A thump off ahead to the Northwest, then again a louder one. Parcival gestured for the others to follow, he pulled the ratty cape over his hand and covered the sword.

Several birds at the end of the street took off into the sky. One came over and hovered near his face—a sparrow. It flew off towards the northwest.

It started to drizzle, and he bowed his shoulders against the wind and damp. Damn, that man there's no time to chase after him!

Opial, wrapped her robe tight around her and shivered. "We are fools..."

"Indeed. Sometimes a fool is needed where all others fail. Have some pride, would you quit so easily?" He squared his shoulders and continued forward; he tapped his foot before taking each step, there tended to be lots of carts along with mats with goods on display on the ground here.

She turned her face away, her cheeks flushed.

To the northwest, a man's voice broke out, a crackle of some energy, then many cries of men and women alike. "Tell me where his is!"

"We are being raided! Immoral—" Beeka muttered a rank curse. He stormed off toward the sounds.

"Don't get separated!" Parcival caught up and touched his arm.

Beeka huffed. "Then, hurry up."

Opial almost went past before turning and stood beside Beeka.

"It's too hard to see. The fog is making everything further away blurry." Opial hesitated. "I could cast a medicament spell, but I'm not very good at it."

Parcival shook his head. "The fog will eventually burn away, save your energy. We've wasted too much time talking, hurry."

"Right."

Parcival ran through the fog, the others followed.

Every step closer more thumps and the clang of swords, stamps of boots on stone. The sun finally broke it's rays through the fog. Bright red cloaks showed, along with the shine of fat and bulky foreign outsiders steel that clashed with the faultless people.

"Now, how to get you to behave?" A red-cloaked man heled a scrawny man dressed in nothing more than a loincloth by his neck.

The only outstanding feature of the robed man was his pale white skin, a nose that looked too small to breathe through, and a scraggly brown off-center goatee.

The man gurgled, and as the cloaked one crunched his neck, the wrenched man's face burned red.

The other civilians avoided the cloaked man, helped those that couldn't stand, with shoulders overlapping into each other, and poured out of the tight streets further within the city.

Across the street, flickering gray lights glowed through the breaking fog, and a few civilians shouted as they ran, "A plague! Beware the stone plague!" and limped back the way they came, then turned another corner further Northwest. Not sure if correcting them that it's a curse will make anything better...

The man didn't turn to watch, but his face and body spoke of concentration.

"That is enough!" Parcival edged closer. I can't believe these outsiders, have they no shame? They've no more brains than a stone cow!

With a huge heft the robed man tossed the luck-less farmer who landed on Parcival's chest, knocked the air from his lungs. The wounds on his chest reopened and stung.

He lifted the conked out farmer, set him on the street, and shakily got up, tottered rearward before finding his footing.

A sudden kick from the man knocked him back ten feet, Beeka caught his arm and spread his feet, stopping the momentum.

Beeka's gestured with his head upward. "I need to break away, for a bit, I can't say why, but I'll be quick." He motioned to Opial. "Help him."

She nodded and glared at the robed man.

Beeka disappeared to the left into the broken fog.

Knowing Beeka, it had to be pretty important to break away during a time like this.

"State your name and purpose!" Parcival tossed off the ratty cape and brandished the sword.

The outsider took a step closer. "My name is for my friends, that of which you are not. My purpose is me and mine business. You can call me 'red' " He chopped the air with his hand with a flourish.

Parcival's left brow was raised to the point of being sore. A dramatic type.

Red rushed him with a fist outstretched, and Parcival sidestepped away. Red spun, caught his arm with both hands, and kicked both legs out from under him.

"What, the?" Parcival fell hard, and his head bounced off the street.

He couldn't breathe for several heartbeats, his head heavy as a lead weight. A rush of a blaze of pain spread on the side of his head. He couldn't move. He groaned. "My head..."

Opial knelt down. "It happened so fast, I couldn't even cast anything." She helped him sit up.

"Excuse my making quick work of you, I'm in a hurry, you see." He walked off at a quick pace, towards the temple or no, not quite. Maybe the holding cell or the docks, all were down that way.

"Stop him, but don't kill him. I want answers."

She wiggled her fingers, and small sparks flew from the tips. "It'd be easier by far with more help."

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"Just give me a minute, and I'll join you." The pain became a stab that came and went, vomit clawed up his throat, and he fought it back down. Red is incredibly fast, have to be more on guard with him.

By the time he stood, Red had melted away through the last tufts of the fog.

Beeka came back his staff in hand, he patted it, and gray flakes crumbled off his hand. "You handled the hoodlum well enough." He scanned from top to bottom. "Well, mostly."

Beeka always had been a tad eccentric, but to leave during a battle?

He glowered at him. "We could have used your help."

"Yet, you're fine."

He shook his head, holding in a sigh. "Forget it, let's keep going."

He stayed mostly in alleys and back lanes, that's where irksome troublemakers tended to hang out, even with the fog mostly gone, running through the brown walls and barrels and crates became akin to trekking through a labyrinth of monochrome houses that stretched on forever. Anything could be here, more invaders, the Calcines; and what next a bunch of disgruntled gods intent on revenge?

Opial walked up beside him. "You've decide where we're going, after all?"

He snorted. "I always knew where I was going, it's just what with the interruptions..." He rubbed his sore head, it yelled at him; a deep headache that refused to go away.

She closed an eye tight and squinted the other overly so, while rubbing her chin. "Oh, so? You knew exactly where you were going?" Her tone seemed disrespectful at first, but with that silly face she made her words were full to the brim with pixie dust.

"Ah! Maybie the fog has thrown me off."

"You've always been a touch off."

He made a mock face, complete with exaggerated wide eyes with slack open of jaw. "I am wounded! Beeka, tell her to quit stabbing my heart." His movements stiff and sore sore, he managed to mimic stabbing motions.

"This isn't the time for jests; our job is to find Merryn." Beeka raised his face skyward, an eyebrow twitching and went off ahead at a faster pace.

Opial blushed, and that glint left her eyes. "Not to mention not dying."

Must be the lack of sleep, have become slap-happy. "It's not bad to jest or joke on occasion, but he's right."

Off ahead, Beeka stopped by a mass of rolled-up carpets piled on a merchant's rug. "Well?"

He fell into step in front of Beeka and Oppial, the fog completely burned away and people mulled about again, not the most wise as the sun would be setting soon enough. They know it too, they stuck together in large groups, and they jumped at every sound while looking over their shoulders often.

He pushed further northwest. That sound from earlier it was a guess, but Merryn might have headed this way as this is the dead end of the merchants and weapons district. Not like any of us would care later on if we turned to stone, the dead had no worries. A little smile quirked his lips, before the sight ahead squashed it.

On most doorsteps people of all ages and sexes were stone, the shadows curled and twisted around them, spun out into the street then went right back into doorways before coming out again.

Small statues of the economical god Abizer placed near each entrance now so pathetic and smashed to bits, pushed over, one even upside-down, making for poor fortunes to anyone that passed.

"Life on the coin with an empty heart sees nothing." Opial said, her voice hushed. She blinked rapidly and breathed in a few breaths.

Parcival patted his pouch three times, as did the others. He pulled in a breath and let it out slow. Nope. Don't want to go in there.

A moment later a dull reverberating screech in the larger building at the dead end, setting the hairs on his arms to raise in an annoying fashion.

He couldn't see anything. What the hells making that noise? He stepped over closer to Beeka, who moved his head about and followed something with his gaze.

Almost unnoticed at first, a long streak of silver buzzed at the dead end then went back the way it came, a shadowy wrath erupted from a wooden wall pieces of the wall broke and littered the ground it and ran inside a building; the streak cried out, spun on, and chased inside after it.

They soon busted back outside through the doorway, the calcine slashed at the silver streak, it slowed taking on humanoid-like qualities; flickering. The area around her brightened to a silvery sheen, it pressed over her as if the was feeding off of her. Her face paled, turning thin and transparent; another face flashed beneath. Holly fifteen hells...

"Merryn. it is isn't it?" Opial's hands shook as she backed up going behind him and Beeka, even frightened she would always remember her training. Good.

Merryn's moved her feet, dug them into the dirt each step, a fast thump, then rapidly stomped on the Calcine's head, it screamed, trashed, and shrieked, and at the same time its claws ripped great chunks out of the paved cobblestones.

Two others screeched and jumped in unison at her claws outstretched over their heads. She wrestled with one and threw it off an open screen frame stopped it; it slid down it with wet squelch and began twitching. The other clamped onto her leg an in an arc slashed at her side.

She screamed, as two, a tinny quality blended to her voice as the other merged with hers, patches of her skin now gray and rock-like. The deep wound on her side was a bloody mess pooling onto the ground. Over the span of a few breaths the gapping raw wound became smaller and closed on itself, now a long faint pink scar.

Merryn turned as she ran her arms pumped back and forth. "She intends to ram us! Get away!" The sword held before him, more like a shield than a blade. Don't want to take her head off, and at the rate she's running, it just might.

There was no gentleness in her, as she she shimmered, then stood before him. She moved to him a pinched expression that strained her face, her eyes still lost behind that film of clouds. A second later she snapped the blade between her fingers and tugged it out of his hands. It went end over end across the street and embedded sideways into a wooden frame. This was horrible. "What has she become?"

He froze. It didn't seem a good idea to make any sudden movements.

She hissed at him before jumping then running off as a streek.

Parcival lunged forward and swung with his fists in the air above. Crack! Right on a hard head, he pulled out a handful of thick cold slimy black glop. He shook his hand wildly, and the crud flug off. Whatever this was had head like a rock! His knuckles burned, turned red, and swelled up; bruised.

Opial shook herself and slapped her cheek. "I'm not having a nightmare, right?"

He went to her side, and took her hands in his, a deep stone fissure spread up past his wrist, it stung. "I need you, we need you. You're a hardened battle mage, and can do this." He clamped his jaw and bit back a hiss of pain.

She pressed her lips together, so little creases formed at the corners. "Those shadow things, and that woman are not what I signed up for!"

He squeezed her hands. "Who knows how the supreme one's work? There's nobody else to stop this, just us."

Her cheeks puffed out and she blew a puff of air. "I don't even know if my girls are alive, but we're stronger together as a trinity." The spots of gray stone grew closer together.

He checked his hands they haven't changed much, it had crept up an inch or two further.

"Then for them, we must find a way to stop them." Somehow, some way.

Both Merryn and the Calcines jumped slashing at another. The Calcines backed away. She kicked, sending it flying into the dead end building, then speed off after it. A crash followed by a long scream that suddenly ended.

A sharp whistle to the left He turned towards the sound slightly but kept watching the building. It couldn't be.

He eyed the length of the dead end, and squinted at the puff of fluff off a few feet ahead, Han leaned against the building wall, he pushed off it, before he caught his ballance. He dares? "Get out of there!"