Forest

[dusk]

Kisha nodded. "Yes, if you would." She removed her hand from the wound. "See? He didn't say anything. It was perfectly fine." Kisha said. "It has no steel, coal, or steam - no heat, and no blood. Why would something like that even have the right to be offended? Even our meals are more alive."

Reesha looked at the wooden creature, and then back at Kisha. "Yeah... I guess."

[Schala]

Aliana yelped as she was grabbed by an unknown person.
"Katriiiiiiiii!" she cried.
Katriance glanced toward where the scream had come from. Aliana was being attacked!
"Rising Water!" Katriance cried out.
Suddenly, two springs of water rose gracefully from the ground and became airborne. Then they headed straight for Aliana's attacker.
Aliana, who was already terrified enough, screamed.

[recon5]

Mokuko managed to break his Strings just in time and the hunter's corpse fell limp, releasing Aliana a moment before the water washed it away. Having failed to bring the smaller Youkai back with a puppet, Mokuko once again considered using his Strings directly but he realized that Katriance might attack him if he tried that. He decided to use his voice instead.

"Hey, you shouldn't run off like that! It's dangerous!"

[dusk]

Both train tsukumogami turned to each other, and covered their mouths with their hands, holding back laughter.

They had known the hunter was dead, of course - they had killed them themselves, and so they figured out what was going on before Katriance did.

[Schala]

When the attacker fell, Katriance was shocked. Her spellcard wasn't supposed to...kill someone. You could tell by the look on her face that she was indeed shocked and also disbelieving at what she thought she had done.
Aliana, meanwhile, was relieved that she wasn't being attacked anymore. However, her feeling of fear returned upon hearing the word "dangerous." She clung to Katriance.
"The forest is bad!" she wailed.
"It's okay," Katriance replied still looking at the fallen youkai hunter in disbelief. "We'll be all right. I promise."

[recon5]

"Yeah, as long as you can shoot stuff you're pretty safe if you know what you're doing." Mokuko responded as he folded his arms behind his head. For a moment he considered telling them the truth about the corpse but it didn't look like he needed to.

Now that they were safe, though, the puppet was beginning to feel bored again, but what could they do in the middle of the forest? "Speaking of shooting, all of you can use spellcards, right? Can I see them? Please?"

[dusk]

Reesha looked at Kisha, and they both had a similar expression. Was that a challenge? Or did hewant ot see the cards themselves? They didn't look all that special, though...

[Schala]

"I don't think so," Katriance replied. "I don't want to hurt any of you..."
Just then, a group of what appeared to be evil dark mages were approaching.
Katriance grabbed Aliana's hand and ran.

(OOC: Katriance has left the thread [and gone to the Mima one], but what about those Fallen Sages? They will be here [uh-oh] as NPCs)

[recon5]

Mokuko was surprised at Katriance's abrupt departure but she disappeared into the Forest before he could say anything. Something must have scared her off and the puppet looked around to see if he could spot it.

He didn't notice the dark figures until they stepped out of the shadows. For a moment he thought of greeting them but then he realized that they must be quite dangerous if they could frighten someone as powerful as Katriance. He moved closer to Kisha and Ressha.

The tallest figure stepped forward and a red light flashed from where its head should be. Mokuko felt a brief surge of supernatural pressure through his body before the figure spoke in a sinister monotone. "Where is the Spirit of Time?"

The Spirit of Time? Mokuko had no idea. He hadn't even heard of a 'Spirit of Time' before, although there had to be one around somewhere. Before he could answer, a slightly shorter figure stepped out of the shadows to join the first one and it seemed to raise a hand in the direction Katriance had left. "The Spirit passed that way."

"Pursue her."

More than half of the figures melted back into the shadows and soon Mokuko heard the sound of wind rushing through the trees around the clearing. He realized that the figures must have gone after Katriance and he was about to take off after them when a column of darkness burst from the ground in front of him. The monotone sounded soon after. "You will not warn the Spirit of Time without dying first."

Orbs of darkness floated out of the shadows into the clearing. They weren't too fast but there were many of them, and they were soon joined by more dark columns bursting upwards from the ground around the three Youkai.

[dusk]

Kisha looked around, confused. Everything had changed so fast... but whatever it was, she was supposed to follow that person who had been here earlier, right?

She held up a spellcard. "Speed Sign - Express Liner!" A toy train flew by at high speed, and she and Reesha grabbed a hold of it as it launched them in the direction that Katirance had been in.

[recon5]

((OOC: Methinks you need to read a bit more carefully or else I need to write more clearly XD. The command to pursue was actually given to the other 'fallen sages'. No big deal though, just a heads up.))

Mokuko barely noticed the departure of the train tsukumogami as he was busy dodging the shadowy figures' attacks. The orbs of and columns of darkness seemed to eat up his Astral Strings, hampering his attempts to return fire, but at least the attacks were large and relatively slow...

... or so he thought. Something erupted from under his feet and threw him into the air, and he thought for a moment that he could hear his legs cracking. He immediately began to fly instead of allowing gravity to pull him back down and soon he was above the treetops. Thinking quickly, he swept all twenty of his Astral Strings through the forest below and was rewarded with a harsh cry.

Unfortunately for Mokuko, the surviving attackers seemed to know he was above them and soon a cloud of the black orbs rose up towards him, this time accompanied by jet black beams thicker than his waist.

----

Unknown to Mokuko, some of the shadowy figures had left to chase after his two friends. Though they flew faster than the average Youkai they were nowhere near fast enough to catch the runaway train.

Not that they needed to catch the train. Columns of darkness blasted out of the ground around and ahead of it while the shadows themselves released waves of dark 'bullets' which were much smaller than the orbs but a lot faster- fast enough to reach the train with the added speed from the shadows' own flight.

[dusk]

(No, that's not what. Kisha is doing this in response to "You will not warn the Spirit of Time without dying first." She tends to go agaist things like that.)

The train weaved between the columns, Kisha in control of it's movement, while Reesha used a spellcard to pull up a steel barrier, blocking the bullets attacks from the rear.

I haven't had this much fun in a long time! Kisha thought, weaving through the trees, past the pillars of darkness, and gaining on the Sages who had been sent to pursue the spirit-thing.

[recon5]

Mokuko had no trouble dodging his opponents' attacks as long as he was in the air but they had far more firepower than him and he was unable to counterattack accurately from so far away. He decided to try and catch up with Kisha and Ressha instead and turned from the battle, flying as fast as he could in the direction he'd seen them go.

Unfortunately, the shadowy figures didn't seem to be much slower than he was and soon they were on his tail, firing small but fast moving dark bullets towards him. He dived below the treeline and weaved between the trees for protection but his attackers dropped to his altitude soon after, not letting up their assault even for an instant. Clouds of splinters burst from the trees around him, a clear sign that his own wood wouldn't be able to withstand the dark bullets.

----

The shadowy figures following the train from behind seemed to realize that they could not stop it from where they were and they stopped attacking, leaving the locomotive's path and spreading out into the surrounding forest for no apparent reason.

A few moments later, five others appeared ahead of the train. They had split off from the first group that had left to chase Katriance, having been summoned by those who had been chasing the train. With identical motions that were indistinct in the shadows, they caused a massive dark wall to appear in the train's path, stretching too far to either side for the train to go around at its current speed. Dark bullets sprayed out from the wall towards the train, the same size as the earlier fast bullets but moving slowly like the larger orbs.