Patrollogs
Novels Ghost Banishing 241208
The eerie calm of Arkwright Cemetery is shattered as two ghostly armies emerge to resume their ancient battle, plunging the area into chaos. Ceryn, Novel, Penny, Lucy, and a late-arriving Alex find themselves caught in the middle, each reacting in their own way to the supernatural confrontation. Novel delights in the fray, engaging with glee and unspeakable violence against the spectral forces. Ceryn, with a more reserved approach, supports the battle with his manipulation of roots and plants, trapping spirits for Novel to dispatch. Penny, though unsure at first, dives into the melee, drawing strength from her companions' resolve. Lucy, finding the situation overwhelming, still attempts to contribute despite feeling out of her depth. Unexpectedly, Alex wanders into the scene, and despite his initial unawareness, his fascination with the paranormal urges him to stay and participate.
As the battle escalates, the spectral generals of the ghostly armies clash in a display of power, their forces unleashing destructive magic that threatens to engulf the living participants. Novel, ever the thrill-seeker, uses the chaos to his advantage, attacking the mage-general with a decisive blow that tips the balance. The combined efforts of the group, from Ceryn's protective roots to Penny's improvised weaponry and Lucy's and Alex's reluctant participation, culminate in turning the tide. Eventually, the spectral combatants, drained of their ethereal energy, fade away, leaving behind a damaged but once again peaceful cemetery. In the aftermath, the group is left to ponder the night's extraordinary events, their bonds strengthened by the shared ordeal, and the quiet of Arkwright Cemetery restored—at least for the moment.
(Novel's ghost banishing)
[Sat Dec 7 2024]
On the Sprawling Hillside of Arkwright Cemetery
It is afternoon, about 21F(-6C) degrees, and there are a few dark grey stormclouds in the sky.
An eerie stillness settles over the graveyard, the fog thickening like an otherworldly veil. The ground trembles, and two ghostly armies surge forth, locked in a battle that defies time. One side, draped in ethereal armor, charges with spectral weapons, while the other hurls crackling bolts of elemental magic. The air is alight with haunting energy as the spirits, long dead, resume their eternal battle, heedless of the living who are caught in their spectral warpath.
"Oh it's these spirits! Very nostalgic." Ceryn nods a few times, fixing his glove ever so slightly, "Anyway, who's leading the banishment, happy to follow it." He murmurs, glancing from person to person, "I do wish Elias was here, he has a particularly sound ritual."
"Hey, Ryn - Penny! Man. Yeah, it's been a fucking while. We should spar again - how have you been settling in?" Novel asks Penny, tilting his head and clearly waiting around to see if anyone else will show. And then his smile turns into something casual and wicked as he slides the sunglasses down to the edge of his nose, offering a wink to her. "You're right. Someone WAS reported running around with a fucking weapon." And then there's a knife in his hand and he's practically skipping over towards the fog and fighters.
And then he immediately starts to commit UNSPEAKABLE VIOLENCE, plunging the blade right into one of the haunting dead, causing it to collapse into fog. He behaves much like a kid let loose in a candy store and told everything is free as he disappears right into the melee.
A group of ethereal berserkers charge, only to be met by a rain of icy shards summoned by frost mancers. The temperature plummets, and living breath freezes in the air, while ice forms treacherous patches beneath the feet, threatening to send everyone sprawling upon the ground.
looks to Lucy, "I don't know how they go either." And when the ghosts actually do manifest? Penny looks even less sure that she can do anything about this. "What the fuck is this?" She asks Ceryn, clearly out of her element and she'll follow his lead...though Novel's method seems to intrigue her too
"I'm not dead! So I think okay." She calls out, shuddering as the icy shards start to rain down.
Lucy murmurs, her voice tinged with disbelief, "I didn't think banishings would be this... violent! I thought it'd be more like Ghostbusters, someone tosses down a gadget, and we all try not to cross the streams." Her uneasy laugh does little to mask the fact that she's unarmored, unarmed, and entirely unprepared for the task at hand. As the chaos unfolds around her, she steps back, her footing slipping on a patch of ice. She stumbles but manages to catch herself, pausing for a moment to steady her balance, her wide-eyed expression betraying her growing regret for her decision to come here.
"The forced sort then I suppose. I guess some spirits do understand it easier than a properly done ritual." Ceryn rolls his neck as he flicks a sickle into his palm, the organic, barky sheen of the blade seeming to stir and creak. "I don't have my bow on me, but I can still support." He mutters in a smooth, relaxed tone.
With a stomp of Ceryn's foot, a tangled row of roots burst out of the ground, coiling around knight and mage alike and pinning them in place for Novel to have his fun. "Have your fun Novel, just don't indulge them too much." He yawns into his hand.
Novel trembles - he's in the midst of it when he gets blasted, turning him into a briefly icicle-laden figure before he flashes his teeth in annoyance, the snap, crack, and pop as he shakes it loose off of him and his jacket. He stamps the floor a few times as he gradually appears to become one with the shadows and ghosts. He flashes a grin at Ceryn. "Hey! Life is about fucking INDULGENCE. If you aren't happy and enjoying your goddamn work, are you even doing it r-right?" His teeth clatter and click as he descends upon to reap what Ceryn sowed.
Ceryn glances over to Lucy, "They're not always violent, really does depend on both the spirit and who's leading the banishment." He notes easily, one hand in his pocket as the other grips his sickle, "Best to just go along with the flow, banishments are smoother when people work together rather than everyone doing their own thing."
"Indulgence, acceptance, measure and calm." Ceryn replies to Novel in a practiced mantra, "It's all a little bit of everything, even us wildlings know that." He snickers, flashing a grin as a dragging heel carves otherworldly sigils and looping circles into the dirt.
Penny grumbles something under her breath before she ulimately moves into the fray, going for a nearby frostmancer to force them into a melee fight! And hopeless not end up a frozen statue.
The air thickens with an unnatural fog as ghostly archers let loose a volley of arrows. The projectiles are swept away by a whirlwind conjured by spectral windcallers, and the gust of wind sends everyone alive flying against tombstones with bone-jarring force.
Lucy sighs to Ceryn, her voice low and weary, "As long as it works, that's the main thing, right?" She lingers at the back, clearly exhausted from what might be a lack of sleep or perhaps something else. Still, she makes a half-hearted effort, bending down to pick up a rock. With a tired flick of her wrist, she tosses it at an icicle-laden figure. The stone clinks off it's frozen surface without leaving a mark, as if mocking her attempt. She barely has time to stoop for another rock when the force of the whirlwind hits her squarely. Her breath catches in her throat as shes ripped off her feet and sent careening through the air. She crashes into a weathered tombstone with a sickening thud, the stone splitting with the impact. Dazed and gasping for air, she slumps, her body curling instinctively against the pain.
"Fuuuuuck that. Go all in. Shove the chips forwards and burn on the way out. I'd rather be a fire then a fucking candle!" Novel declaims to Ceryn in savage disagreement before an 'ufff' of noise as he's sent like a crystalline-spackled tumbleweed right into a granite block with a heavy, painful THUD. He scrabbles at it violently, the air knocked out of him, shoving himself up - and then he's slipping right behind the tombstone, snatching at a poor mancer that got too close and slitting their throat as he vanishes it into cover.
Penny yelps as she's forced back into a tombstone, groaing as she takes a second to get back to her feet, recovering far too quickly from that slam. She surges back forward, grabbing on to another one of the mancers to knock them out via a rough head slam into another tombstone and then tries to go for an archer to start taking some of them down too.
Ceryn twists his boot into the ground, causing the coiled roots that hold the spirits in place to abruptly erupt in myriads of thorny growths that impale and hook. "I suppose there's nothing /against/ that, just means you'll return to the cycle sooner, not my place to judge." He responds to Novel in a complete contrast, calm and collected despite the gratuitous violence.
Two spectral generals lock eyes from across the battlefield as their armies collide in a chaotic whirlwind of steel and spell. One of them has a blade wreathed in fire; the other conjures a vertex of ice-cold magic around him - their collision sends a shockwave rippling through the graveyard that knocks everyone off their feet and cracks all nearby gravestones right in half.
Just as the tide of wind blows towards Ceryn, a growth of tangled biar bursts upwards from the ground, cutting the current and shielding him from the shards of stone.
Novel seems to have a sharp sense for combat, having chosen a perfect time to duck. He lunges from behind his cover that suddenly exploded as a suddenly revealed and hungry snake that lashes out, immediately jumping on the other stunned ghosts that are attempting to recover. A line of knights finds themselves hamstrung, a ghost-wizard finds their neck broken with a kick to the jaw with a surprisingly organic and somewhat disquieting CRUNCH while the man grins to himself in open delight.
Penny dives for some cover behind a larger thombstone combined with a ghost-archer-shield. "For the records, this is fucking bullshit!" She calls to the others. Looking a little battered and bruised as she shoves the now-dead-again archer aside and peeks from her cover, clearly impressed by Novel and Ceryn's displays. She's just trying not to get too injured.
Lucy's blue eyes burn with a ferocity, her pupils bloodshot and rimmed with red. The force of the impact should've been enough to knock most humans, but at this point she's pretty obviously fueled by something supernatural. Her hands shake as she braces against the tombstone, using it as leverage to unsteadily push herself to her feet, "Not too fond of the evil dead..." She snatches up a jagged rock from the shattered tombstone. Her grip tightens around it, and with sudden surge of energy, she swings it at a spectral soldier that nears her.
As a battalion of armored specters marches forth, a group of wraith-like sorcerers unleashes a storm of arcane missiles, shattering the ghostly shields; the resulting shockwave threatens to make ears bleed, if someone gets caught without cover.
Clicking his tongue, Ceryn winds the briar more thoroughly around him, forming a rough circle that glints the daylight between the rambles. "Just be glad that it's not the spiders again!" He cackles lightly, flashing a grin towards Penny, only for the smirk to be ripped from his lips at the 'crack' that shockwaves across the graveyard. Barely having enough time to block his ears, his eyes narrow as he attempts to focus just as his eardrums burst, leaking vitae down the sides of his head.
Penny grimaces at the shockwave as she covers her ears from behind her cover. There's just a little more grumbling before she pushes out from behind her cover post-shockwave to start taking down some more ghosts with grapples and punches.
Novel is just about to stab another slitch before the soundwave catches him, staggering backwards and clutching at an ear as he waves his shining, flashing knife somewhat vaguely in front of him. "IT'S FUCKING FANTASTIC!" He roars back to Penny, clearly able to hear her at least a bit - but unable to modulate his own volume and a roiling laugh as they all start to get into the expression of antagonistic mayhem, grave-dirt and blood mingling up across him.
Lucy's hands clamp over her ears instinctively, but she's already scrambling for cover, darting behind the nearest tombstone, heart pounding in her chest.
Two spectral generals lock eyes from across the battlefield as their armies collide in a chaotic whirlwind of steel and spell. One of them has a blade wreathed in fire; the other conjures a vertex of ice-cold magic around him - their collision sends a shockwave rippling through the graveyard that knocks everyone off their feet and cracks all nearby gravestones right in half.
levels his eyes over at Alex, "Not really the greatest time for the unaware to suddenly waltz on up." Ceryn sighs, managing to grab onto a gnarled root that rises from the ground to catch his fall just as the shockwave knocks everyone a good few inches into the air.
Alex wanders obliviously towards what he thought was a commotion he could be a part of in the cemetery and is -immediately- sent onto the floor as he walks straight into a rippling shockwave. Having no idea what's going on he instinctively drags himself towards the cover of a gravestone and hides behind it.
"Now's a great time to waltz up, if you feel like whapping a ghost or two. That'd be awesome." Lucy calls over toward Alex, her posture slumping against the tombstone as she watches the others fight, clearly too winded to do much ghost whapping herself.
Penny manuevers so she can use a mancer as a shield as they're slammed back into a gravestone as it cracks. "I DON'T SHARE YOUR SENTIMENT, NOVEL!" She shouts back to him as she rolls back into cover with a groan, glancing toward Alex briefly before looking back to the battlefield.
Novel is at ground zero. The advantage is that allows for more good ol' perforation. The downside is found when the man is physically picked up by the shockwave, lifted into the sky, and then sent FLUNG across the air as he bounces and slides repeatedly across the grass like a pebble over the pond, skidding finally to a halt and prone below Penny. His only response is a middle finger and a huge-ass grin.
Alex peeks up from above the gravestone like he's doing an impression of Kilroy, blinking in surprise a few times, "Wait.... ghosts? Actual ghost ghosts for real...? I mean I can't.... -fight- very good but there's actual ghosts here and I was gonna just walk straight by?" His shock and fear has started turning more into starry-eyed curiosity despite the danger of the situation.
A ghostly battlemage hurls a ball of fire, deflected mid-air by a phantom knight's shield, causing an explosion that sends searing heat and blinding light across the battlefield.
Penny snorts as Novel ends up near her, which doesn't last long as she doubles down on her cover, smelling fraying fake fabric as her jacket is singed some from the heat. "You really were gonna miss all the fun!" She says sarcastically to Alex, grabbing up a chunk of broken tombstone and hurling it at a nearby ghost.
Ceryn taps his gloved hand to the side of the gnarled roots that caught his fall, sending an arc of thorns to rise up and cut the wave of searing heat around him. "Novel, plan to deal with the mages? I'd rather not get cooked, and I doubt anyone else wants to either." He grumbles, drawing the sickle across his free palm to flick a spatter of crimson into the circles he carved into the dirt. After a few moments, roots once again rise up around the spectres, attempting to entwine and tear the staffs from their hands.
"Walking by would be the smart thing to do." Her to Alex words are abruptly cut off as a fireball hurls toward the knight's shield, only to be deflected by a shield with a resounding crack. Lucy blinks in surprise, a bit of panic creeping into her voice as she murmurs, "Holy shit, this is so above my paygrade." She leans back against the tombstone, trying to make herself as small as possible in the chaos.
Alex peers over at Penny from behind cover, briefly closing his eyes to protect them from the searing blaze of the fireball being tossed close by. His attention briefly shifts over at Lucy as he scrabbles around for a rock to throw at the closest ghost to him, following Penny's example of ghost combat, "Probably the smart thing to do, yeah! But.... ghosts.... I -gotta- stick around and know more!"
Novel is flashed-steamed, the icicles melting off his form and away, the sunglasses protecting him from the daylight as his own leathers - durable and stained and battered - as he leers on up to Penny, his own BO of fire seeming to welcome it. And then he shoves himself up, with a rolling laugh as he points over the battlefield. "Hole," He notes for Ceryn, where their fighting and efforts have slowly collapsed a space - directly to the two generals clashing. And into that gap he charges, using the rooted ghosts as stepping-stones to lunge through the air and PLUNGE a blade into the side of the mage-general.
A sudden gust of wind sweeps through the graveyard, scattering the remnants of battle - ashes, shattered stones, and burned foliage - until all that's left is an unsettling calm. The ghostly combatants begin to falter, their spectral forms flickering like dying embers. One by one, they retreat into the earth, their energy spent, until the graveyard is once again quiet.
As the battle escalates, the spectral generals of the ghostly armies clash in a display of power, their forces unleashing destructive magic that threatens to engulf the living participants. Novel, ever the thrill-seeker, uses the chaos to his advantage, attacking the mage-general with a decisive blow that tips the balance. The combined efforts of the group, from Ceryn's protective roots to Penny's improvised weaponry and Lucy's and Alex's reluctant participation, culminate in turning the tide. Eventually, the spectral combatants, drained of their ethereal energy, fade away, leaving behind a damaged but once again peaceful cemetery. In the aftermath, the group is left to ponder the night's extraordinary events, their bonds strengthened by the shared ordeal, and the quiet of Arkwright Cemetery restored—at least for the moment.
(Novel's ghost banishing)
[Sat Dec 7 2024]
On the Sprawling Hillside of Arkwright Cemetery
It is afternoon, about 21F(-6C) degrees, and there are a few dark grey stormclouds in the sky.
An eerie stillness settles over the graveyard, the fog thickening like an otherworldly veil. The ground trembles, and two ghostly armies surge forth, locked in a battle that defies time. One side, draped in ethereal armor, charges with spectral weapons, while the other hurls crackling bolts of elemental magic. The air is alight with haunting energy as the spirits, long dead, resume their eternal battle, heedless of the living who are caught in their spectral warpath.
"Oh it's these spirits! Very nostalgic." Ceryn nods a few times, fixing his glove ever so slightly, "Anyway, who's leading the banishment, happy to follow it." He murmurs, glancing from person to person, "I do wish Elias was here, he has a particularly sound ritual."
"Hey, Ryn - Penny! Man. Yeah, it's been a fucking while. We should spar again - how have you been settling in?" Novel asks Penny, tilting his head and clearly waiting around to see if anyone else will show. And then his smile turns into something casual and wicked as he slides the sunglasses down to the edge of his nose, offering a wink to her. "You're right. Someone WAS reported running around with a fucking weapon." And then there's a knife in his hand and he's practically skipping over towards the fog and fighters.
And then he immediately starts to commit UNSPEAKABLE VIOLENCE, plunging the blade right into one of the haunting dead, causing it to collapse into fog. He behaves much like a kid let loose in a candy store and told everything is free as he disappears right into the melee.
A group of ethereal berserkers charge, only to be met by a rain of icy shards summoned by frost mancers. The temperature plummets, and living breath freezes in the air, while ice forms treacherous patches beneath the feet, threatening to send everyone sprawling upon the ground.
looks to Lucy, "I don't know how they go either." And when the ghosts actually do manifest? Penny looks even less sure that she can do anything about this. "What the fuck is this?" She asks Ceryn, clearly out of her element and she'll follow his lead...though Novel's method seems to intrigue her too
"I'm not dead! So I think okay." She calls out, shuddering as the icy shards start to rain down.
Lucy murmurs, her voice tinged with disbelief, "I didn't think banishings would be this... violent! I thought it'd be more like Ghostbusters, someone tosses down a gadget, and we all try not to cross the streams." Her uneasy laugh does little to mask the fact that she's unarmored, unarmed, and entirely unprepared for the task at hand. As the chaos unfolds around her, she steps back, her footing slipping on a patch of ice. She stumbles but manages to catch herself, pausing for a moment to steady her balance, her wide-eyed expression betraying her growing regret for her decision to come here.
"The forced sort then I suppose. I guess some spirits do understand it easier than a properly done ritual." Ceryn rolls his neck as he flicks a sickle into his palm, the organic, barky sheen of the blade seeming to stir and creak. "I don't have my bow on me, but I can still support." He mutters in a smooth, relaxed tone.
With a stomp of Ceryn's foot, a tangled row of roots burst out of the ground, coiling around knight and mage alike and pinning them in place for Novel to have his fun. "Have your fun Novel, just don't indulge them too much." He yawns into his hand.
Novel trembles - he's in the midst of it when he gets blasted, turning him into a briefly icicle-laden figure before he flashes his teeth in annoyance, the snap, crack, and pop as he shakes it loose off of him and his jacket. He stamps the floor a few times as he gradually appears to become one with the shadows and ghosts. He flashes a grin at Ceryn. "Hey! Life is about fucking INDULGENCE. If you aren't happy and enjoying your goddamn work, are you even doing it r-right?" His teeth clatter and click as he descends upon to reap what Ceryn sowed.
Ceryn glances over to Lucy, "They're not always violent, really does depend on both the spirit and who's leading the banishment." He notes easily, one hand in his pocket as the other grips his sickle, "Best to just go along with the flow, banishments are smoother when people work together rather than everyone doing their own thing."
"Indulgence, acceptance, measure and calm." Ceryn replies to Novel in a practiced mantra, "It's all a little bit of everything, even us wildlings know that." He snickers, flashing a grin as a dragging heel carves otherworldly sigils and looping circles into the dirt.
Penny grumbles something under her breath before she ulimately moves into the fray, going for a nearby frostmancer to force them into a melee fight! And hopeless not end up a frozen statue.
The air thickens with an unnatural fog as ghostly archers let loose a volley of arrows. The projectiles are swept away by a whirlwind conjured by spectral windcallers, and the gust of wind sends everyone alive flying against tombstones with bone-jarring force.
Lucy sighs to Ceryn, her voice low and weary, "As long as it works, that's the main thing, right?" She lingers at the back, clearly exhausted from what might be a lack of sleep or perhaps something else. Still, she makes a half-hearted effort, bending down to pick up a rock. With a tired flick of her wrist, she tosses it at an icicle-laden figure. The stone clinks off it's frozen surface without leaving a mark, as if mocking her attempt. She barely has time to stoop for another rock when the force of the whirlwind hits her squarely. Her breath catches in her throat as shes ripped off her feet and sent careening through the air. She crashes into a weathered tombstone with a sickening thud, the stone splitting with the impact. Dazed and gasping for air, she slumps, her body curling instinctively against the pain.
"Fuuuuuck that. Go all in. Shove the chips forwards and burn on the way out. I'd rather be a fire then a fucking candle!" Novel declaims to Ceryn in savage disagreement before an 'ufff' of noise as he's sent like a crystalline-spackled tumbleweed right into a granite block with a heavy, painful THUD. He scrabbles at it violently, the air knocked out of him, shoving himself up - and then he's slipping right behind the tombstone, snatching at a poor mancer that got too close and slitting their throat as he vanishes it into cover.
Penny yelps as she's forced back into a tombstone, groaing as she takes a second to get back to her feet, recovering far too quickly from that slam. She surges back forward, grabbing on to another one of the mancers to knock them out via a rough head slam into another tombstone and then tries to go for an archer to start taking some of them down too.
Ceryn twists his boot into the ground, causing the coiled roots that hold the spirits in place to abruptly erupt in myriads of thorny growths that impale and hook. "I suppose there's nothing /against/ that, just means you'll return to the cycle sooner, not my place to judge." He responds to Novel in a complete contrast, calm and collected despite the gratuitous violence.
Two spectral generals lock eyes from across the battlefield as their armies collide in a chaotic whirlwind of steel and spell. One of them has a blade wreathed in fire; the other conjures a vertex of ice-cold magic around him - their collision sends a shockwave rippling through the graveyard that knocks everyone off their feet and cracks all nearby gravestones right in half.
Just as the tide of wind blows towards Ceryn, a growth of tangled biar bursts upwards from the ground, cutting the current and shielding him from the shards of stone.
Novel seems to have a sharp sense for combat, having chosen a perfect time to duck. He lunges from behind his cover that suddenly exploded as a suddenly revealed and hungry snake that lashes out, immediately jumping on the other stunned ghosts that are attempting to recover. A line of knights finds themselves hamstrung, a ghost-wizard finds their neck broken with a kick to the jaw with a surprisingly organic and somewhat disquieting CRUNCH while the man grins to himself in open delight.
Penny dives for some cover behind a larger thombstone combined with a ghost-archer-shield. "For the records, this is fucking bullshit!" She calls to the others. Looking a little battered and bruised as she shoves the now-dead-again archer aside and peeks from her cover, clearly impressed by Novel and Ceryn's displays. She's just trying not to get too injured.
Lucy's blue eyes burn with a ferocity, her pupils bloodshot and rimmed with red. The force of the impact should've been enough to knock most humans, but at this point she's pretty obviously fueled by something supernatural. Her hands shake as she braces against the tombstone, using it as leverage to unsteadily push herself to her feet, "Not too fond of the evil dead..." She snatches up a jagged rock from the shattered tombstone. Her grip tightens around it, and with sudden surge of energy, she swings it at a spectral soldier that nears her.
As a battalion of armored specters marches forth, a group of wraith-like sorcerers unleashes a storm of arcane missiles, shattering the ghostly shields; the resulting shockwave threatens to make ears bleed, if someone gets caught without cover.
Clicking his tongue, Ceryn winds the briar more thoroughly around him, forming a rough circle that glints the daylight between the rambles. "Just be glad that it's not the spiders again!" He cackles lightly, flashing a grin towards Penny, only for the smirk to be ripped from his lips at the 'crack' that shockwaves across the graveyard. Barely having enough time to block his ears, his eyes narrow as he attempts to focus just as his eardrums burst, leaking vitae down the sides of his head.
Penny grimaces at the shockwave as she covers her ears from behind her cover. There's just a little more grumbling before she pushes out from behind her cover post-shockwave to start taking down some more ghosts with grapples and punches.
Novel is just about to stab another slitch before the soundwave catches him, staggering backwards and clutching at an ear as he waves his shining, flashing knife somewhat vaguely in front of him. "IT'S FUCKING FANTASTIC!" He roars back to Penny, clearly able to hear her at least a bit - but unable to modulate his own volume and a roiling laugh as they all start to get into the expression of antagonistic mayhem, grave-dirt and blood mingling up across him.
Lucy's hands clamp over her ears instinctively, but she's already scrambling for cover, darting behind the nearest tombstone, heart pounding in her chest.
Two spectral generals lock eyes from across the battlefield as their armies collide in a chaotic whirlwind of steel and spell. One of them has a blade wreathed in fire; the other conjures a vertex of ice-cold magic around him - their collision sends a shockwave rippling through the graveyard that knocks everyone off their feet and cracks all nearby gravestones right in half.
levels his eyes over at Alex, "Not really the greatest time for the unaware to suddenly waltz on up." Ceryn sighs, managing to grab onto a gnarled root that rises from the ground to catch his fall just as the shockwave knocks everyone a good few inches into the air.
Alex wanders obliviously towards what he thought was a commotion he could be a part of in the cemetery and is -immediately- sent onto the floor as he walks straight into a rippling shockwave. Having no idea what's going on he instinctively drags himself towards the cover of a gravestone and hides behind it.
"Now's a great time to waltz up, if you feel like whapping a ghost or two. That'd be awesome." Lucy calls over toward Alex, her posture slumping against the tombstone as she watches the others fight, clearly too winded to do much ghost whapping herself.
Penny manuevers so she can use a mancer as a shield as they're slammed back into a gravestone as it cracks. "I DON'T SHARE YOUR SENTIMENT, NOVEL!" She shouts back to him as she rolls back into cover with a groan, glancing toward Alex briefly before looking back to the battlefield.
Novel is at ground zero. The advantage is that allows for more good ol' perforation. The downside is found when the man is physically picked up by the shockwave, lifted into the sky, and then sent FLUNG across the air as he bounces and slides repeatedly across the grass like a pebble over the pond, skidding finally to a halt and prone below Penny. His only response is a middle finger and a huge-ass grin.
Alex peeks up from above the gravestone like he's doing an impression of Kilroy, blinking in surprise a few times, "Wait.... ghosts? Actual ghost ghosts for real...? I mean I can't.... -fight- very good but there's actual ghosts here and I was gonna just walk straight by?" His shock and fear has started turning more into starry-eyed curiosity despite the danger of the situation.
A ghostly battlemage hurls a ball of fire, deflected mid-air by a phantom knight's shield, causing an explosion that sends searing heat and blinding light across the battlefield.
Penny snorts as Novel ends up near her, which doesn't last long as she doubles down on her cover, smelling fraying fake fabric as her jacket is singed some from the heat. "You really were gonna miss all the fun!" She says sarcastically to Alex, grabbing up a chunk of broken tombstone and hurling it at a nearby ghost.
Ceryn taps his gloved hand to the side of the gnarled roots that caught his fall, sending an arc of thorns to rise up and cut the wave of searing heat around him. "Novel, plan to deal with the mages? I'd rather not get cooked, and I doubt anyone else wants to either." He grumbles, drawing the sickle across his free palm to flick a spatter of crimson into the circles he carved into the dirt. After a few moments, roots once again rise up around the spectres, attempting to entwine and tear the staffs from their hands.
"Walking by would be the smart thing to do." Her to Alex words are abruptly cut off as a fireball hurls toward the knight's shield, only to be deflected by a shield with a resounding crack. Lucy blinks in surprise, a bit of panic creeping into her voice as she murmurs, "Holy shit, this is so above my paygrade." She leans back against the tombstone, trying to make herself as small as possible in the chaos.
Alex peers over at Penny from behind cover, briefly closing his eyes to protect them from the searing blaze of the fireball being tossed close by. His attention briefly shifts over at Lucy as he scrabbles around for a rock to throw at the closest ghost to him, following Penny's example of ghost combat, "Probably the smart thing to do, yeah! But.... ghosts.... I -gotta- stick around and know more!"
Novel is flashed-steamed, the icicles melting off his form and away, the sunglasses protecting him from the daylight as his own leathers - durable and stained and battered - as he leers on up to Penny, his own BO of fire seeming to welcome it. And then he shoves himself up, with a rolling laugh as he points over the battlefield. "Hole," He notes for Ceryn, where their fighting and efforts have slowly collapsed a space - directly to the two generals clashing. And into that gap he charges, using the rooted ghosts as stepping-stones to lunge through the air and PLUNGE a blade into the side of the mage-general.
A sudden gust of wind sweeps through the graveyard, scattering the remnants of battle - ashes, shattered stones, and burned foliage - until all that's left is an unsettling calm. The ghostly combatants begin to falter, their spectral forms flickering like dying embers. One by one, they retreat into the earth, their energy spent, until the graveyard is once again quiet.