Illiad Easle

@DwhitetheGamer [Archback Mountain] Wind Surfer was awoken by the ringing of his alarm, it was time to get ready for his classes at the academy. His teachers had cleared him to take two weeks off for the cultural exchange, but hose only started once he had an official start date from his companion, something he hoped to get in the mail today. Then he could tell the ponies at the ferry to let him know if anyone matching Copper's description came in. But until then he had classes to take. [Mohotma City] Faint glimmers of light shone through the window of Exotic Myst's hut, directly onto Copper's face. Mystic was already awake, mixing together something in the large pot at the center of her hut, whatever it was it didn't smell very pleasant at all.

@Randimaxis Dax probably wouldn't realize it, but this time was Illiad's turn to have fallen asleep. By the time Dax would turn back to his friend, he would be laying flat on the roof, blissfully unaware of the world around him. Dax would need to wake him up if he wanted off of the roof, and even if he could make it back down without Illiad's help, he wouldn't want to leave his friend out here to bake. (Assuming he wakes Illiad up gently) Illiad stirred to wakefulness, seemingly a bit surprised to find himself on the roof before he remembered why he was up there. "Oh," he was still clearly quite tired, "let's get down then." In a flash they were back in Illiad's bedroom, himself on the bed with Dax on the floor next to it. No sooner was the teleport complete than Illiad was back to being peacefully asleep. (Dream sequence #2) "... I can mark your outer shell whenever I wish... but to mark your conscience with a death? THAT will leave scars that EVERY ONE will notice - scars of your WEAKNESS, your FAILURE... and the life, the single life, that causes this scar will be one you don't even like - the irony is more than I could ever have hoped to plan." What? The quarry... Havoc... This feels all too familiar. The Jinx-Thing wrapped the end of its tail around Redd Handid, holding him like a constrictor-type snake about to feed, as he sunk down towards the ground. As he did, Redd was brought to follow suit - he looked exhausted, yet each almost-yawn was stifled by a slap across the mug with that wickedly nasty tail. Redd was simply lolling in the grip of a mad creature. However, Illiad was powerful enough to sense that Taps was in position on a high-wall, just opposite of the Jinx-Thing... and she had a number of magical items on her - including one buried inside her very heart, it seemed; the bright pulse from inside her was easy to see for the ultra-powered Empathic Trojan unicorn. That must be what has been keeping her alive all this time. How did I not notice it before? And she had a spell prepared that would turn that horrific thing back into a bauble... if Illiad could keep its' attention. "You truly believe I have ANY other goal than causing as much damage as possible? Even my own freedom is forfeit, should it mean my work will cause utter chaos!" The Jinx-Thing lowered its' voice until the bass rumble from it shook the ground and vibrated even within Illiad's chest. "For I am HAVOC; and I now loosen the dogs of Tartarus!" ... and with that, he twisted his tail to the left quickly, and an audible > SNAP < filled the gap between the two combatants. Havoc smiled at Illiad. Illiad could still feel, thus it was only auditory. An illusion meant to distract him, to put him off kilter and attack haphazardly. It wouldn't work on... But there was no emotion. Not a whiff of anything, fear, despair... just dead air... Like the pony in Havoc's grasp. It struck Illiad like a physical blow. Redd Handid was dead. Illiad drifted downward as the shock of what had happened took him, the anger and rage of the others, those who had not loved Redd in life, now sought revenge for his death. No, not revenge... something more. The ripple of shock, sadness and hate at the idea of Redd having been killed began to settle in on the other workers... and their hate began to grow into a presence that almost felt like some sort of slimy, black presence in the Empathic's mind. Illiad could feel that ball of hatred, almost sentient in its' raw power, filling his mind with the idea of vicious, cruel murder upon the gemstone draconeq- "NO!" The voice of Dax Blackwater rung out from below and behind the Trojan, and the enthusiasm began to shine like a small sun. "It's a TRICK! Redd's ALIVE! Don't let that thing fool you!" But as Dax turned to look at Illiad, all his hope and enthusiasm faltered, fear and despair entering his heart as he realized the truth for himself, the previous sun of energy darkening until it too began to add to the writhing mass within himself. He began to agree, the dark power swirling around him, he wanted that draconequis dead. No, death would be too good, to live suffering in every moment the pain it had caused others. He felt the power growing within himself to cause exactly that, make it feel all the pain it had caused, make it suffer for every one of its misdeeds, leave it trapped to suffer forever! He was about to do it too, strike it with all the dark power at his command. But he faltered, hesitated. Havoc was gone, replaced by the same dark entity that accosted him in the caves. "FOOL!" "WE BOTH KNOW HOW THIS ENDS!" The scene shifted forward in time to the moment when Taps finally finished the job that Illiad couldn't "ILLIAD! YOU DID IT!" Dax came running towards his friend, his heart singing with happiness and relief. The rest of the Blackwaters were right behind him, all coming his way... Taps moved up next to the Trojan, and out of the corner of her mouth, she whispered, "Keep your eyes on the ground, Easle... trust me on this one." All this happening around him, yet whatever Havoc had done to him, he felt... wounded. The attack on his abilities, had it succeeded, would have killed him instantly. As it was there was still a good chance of VERY bad things happening if he didn't fix it fast. Especially with all the others coming at him with their charged emotions. He had to bug out of there fast. His breathing grew ragged as his horn sputtered from the pinch on his abilities. Already the restricted magical pathway was being overloaded, He looked around, trying to find a place far enough away to keep the quarry safe if and when he blew, he spotted the vault, where he had removed the magical protections, if he put them back up with him inside... It just might contain what he was about to do. With a bright flash he teleported away, his pained and fearful expression the last those nearby saw before he... But he didn't manage to complete the teleport spell. Some dark force behind him held him back as the rush of emotions began to crash over him. "You are weak without me." Illiad could feel the energy welling up inside him, but it wasn't emotion. It was darkness, his own despair. "Yet you can never escape me." Illiad fought hard to keep it all contained within him, but the darkness kept growing. "I'll kill you, and everyone you care about, if you try to keep me in." Time seemed to freeze for a moment as Illiad reached the breaking point. "Is this what you want?" A brilliant explosion issued from Illiad's horn, blasting all those around him with the combined and condensed emotional and dark energy he had tried to contain. He struggled to rise, but even from the ground he could see the effects, all of them were dead, frozen in a catatonic state of fear and despair. "Enough." The image faded from his vision, and with Selena's help from his memories. Illiad lay on the ground between two forms, to one side the glowing form of Selena, on the other a pony's shadow. "You're hurting him." "He's resisting, won't accept me." "He just needs more time." "We both know he doesn't have more time. If he doesn't learn..." (Dream sequence over.) (Dax would have been awoken in the middle of the day by an intense feeling of fear and despair, combined with flashbacks of the Havoc incident, especially Illiad's suffering.)

@Blitz Boom Still following her, but far enough back that she can't hear it anymore.

@Randimaxis Illiad looked over in a bit of surprise, "Those things?" he chuckled, "I forgot they're not so common in the mountains." He moved over to the barrel first, "You have the right idea here, though it doesn't collect rainwater so much as it doesn't really rain outside of the oasis. no point in dropping water were it isn't going to do much good. So they pump the water from the oasis into these barrels up on the roofs of the houses every so often so that everyone gets their share of the water, as well as individual water pressure in the house." (It's very common in Mexico, at least where I was.) He then moved to the box. "This is a sort of swamp cooler, or so they tell me it's called. A small pump wets a bunch of thatch which lines the walls, then a fan pulls air through the thatch and into the house. It cools off a few degrees when it gets really hot, but it's not all that effective at the peak of summer." He chuckled, "My first few days in Troy were awful because of that. You know how hard it is to sleep when it's HOT?" He sighed as he looked back to the sunrise, "I got this box installed because of it, it isn't too common around here, but there's a few who use it." He sat down on the roof and yawned, "Just let me know when you're ready to get down."

@Blitz Boom [Void] Through the door was another hallway that struck the chords of her memory, wasn't this where they had assaulted that scientist for the strange mask and the keycard? The door on the left had a name by it, Dr. Ross. Seemed she had been promoted since they had last met. The door itself had been destroyed by something, it looked like it had been melted through, but the puddle of corrupted ooze beneath it told a different story. Within Dr. Ross's office was a computer monitor and a pair of doors blocked by key-card readers. A dark orange card sat on the desk. (If she enters the room to get the card) no sooner had she entered the room before the screen flickered to life. "Ah," the voice was metallic and flat, with the faintest hints of masculinity, "There you are. It seems your sister has gone awry, and thus it falls to you to get us out of this facility. I am Colonel Panic. If you want to save your sister from CODEX, you'll need my help." Her map beeped, indicating that it had been updated. "I've marked a room on your map. Go there. Then we can continue." (If of course she doesn't go for the card) The next room was even more familiar to her, everything was the same as that room, where the group of guards and scientists had lead her and her sister to the safe area. Which if she remembered correctly would be to the right. It had been full of supplies then, perhaps is had some now? There were doors to any of the cardinal directions in this room. [Null] "And I still have your weapon, the one you threatened to kill me with." a faint gleam of metal shone from the end of one of her legs, it was likely she was keeping the ax there. "Plus you're working with Panic, and want to destroy everything I and CODEX have worked so hard to rebuild after the war. WE kept these monsters from destroying all of Equis! Now you're going to undo all that!" She continued backing up despite the anger in her voice, she gasped as she reached the wall. Though it wasn't long before a smile came to her face as she continued backing up, flattening herself against the wall, "Not that there's much of Equestria to save at this point." With that she quickly turned and slid into a gap between the machine and the wall, depositing the ax on the floor as the last of her flat form entered the gap as it was too wide to fit the handle through. There was a slight sound of shuffling as Pen kept moving, soon reaching the back wall then starting to slowly move across the back.

@Randimaxis Mystic was caught slightly off guard by the request for paperwork, "Ah! Yes, those papers. I'll collect them from my bags if you'll excuse me." She repeated the formal bow before moving gracefully to her bags yet again, only taking a moment to retrieve a dark brown folder sealed with the Goldenrod Investment Bank's official emblem in gold foil. She them passed the folder as gracefully as her exit to Lady Blackwater. She allowed the matriarch a moment to receive and review the documents before continuing. "As to my work experience, the documents include that I was personally responsible for the accounts of the wall side of Deltrot's Southpaw Sector over the course of a year with no notable discrepancies nor faults, as well as another year's experience as the personal secretary of Madam Goldenrod herself." She allowed herself a small moment of pride at the statement, though she did not allow it to show outwardly. While her mother had been generous to allow her to work at the bank, she definitely did not have it easy. The Southpaw sector was notorious for bad accounts and fraud, but she had managed to turn it around in the course of her year there. Further her work as the executive secretary of the company meant she oversaw all the documents that passed between the banks and Goldenrod herself, personally influencing her decision making as she filtered all but the most important of agendas. In short, she knew how to manage finances, and both of the mares present knew she wasn't really here to learn... ...but for Daxter Blackwater. How Vylia knew? Mystic wasn't sure, she in fact wasn't entirely sure exactly what Vylia knew. Nonetheless she would keep up the appearance that she was there to learn as long as Vylia intended to teach her.

@Randimaxis Illiad looked touched by Dax's words before the smile grew larger on his face, "Actually, I know a better place to see it than out front, follow me." Illiad turned to lead Dax up the stairs to his room, which wasn't very organized like it had been in the dream form, random items were strewn about on shelves and floor space, though there were still clear paths throughout. He led Dax out to the balcony that sat above his porch, there wasn't much of a view here, Dax could see by the shadows that the sud was rising almost directly behind them. Illiad turned to Dax with a slight grin, "Alright, we're going to teleport, be ready." He gave Dax a few seconds to prepare himself before gripping him with a forehoof, a flash of light later and they were both atop the roof of Illiad's house with a clear view of the sun just starting to come over the eastern wall of Deltrot. The top of Illiad's house was not entirely barren however, it contained a large black barrel, large enough for a couple grown stallions to fit inside comfortably, as well as a strange box with a number of evenly spaced slits horizontally along each side.

@Randimaxis The changelings and his friend, though honestly they were all his friends at this point, looked between themselves with knowing smiles. Illiad chuckled as he nudged Dax playfully, "Come on, we all felt how you really feel, didn't we." Swift snorted with a smug grin, "Yep, looks like he considers dear Oracle more than 'nice'." Carbon seemed to have finally recovered at that point, and donned his typical disguise again. "It's clear to me that he's quite infatuated with her. More than I've witnessed in anyone else so far." Seemingly to save him from continued embarrassment, Illiad remarked on the time, "Well, it is getting pretty early, I think it's time Dax and I went to bed. We've got to be up a bit early to get out to Alphyns in the evening to meet up with TrUST." Swift seemed impressed by that, but didn't comment on it as he got up, "Well Dax, It's been a pleasure to officially meet you." Carbon followed suit, and soon they were both out the door and into the slowly brightening sunrise. Illiad turned back to Dax, "So, did you sleep comfortably enough on the couch? Or would you like to switch it up this time?"

@DwhitetheGamer She gave a slight smile as she continued leading, "It was nothing, I'm Exotic Myst." It wasn't long before they reached a small hut, baked mud walls with a thatched roof, round, with no light on inside. She opened the door and beckoned for him to follow before lighting a lantern inside. The inside of the hut was rather barren, just a smooth floor, smooth walls, a small window by the door, a sort of loft with bedding on it and a fire pit in the middle with a large metal pot on it that seemed to have something in it, still warm by the soft glowing coals beneath it. True to her word, it was warmer inside the hut than outside. "Feel free to make yourself at home. I don't have much, but I'm happy to share it with you for the night." She retrieved a blanket from off the loft area and passed it to Copper, "Well, any place is as good as any other here, so you can sleep where you like." She took a seat on the now mostly empty loft, which now just had a thin sort of sheet and a small pillow. She seemed to be watching Copper with a silent fascination.

@Blitz Boom [Void] Through the door was a corner turning to the left, as well as a familiar looking door. (Were she in any state of mind to do so, she would recognize the room as where they had tested the hole in the wall, though the hole was long gone now.) The small room seemed to have been turned into a small office with a bunch of hoof written notes on the desk, many of them undersigned by Pen, others by Seen. It seemed to be documentation on a number of different things contained in the facility. One paper had just been started that had her name at the top. Outside of a fairly accurate physical description of her it was blank, but next to it was another document bearing her number. The document was hardly complete. (If she continues around the corner) And there was the guard station where she and Null had taken out the giant golom on their first escape attempt. It looked like she was on the same path they had taken the first time, though in each room there was very little evidence of the events she remembered ever having taken place, had they really managed to clean it all up so well in such a short time? Or had she been under longer than she'd like to guess? The guard station glass was destroyed, there was no sign of a guard within, but if she were to look inside perhaps she could find something useful. (IF she looks inside she'll find a large burlap zipper bag sitting on the floor, the zipper somewhat resembles teeth, but only passingly. Within the bag is something she really wants. (That's how the bag works, it shows you what you want so you reach into it.) She gets a sense of dread like when she almost went down the stairs, and the faintest whisper in her mind 'don't') She could continue forward. [Null] The card reader beeped green as the door began to open again, revealing Pen adjusting something on a giant machine within before she whirled around to face Null, a look of shock on her face. "How! No! Panic." A tendril shot out to try and steal the card, but a combination of her being more ready since last time and her own latent anti-magic caused the tendril to stop just short of the card as it collided with Null's effect. The tendril swung uselessly against the line before it retreated. Meanwhile the machine had been doing something, the sound of thousands of clockwork gears moving in unison filling the room for a few second before a ding sounded and a door to either side of Pen opened. Pen dashed to the right to retrieve a red card from the floor, all while staying ready to blow Null backwards to keep her back, but she was clearly loosing steam with each blow. "If you truly want to protect your sister, I am the only one who can help you now."

@DwhitetheGamer The tall zebra's eyes narrowed at Copper, "There is no Wind Surfer in MY village." He pointed at the mountain that the sun was setting behind, the shadows now allowing the small lights of the colony to shine through. "If he exists, then he is up there, in the mountain." The gathered zebras then left, returning to the village. The pegazebra started to follow behind them, before coming back to Copper, "Hey, it's getting late. I don't think you'd have too much luck finding whoever it is you're looking for before nightfall..." She seemed unsure, then shrugged, "You could stay at my house, if you want. It isn't much but it's warm enough, then you can get a fresh start in the morning to find your friend." She started to walk away before looking over her whither at him, "You comming?"

@Blitz Boom [Void] Void didn't know what came over her, but even though she was sure she had gone through the door and down the stairs, she found herself in front of the door again with the strong sense of dread that she should not go down there. (990 brought her backward, she would have been trapped down there by 173.) She did still have the items she had collected in the closet though. The steps were getting closer to the door she had come from. She could still continue through the door opposite the one she had come from. (she collected a gas mask and the papers) [Null] As she rushed through the door that Pen had just gone through the door on the far end of the new hallway was just closing. In the middle hallway on the left was another closed door. (If she just keeps moving forward) The next room was a four way hallway, doors to the right and left and forward. The one on the left was just closing behind Pen. (If she checks out the hallway door before the four room she'll find an elevator coated in dried blood with a skeleton in the middle. The elevator does not work. Then when she continues to the four room she does not see which door Pen went through) (If she follows Pen around the corner) A very heavy door was closing behind Pen, who was holding a key-card to a reader while facing Null, rage etched onto her empty face. "You'll bring this whole facility down on our heads!" She screamed out with another burst of wind, not powerful enough to knock her back, but enough to keep her on the other side of the door until it closed. There was another key-card reader on Null's side of the door.

@Blitz Boom (Oh, there are so many things I could do to her right now. I just needed a moment to really think out Pen's personality.) [Void] Through the door was a room that seemed familiar, it was in fact the room where Null had released the coin, though hardly any trace of that remained, leading to doubts as to whether it was in fact the same room. (It is) There was a door to the far end of the room, a side area to her left which contained a clipboard, two papers, a gas mask, and 2 9v batteries, and a door to the right which served to access the stairs down to the area below. Heavy steps sounded behind her, indicating that she still needed to move quickly before the golom caught up to her. [Null] (This action would likely have gone unnoticed by Null until she tried to collect the ax again.) Pen extended a hoof in the direction of the ax casually. A faint sound of wind as the ax moved just far enough away from Null for a small tendril creeping across the floor to grasp it and warp it within Pen's body, effectively out of Null's sight. How she would react to the ax not being there would be something to see. Pen's eyes narrowed as Null ranted, but she did not offer any retort until Null moved to recover the ax that she had stolen from under her muzzle. Pen's face contorted to expand the mouth area and put it in line with her neck before a large burst of wind blew from her directly at Null, knocking her backward a few lengths before Pen whirled around at blinding speeds to go through the door opposite Null, the one that neither of them had come through. The tendrils activating the button to open and close the door as she passed through. On a minor note, the burst of wind had the faint sound of a scream of rage to it, it seemed she had angered Pen in some way. (Pen will not be keen to let Null leave.) A faint sound of movement could be heard from the previous room, and it was getting gradually louder. (I hope you have no issue with Pen stealing the ax.)

@DwhitetheGamer A few heads turned in his direction to see what the fuss was about, a few shocked expressions as they saw that he was not about to stop himself from hitting the ground. One in particular, a zebra, who apparently had a bit of pegasus in her family, flew out to intercept him. But due to the fact that he as much heavier than she had expected, and heavier than her by a wide margin, she was only able to slow him down so much before they both crashed into the valley. She was dazed, but didn't seem to be injured. A number of zebra from the village were now running towards them, forming a group to one side of them as the zebra who had tried to save him got back on her hooves. A large zebra parted the crowd to come closer to Copper, he spoke with a very deep voice. "What is your business stranger? We don't need any more trouble around here." A few of the other zebra moved to care for the pegazebra.