees the potential to finish Matsu off before she can cause more trouble. The phantom horse's hooves don't so much as disturb the leaves as it begins to move in her direction. The knight raises its greataxe--

And doubles backwards with a booming noise more felt than heard as Lether vaults astride the ghost horse and knifes the rider in the back. Insubstantial or not, the armour yields only with difficulty. It's of an odd make - elegant, fluidly curving, distinctly Elvish if ever there was such a thing. But Lether nevertheless finds a gap, the enchanted knife striking through ectoplasmic substance.

The headless horse rears violently, as though it and the rider were one. It may throw Lether off.

Belle and Joanna open up. Magical arrows slam into the horse's flank, and lightning follows. Straining to one knee, Neviah throws in an effort of her own, a blast of wind that staggers the phantom rider. The thunder and shining arrows, however, seem to be enough. The horseman recoils, ghostly fog gushing from the steed's side and the rider's back. The phantom stallion wheels and gallops off into the trees, vanishing from sight within seconds.

Wincing, Neviah pulls herself unsteadily to her feet. "It's... not coming back," she manages, voice pained. "Come on."

It's just a few steps down towards that light Joanne spotted. Faint but clear, it shines across a ring of stones - what used to be a henge, but with its capstones long collapsed and half-consumed by earth and fallen foliage. What was once a pond at the centre of the ring now stands dry and filled with rubble. A chunk of capstone has been hauled into the centre of that circle. For all that it has been covered in graffiti, clumsy 666's and pentagrams beginning to fade with weathering, it somehow doesn't /feel/ all that Satanic.

Nor does the figure seated upon it. Another ghost - this one not skeletal. A human, old and robed, yet so faint, as if barely tethered to existence.

The old ghost smiles gently, and then fades from view. Left behind within the circle is, simply, a feeling of calm and peace, as though the battles on the way here cannot penetrate.

Neviah bites her lip as she leans on one of the mouldering stones. "This place matches one of the ones on Archimedeus's map," she says with a look to Lether. "All that's left of Hullack Forest... the Wyvernstones."

    Battle is joined. People are fighting, injuries are happening. Matsu cannot heal herself, and an axe wound along her midsection is not the worst pain she's ever endured. She'll heal, eventually. She'll be fine.

    Neviah, on the other hand, could probably use some assistance.

    While they hobble their way into the clearing, into the ancient remnant of a holy place, Matsu is very openly moving closer to Neviah, and inspecting the woman for injury. There's a few stares. There's a poke or two, possibly at an injured and sensitive spot. And then there's a simple, firm, "Hold still."

    Healing flames wash over Neviah's body, and the aches start to fade, replaced by a pleasant, invigorating sort of warmth. Wounds close, cramped muscle relaxes. Shuzenji-no-Matsu holds her hand steady, releasing a torrent of Suzaku's healing fire.

    But at least, while Matsu's healing, she has time to add a simple, "You're going to have to explain those names, because I don't know any of them."

    Belle was worried about Neviah and Matsu, but... well, she had to put out the fire on her leg first! As she catches her breath and eases back toward the others, she gets a look of confusion on her face. "You're okay though, right? Your PKE meter isn't damaged either, is it?" She knows it isn't that, but has no idea what to call it.

    All those names mean little to her as well, but she isn't the type to worry about that right now. "Did you find what you were looking for, I guess is the question." Her side is still burned, but she is ignoring it for some reason, even though it looks like a bad burn on the hip at least.

    Haha. Lether didn't plan that out very well.
    Oh she's content in the fact that she backstabbed a ghost. But that doesn't change the fact that she's summarily LAUNCHED from horseback.
    There's another laser-squawk of distress as the Lizardfolk girl is launched into a tree with dizzying force and a dull crack.
    Stunned, dizzy, and in pain, the world spins as she staggers to her feet with another laser-chirp and a razor-fanged scowl.
    It's okay. She still has like half her HP. She'll just take a short rest later and heal with her hit dice.
    More seriously though, she's just gonna stagger and walk this off, for now as she staggers after Neviah.
    They reach the ring of stones.
    Lether blinks. Normally this time.
    "So uh. What's with the stones and all the ghosts?"
    Lether has no idea she's standing on an ancient elf burial ground.

Joanna once again took a little time to bring her arm down and let her built up charge earth back into the ground. This time it hurt when she did so, the Jolteon visibly wincing as she got back to her feet and dusted herself off. She could still smell blood, and after a quick check she was fairly certain that it wasn't hers at least. 

 Then she noticed where that blood was coming from. 

 Crap. 

 She reached into her pack, pulling out a first aid kit. It was too dark out even for her eyes to get a good enough picture, though given the size of that ghost's axe and the amount of blood she figured it wasn't exactly a papercut. "Hey, you good there?" She said, looking towards Matsu. "We should get that bleeding under control. I've got some first aid training, I can patch you up for now- woah." 

 Healing fire. As far as Joanna knew that was more of a contradiction in terms though here at least seemingly one that was far more effective than anything she was carrying. "Ok, can anyone else do that? Because that looked like it worked way better than quikclot." 

 Jo had seen henges before, at least of a sort. There was a big one in Galar that was part strange hippie druid religious site and half tourist trap, though not one quite like this before. She let her eyes scan over it real quick, both its design and the graffiti covering it. "Looks like we got some 'rouge angles of satin' here. This is why we can't have nice things."

The good news is, Neviah's alleged armour doesn't hide a ton. The bad news is, it does hide her upper back, which is where she got hit. She grimaces as she sweeps her capelet aside, revealing the dent in the bronze plate protecting her shoulder blades. The deep bruising under there is clear enough just from the touch. "Thank you," she murmurs as the healing magic does its thing. Suzaku is a kinder patron than Neviah's; even the magic feels a little nicer.

"The Wyvernstones were supposed to be a sacred site for druids and elves," she explains, tone pensive. "The forest used to be part of the world I'm from... Faerun. Most of it has been lost into the World Tree, but there are... fragments, like this, that still exist as they once were. Places with a strong enough... /presence,/ maybe is the right word... that they have held their uniqueness to the very end."

Moving over to Lether, she holds out a hand in her own right, a pulse of healing magic flowing to the little lizardgirl. "The elves must have been disturbed by something... I'm not sure. I'll need to do more research. But this confirms that at least another part of Faerun is still here."

    "Like how we keep our 'uniqueness' even after we leave," Matsu comments. "I've been to more than one world where they say powers like mine just don't exist. Doesn't stop me from existing, or using my powers." It's a surprisingly astute observation from a 14-year-old girl. Once she's finished healing Neviah, the tiny priestess straightens up, and looks around the ruins with a faint frown. "...Part of me wants to reconsecrate these grounds. But I don't know if my rites will be compatible. If I had time, I could test and experiment, but..."

    Matsu shakes her head faintly, then looks to Neviah. "If you know any priests or shrine maidens of the appropriate faith, I would recommend reconsecrating these grounds. It may help with the restless spirits. Banishing or purifying them is effective, but... tactless, I suppose. Giving them a reason to rest easily would be better."