Xaviers!

Will Stanton wrote:With the moment's respite caused by Sam's mental juju, Will...

...Punched the creature in the face. Not all tactics need to be complex!

The creature shrieks as the 'bigger predator' punches it squarely. Will hears a crunching noise and the creature begins scuttling back, dripping some sort of purple-ish fluid.

Sean Hall wrote:Sean begins looking to see where the leak is coming from thinking it should give him an idea of how to dismantle the ritual circle. A weak point perhaps that should let him unravel it.

The weak point is where whoever created the circle was feeding power into it. Since that person seems to no longer be here, the flow has reversed and power's now leaking out. A way to unravel the circle *might* be to tug on that, pulling the power out of it and unraveling it like a loose thread in a sweater, but he'd have to find something to do with the power he pulls out of the circle.

Narrator wrote:The weak point is where whoever created the circle was feeding power into it. Since that person seems to no longer be here, the flow has reversed and power's now leaking out. A way to unravel the circle *might* be to tug on that, pulling the power out of it and unraveling it like a loose thread in a sweater, but he'd have to find something to do with the power he pulls out of the circle.

Sean tugs on the thread he can feel the build up of energy as he does so. He knows he'll have to do something with the energy, but for the moment he focuses on unraveling the circle the runes inscribed into his skin glowing brighter and brighter as the energy builds.

Will chased after the creature, looking to follow up on his attack and further drive whateveritwas back to wherever it came from.

Narrator wrote:The dead creature cracks into the live one, knocking it to the ground and loosening the tension on that line. The creature struggles to extricate itself from its dead companion, giving Vivienne a moment to breathe.

She adjusted her grip and closed the distance between herself and the prone creature, Cal point first.

Sean Hall wrote:Sean tugs on the thread he can feel the build up of energy as he does so. He knows he'll have to do something with the energy, but for the moment he focuses on unraveling the circle the runes inscribed into his skin glowing brighter and brighter as the energy builds.

The energy definitely feels unwholesome as he draws on it. It pushes against his personal wards, trying to find a way out of the designs he's drawing it into.

Will Stanton wrote:Will chased after the creature, looking to follow up on his attack and further drive whateveritwas back to wherever it came from.

Will scores another blow and the thing spasms, rolling onto its back with its legs curled up. It might be dead, but it's hard to tell.

Vivienne Chinnoir wrote:She adjusted her grip and closed the distance between herself and the prone creature, Cal point first.

Cal stabs straight into the creature, the exoskeleton no match for the magic sword. The creature screeches and goes still.

"Alright, is that all of them?"

"And... did anyone bring an unusually large otter?"

"That sounds like one of Sean's spells to me."

Narrator wrote:The energy definitely feels unwholesome as he draws on it. It pushes against his personal wards, trying to find a way out of the designs he's drawing it into.

Sean feels the shiver of unwholesome energy and yet for some reason it doesn't feel... wrong to be wielding it, it feels almost familiar, comforting even. He wrestles with the energy and wrestles to contain the energy as he dismantles the circle. He looks for a target to discharge the energy at, hoping that there's at least one spider left and thinking that the energy would struggle less against something that will rend something limb from limb. He constructs the spell and begins focusing the energy to create an orb of out of it. The runes inscribed on his skin crackle and groan as he works the unwholesome energy. If he finds a target he launches the orb at it, but if not this is going to be an interesting ride.

There's the giant otter and his companions and Erica. The magic was originally designed to deal with Erica and it keeps drawing his gaze back to her. It'd be so easy to release it on her, the magic whispers to him. That's what it was meant for after all.

As he keeps searching for another target, he somehow becomes aware of all the pests in the abandoned building. Rats, various kinds of insects, all the sorts of vermin that infest a place like this. He could could keep the energy and they'd be his to command or he could snuff them all out with the same energy.

Sean stares at Erica for an unhealthy amount of time as he considered his options. He considered using it on Erica, then considered ending the lives of all the vermin, or even using the energy on everyone else in the room or maybe just the otter...

What about Erica? This is all meant for her, isn't it? He thought to himself taking a step towards Erica then shook his head as he considered the vermin that lived in the building. He knew the energy felt wrong, but he still felt conflicted. Why shouldn't he keep it? It was simply energy to be manipulated by him and he could discharge it later if it proved dangerous, right?

He drained the energy from the orb he'd formed, as slowly as was possible given the situation, and began trying to funnel the energy back into himself. He knew he'd be better served by anchoring it permanently into a ring or some other object, but for now he simply tried to store it.

The otter sits on top of it's prey, but what little taste it got from biting into the thing's shell seems to displease it, so now it's sitting on it's back-legs and wiping at it's mouth and tongue with it's paws, trying to get the taste out of it's mouth, making faint squeaking noises of disapproval.

Will walked over to Erica, to check on how she was doing.

Erica's lost a lot of blood and is unconscious. She's still alive though, which is a miracle in and of itself or maybe just well-honed magic. She's not going to improve staked to the floor though.

Tereza peers at the note speared to one of the support columns. "Viv, do you have a brother you didn't tell us about?"

Will busied himself with removing the stakes and freeing Erica.

"...okay, so nobody's claiming the giant otter."

She crosses her arms, turning towards the creature.

The otter just kind of yips at her. Somehow it feels familiar.

"Not to my knowledge. The only individuals I would call "family" would be other water fey." She spoke as she picked up a discarded plank of shipping crate. She made her way to Sean and offered it to him.

"Bind it to something natural and...dead." She gave him a soft smile as the water that had been following her moved to "cleanse" the ritual site and Erica.

Sean thanked Vivienne with a nod as he took the discarded plank she offered. Sean took a piece of chalk from a pocket and drew several runes before pushing the magic he'd pulled from the ritual into the enchantment. It was quick and dirty, but it he believed it would hold. Once he was finished he walked over to help Vivienne at the ritual site. He could at least help with first aid skills to stabilize Erica in the meantime.

Stabilizing Erica was easier than they expect it to be. It doesn't take much to get her at least stable enough to move.

Tereza moves over and looks over Sam's shoulder at the giant otter. "The otter's certainly adorable."

"I don't think we can keep a giant otter in the dorms, Tereza."

The otter yips at the group. It almost seems like a question.

Vivienne did what she could at the moment to stop the bleeding, tending to the more serious damage first from the inside out magically. Once satisfied with their work she left Sean and Will with Erica to examine the creatures closer.

The creatures were largely unfamiliar to her, but they had some sort of inherent magic to themselves. It felt *like* fey magic, but not precisely like it. Now that she was opening herself a bit more, she could sense another presence in the room. It felt sort of like one of the "lost" and as she focused on that feeling, it drew her eyes to the otter than Sam and Tereza were inspecting.

She moved over to Sam and Tereza. "Not to close." She then addressed the otter.

"You have given us aid and for that I am grateful, but there is a touch of the twisted magic about you. I would suggest that if you are capable of speech, now is your time to speak." she moved Cal and placed it in front of herself blade point touching the ground.

"Easy, Viv," Tereza cautions, "But she's right. We don't speak otter. Unless you're picking up on something we're not, Sam?"

The otter stares at them for a while, then seems to concentrate hard, dropping back down to all fours.

"Bit off leg. Ate some. No good. No good." it says, shaking it's head rapidly like it was shaking off water.

"It seems to be having trouble thinking. Maybe it wasn't always an otter?"

Sean heard something about a torn off leg and something about maybe being stuck as an otter and turned to look over at the group talking to the talking otter.

"Ripped off a leg? There's a severed leg in my workshop that somebody named Shari tore off of what might have been a Sluagh," Sean said looking over at the Otter.

The otter yips in the affirmative and bounces in place.

Vivienne quickly pieced together the information and had a theory or two as to why the otter would radiate magic, but that was biology and there was no time for the explanations.

"The Slugah, the collective of fallen fey, those who have been changed and gone mad. What did the leg look like exactly?"

"Hidden. Old. Tasted like memories. Can't shake it. Have to..." The otter scrunches up it's face trying to communicate something complicated and it looks at Will and Sam as the most likely ones to get it. "...keep distance. Be different. Not human. Stay myself."

Will awkwardly looked at the floor, at Erica, at the darkness -- anywhere but at Shari.

"Shari, we can help you..."

"Am fine. Good shape. Be better. What this?" she asks, pointing one webbed finger at Erica and the circle.

"Magic, very messily constructed and dark," Sean said, "Intended to contain the power of the person inside it. And to cause that person a great deal of pain in the process."

"Somehow she managed to call out to me. To summon me, before she passed out."

"A man in a suit did this to her, was all I could get. He said something about his mother."

"And bad like the thing you...ate. I would take a moment to reconsider the offer of help, the...bad you feel may not pass when...it does."

"We should probably get her back to the school for the infirmary to see to," Tereza says with a jerk of her head towards Erica.

"Am fine. Gets worse? I come find." Shari stubbornly says.