Castle Vikuur: Ravens and the Snakes

Jian shoves Ayame out of the away to get her out of the danger zone, then charging at clarent to pull her away from the doc. His clothes start waving through the winds of the happenings and he can barely force himself through this to grab her before she hits the ground. He falls onto his cut arm, leaving him in quite some pain. He also hits his head harshly, leaving him with having a blurry vision and being paralyzed on the ground at the given moment.

Atrium watches the smoke leave his claw and move around the room. He charges after it trying to claw it out of the air. He watches it go into a girl's necklace. He charges the girl thinking that she is now an enemy when a boy grabs the falling girl before she hits the ground. He stops right in front of the boy, looking down at him. Something about the boy tickles his mind but he doesn't understand it. He knowing what to do, he decides to leave the boy alone. He looks around the room and finds a door. He charges the door and smashes it to bits. He gets down on all fours and starts running the halls looking for away out of this dark place.

Ayame rushes over to Jian and Clarent. Patting him in confusion as to what to do. She looks around hastily, nervous and rather scared. "A-are you okay??" she asks him, nudging his head to get a reply.



Doc finds himself charging through a long hallway with windows lined along the right side. Looking through them he can see the guest wing and the attic. Inside the hallway are piles of bones and ash- remains of the once-were servants. Despite his fur, it seems rather cold. Suddenly the castle shakes rather violently, as if an earthquake was taking place. It stops for a moment and then continues as dust, rocks, and small pieces of the ceiling begin raining down. Atrium looks out the window and see's the roof of the towers falling in on themselves, tearing chunks of the tower with them and plummeting down to the wall. The shaking then stops, though Atrium knows: The castle is falling appart.

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FP Chatlog:

Jian just moves around a bit in pain, trying to gather his senses. The castle shaking then brings it back faster due to sudden adrenaline from fear kicking in. It takes him not too long to realize everything and he gets up with clarent in his arms.

"I... am fine... I think. But that's really not important, did you just feel this shaking? We really seem to run into worse. Heck, if we end up getting smashed or something, these minor injuries I have are really the least concern."

His balance is shaky, but he can walk, so he slowly moves towards the door that seems to be knocked down, gesturing Ayame to follow him. He can't run or jog, but walking a bit faster is something he really should do. He goes at the fastest pace possible for him in his state, realizing that his head even is bleeding lightly.

"Well... I never really asked for this but... Somehow I am glad that we got to been sucked down here... Not sure how it all went, but she seems... normal and not posessed anymore."

He walks down the hall, always looking if Ayame's still with him

"I have to thank you... You really helped me gain some mental strength during this... Hell... More than that even...", he says in a soft tone, blushing lightly.

"We should talk after we're in the clear... I'd like to get to know you better, you're one of the nicest people I have met so far in the recent days..."

He blushes even more, smiling lightly, trying to keep his pace with occassionally tumbling to the left and right.

When the quakes stop Atrium starts looking around, trying to find a way out. He then gets a veg memory about a little girl he saved. He has to find her. With a goal set, he roars as loud as he can and starts running on all fours to the rooms where he left the girl. He takes several lefts and rights and crashed through doors. After a few minutes Atrium finds himself back into the main dinning area. He struggles to think of where to go from there. The clear thoughts he once had left him when he changed into this. As he is looking around starts to hear lots of voices coming from a distant hallway so he charges towards them hoping to find this girl he kinda remembers. It doesn't take him long to find where all the voices. He stands in front of the group of people. He doesn't know if they are enemies or not but he needs to get by them. He roars stands on low legs and is ready to fight them if he needs to.

Ayame blushes at what he says. He seems very kind and sweet, she thinks to herself. "I would like that." she says in a light tone, her previous panic subsiding bit by bit. The two of them make their way through the hallway  which is old and worn. Clearly nobody has maintained this place for years. The floor is dusty, the once royal purple rug on the floor is now a faint grey shade and the walls have cracks and missing pieces. Most of the windows were smashed, and the ones who hadn't been were so when the castle started collapsing. To the end of the hallway is a single door. The moldy wood ripped from its fragile rusted hinges as the doctor had bashed his way through. On the other side there are of the door is a library, whose roof has caved in and smashed several bookcases below. Though whether this must have happened a long time ago because the dust had settled in well before they entered the room. This is the first time Ayame realized that the castle's interior design was quite odd and not well thought out. She wonders if this was due to the redesign of the castle or if it had been this way since the beginning. Looking through the room, there were many many bookcases and several doors. Five doors total that were visible to the eye. One of the doors had a glass window in it, which Ayame recognized would be the office of a librarian, and far from it at the end of a room was an iron door with bars. A very curious door. There were three doors at the end, far apart from one another, and one of them had been crushed, presumably by the doctor.

As they move through the great library the smell of old and rotting books and wood was very noticeable. It wasn't a pungent smell but a semi-noticeable foul odor that filled the entirety of this part of the castle. "I don't recognize this area." she says, looking about the open library. "This must be the right wing of the castle, we were never allowed in this place by Janette." She gulps thinking about her. The necromancer was finally dealt with, but thinking back on the matter she feels sort of sad for her. Whenever Ayame had caught her alone, she always had this sad look in her eyes, despite her smile. As if she was on the brink of tears everytime. Maybe this was better this way.

She stares at the girl in Jians arms. She looks peaceful, unconscious like that. Whenever she was awake in the past, taken over by that demon, she had this intense face. But now, seeing her asleep like this made her look quite cute. If she didn't know any better, she would have thought it to be a normal girl.

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FP CHatlog:

Ayame's reaction is relieving. He thought at first that she might refuse his offer and he breathes deeply. They reach the library and the view is quite stunning. It looks old but the moldy smell leaves something that he remembers from back then. He looks around a bit checking his surroundings. The silence that's left from after the shaking is quite something. It wasn't this quiet for a long while, so this is calming to him.

"Mhh... There's a few doors here, there's one rammed down, which I presume is the path the... if he still is the doctor, took."

He halts thinking a bit. The quake was quite a signal of things going to turn out sour sometime soon, so he'll decide to follow the path of the doc for now, as he seemed to turn into a beast of sorts, which tend to follow thier instincts.

"We got no time to really explore anything, unfortunately, so we'll have to take the path of knocked down doors, hoping that the doc's instinct will lead us back... I am not in a condition to poke around and guess either... I am spinning a bit", he says a bit unsure. He then starts approaching the knocked down door.

"I wonder what exactly happend.. I thought the doc will go and kill me, or clarent... Maybe you even... He just stopped once I caught her, leaving us alone. I feel like for once, I did the right thing...", he then sighs. "Since I came here... I just feel like I was standing in the way. Look at me, I am bruised all over, I got no beast lurking inside like the others seem to have. No device, no combat abilities. It makes me think, why did I tag along? But now, holding her in my arms, I feel like I found a purpose. The price was high, but it was worth it. On top of that, I got to follow my passion after a long while, cooking without limit, having everything I could dream of... And then... There also was the moment when I got to meet you. Somebody who seems to have more emotion behind thier actions, more thoughts about consequences... Somebody like me. So all in all... this was pretty successful..."

He arrives at the knocked down door, looking down what lies past the frame, then turning his head towards Ayame, smiling.

"Thank you for help so far...", he then says, stepping through.

"O-Oh. Of course, I'm glad to be able to be of help." Her face turns red as she steps over the door and into yet another hallway. A short one leading to a corner. "I can only imagine how hard that must have been..." she then says, thinking back to his words. "Back at home in recudor, I always tried my best to help everyone around me. Sometimes people are very unappreciative of your efforts and I understand that... so I want you to know, I think you and your group are amazing people. I've honestly given up hope until I've met you."

The two talk a little, back and forth, while coming to the corner. It leans to a door which has also been burst through. Though half the door is still on its hingies, with its wood splintered out from the force. The two step outside and find themselves to be under the first bit of sky in a long while. The mist surrounding the place gives off an uneasy feeling but it is bright as day out regardless. As they look around they realize they are in yet another garden of sorts. Its wide in size and has various buildings around the outside, all part of the castle complex. There are many bushes and even trees, which at one point would have been neatly trimmed and tended to. But are now wilted and dead. The ground is a little muddy and what grass there is has since long turned brown. The place feels dried out and humid at the same time. Ayame has a bit of a saddened look on her face. "I feel sort of bad for these plants... gardening is one of my passions and seeing this is rather heartbreaking." She holds a hand above her head to shield her view from the non-existent sun and stares across the garden. "It seems like that long part over there must be part of the main complex. The stairs leading up along the side must bring us back into the main hall-" she says.

Suddenly the castle begins to shake anew, So violently its hard to keep a steady footing on the loose dirt ground. In the distance, one of the towers collapses in on itself, another falling ontop of what used to be the attic, seemingly disintegrating it as both of them disappear out of sight. Jian notices a man hanging off the side of the building, trying desperately to pull himself back in. He eventually is pulled in by other survivors. It's the guest wing for sure, and everyone is still held up there. The shaking continues and suddenly half of the library collapses behind them, taking the ground with it as it falls into the mists. Ayame gasps as the ground underneeth her gives way as well and barely makes it onto a thin piece of dirt as patches of the garden also begin to sink into the ground, only leaving a few narrow paths to navigate. Jian nearly looses his footing and almost falls into the mist along with Clarent when ayame grabs him by the waist and stabilizes him.

The shaking soon stops. Ayame looks at Jian worried. "Are you alright? W-we should probably hurry and get out of here. We need to get those people out of here if we can..."

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FP Chatlog:

The chat between the two really seems to calm him down aswell. He slowly keeps regaining back his full capabilities, not tumbling left and right too much anymore. The words of Ayame have a far reach... Nobody has told him that what he did as noteworth or amazing of sorts, so getting that kind of praise goes down like butter, leaving him with a light blush once again.

The fresh air is nice, the garden compared to it is not too nice. Wilted plants all over and not too much care was put into it recently by the looks... So Ayame likes gardening, he likes cooking with herbs and spices. This really starts to turn out to be a well-knit combination.

Suddenly, the ground shaking, parts of the castle collapsing once again. This is really turning sour fast. Before Jian could move though, he loses his hold, to then be saved by Ayame. His gasp turns calm not too much after.

"Y-you... saved me. You helped me o-once again... Thanks", he sighs in relief.
"Things are hitting the worst right now, you are right, we should get going... fast. We have to move towards the group, I am sure they're already trying to get the survivors out... I will follow you, as you seem to know the way a bit better than me from this point out, right?"

He gets a better grip of clarent again, as he kind of lost it a bit while nearly falling, then looking back at Ayame.