Rebel_Scum

Paxtera raised an eyebrow at the little fairy as she got up. "And who're you, exactly? Forgive us if we don't take candy from a random fae we've never met...", she commented, very slightly distrustfully. Chances were the fairy knew exactly why, too. People with any degree of knowledge regarding fae in general don't tend to take freely offered gifts from them, as they typically hold a few hidden catches.

Kethara just nodded quietly. In her mind at least, her mother had a point.

"It's not the pancakes themselves, it's the stuff you put on them that makes them taste good. That or you can put extra stuff in them. Illy usually puts chocolate chips in hers, or so Mum told me", Kethara replied, tagging along as they went over to the lab mostly for lack of anything better to do. She kept quiet, not really understanding anything that was going on. For someone who practically grew up on time travel, the whole concept of 'prophecy' was a little bit of a stretch for her. She'd seen more than a few turn out to be people who either came from the future themselves or had contact with such a person.

"Ummm..." Kethara gave an apologetic shrug. "I dunno, I called her... she should've been here by no-", she replied, but stopped mid-sentence and looked around. "Figures."

And what she meant by that became rather obvious as a familiar golden portal formed nearby, about ten feet above the ground. It deposited a quite clearly unconscious Paxtera onto the ground before vanishing as quickly as it'd apepared. "Mum!", Kethara yelled, running over to her to see if she was ok.

"What are pancakes?", Kethara repeated in a very slightly incredulous tone. "Wow, you really are from another planet. Dimension. Time. Whatever." She shrugged. "Pancakes are... pretty much that, I guess. Like really thin cakes. cooked in a pan, even. You put other stuff on them and they're really tasty."

"Do you have pancakes?", Kethara asked hopefully, with the boundless enthusiasm all children seem to share.

"She does that, don't worry. She wouldn't have left me behind if she wasn't coming back", Kethara informed the zombie. And from the way she said it, it was clear she had absolute faith in that being the case. "She probably just got sidetracked somewhen. It happens. And I think the plan was breakfast, for now."

With that she went over to her sister and started shaking her. "Come on, wake up or you're gonna miss the food!" Ildela however remained stubbornly asleep, not even stirring. Kethara shook her a bit harder, then when she continued to get no results gave up. "Fine then, go hungry", she said flatly, before going over to the elf and looking up at him. "Can I have pancakes?", she asked in that innocent tone of voice that only a child can produce.

Kethara did little, murmuring something about 'five more minutes' and rolling over at first. Further shaking produced better results. "Ok, Ok. I'm up already. What the hell's so damned important?"

Some short while of explanations later she answered negative, she can't do the whole time travel bit on her own. Or if she can, she doesn't know how. This of course prompting the request to get her mother back, to which she answered she could try. Which she did, pulling out from one of her pockets a device that resembled an Ouroboros portal, sort of. Heavily modified at least, if not merely coincidentally similar in appearance. She simply pressed a series of buttons on it, then put it back in her pocket.

...and nothing happened. "Huh. Guess she's busy", Kethara commented. "Give her a bit, she'll show up eventually." Exactly how a time traveller could be 'busy' enough to not be able to come to the exact moment the signal was sent, she didn't say.

Though there were at least two people who did know such a thing right there, she got no answer from either of them. The reason of course being that they were both still asleep. One more deeply than the other. Ildela was still out cold from her experiences the previous day, and probably nothing short of a sizable explosion right next to her was going to change that. Kethara on the other hand was stirring, the noise of the rest of them discussing everything very nearly waking her up.

Regardless, one or other of them was going to have to be woken up and talked to if they wanted to get Paxtera back to the here and now. Because she didn't seem to be around anywhere.

Having been nearly killed, Ildela was much the same. She slept like the dead. At some point in the night she seemed to have returned to her original demonic looking form, and now slept with her head laying on one arm and her wings wrapped around her for warmth. A spade-tipped tail flicked about randomly behind her, presumably in response to whatever she was dreaming about

Kethara meanwhile slept a little less soundly but still soundly enough, laying on her back with one arm draped across herself. Though she did appear to be sleeping on the ground, rather than in the bed she'd been provided. Apparently she'd rolled off it at some point and it hadn't woken her up.

Paxtera, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen.

Flaming or not, this is a fairly good point. A suggestion though... what if we lowered that 95% to say 90% instead in exchange for these grazing hits?

You know, I think there's potential for a whole new defensive mechanic there.

Just for reference, the term you're looking for is 'hive mind', I think. Aside from that, sounds like a good idea to me. But yeah, like you said DA first please. And some content for villains either before or in between the two revamps.

E: Or some content for villains IN the revamps! Always thought that Arachnos base in faultline was a missed opportunity, personally.

"Sorry... Price of shapeshifting", Ildela replied sleepily, having been oddly silent as the... whatever he was, he certainly wasn't an elf... healed her. "I'm complicated", she added before promptly passing out.

"In more ways than one...", her mother agreed, before turning to the apparent spirit. "And thanks for the offer. Running on no sleep for weeks at a time always makes us a little sloppy, and it'd seem that around here, being sloppy gets people killed." She knelt down and gathered Ildela into her arms, before turning back to the spirit with a thankful look. She said nothing of it, however. Nothing needed to be said.

In response Ildela rolled over, prompting a pained wince as the cut on her back contacted grass, dirt, and other such things usually deemed bad near open wounds. "Next time, you can find your own damn city", she commented, before starting to struggle to her feet and promptly collapsing back to the ground. "Ok... guess I'll just lie here a while then."

Meanwhile her mother and sister rushed to her side with much the same speed as Jade, ending up on either side of the dragon. Paxtera took one look and knew her own meager healing abilities wouldn't be near enough, so instead she looked around for the closest elf - Cerelassion, probably. "Do you have any healers? Because she needs one", she asked him.

And after some few minutes of sitting there against the wall thinking about it, she still didn't see any other options. Well, none that involved her staying here and actually achieving anything meaningful. She did have an idea for a shortcut back to the forest though. Namely by the use of a certain little widget her more technology minded friends had given her. But could she convince it to go where she wanted?

Welp, one way to find out. Sticking a hand into a pocket, she pulled out a relatively nondescript little gizmo. If one hadn't already known it was a teleporter, that almost certainly wouldn't have been their first guess. But regardless, that was what it was. Thus, Ildela did her best to aim it at the Elven forest and started channeling energy into it. Over such a distance it required a sizable amount of power, certainly enough that the Reaver would detect it if it were still hanging around. Should it do so but take more than about fifteen seconds to arrive on the scene though, all it would find would be a rapidly dissipating portal.

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"True...", Paxtera replied, sounding unconvinced. "But given their stated unreliability, we would rather not trust them to do so if we can avoid it. And-" And what would likely never be found out, as the peacebringer spun around to glare at a seemingly innocuous patch of grass. "What is it with interruptions today?", she demanded irritably.

Exactly who or what she was addressing became obvious not a moment later, as the space above the aforementioned patch of grass seemed to rip open. Literally a tear in the fabric of space-time, and by the looks of it it was anything but stable. Something inside flashed angrily, and the tear belched several of what appeared to be bolts of lightning before roughly ejecting a humanoid form and snapping shut again with a gunshot-like crack.

The humanoid form in question hit the ground headfirst, bouncing once before coming to a decidedly undignified halt facedown in the grass. Once it stopped moving, it was easily recognisable as Ildela. "Ow", the stalker commented bluntly, not moving. Her hair and clothes appeared to be smoking, and of course there was that gash across her back from her fight with the Reaver. "Yeah... I don't think it's supposed to do that", the stalker added, still not moving.