World Tree MUSH

    So things happened. And the group was approached by a man named Volothamp Geddarm after the little... Troll incident in the Gaping Maw. We'll get back to that later. He had a deal for the party, something about finding someone else who went missing, but that will have to wait.
    Another child has gone missing. And Lether is at her wits end about her missing friend.
    "This all started when those three old women moved into the old mill outside Anchordeep..." The lizardfolk girl grumbles, twirling a coin in her fingers as she bites on her lip with sharp teeth.
    "One always comes into town to sell her Dream Pies and then heads back by night after she runs out of stock... There she is now. Don't let her notice you." She growls.
    Speak of the devil though...
    An old woman pushing a cart laden with pastries.
    People flock to it, with coins in hand. Those who don't have coins have anything possibly valuable they can trade, jewelry, rings, necklaces and the like.
    The old woman serves them all in turn, turning away anyone who can't pay the whopping two gold price per cake, until there are none left.
    "Ehehehehe... Thank you, thank you dearies..." She calls out. "I'll be back in the next week with more~." She says earning groans of dismay from the crowd that couldn't get a pastry while fights erupt when someone drops a cake to the ground and immediately three people are in a fistfight over it and a fourth swipes the cake like a vulture.
    "Alright... Now we follow her..." Lether says. "Quiet and easy."
    Funny though. Once the old woman is out the city gate a chill ocean fog rolls in...

Say what you will about Neviah Younger, but she finds the idea of preying on children repugnant. She is trying very hard not to listen to the serpentine presence in the back of her consciousness that is, at best, indifferent to the suffering of the youth.

For now, she's picked out the outfit she's come to prefer - bronze, silk, straps, heels, strategic placement. Keeping quietly to the shadows with her capelet drawn around her upper half to reduce glinting, she watches the old woman handing out pies. Her brows furrow ever so slightly. "What /is/ a dream pie, in any case?" she murmurs as the old woman begins to wheel her cart out the city gate.

And then the fog begins to push in. The professor looks up into the sky as the mist rolls around her. She purses her lips and leans over to whisper to Lether.

"This isn't a natural fog. Hold a moment."

Neviah draws herself up and flicks her wrist. A small seed appears in her palm, quickly vapourizing as she gestures and murmurs a few words of power - and as she unleashes her spell, the wind begins to pick up. It accelerates, whirling around herself and Lether, mounting into a whistling gust that stretches out for nearly sixty feet - and, with luck, pushes the fog out and around it to clear at least *some* semblance of a view.

>> SUMMARY[Neviah Younger] >> Neviah is a Tempest Cleric and has tricks for this situation.

    Dante picked a bad time to be hungover. He'd missed the last incident over a night spent drinking with skeletons. Don't ask why, Dante isn't sure himself. But he's here now, nursing a wicked hangover while he trails in with Neviah. "Pie of your dreams, duh." He nudges Neviah playfully, that insufferable wit still present even if it feels like Dante's got an iron spike in his skull.

    He keeps a hand over one of his pistols, and observes the old lady cautiously, waiting to see what she'll do while tucking his other hand in his coat pocket. "Guess we're doin' this now..."

    God, he hates tailing missions.

    As the old woman makes her way out the gate, there's a traveller leaning nearby against a wall, arms folded, a walking staff leaned up next to her. Clad in sturdy adventurer's clothing in shades of brown, she has a hood up that largely obscures her face, and a cloak drawn about herself that does much to hide any gear that may be on her belt. But as the old lady heads out, the mystery woman tilts her head just faintly; and then, after Lether and her group pass by as well, she finally leans away from the wall, grabs her staff, and starts to follow.

    Shortly after Neviah calls on a divine miracle of wind, a voice speaks from the back of the group, familiar to... most of those present, at least. "My, that's quite useful. I do worry it will give us away, though," Lian Kamoya adds.

>> SUMMARY[Lian Kamoya] >> Lian jumpscare.

    Stalking people? Marceline's an expert! "You think they're anything like Moon Pies? I miss those. I remember liking Twinkies but I found lots and lots of Sno balls. Lucky me I guess, considering." 

    She tries not to hover tooooo high over the crowd, though it makes it pretty easy to seem tall and move gracefully through the flow of people. No biggie. Never mind her looted firefighter gear and the splash visor of the helmet down. At least, until that gust of wind kicks up when the fog rolls in. She sniffs at the air, drifting ahead, then grabs onto her headgear as the gust of wind pushed by. "Dude, whoah! Warning!"

    Though she'd proooooobably be fine with the fog diffusing the sun enough. Lian speaks up and she glances over. "We're following some old biddy to the Hostess factory lookin for baking tips. Want in?" Yes, Dante isn't the only smartass in attendance.

    Whatever Dream Pies are, they are clearly addictive enough to earn repeat customers willing to pay out their nose for the things...
    "What's a Moon Pie?" Lether does ask Marcy, tone hushed as the party trails the old woman and...
    Lether immediately whirls around, hand on the hilt of a dagger at her hip as...

    LIAN KAMOYA HAS JOINED THE PARTY.

    Accept?
    Y?
    N? < 
    Lether instinctively wants to mash the N button here but gets the feeling the woman will come along regardless.
    Neviah summons a gust of wind and the fog dissipates, but it's still a bleak, lousy, overcast and dark day.
    "Just try not to be too conspicuous." The lizardfolk girl mutters as...
    The old woman is gone.
    "Ah shit." She grouses. "Well it's fine... The old mill shouldn't be too far..."
    Or so she says.
    Even with the fog gone, the trip into the woods outside Anchordeep is... Strangely disorienting. Paths twist and turn and turn again and twist on themselves and...
    It's about when Lether is about to exasperatedly give up and say everyone is freaking lost that something stirs in the gloom.
    A young elf girl emerges from the darkness of the path, clad in ratty old clothes, dirty blonde hair tied back in a ponytail by a very bright red ribbon. She looks at the group with tired, haunted, eyes, and Lether nearly jumps out of her skin.
    "The hell... What're you doing out here, I've been going nuts thinking something happened to you back in town... Hey... ... Hey?"
    Despite Lether calling out to her, the girl seems to look clean through her friend and then turns to point a finger down a path that wasn't there before, turning to walk down the deerpath and vanish into the gloom, herself.
    "... Gods dammit."

Neviah would make a comment, but Lian speaks up and the surprise causes the professor to gasp, start forward, trip over one of her heels and faceplant. Her feet twitch in the air.

It takes her several seconds to clamber back to her feet, dusting herself off briskly. "Snakes' eyes, Lian Kamoya, going to make me jump out of my bloody knickers," she grumbles half to herself as she shakes her hair out and attempts to resume the poised air she tries to maintain most of the time. It hits a little differently now, blush considered.

The fog may be gone, but the trip through the wood is disorienting, and Neviah doesn't have that many more tricks to use here that wouldn't light up the surroundings or broadcast the group's location like thunder trumpets. She settles for staying quiet and drawing her curved-bayoneted rifle from its sling, keeping it in one hand as she prowls along.

A little elf appears. Neviah blinks.

A little elf is gone.

Moving forward quietly, Neviah positions herself behind Lether. "This all feels rather wrong," she murmurs, squinting down the path.

    Not only does a Jedi join, but a Devil Slayer too! Kinda. More like rejoin really. Dante gives Lian a chipper grin and motions like he's waving around his hands to use the Force. "Sup." When Marcy greets him, Dante nods eagerly. "Oh hell yeah, I love Hostess cakes." Goofy attitude aside, Dante does know the seriousness of this matter. Kids are at stake after all.

    He follows with the speed and silence of a jaguar on the hunt, when the old woman disappears Dante keeps his eyes peeled for the mill. "Knew something was off with that old dame." He mutters softly, before a mysterious girl gets his attention next.

    "Heeeey kiddo, you lost?" Dante says, waving a hand. The girl answers by being creepy and Dante glances where she points. "...man, this town's full of weird shit." And that's coming from a guy who's dealt with his share of 'weird shit.'

    Dante ambles down that path, whistling to himself.

    "I could certainly use some pointers," Lian replies to Marceline; her expression is deadpan, but there's a hint of amusement in her voice. "Goodness, my apologies," she adds to Neviah. "Do forgive an old lady her amusements." To Lether, she adds in a more serious tone, "Of course," with a bow of her head. "Lian, by the way. Adventurer and seer. I had a feeling I should be here, and so I am. Good to see you, Dante," she greets with a warm smile.

    For as disorienting as the fog might be, Lian seems unbothered; in large part because she's letting her awareness sink into the Force, choosing to follow her instincts rather than the senses that can be so easily deceived. It's just before the elf girl appears that the Jedi opens her eyes, and then her expression hardens just slightly. A little girl, moving as if she's possessed - and Lether's distress is obvious to her. "Quite wrong," Lian agrees with Neviah softly. She moves up to the front of the group without a word, taking a position where she can easily help protect the others.

    From fantascifimix metropolis to foggy outskirts to- woods. Dark, sinister and forboding. Marceline snurls her nose until it takes on a bat shape, just in time for an elf kid to wander forth from the gloom. She sniffs the air, suspicious, suspecting something- Children in the woods? Sure sign that shit's mad twisted. Everyone seems to have that interaction in hand, so she sweeps her attention around.

    Dark and gloomy woods? Caves, tunnels and ruins? They're like instinctive magnets to undead creatures or something - even she feels the need to be underground despite needing to do little more than draw the blinds to counteract sunlight. Even so, "This place sucks, that kid was spooky. Kinda fits, now that I think about it. Perfect place to mass produce junk food." A little bit of forced levity? No? She's not really feeling it either.

    She shifts her grip on the fire axe she's holding, pushing aside some overgrowth with the broad head. "Anyway, uh, Moonpies are like. Chocolate... Things with marshmallow. They stopped making them when the world ended but I can't eat them anymore anyway, right, so."

    To Lian, she hugs the axe against her front and fingerguns around it. "Heyyyy." Then, back to bushwhacking. Swipe swipe.

    For the record, Lether helps Neviah up after her fall. Her introduction to Lian is pretty simple, a surly mutter of 'Lether' and then it's... On to dealing with the vanished elf girl.
    Lian may take to the front but Lether wriggles past the jedi through the snugness of the deerpath. Wily and slippery like an eel, the lizardfolk is already scurrying ahead.
    That's when the party reaches the old mill...
    A stone tower in a woodland clearing, the windmill has seen better days, with windows missing glass panes. The mill is powered by... Wind of course but it looks barely operable at best as the blades slowly turn in the passing gusts that wander through the forest.
    That's when the door bursts open.
    A boy with no shoes comes sprinting out and nearly bowls into Lian.
    "Don't let her take me!" The boy pleads.
    As an old woman emerges next.
    "Oh deary dear..." She murmurs. "Don't mind young Reek, he hasn't been quite right since his mother died..." She says beckoning for the boy to return. "Come now, lad, come back to granny Morgantha. I'll take good are of you~."
    The boy shakes his head rapidly.
    A single golden eye cracks open in a nearby bush, and the glint of the dagger in Lether's hand can only be seen by the keenest of eyes.

    Dante shoots Lian a possibly flirty wink. "Ahh, you don't look a day over thirty." He says with a cheeky chuckle before he continues onwards. THe deerpath is a tight fit but Dante makes it work, either through some kind of demonic fuckery or just him managing to fit through other means, the Son fo Sparda isn't gonna let tight passages stop him.

    The mill is certainly suspicious looking, the kind of place that people go missing when they go near it. He says nothing, simply moves past the rotating blades as they slowly pass by. When the door opens, Dante's got Ivory in hand and he cocks the pistol pointedly. "Grandma, I dunno what you've got going on with that kid, but I get the impression he ain't yours." He says, taking a purposeful step forward. "So I'll only ask this once; let him go." No, he doesn't have his gun trained on the old lady, that depends entirely on what she does.

    Lian's decision is made in half a heartbeat. Without hesitating, she takes a step forward and curls a protective arm around the boy, giving him a gentle squeeze. Her tone is warm, soothing, a few simple words delivered with a calm confidence. "Shh. It's alright now. I'll protect you." At that, she takes a simple, careful step around the boy, such that she stands quite firmly between the old woman and the boy. She reaches up and unclasps her cloak, letting it fall at her feet, and then shifts her staff to her left hand. "I can feel the boy's fear, deep and genuine. We are going to have words with you, miss, about the missing children. It will be your choice as to how the conversation goes. And I assure you, you will regret certain choices, whoever or whatever you are."

>> SUMMARY[Lian Kamoya] >> Mamabear.exe activated.

"Somehow I knew you'd enjoy that," Neviah grumbles to Lian, though she's keeping her voice low. As much as dark and foreboding places aren't unusual to her anymore, this one gives her a vibe she doesn't appreciate.

Not much of a frontliner herself, Neviah is content to take up the rear of the party, gun in hand. She keeps her capelet pulled around her torso as best she can to ensure her minimalist armour doesn't glint in stray light. Before long, Lether's out of her sight. The cleric narrows her eyes a little, then lowers her head and sinks into the trees a ways, keeping out of sight beyond one of the thicker trunks.

The mill ahead is an unsettling sight. So is the old woman pursuing a lost child. Quietly, Neviah holds her hand down at her side, beginning to focus and draw power.

It doesn't come easily. She knits her brows. In the back of her mind, something sibilant and unpleasant whispers at her.

                    / n e v i a h /

Neviah squeezes her eyes closed and tenses, consciousness momentarily brought to a halt by something beyond her ability to conceive. So paralyzed is she by a divine presence only she can know or feel that she can't even act.

>> SUMMARY[Neviah Younger] >> Neviah's desire to do good runs into Zehir being Chaotic Evil.

    "Oh dang, literal mill. So-" Marceline shuts up as a little boy bursts out of the front door and runs to Lian. She hovers a bit higher, choking back on the axe handle a bit. "Yeah, granny, dunno what the score is but like. What's the deal, huh? Making kids help you in your little-" Sniff. Sniff sniff.

    She flips up her visor and sneers, showing so, so many pointy teeth. "Hey kids, nana down there's a hag. Ain't ya, toots? Unwashed, stoop backed greaseball."

    No love there. "When I ran out of vampires to eat, bet you'll never guess what I started with next." Is she bluffing? Hags are sick! "Hey. Is everybody home or you just holding down the fort for the rest of the geriatric ward?" Taunt taunt taunt vicious mockery. At least, if anyone here's seen her go at a vampire, she's not flown into a blood frenzy yet. She's being pretty unusually mean, though.

>> SUMMARY[Marceline] >> Marcy found the taunt button.

    "Oh... Oh no, you see, my daughter, the boy's mother, passed recently..." The old woman attempts to explain to Dante and Lian. "The death of his mother... Well the poor thing went infirm in the head, and I've been taking care of him ever since." She croons in the face of Lian declaring the boy's fear is vey, very, real. 
    And it is while Neviah is stricken by the dark whispers of her god that the old woman sighs. "Poor thing doesn't know his left from his right anymore." She says beckoning the child again.
    This time, the boy stiffens, tense and shuddering as he woodenly starts crossing the distance between himself and the old woman unless Lian stops him again, as though compelled to do so...
    And then.
    Marcy starts to taunt her.
    Morgantha makes a face.
    "Goodness oh my... Well I suppose if you know... I can't let you leave alive, then."
    That's when she shifts, changing from an old woman to the form of a monstrous crone, sallow purple skin, and horns sprouting from her head as her eyes come alight with a ghastly glow.
    The Night Hag cackles as she spreads her arms and cackles.
    "Bella! Offalia! We have visitors girls!" She calls into the door behind her, prompting two similarly purple skinned night hags to come out cackling as well, the three staring the party down, eyes clowing as hey cast a spell each.
    Dante, Neviah, Marceline and Lian will suddenly be face to face with illusions and memories of their worst, most terrible, horrifying fears brought to light.
    And then there's the noise Lether makes...
    A chirping laser-noise of distress as she crumples to the ground holding her head under the same psychic assault.

    Lian's eyes narrow slightly; it's perfectly plain from her expression that she's not buying a word of it. But then Marceline begins laying on the insults hard, and even the elder Jedi looks a bit surprised at the sudden venom. She shifts slightly, as if she can feel the coming battle already just from the way the axe-wielding vampire slings her insults, but even when the hag reveals her true self, the seer doesn't seem perturbed in the least.

    However, when the illusions are cast, for just a moment, anyone who can manage to steal a glimpse will see a brief instant where Lian Kamoya is well and truly alarmed.

    But it passes. All too fast it passes, and the calm returns to her face. "I see," she says simply. "So you choose the darkness, willingly and cruelly. You should know, when my Order needed to battle the darkness... they called me." She takes a step forward, walking fearlessly through the illusion before her. "There is no emotion; there is peace."

    And in the same moment, she lets go of her staff, and the silver cylinder at her left hip leaps into her right hand. The area is filled with a blue-white light as the weapon activates, a familiar hum. "There is no ignorance; there is knowledge."

    The air around her almost seems to still - a soft, gentle calm, so subtle as to almost be imperceptible, radiates through the Force. The Jedi Master sinks herself into it, letting her calm be a warm beacon for anyone around. "There is no passion; there is serenity."

    And then she lifts up her left hand, holding it straight out at the three. "There is no death; there is the Force."

    A powerful wave of pure kinetic force is unleashed, a knockback blast aimed at all three hags.

For just a moment, a horrible thought flits through Neviah's mind.

    /Was this how Morrigan felt before she...?/

Holding her hand out, she attempts to push a surge of power out of her core and down to her palm - but it simply won't come. Her thoughts race before she looks out past the tree to where the others are confronting the old woman. Somewhere back in the trees, she knows Lether is out there, and she /likes/ the little gator, damn it all - perhaps even /needs/ her in some obscure, selfish way. Her mind whirls, putting pieces together unconsciously even as the situation in the clearing begins to escalate. The children Lether associates with may be troublesome urchins, but--

Neviah pauses, then bites down to her lip. For just a moment, she closes her head and exhales. She /needs/ Lether in her orbit. Losing a helpful little backstabber would set her back in her efforts. She centres the thought in her mind and tries to shut everything else out, focusing, listening. In the deepest part of her consciousness, something serpentine observes, abides.

Exists, around her. Looking downward, she recoils against the tree with a gasp as a serpentine shape begins to rise from the underbrush, coiling out of the eyehole of a skull that wasn't there a moment ago.

Neviah looks up, eyes wide and wild. More shapes, sinuous and with the flared crowns of king cobras, begin to unwind from the very tree she's beneath. In the dark grass, still more hideously undulating shapes uncoil themselves. Golden eyes fixate on her, brilliant in a darkness that seems to close in around her. Beyond it all, she can see the contours of a place she remembers all too well. A cave in the deserts of Tattooine that is not truly of the planet Tattooine, but a sherd of a forgotten existence.

A skull upon an altar, staring at her, and offering her the answer she has sought. Enticing her to rush to it and give herself to it.

                    / N E V I A H /

As memories converge upon her, Neviah's consciousness recoils - but then, a sound cuts through it all. Small and distressed and entirely like a laser beam. The professor closes her eyes, clenches her teeth, and pushes a thought forward.

    /This child knows the darkness. I have NEED of her, damn you./

Neviah sweeps her arm out with a crackle of defiance borne entirely from some gut instinct she can't put a name to. The illusions continue to loom in her perceptions like nightmarish talons, serpentine manifestations ringing her awareness even as she steps out from behind a tree - but when she raises a hand this time, there is a /RESPONSE./ Power surges around her, rolling out of her in a wave that causes the sky to shudder.

"/Let that child alone,/" Neviah snarls, and snaps her arm downwards.

The sky suddenly illuminates with a flash, and a massive clap of thunder rings out like an inconceivably huge war drum. A single, massive lightning bolt coils through the air like a snake, writhing horribly before lancing downward towards the hag - a concentrated blast of divine force that threatens to wipe all it touches from existence.

>> GAME >> Neviah Younger spends an Edge for: Call Lightning + Channel Divinity as Neviah convinces Zehir she needs Lether for evil purposes.

     "Yeah." Dante answers Marceline by unloading a hail of bullets into the hag right as Lian pulls the kid towards her. He clocked her as pretty sus the moment he'd seen the old biddy disappear in front of his eyes before.
    The things Dante sees are not new to him by any means. He sees a demon with his face having sacrificed everything, even his own humanity, holding Vergil's heart in his own as he transforms into a winged monstrosity, clutching father's sword as he buzzes forth towards Dante, letting out a clicking cackle. "What's the matter? Scared to take your birthright? What, did you think Vergil would share if you joined him? It always has to be this way, there can only be one at the top of the mountain!" The Dark Dante taunts, and the two Dantes square off with swords.

    Dante is unnaturally quiet while he and his doppelganger fight. "No one-liners? C'mon, you're starting to actually have an emotion! Can't have that, can we? Maybe once we rip the bandage off, and waste these losers you pal around with, you'll start to understand the real truth of things; It's a dog-eat-dog world, and you gotta be in it for yourself in the end!"

    Both men fight with the speed of light, swords clashing and inflicting grievous wounds that knit together almost instantly. But then, nobody can really see this. This is all in Dante's head, right?

    "I swear, I feel like I've done this before." Dante finally says, headbutting the Evil Twin before flicking his sword into the air, and kicking it towards the apparition. "And it wasn't that original then either. All I know's this; I'd never forgive myself if I ended up like you. It'd be spitting all over everything mom and dad fought for...and my soul is saying it's not going to give up that easy!"

    So Dante, ignoring the other Dante, takes aim at one of the hags with both guns, blasting away at her while Evil!Dante wriggles like a tick on a pin, impaled by Rebellion against the ground.

    Marcy drifts wide, boots several inches from the ground while she hefts the slightly tarnished axe into a fighting grip. "Yeah, yeah, flippin dingus I haven't been alive since- Whatever!"

    Nice comeback. Anyway, best to let the others out themselves before making a move. It's a problem when one nips off to start a whole new biz somewhere else. Bigger problem if they can bring each other back with fresh grudges. Then, they start casting and Marceline starts to move- Too late! Spells ain't fair!

    Though not particularly weak willed, Marceline does have pretty high highs and very, very low lows to call back to.

    Marceline, young, eating the last of the stored food in a bunker full of skeletons. Simon leaving her alone. Her father, devouring everything and everyone that dared get too close. Becoming a vampire, forced to be separate from her last chance of being a part of a community. Anguish. Sorrow. Rage. Hate hate HATE.

    Marcy is gone in response to the target of all that burning hot emotion stirred up and wielded against her, her form splitting, stretching, expanding. Inky dark, variously furred, scaled and slimy, even incorporeal?! There's tentacles, screaming maws and eyes on every surface.

    Whatever she is now boils forth like a tide rather than a creature, pouring over whatever hags are unlucky enough to survive being blasted, shot and electrocuted. Tentacles grip, spines and claws rake and teeth bite, chew, consume.

    It's awful and of course the structure is not spared the blind fury!

    Wait, aren't there still kids missing?!

>> SUMMARY[Marceline] >> Marcy is now another problem.

    Three Hags... A full coven. Levying their power in its full force against the assembled. Phantasmal Killer is a hell of a spell, and as everyone sees their worst fears brought to life...
    A Jedi rises from the chaos; the battlemaster serene in the face of the horror. The Force is brought to bear and the sheer wave of kinetic energy slams into the Hag Trio. Two slam back into the wall of the mill the third blown in through the door.
    The hideous and horrific coiling ray of lightning lances down from the sky and evaporates one of the remaining hags with a strangled cry of surprise.
    The devil hunter battles his literal internal demons before blowing hole after hole after hole into the next hag, her body jerking and jolting from each impact before Marceline...
    Marcy turns into a sheer tied of hungry death, devouring the Hag that Dante had filled with holes and slamming into the mill.
    The third Hag appears once again, Morgantha snarling as her daughters are slain and her Coven broken.
    "You come to my home, interfere in my business, and now have the gall to face me in the heart of my lair? You petulant bollocks!" She snarls.
    Before Lether... Lunges out of the brush, eyes wide and feral, bleeding from the nose from she sheer wave of psychic damage that had washed over her mind, snarling and bellowing as she...
    She latches right onto the Hag's arm with her teeth.
    The sickening sound of snapping bone resounds through the clearing as the hag howls and--
    Vanishes from existence, choosing this moment to escape into the Ethereal Plane, resulting in Lether plopping on the ground with a laser-chirp of annoyance.
    "Fuggin' hags..." She growls as she picks herself up and wipes her nose, cautiously creeping towards the open door of the mill.

    The hags are dealt with - but Lian has much greater concerns right now. Concerns that she would normally call a friend, at least in passing.

    "Marceline!"

    For a second time, a dash of real emotion is allowed to show through, this time a deep and urgent worry. The furious entity that was Marceline has become a thing of fury and danger for all, even those they were supposed to save. And so the Jedi reaches out, not just with her voice, but with the Force, trying to both impress her worry on the monstrous being and to lend her some of the woman's own calm. "Marceline, you must calm yourself! You'll hurt the children we came here to save! No matter the insult they paid you, it is not worth the lives of innocents!"

Neviah didn't even see the other two hags. One of them was out in front. Now another one is. That one eats the lightning bolt - quite thoroughly. The shock and flash of the blast fades; Neviah's shadow momentarily stretches out behind her like an elongated talon, gradually fading along with the afterglow of the spell. Her expression is grim and her eyes hard as she lets her hand fall.

Out of the underbrushg comes exactly who Neviah was hoping to see in one piece. She closes her eyes and breathes out heavily.

When she opens her eyes again, it's to pick up her rifle. If she can avoid relying on magic from this point, she resolves to try - at least for now. "Keep close," she urges Lether, visibly tense as she moves in behind the little lizardgirl and raises the most corporeal of her weapons in readiness to deal with...

...a problem that has little to do with hags. As Marceline descends on the mill, Neviah breathes out heavily through her nose, then raises her rifle and sights along it, as if she's all too willing to try and put the rampaging vampiress down.

But she doesn't shoot. Not yet. Not when Lian Kamoya is trying her very best.

     Dante, silent as the grave, storms towards the prone hag's body and puts several more bullets into her carcass before he takes a long breath, holstering his guns. Yeah, stress has been relieved. His rage properly channeled and released, Dante goes to retrieve his sword from the ground, plucking it from the dirt where nothing sits before he sticks it on his back.

    "Granny, the inner-demons routine is waaaaaay overdone." He says in retort to Morgantha. He doesn't stop Lether from ripping her arm off, Dante just brushes dirt off his coat. "Fuckin' hags..." He echoes with a sigh. "The kid okay?"

    Then he focuses on Marceline, and rushes towards her. Yeah, that berserker rage isn't gonna be a good thing for anybody. Dante was going to put Marcy in a hold, but that's not gonna work now that she's all The Thing'd out. So Lian is our only hope to calm Marcy down.

    "Are we seriously gonna have to kick your ass too? Marcy, c'mon we don't have time for this!"

    The mess that is Marceline is currently battling some unseen foe, expending energy resisting whatever phantasmal thing has been loosed against her. No flight response here! She's all fight. Out of her mass, a set of jaws emerge, big enough to bite ahold of the very mill's structure itself! Masonry crumbles and grinds, showering everyone below with grit.

    Then, even as the spell casters are dispensed with and the spell's effects start to fade, she's targeted by the rest of the party she came here with.

    Force and fury are wielded against her and she just sort of stops, all of that horror coalescing back into the form of a pale young woman in shabby clothes and firefighter gear. She groans, drops onto her knees, then retches until- an axe head and some wooden splinters come up.

    She settles onto her butt, looking a bit queazy and a little bit abashed. "R-right, wasn't real. Wasn't real..." 

    The rifle trained on her and everyone's attention directed her way just kind of makes her cringe. "Real talk, it's kind of always a risk. Maybe getting involved was stupid." Pointedly, she avoids looking at anyone. Especially the poor kid that was here for all of that.

    "Also, hags are still mad disgusting."

    So about that kid.
    He would have ran but uh. Hah hah he would have gotten lost in the woods and that would have been bad.
    Which means he saw alla that.
    He's kind of staring, numb and shellshocked after the whole grisly display of hags getting annihilated.
    It's fine.
    Trauma builds character.
    Once Marcy has settled, Lether does pause. Just long enough to look at the vampire.
    "We all saw and did bad things. I don't blame you."
    That said, she slips into the mill.
     The ground floor has been converted into a makeshift kitchen, but the room is filthy. Baskets and old dishware are piled everywhere. Adding to the clutter is a peddler's cart, a chicken coop, a heavy wooden trunk, and a pretty wooden cabinet with flowers painted on its doors. In addition to the clucking of the chickens, you hear toads croaking.
    The sweet smell of pastries blends horridly with a stench that burns the nostrils. The awful odor comes out of an open, upright barrel in the center of the room.
    Warmth issues from a brick oven against one wall, and a crumbling staircase ascends the wall across from it. Sobs and whimpers can be heard from higher up in the mill.
    Lether peeks into the oven where several Dream Pies are baking nicely and makes a face before heading up.
    The dirt-caked windows of the mill's second floor allow very little light to enter this eight-foot-high chamber, most of which is taken up by a large millstone connected to a wooden gear shaft that rises through the ceiling in the center of the room. ... White powder covers the floor and the mill's grinder was apparently being fed from a sack of... Small bones.
    "Ah." Lether mumbles at this realization before heading up to the third floor.

    Lian can feel it. The moment Marceline finally masters herself, the moment she starts to come back to herself. She visibly relaxes, quite possibly before anyone else. "...no, never. It's never stupid to get involved," she replies warmly, her tone gentle. "The Force works in ways even the Jedi can't trace. Fate and fortune led you here, and your strength made this battle swifter and safer for all involved. And more importantly, you didn't hurt anyone. You regained control. You did well, and children are safe because of it."

    Surprisingly enough, when the others move inside, Lian stays outside. "Call if you need me, I'll join you quickly as I can." She's going to stay out her and comfort the poor boy who just went through some absolute awfulness.

An impulse deep in Neviah's consciousness questions why she doesn't just shoot. Neviah tries not to dwell on it as Marceline recedes back to her innocuous self. The professor sighs and lowers her rifle, letting her shoulders sag as the tension of the situation begins to fade.

"Let's deal with this," she says simply, her voice quiet. She heads for the mill, just a few steps behind Lether.

The Dream Pies are fresh from the oven. The mill has clearly been busy, and the source of its grist is evident. Neviah leans back against a wall and lowers her eyelids with a sigh. A part of her wants to kick the entire mill over, but the impulse to react in indignation keeps running into that slithering presence somewhere beyond consciousness.

She follows Lether up, wordless.

    "Not gonna act like I wouldn't do the same thing, Marcy." Dante says, before going to the kid. He kneels down and smiles, trying to be as friendly as possible. "Hey, junior...it's been a weird night huh? Let's find your friends, then we can get the hell outta here." He lets Lian take care of the boy, knowing that she's better with children than he ever could be. Especially when he sees the grinder inside.

    Ugh.

    He's dead silent too as he follows Lether to the third floor, braced for whatever nightmares wait for him up there.

    Up to the third floor then.
    Three beds take up much of the third floor, but several locked cages take up the other half of the room and Lether is already picking the lock on a cage with a young girl in it, futzing with the padlock with expert skill before it cracks open.
    There's another cage with a boy in it and she gets to that one next.
    "Hey... Where's..." Lether stops thoughtfully. "... Either of you see an elf girl with a red ribbon?"
    Both of the children, also shellshocked and traumatized shake their heads while the lizard-girl pops the second lock.
    "IT was just us and that other boy... And they only let us out to feed us before they'd lock us back in. But..."
    The girl points to a pile of children's clothes moldering by the cages.
    A bright red ribbon stands out among it all.
    "... Ah..." Lether mumbles as she clasps the ribbon in trembling fingers.
    "... That... That sucks." She croaks.

    Dante feels something tighten, disgust and horror, but he remains stonefaced. He reaches out to the kids, "C'mon. Let's get you two home." He says gently. There's still people who need help after all. His cool blue gaze focuses on the ribbon, and he whispers "I'm sorry." before gently taking the boy's hand. "Gotta get outta here."

    Honestly Dante would like nothing more than to get the hell out of here.

To the third floor, then. Neviah braces herself to see yet more things she does not want to see.

Settling to a seat on the edge of a bed, the once and former professor watches as Lether begins to pick the children out of their cages. Her eyes follow the little lizardgirl's towards the cages. Her heart falls in her chest.

Looking at the aftermath like this brings a thought to her consciousness. It's a sickening awareness that there are beings in the world who revel in this kind of conduct - who torment and punish not the deserving, nor even the targets of passing wrath, but the innocent and the helpless.

An even more sickening awareness that Zehir would prefer for her to be one of those beings.

Neviah watches Lether's back, expression unreadable, eyes lost in deep, uncomfortable thoughts.

    The kids are QUICK to follow Dante out of the cages and the mill. But Lether remains crouched, hunched over the ribbon in her quaking hands. She subtly wipes her eyes.
    Slowly, stiffly, she turns to look at Neviah over one slender shoulder, golden eye gleaming with wild malice.
    "I'mma find Morgantha if it's the last thing I do." She growls. practically gnashing her teeth. With the mill devoid of hostages now, a check of the attic seems to reveal where the hags kept all their profits from making the Dream pies. It's a nice little haul... A VERY nice haul actually but Lether takes no pleasure in the shiny gubbinz tonight.
    But once all that's gathered and it's time to go...?
    Lether kicks over the barrel on the first floor, pulls a lighter from her jacket pocket, flicks it to life and chucks it into the mill.
    She's going to stay and watch the place burn down for a while.

    Much as Dante feels a desire to stay with Lether, he feels a duty to keep an eye on the kids until they're safe. He'll stop to see Lian, with the boy and girl in tow. "Hey. Found two more. The others..." He doesn't finish that, letting the silence speak for itself. "Let's get outta here. Get these kids far from this damn mill as possible."

    He'll escort the children in stonefaced silence. Dante has seen too damn many dead kids in this job...knowing he was able to help waste the hags that did is a cold comfort.