Bone--white as her father was black, and at first glance one might be forgiven for thinking her icy--swept in just behind him. Where he was swift, sleek and deadly, she was heavy and slow, but bulky: and by the time he'd dipped and flipped around, she was just reaching the target.

She knew little, only that there was a fight, that others were at risk--that she could see them battling below as the dragons swept in. Her own head, finned and heavy, lowered down; jaw opened--a short blast of flame missed entirely, and it was weak, nothing like what she had wanted. A growl of frustration--and of worry--escaped her, and she labored with heavy beats of her wings to catch up to her father.

Svartis lingered in the snow, too - enjoying its intense cold while it lasted, before he went back to his den in Monoceros. His magic was strong in it, ice bouncing off of ice and the intense chill of the air. Bone stuck around for a while, and he was surprised that his father remained, miserable as he was in the storm.

A beast called from within - the one from before? - and he followed its cry and that of the Gembound flooding in. Fire rained from every corner of the field, hissing through the snow. Svartis swept out of the thick curtain of blinding snow and ducked between the fireballs and explosions with deft twists of the wing. Their enemy was clear - a massive amalgamation of stone leaking what almost appeared to be the spire.

Dread dove for it, then Bone, then Svartis.

He inhaled briefly, and then bellowed his own battle cry (like father, like son!) Crystalline spikes manifested in his wake, suspended in the air for mere seconds before gravity could bring them crashing down onto the Ursa golem. Svartis swept away, his own high-speed attack complete.

and now! it's dog time!
Strange, how everything came back to the Core: the death of a Master; the wrong blackness beneath the Spire; her own tendencies. Hargrave would like to say that it was magic drawing her back here, but she knew better - she was looking for trouble. You see, trouble gave purpose. A purpose to help and save. It was the startings of a hero complex, maybe; her own desire to help others and... so what if she gained fame in the process?

When many voices called in unison for Gembound to gather, she came, sword clutched in her jaws. The biting chill of it was hardly anything in the blustering heat conjured all around. Fire rained from above, a fierce dragon bellowed gouts of it onto the massive golem. If it'd been serpentine in nature, this would be a rather close repeat of that Trial...

A white dragon came after the first one, shooting a fierce flame that ultimately missed. Hargrave struck out for it and whatever raging fireball was nearby it, gathering it all into a fireball to lob at the golem. But magic wouldn't let her have her dramatic, climatic way. Not so much a spark complied.
hargrave is attempting to use bone's fire and part of the firestorm to attack the golem! sike

Fire blazed and exploded, lighting up yhe world with white-hot light and Azrael felt his blood brgin to heat up as the battle intensified. There were a lot of creatures here now, punching, kicking, throwing spells right and left, trying to destroy the golem with all their might.

Azrael growled, his throat burning from the flames he'd already blasted atthe golem, but he wasnt going to sit back and watcheveryone else take the rest of the glory.

Sucking in a deep breath, he let out another burst of flame at the golem, weaker thenthe last, so he punctuated it with a much louder roar.

He had been but passing through--from the cool pools of Pisces, though he still felt uncomfortable there, back toward the seas of Fornax. Both provided good fishing, and the spear he'd crudely fashioned from his own chrysalis shards kept him well enough fed.

The loose, tattered leather loincloth--more to protect him against cold splashes when he drew the spear in, than out of any strange sense of modesty--proved his primitive level of advancement, and the straps of stiff hide he'd used to wrap more gemstone against his shoulders wasn't actually all that protective. Still, upon seeing Gembound under siege, upon hearing a call for aid, he did not hesitate to trundle into battle.

He liked the snow. The cold. He had a guardian's mind. But he feared being closed to others, in terms of physical proximity--Mother frightened him more than anything, since his last infection. It brought him a terror, a fear of touch, of drawing near. But this--this was stone; surely it could not infect him-? And it was... bear. The realization widened Sergei's eyes: this creature was not unlike he, himself!

Sergei roared, a pained ursine bellow--a pain at seeing a bear-like creature an antagonist (though he had fought other bears, himself)--and rushed forward on two legs. A shard of crystal was held up as a shield, the spear thrusting for the bear--he tried to position himself at the fore, flinching at the fire raking overhead, at the magic firing around and the fighting, and shouting--but should Sergei see anyone in danger close by, he would put himself in harm's way to protect them.

"I WILL GUARD!" he bellowed, and even his words were crude, thick with an r-rolling accent that had no place in these caves.

Sharp was not prone to cursing. But this scenario certainly warranted something.

Namely: holy crap holy crapshit shit SHIT

Now, to understand Sharp's point of view, it's important to bring in scale. She was an 8-inch lizard, maybe another inch or two tall. So small that a pebble was comparable to her. The megalithic creatures battling before her? They were at least an inch taller than her. Okay, more like a thousand. The terrified lizard looked up and saw nothing but towering legs of muscle and stone towering over her in a chaotic, confusing mess. She couldn't even figure out where their heads were from her perspective. Other gembound, all so much larger than her and adorned with magical spells, streamed all around the petrified lady and joined into the fray. There was blood, and flashes of magic, and the painstaking screeches of stone grinding... and... and...

Safe to say, her feeble lizard brain wasn't taking this very well.

Let's rewind the clock. Sharp had stepped out of Eridanus for a moment once she'd assured that both her children were safe. She just needed a little breather from the stress of two rambunctious fledgelings. When she heard it-- a large, monochrome avian calling about a... something in Polaris-- she hadn't caught all the words. And of course, she immediately assumed it had something to do about shinies. The little lizard made her way through the tunnels to the core, and sure enough: there were strange gems along the edge, and swirling winds beyond.

Now, that's weird, she had thought. She wondered what would happen if she wandered in through...

And here she was now, staring up at what she could only comprehend in her dreams. It was all so large and chaotic, and she could barely make a sense of it all. The snow streaming all around her was what brought her back to her senses. How could she forget-- being cold-blooded and tiny like her, any long exposure to the biting winds would reduce her to a slumbering torpor. And with all the fighting going around her, Sharp certainly didn't want to get squished half-conscious. It was best she simply slipped out and saved the titan-fighting for another day.

And then-- out of left field-- some beast even bigger than the first two bored through the very walls. Sharp wondered if she ate a bad mushroom lately. No, this was very, very real, and very, very terrifying. But wait-- there was some gaping, half-collapsed tunnel the leviathan left behind. A strange glittering came from behind it... glittering... shinies?

Existential fear suddenly abandoned, the freezing lizard booked it for the tunnel. Her path was zigzagged and difficult, struggling to overcome snow banks and flailing paws all while slowly being numbed by the cold. If she made it, then she'd get all the unknown shinies beyond to herself. And if she didn't, well, she'd get to learn whether the cold or the stampede took her out first.

© ©

... enter/exit Sharp? She's just trying to sneak off into tunnel A

Ari

Hope is but a waking dream

Aristotle flinched back from the flames, the edges of his mane singing and his paws burning slightly though they rested in the snow. The lion let out a low frequency growl. Moron! They needed to watch their fire! However the lion shook his head and focused himself once more. James had appeared and that was boding well for their family. With both James and himself there to protect Comet while they fought, the better chance they had for all of them to make it out safe and alive.

The lions blue eyes were drawn to a deer as it danced around in an attempt to gain the rock creatures attention. That was a dangerous idea but a good one nonetheless. The lion shook his head as he watched a giant creature with wings and scales of white aim to slam their body head first into the rock creature. That was bold and daring, Aristotle liked that. He’d have to find them after and have a chat perhaps. But that was a thought for later. The lion waited and readied a spell. However as he attempted to cast it, it would seem the singe of flames from earlier had bothered his magic and disrupted it as the plants failed to answer his call..

Cryogen

The white steed was trying desperately to make sure they didn't step on anyone in the cold and white, but he was also keeping track of the massive Golumn and it's adversary- adversaries.

Cryogen has to take a moment to process the sheer number of Gembound present, and then another to blink at the image of another horse nearby-

With wings, why wings?

Before they take a deep breath and lets his magic hum through his horns, they plant their hooves in the dirt, bowing his head and at first taking aim at the cave roof above the giant, before realizing something very important- and changing target to the beast itself.

The magic rings true, and they can feel the discharge of the cleaving energy arc off their horns and at the Ursa, and they hope that this doesn't horribly backfire on any of them as they await the collision.

The little bird--with only a three or four feet wingspan--shot out of the snow above and behind the dragons. His feathers were a flash of black and white, golden eyes sharp as his gaze darted around. He had taken note of the snow, his sharp mind grasping that something was wrong, but not quite what; now there was a call for aid.

The swarm of Gembound roared into combat, and Blitz--far smaller than so many of them--nevertheless held magic within him, and that power knew no size. And now those keen eyes zeroed in: the massive stone beast below, fighting a living creature. Blitz wasn't certain, at first, which was friend or foe; but the magic of the other attackers painted him a target quickly enough.

He dropped lower, tail and wings twitching and shifting constantly against the sweep and hurl of bitter wind, micro-adjusting his trajectory. He was fast, despite his small size, shooting out over the golem in a strafing sweep that left him a blur of light and dark against the snow.

Blitz held several magics--mostly blasts of energy, straightforward and devastating. There was some power he'd yet to tap into, and this seemed an important enough battle to attempt to unleash it. The gemstone at his chest swelled with light and color, a flash of pink--and then it felt as though something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

stars: ESO/UltraVISTA team. Acknowledgement: TERAPIX/CNRS/INSU/CASU; Mike's Birds on Flickr credit for part of "Black and white hawk eagle"

Does a kindly other-GM want to determine consequences-?

- THE LEVIATHAN -

It had taken him a little time to arrive: Astraea had, in the end, told him nothing and it was only with confusion that he suddenly felt the drop in temperature, slight as it was, from Canis.

He'd warned the rest. "I believe the battle is on, for those who would take part!" he'd bellowed, and charged off at his remarkably swift pace for Polaris.

He arrived late into the battle; the dragons were swooping, the fire was lain across the battlefield; the distant explosions--from afar, mere muffled thumps, almost more felt than heard--were long over. But the stone bear--ahh, now that would be a challenge. He did not know if he could control it; he didn't think so, and anyway, where was the fun in that-? Vargas charged forth at full speed, then, ignoring the wisdom (or lack thereof) in tackling a series of boulders. He was quick, all told, and he'd seen centuries of pit-fighting and other forms of combat; his attack, despite its perhaps ill-advisedness, was calculated.

He rushed in, feinted, leapt to a side, struck at it from as close to its rear as he could: aiming to throw his weight into one of its rock-legs where they struck another. He hoped to knock one stone out of its limb, to slow it, weaken it; perhaps they could rip it apart rock by rock.