lucetilogs | DRAFT LOG #2: The Battle Game!

[The darkness fades (which is weird, underground like this) and with it goes almost all of Sheena's strength. The toll of summoning here is always worse than she remembers. It's all she can do not to collapse where she is.

The rumbling, though. It's on her mind. Damn! Once she spots Raine, she puts the rest of her effort into getting over against the same wall her friend was backed into. That should be safer, right? Maybe she can find the mana in herself somewhere for another Guardian Seal...]

[Raine's more concerned with the aftermath of what that summoning might bring -- such as possible shift hunters. She gives a careful look out for Sheena - hopefully she can get close enough so that she can cast healing circle around both of them, as well as the other protective spells.

If there's enough time for that. The rumbling doesn't seem to be growing any less, and in the dim light its hard to remember which direction they had come from before the ambush.]

Sheena! Over here, quickly.

I'm trying to get there!

[She can feel it through the ground. Something big is going to happen. It's a hard stumble that eventually lands her next to Raine, on her rear end against the wall. She can't force herself to stand again just yet.

What she can do is stare up at the roof of their tunnel as though that will help.]

It's gonna fall...

[As soon as Sheena lands near her, Raine's finally able to cast the spell she had been preparing. If only she had time for more-- but this was needed first, if they wanted to be able to move, to try and run.]

Just hang on... [Her expression manages to remain set, despite the apprehension she feels. The staff trembles as she lifts it, concentrating on her magic.] Healing circle!

[Spells like that are going to put her to sleep, with the state she's in. Sheena slumps forward, relief and exhaustion fighting for the important spot in her mind. They're up against an imminent cave-in, and gaining ground, but she refuses to let some stupid rocks crush them if she can help it.]

We've gotta try to get outta here, Raine!

[Spells like that are taxing to cast too, but at least it should give them some more energy to work with. Might have been more efficient to go with a gel, though.]

I-if we follow this wall, we should be able to get back up the way we came. Or at least get to a different area.

[Follow the wall. Right. Sheena plants a hand on the wall to brace herself and tries to stand.

No dice. Her legs are like jelly. With enough effort she can push herself up, but slow and weak steps like these won't get her far enough, fast enough.

Still, she has to try. Or at least try to get Raine out.]

O-Okay, I'll follow you.

Can you manage?

[It just takes one look back at Sheena to see that the Ninja isn't moving as fast as she could be. Hardly at all. That wouldn't do.]

I'm gonna have to. We can't stay here.

[She can feel it in the wall under her hand, now. The instability. The very near future.]

We'll be fine. [And she continues to move, as she speaks, one hand on the wall, the other on her staff.] It's just a little further.

[And hopefully there wouldn't be Shift Hunters waiting to greet them. She was still concerned about that, trying not to think of the impending other danger.]

[Shift Hunters didn't even cross Sheena's mind. Summoning doesn't feel like it involves a shift.

A stone - small, but sharp - bounces off the back of her neck. A few more graze her wings and arm, and a different kind of shifting begins in earnest]

Raine...

[Raine feels it to, and for a moment she lifts her head to look up, as the gravity of the situation becomes all too clear.

She lets go of the wall, and reaches for Sheena's wrist. Maybe that would help encourage the ninja to move faster.]

Come on!

[The ninja wants to move faster! She's been trying, but she can't even feel herself stepping. It throws her off balance to have her wrist pulled like that, and the stumble and flail as she tries to keep herself upright might actually be enough to bring them both down.

Soon, it won't matter. A large chunk of rock crashes down in front of Raine's path, followed by a few more in front and to the side of them. There's nothing to grab on the wall, but Sheena finds herself trying anyway, turning the wrist in Raine's hand to grab the other woman's hand in turn. If they can't escape the cave-in, at least they can stay together.]

[The rock crashing down in front of her halts her in her tracks. No going forward. No going around -- but she pushes herself, struggling to find the spells in these critical moments.] Field barrier!

[There was only one other option -- and that was to utilize the spirit magic. Sheena had already summoned to the area, and by this point, if it was a choice between facing Shift Hunters and being buried alive --

So she focuses, at the wall and at the floor. If there's any kind of safety she can draw out from there -- any indentation in the ground, or from the side --

But even as she tries, the rumble overhead turns into a unmistakeable roar of falling rocks and dirt, and the air is choked with dust. She's no longer standing.]

Edited 2011-12-18 04:15 (UTC)

[As she feels Raine drop, Sheena draws in the biggest breath she can, sinking to her knees and attempting to use Guardian Seal to bolster Raine's barrier. She can't see, suddenly, whether the other woman is even conscious or not. It's dark, the air full of thick pebbly dust. Sheena shuts her eyes tight, still holding her breath, and will make the attempt to cover both her head and Raine's. Somehow.

Maybe it's the barrier spell, or maybe it's just luck. But when the noise and rumbling dies down, Sheena lets out the tiniest bit of air in surprise. Nothing on her person feels crushed. She can tell it would be a bad idea to open her eyes or inhale; that's not going to go over so well in about half a minute. Sheena reaches carefully into a pocket, looking for something to hold up to her face so she can breathe through it - and listening for any sound from Raine.]

[It's indeed too dark to tell anything. Any lanterns in the distance are out, flashlights buried.

There are no sounds from Raine. Their combined last efforts may have helped to prevent grievous harm from the onslaught of rocks, but it didn't prevent the one that had struck Raine before the Guardian Seal had gone into effect, when she had originally crumpled. Sheena had been closest to the wall, and got most of the benefit of the small refuge the healer had struggled to create in those critical moments.]

[No sound.

Sheena's hands freeze in the midst of knotting the cloth she found around her face. It stops the dust, great. That doesn't matter - the way her eyes instantly water as she opens them doesn't matter - because she doesn't even know if Raine is breathing. And she can't afford to waste time looking for a card to light the space up with.

Her hands just reach out instead, finding something hard and solid - the staff - and then an arm, and a hand. A hand is good, she can get her own hand around Raine's wrist then. At least to assure herself that she's alive.

The silence in those few moments is more deafening than the sound of rocks falling.

There's movement under her fingers, though. Sheena coughs, the best sound of relief she can manage, finally realizing that the soft echo she still hears isn't outside their new prison - it's Raine, breathing. Okay, good, at least there's that.]

[The sound of her breathing, much like her pulse is faint, it's slow, and not quite even, but it's something. Better than nothing anyway, as the healer doesn't seem to be conscious, or react to Sheena's touch. If she is, there's not enough strength there to make that known.

But alive.]

[Alive is the best place to start. Even Sheena knows that 'faint' and 'uneven' are terrible words when they pertain to breathing and pulses, but they did just survive a cave-in, both of them low on mana and strength.

She keeps Raine's wrist in one hand, using the other to find the woman's shoulder and shake it gently]

Raine? [The dust creates a crack in her voice. The same dust that's making her eyes water enough to blur anything she might otherwise see.] C'mon, Raine, at least tell me if you're bleeding or something...

[It's a comfort measure. Raine isn't going to answer. But she has to try.]

[Reassurances would be helpful, but unfortunately it's only that faint breathing that answers Sheena's queries for the moment. The woman is covered in dust and little pebbles. Her wings are covered, hidden under her robe.

There are scrapes, scratches and bumps from the rocks, but there doesn't seem to be any heavy external bleeding, should Sheena check for it. Her earlier spell at least helped seal off some of those earlier injuries from the fighting. One less thing to worry about.

But there's still no response. Maybe a faint tremble - but it might not be voluntary.]

[It's so dark and closed in, Sheena's not sure what she can do here. Sitting and waiting to regain enough energy to use filial healing might be just as dangerous - it would attract those stupid Shift Hunters and just wear her out again. Meanwhile Raine could be bleeding to death for all she knows.

There is an old trick she can use to solve one of those problems, at least. Sheena closes her eyes again, effectively blocking out the tightness, and ridding herself of the distraction of trying to see when it's just not going to happen. She has other senses that will work better now - listening for people moving around in the tunnel, for one thing.

And her hands aren't broken. From Raine's shoulder they move carefully along the ground until they brush her hair; nothing seems amiss with the rock, and after a few minutes of holding her breath and concentrating on what she can feel, she realizes Raine has a great lump on her head but it doesn't feel like it's gonna kill her.

Now all she really needs is some time, or a gel-! That kit of Raine's! A quick search and it's not on Sheena's person anymore, though. Damn. She's not about to frisk Raine to try to find hers, either. She has another plan...and it depends much more on how quickly she gets any measure of energy back.

Until then she can at least try to make them both comfortable, right? So Raine's head will be carefully resting in the ninja's lap instead, until she can use the one arte she thinks might be a step toward helping.]

[Being made comfortable probably helps, considering what had happened.

Luckily the injury isn't as bad as it had been when she was trapped under the porch, but it's enough to still, keep her from regaining her consciousness on her own power.

In the darkness of Raine's mind there are faint, floaty thoughts. They can't connect to one another, and she can't think, even begin to process what had led to this. There's nothing she can do.]

[It will be a significant amount of minutes before Sheena feels ready to do anything. When she does, first she has to find the right thing.

It's a card. Smaller than her usual fighting cards, and with a different symbol inked onto the front. It only takes a little bit of mana to activate this particular seal...because it isn't always helpful in a combat situation. Given the parameters.

Oh, well. Hopefully it would work. She touches the seal against Raine's forehead and in the brief flash of light, watches it dissolve into more dust motes. Purgatory Seal.

And one hand will be on Raine's shoulder, the other ready to...do something if she starts to scream, or cough.]

[... it's a strange pull.

All of the floaty thoughts, scattered and unintelligible, suddenly felt forcibly pushed together. The sensation, that thin line of being there and not there all blurred together.

For a few moments, its like being on the borderline, until that something happens to push over.

And it did. It's jarring, almost, feeling the threads of reality and yet still being so barely there. Not unconscious but not... fully there. A strange awareness. Darkness, and dust and dirt, as her eyelids flutter, opening slowly and then squeezing shut. What happened-

But she can't speak, and whatever words she attempts comes out in a gasp. Gasping for air. Where is the fresh air?]

It's okay, Raine! [Sheena tightens her grip on her shoulder and puts her free hand on Raine's forehead, too.] It's okay, keep your eyes shut and try to cast First Aid or something on yourself. It'll help.

[She knows very well that was no gentle way to wake up. The alternatives were worse.]

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