Colin's posts

"........" Illias was silent as he saw the dark gold.

"....hm." he mumbled, before getting to work.

Meanwhile, Ash had just finished making himself up a sandwich... which was impressive, for sandwich standards... before he looking over at Syraene.

"Oh! Miss Syraene!" he said.

"....all right, this sounds serious." he then commented.

"Yeah, I have a minute." he told her, setting the food down.

"What's up?" he asked.

Illias shook his head.

"No, it's all right." he said.

"I can get to work on stage 1." he told her.

"I'll probably need your help in stage 4, but... that's down the road." he said further.

"Don't let me keep you back." he then added.

"The sooner these things come together, the better."

Illias looked in the bag, and his eyes widened.

"Oh... oh, wow!" he exclaimed.

"I can totally start working!" he told her.

"In fact, I can-" he started to say, before pausing. "Wait, no." he then mumbled.

"Right, how can I put this....?" he then muttered further.

"To get to the conclusion I'm planning to get to, there's going to need to be 5 phases." he told her. "All the ingredients that are missing are needed for phase 5... except the Magmoss." he said.

"That's needed for phase 2." he went on.

"So I can get phase 1 done, but then I'm stalled." he finished.

"....here, please." Illias replied.

"It's where I'll be dealing with them, anyway." he reasoned.

"And you managed to get most of them? That's awesome." he told her.

"Depending on what you managed to get, I may be able to start working right now." he said further, hope in his tone.

Ryker looked at Eke, and nodded.

"The door, right." he said.

"Let's find this door." he told him.

He then looked around, narrowing his eyes.

"I've bonded with a damn demon." he growled at the darkness. "I've endured pain like never before to help Eke, and given into demon's wishes to keep Eke safe." he continued.

"I will NOT let you take him from me, or Aly. NO dragon alive can tear him away from those that love him." he promised.

Illias just chuckled a little, and exhaled slowly.

"Yeah. Yeah, much better." he said.

"And I'm headed to one of the 'testing' rooms." he told her.

"I gathered most of what I need that's here, but there's still a few more things I need to get." he went on. "But they ARE here." he added.

"You're back pretty quickly, though." he then said.

"How did getting those ingredients go?" he asked.

After about a minute or so, she heard uneven footsteps headed her way.

When she looked towards the entrance to the room she was in, she saw Illias.

But he didn't see her.

That was because he had a stack of containers and things in his arms, and couldn't really see ANYTHING.

"Woah... woah, woah..." he then muttered, as he started to become off-balance.

Vincent shook his head in response.

"No, no." he said.

"I realize this is important." he told her.

"Good luck getting the rest of those ingredients, though." he then said.

"Some of them will be a real bugger to get..."

Vincent was... stunned.

"Corrupted?" he asked.

"Oh dear, I didn't know such a thing was possible." he said.

"And... you did something like that?" he asked.

"I... you can do that?" he asked further.

"....." Ryker was silent, before narrowing his eyes.

"She's keeping you here because she wants to keep you down." he growled.

"Damn it, LEAVE HIM ALONE." he then shouted.

"He's escaped you, and he's not going back!" he continued.

"You no longer have power over him!"

"....yeah." Vincent mumbled.

"....actually, wait." he then said.

"I've heard murmurs about the Order, but I don't know what's actually going on." he told her.

"Can you explain what's happening?" he asked.

"And why I suddenly feel like sleep is something I can definitely do without?"

"....." Vincent was silent, before sighing.

"Well, her mana seems to be back to normal levels." he told her. "Which is to say, she's in stable condition, and is no longer bleeding mana." he clarified.

"But her usage of the rune is really taking its toll on her." he then said.

"She feels extremely guilty about what happened." he lamented.

"I think we just need to wait for her to come to terms with it."

"Ah, you saw that." Vincent commented.

"Anna and I had the idea to cross-pollinate it with a Nullblossom." he told her. The Nullblossom was considered an oddity in the world of mages, due to it having NO distinguishing traits, at all. For all intents and purposes, it would appear as nothing but a dandelion... but one that was a slightly lighter shade of yellow. But recent discoveries in botany had shown that there might be more to it than met the eye.

"From what we can tell, the daisies have a slightly more subdued and pastel colour, but initial tests seem to be showing that the mind-control aspect has been reduced by nearly 98%." he continued.

"As it stands, those flowers, if put directly into a person, would make them considerably more agreeable, overall." he then said.

"So it's very promising."

"You just need to remember." Ryker replied.

"Remember me. Remember Aly." he told him.

"If you truly want to return to us... to come back to us... then your heart will show you where to go." he said.

"You'll see your light shining in this blackness." he continued.

"And I'm here. I'll help. There's no need to be scared."