Iridia was too freaked out to sleep no matter how exhausted she was. So when the magic dropped, she just kind of found a spot on Hedgrit where she could watch Zelph and Tellia. The fairy also wanted an answer, but from how Zelph looked, she didn't know how well she'd get one. After a minute, Zelph slowly got up, feeling a bit dizzy cause of the way he just lost blood, and he grabbed a cloth and walked up to Tellia and the first thing he did was wipe the blood off her mouth and he said, "Yeah. Everyone's alright... are you alright?" Zelph's voice had gone back to the usual confidence he kept around Tellia. Though he was certain that Hedgrit and Iridia could tell it was a mask he was putting on. He gave her a pat on the head and said, "Are you feeling tired?" he tried to help her sit up, feeling the pain from the wrist he cut as he tried to use that arm to help her up.
Zelph had reacted only slightly to the part about fairy, but only because he had a feeling that was a part of the playing. When he mentioned blood, it didn't surprise him. It was almost a curse how valuable his blood seemed to be to different entities. But the emotional game was what was probably the worst part about it, and as Orcus began explaining how Tellia called on him this time... he didn't know whether he was telling the truth or just hyping it up. But the combined pain of imagining Tellia giving up, and watching Orcus draw the smallest bit of blood while showing the extent of his control. That was the height of his emotional pain, like a deep and intense heartache just nearing the point of seeing his father dead on the floor, Ilythyrra infected and begging for him to run with Tellia.... watching his mother die from her illness... Zelph was at the point of not even thinking straight anymore when he had moved his blade to a part of his wrist that was still healing from the last time and sliced it open. If Zelph had been any more out of it, he probably would have held his wrist out for Orcus to drink directly. But he had a feeling if he did that Orcus would drink him to the inch of his life. The slice at the very least transferred all that emotional pain to physical pain, which didn't make all the emotional pain go away but it at least refocused it. Zelph shook a bit as he managed to grab a cup from the supplies they had and he began to let it pour in. The boy kept trying to take deep breaths to keep himself steady before he started intentionally pushing up his arm to make it go faster. Unfortunately, unlike when he was using his blood for magic, this wasn't a quick process and didn't heal up quickly, so Zelph was starting to feel the pain kick in hard. When the cup was finally filled, Zelph held his wrist a moment and whispered something to himself to try and stop the blood flowing out. It worked but it still hurt as he held the cup towards Orcus. He couldn't even look up at him at this point, because all he would see was Tellia rather than the demon at that point. Knowing Orcus already knew it, he managed out desperately, "Here... now please... let her go... she... she's all I have left..."
Zelph tried to open his mouth to come back with something in order to try and seem like he was winning. But he knew deep down he wasn't, and Orcus must have certainly been able to tell those last few claims hurt him while he struggled to say, "I-I won't give you that satisfaction. I know she'd... she'd be strong enough to beat you." but it was almost pathetic, and his cold probably made it seem even more so before saying, "L-look. Whatever you want from me in order to release her... you know I'll do it or give it. Just let her go." sometimes he wished he was able to convince them otherwise without having to go to a bargaining stage, but he knew today wasn't that day.
Zelph was a bit used to this game already, though it was never much easier each time they went through it, he just knew not to take the bait, "But is it not better to wait until she is older and stronger before taking claim like that? You know her body won't grow any more if you do. Unless you're scared she'd have the willpower to beat you at that point cause you're a second rate demon." he said pointedly at the demon, this time trying to intentionally get a rise out of him, though internally he was terrified this could go horribly wrong.
When all the crawlers were finally taken care of, Zelph first went over to the zombies and retried the daggers back and cleaned them up while waiting for their focus on the blood to start reaching the end. Zelph tried standing with his usual confidence though his cold was betraying his ability to be as convincing about it as he spoke up, "Orcus." he paused a moment before continuing, "You know what I'm going to say, do I need to repeat myself?" he wasn't sure if he was going to be cooperative, demand something, or just completely ignore him. It was a gamble, but he looked over towards Hedgrit and Iridia. Iridia grabbed Hedgrit and cast an invisibility spell that also hid scent and silenced them. It was a powerful spell and one she usually reserved for when they were overwhelmed and needed to hide from a horde until it passed. But a wave of exhaustion hit Iridia hard as she fell on top of Hedgrit with her wings loosing their glow and twitching as she gasped out.
Zelph watched the dark form spread around Tellia and was originally going to come close to fight the crawlers, but knowing full well he might leave himself vulnerable to the bloodbath if he got in the way. He readied his dagger to throw it at any of the ones that seemed to jump straight at her. Meanwhile Iridia was starting at the scene with an intense amount of shock in her eyes, and possibly a bit of fear too. She managed out in almost a croaked voice and said, probably too softly, "H-Hedgrit... Hedgrit get up."
Iridia's eyes widened as she quickly used her magic to push the crawlers back away from them. She tried to pull Hedgrit back so he wasn't laying right there was vulnerable as she was before she started yelling, "Up. Up! There are crawlers!" she didn't know if she was able to get Hedgrit up but one of the crawlers started walking up closer before having a knife stab straight into his head. Zelph was up on the top with his arm still out with another dagger as he yelled, "Iridia, help Tellia!" "Listen you fucking brat I'm trying to help Hedgrit right now and I'm more nervous about the dwarf dying than your sister's inner demons!" Iridia yelled back, sounding out of breath and tired as the fairy somehow miraculously pulled the dwarf a pretty good distance back to safety. Though she was feeling tired. Zelph went to go and try and cut himself to start the ritual but felt how droopy he was from his sickness and he whispered, "Shit..." as he quickly tried to climb down the ladder so it was safer.
"Well, I can't eat bon-bons since I'm only able to eat vegetables. They can be cooked, but if I eat them mixed together or with anything extra on them... well, it isn't very good for me. But I really like red grapes. I haven't had them in a very long time since they don't really grow around here and the only reason I used to have them was because they were offerings people gave us for our magic." Iridia fluttered around a little thinking about it and said, "I wish I could eat them. But... I might be able to create them with my magic. It might not be as tasty though... it's kind of a trade off. But I can't try it today since it's just us two right now and I can't get tired or it's gonna be just you. And that's not fair for you."
"Ananta, you're doing the thing again." Kaida whispered to herself since the green-haired girl wasn't in range to hear her anymore. She'd been quiet the whole time over-viewing the situation and beating herself up a bit over not being no help at all other than giving Gantu the edge to escape. Kaida took a deep breath trying to get over herself as she continued whispering, "Overapologizing to the point of making people think you're brown nosing them." Kaida held her hand out to summon her keyblade. Once it was out, she stabbed it into the ground as it flashed and transformed into her usual glider and she got on it. She tried pressing her arm to try and get her keyblade armor on but it seemed to not be working properly. Kaida sighed and said, "It must have broke at some point... oh well." and Kaida began flying up into the sky following Stratos. 1/31
A doodle danger noodle!
Take took the coin and looked over it curiously as he moved it around in his hand to get a feel for it. The boy looked amused and reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the coins he managed to grab from the treasure horde in The Etherium and he showed it and said,"It kind of looks like the treasure that Silver was obsessed with. It's interesting... and it... makes more sense I suppose. But I feel like it would be so easy to lose these on the floor or something. Munny at least stands out a bit... but..." Take placed the gold coin back and kept observing the gil and continued, "I could see where the confusion would come. They're so different." he looked at the family crest for some time and said, "I don't think I'll ever truly understand royalty. I've... tried learning about it, it's not something on my world, but it seems odd to mark something like this with a family sign. It's like they're overcompensating for something." he turned it around a bit more to look at it and said, "I don't even know which way is up so I can't tell if I'm looking at this right. But the raven? I can get behind a raven... wait..." Take flipped the coin around to figure out which way the raven was facing upward and then turned the coin back to look at it and said, "There we go... oh... it... it's supposed to be a stag isn't it? That's cool. I like stags. We used to have a lot more of them near my village... maybe we moved too far north or they moved away... I'm rambling." he held the coin back out towards Boreas , "Thanks for letting me look at it."
Take was still helping out when he heard Torrin ask a question about instruments and the boy shook his head and said, "I don't know how to play anything... I don't even know how well I'd sing and I would rather not try." the boy started boiling some water to hopefully start making hot cocoa without any problems. He tapped on the counter patiently before adding, "Well, you don't necessarily need a lot of money. But it's good to have knowledge of the resources you have. I don't know what gil is, from the context you're giving me it's your munny equivalent. Seems... odd for munny to be thrown away- what does gil even look like?" The boy's curiosity peaked as he turned towards Torrin and asked, "Do you happen to still have any on you? Or is this more of a Boreas question?"
