Iryla sighs heavily when she is left alone with… Wolfe. It was clear that both he and Astrid were panicking, trying to cover their asses so to speak. Well, maybe Astrid was panicking a bit more than her melting friend, not that Iryla could really blame her.

It’s a small comfort when they come up with a plan to keep him from going all gooey down the side of this mountain. At the very least, even if this didn’t make any sense, they had that going for them.

…

By the gods, this was insane.

The half-elf doesn’t even comment on the 12 year old sprouting wings and flying up above them. Instead, she occupies her time by helping to bandage the gaps in Wolfe’s armor to keep him from leaking much more than he already had.

“So, at the very least, will you tell me your actual name? Because Astrid almost kept calling you by whatever it is, and it’d probably just be easier if she called you that instead.” There’s a hint of a wry tone to her voice. Despite everything, she was trying her best to take this all in stride.

Blue Raspberry wrapped the bandages around their armor with Iryla's help, trying to stem the flow of the leaking runoff. Soon, they looked like a misshapen mummy, the bandages overtop of the metal plates giving them a lumpy, bulky appearance. The bandages were slowly stained blue around the knight's joints. Their hands at least didn't need so much wrapping, as the ooze remembered a pair of leather gloves they had swallowed a while ago that fit overtop the metal gauntlets.

"I guess it's okay. Astrid was trying not to call me Blue Raspberry. That's probably my actual name. It's what people called me when I was born, right? I just started calling myself Wolfe instead because everyone always said Blue Raspberry was a weird name. Like, apparently raspberries aren't even blue! Did you know that?"

Blue Raspberry looked at their wrapped up form, flexing their fingers and stepping awkwardly with their feet in buckets. They felt a bit cramped. It wasn't as if the space inside the armor had gotten smaller, but now there was no way for their ooze to seep out of the armor like they were used to being able to. They would have a difficult time using their abilities like this.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know I'd start melting like this... I don't know how much help I'll be if we fight anything..." they mumbled apologetically.

After a few moments, Astrid returns and lands heavily. A cloud of ash explodes beneath her boots, and she wafts it away from her face with a cough. To her both surprise and delight, Iryla and Blue Raspberry are not at odds with each other, and Blue Raspberry seems to... be holding it together. 

"Well," she says a bit anxiously, clearing her throat of ash. "Looks like ya've got yerself sorted out mostly." Looking up toward the top of the mountain, Astrid motions along the path. "There's a camp on the other side of the... um... what's the top called? Er, it don't matter. There's a camp up at the top. Didn't see any creatures wanderin' around, so it'll probably be an alright climb. I've got a grapplin' hook if we need it, and B- Wolfe's got whatever they can keep in their special.. um... pockets! Aye, their special pockets."

Iryla doesn't seem to believe Astrid, but then again, the older half-elf is hard to read. "Um... yer... not gonna tell no one about them, right?" Astrid asks cautiously. One finger hesitantly points towards the ooze trying not to seep out of the seams. "Cause if ya do, the researcher won't be the only person gone missin' on the mountain!" She tries her best to sound intimidating, but honestly, she probably couldn't bring herself to do that to Iryla. It'd be pretty bad for her. Also she'd feel bad. 

Blue Raspberry, huh?

“To tell you the truth, I’ve never even had a raspberry. You could have told me they were always blue, and I probably would believe you.” She replied, a bit of wryness in her voice. “Fruit and berries have been out of my budget for a long time.” These days she could probably afford to go to a market and look around for a raspberry, maybe try to find out what color they really were, but that would be an adventure for later. Perhaps after they all made it back to Darkveil whole and unsinged.

She sighs when Blue Raspberry apologizes for the situation. “It’s alright; I can’t imagine it’s exactly pleasant to start melting anyway. I am a bit confused, but it’s not your fault.” The half-elf tried to console him, surprisingly accepting of the situation at hand. But Wolfe, or Blue Raspberry, or whatever he wanted to be called, was a nice enough guy. He had given her a pair of socks. Though Iryla was unnerved by whatever was going on with him, she didn’t feel like he was going to be a danger to her because of it.

“Hopefully, we won’t be fighting anything. There isn’t much up on this mountainside to begin with. Unless there are some very reckless bandits up here that have kidnapped our researcher, I think we’ll be fine.”

Iryla looks up with a start when Astrid lands nearby them. She listens and nods as Astrid explains what she saw. Then, she raises a very unimpressed eyebrow at the younger girl’s attempt at a threat.

“I know how to keep a secret, don’t worry. Wolfe, or Blue Raspberry, has been nothing but nice to me. I am certainly surprised by the melting thing, but as long as you two aren’t trying to stab me in the back and dump my body in the lava, I don’t really care what you are.”

Perhaps that was a bit blunt, but it was true. Iryla wouldn’t sell out people who had been kind to her, even if others in the city might.

Kindness was a rare thing in Iryla’s eyes, though. She could overlook a lot for people who were kind to her.

“We should get going if you both are good to move. Good job spotting that camp, Astrid. It’s a good sign that there are no creatures around. It’ll be safer for us to get there, and it probably means there’s a good chance the researcher is alive.” Or it meant the local wildlife had already consumed his corpse. Either or.

Blue Rasmelty moved to stand between Astrid and Iryla, stepping with their legs held awkwardly far apart to avoid tripping on the buckets their feet were stuck in. They held a hand toward either of them and looked form one to the other. They didn't want the two to fight, though they were mostly concerned about Astrid. Iryla seemed pretty calm and not like she had any plans on attacking them. She'd even helped them wrap themself in bandages to hold themself together.

"It's okay! I trust her. I mean, I already told her my real name and she saw me melting, so there's not much left to hide, right? So you don't have to call me Wolfe." they said while looking toward Astrid before turning to Iryla. "You can just call me Blue."

They put their hands down and faced toward Astrid. "Astrid, I don't know how much of my abilities I can use right now since I can't, um, get out of my armor as well. I mean, with all these bandages and stuff. My special pocket might be kind of hard to pull stuff out of..." Blue Raspberry tried to explain, a bit embarrassed. They didn't want Astrid to have expectations of them on this mission that they couldn't meet right now.

"But, other than that, I'm good to go! See, all wrapped up and not so leaky! Let's get going and find that researcher!"

Little does Iryla know, the hardest thing for Astrid to do in order to carry out her threat was to actually be willing to carry it out. The rest would be a cakewalk. Luckily, it doesn't seem like that will be a problem. She's grateful Iryla seems surprisingly calm about Blue Raspberry's oddness despite... well, their oddness. Astrid looks between the two of them with some relief on her face.

"Well... Good, glad that's settled then!" she says, grinning at them both. "If ya think all the bandages will hold ya together long enough, Blue, we'll get ta the camp, find the guy, and get the heck outta here! Maybe there's a magical ice box at the Rookery we can stow ya in ta solidify ya again."

With that, Astrid turns and continues up the path at a faster pace than before. There's still a bit of ground to cover before they reach the camp, and with Blue Raspberry's state, they'll need to move fast. Nearer the top, where the heat is blistering and the only safety is in the shadow of the rim outside the caldera, Astrid strays from the beaten path, retrieving her grappling hook from inside of Charles' metal backpack container and using it to help the group make their way along the steep incline. She's careful to test each step or use her hammer to pack down a particularly rocky area to make traversing it easier for both Blue Raspberry and Charles. Right now, they're each about as clunky as the other. 

During this process, Astrid sparks up a little bit more conversation with Iryla. She herself doesn't know many other kids, and granted Iryla definitely seemed older than her by at least a few years, but she still finds herself curious about her. The two of them are quite different. "Thanks fer comin' along with us," Astrid says through a puff, packing down a particularly irritating collection of rocks. "Honestly, when I asked, I didn't expect ya ta say yes, but I s'pose ya can't know what someone'll say about somethin' unless ya ask 'em." After getting an adopted father on a dare, she's a bit less worried about asking people for things than she used to be.

Iryla looks over when Astrid begins to speak to her. There’s a bit of sweat beading along Iryla’s brow, and her clothing feels uncomfortably sticky against her back. She was used to the temperatures of the Ash Lands, but this was another level of hot. At least they were making good time to the camp, if they were lucky, they could be off this blasted mountain before dark.

She thinks about what to say while she gingerly steps over rocks and loose debris. It’s a bit of a balancing act to walk around here, though Iryla was light and quick enough on her feet that she never once tripped or felt off balance.¹

“I don’t mind helping people when they ask me to.” She starts off before thinking for another moment and adding on. “To tell you the truth, part of the reason I said yes… Was because of Cyran. He’s been trying to encourage me to make friends more.. My own age, so….” The Half-Elf trails off with a faint embarrassed blush dusting her cheeks.

He really did act just like a father sometimes, and Iryla was still getting used to that. It was nice to have someone look after her, thinking of her best interests. She always worried she wouldn’t be able to meet his expectations, though… So if Cyran wanted her to make friends, she could try.

Besides, Astrid and Blue Raspberry were nice. A bit weird, but nice. She wouldn’t mind being friends with them.

---

^{1. Cat's Grace}

Blue Raspberry clanked along awkwardly, stumbling now and then as they trod across the top of the rocky, uneven caldera. The buckets on their feet slowly filled with more melted blue ooze and their contents sloshed about, sometimes spilling out over the side and dripping on the ground.

Despite the slow pace of the clunky knight, the group was able to steadily move along and they made it to the camp on the opposite side of the volcano fairly uneventfully. Not many creatures found such a hot, dangerous environment to be a suitable habitation. The group came across no dangerous creatures on their journey. The occasional burst of a popping bubble of lava sending some molten droplets raining down nearby were the most dangerous aspects of their adventure so far. Other than the intense heat melting one of them, of course.

Looking around the camp, there was one tent and some tables with equipment of some kind. Some glass bottles and metal contraptions were scattered about. One table had been knocked over by something and its contents strewn across the rocky ground. Broken glass made the ground ever so slightly more treacherous.

Blue Raspberry walked over and picked up a small metal device, turning it over in their hand, examining it curiously. It looked like some kind of tube with glass on either end and some knobs on the sides. They absentmindedly stuck the device into the top of their cuirass as they continued looking around.

"So, where's the researcher...?" they asked, looking at Astrid and Iryla for a moment before picking up more trinkets off the table to snack on.

---

Space Pocket

Hearing Iryla talk about trying to impress Cyran and about trying to make friends makes Astrid's eyes almost sparkle. Could they be friends? Could she have another friend?? That's an exciting thought. Don't push too hard, Astrid. Back off slightly. Nah. "Cyran's a good guy," Astrid says, continuing along the path and being careful of the bubbling lava. "Blue an' I actually brought a gaggle of orphans ta his orphanage a few weeks ago. He was a pretty good sport about it all, considerin' the circumstances."

The half-dwarf looks back at the half-elf with a grin. "Think you and I could be friends after this is done?" Yeah, she couldn't contain the excitement. After all, there's no harm in asking. 

They finally reach the camp and its disarray, and she starts taking a look around. "Somethin' sure did a number on this place," she notes, watching Blue Raspberry just consume whatever suits their fancy. "I'm not sure where they are. They gotta be somewhere nearby, I think." She picks up a journal from its resting place on the ground and flips through it. Inside, it details various observations from the field up here on the side of the caldera. There are drawings of the caldera with a person to scale, various craters and lava pits, and wildlife that manages to call this place its home. No plants though. There's also a mention of something living in the caldera, but the notes don't have any details besides speculations about sounds they occasionally hear especially at night. 

"Hm," she murmurs, tucking the journal into her pouch. "Well, I don't think he's around here. Wonder what happened here, though." Squatting down, Astrid notices some rather large paw prints. Four toes, one main pad, four claws. It seems familiar to her, and when she stands back up, she spots a familiar sight. A hellhound is sniffing around a little way down the trail, appearing to be following their scent. 

"Oi, Spicy!" Astrid calls out, walking out of the camp to meet up with the hound. Its ears perk, and the beast stares at her while she shouts at it. "I thought ya were s'posed ta be back at the Rookery! I know fire's yer thin' an' all, but Gramps is babysittin' ya! C'mere ya lousy pain in the butt." When she gets closer, she notices her hound doesn't have his collar. "Oh, I see. Ya broke yerself free. Were ya that desperate ta come along? Alright, alright, c'mere, c'mere." But the hellhound doesn't approach and instead lowers its head, growling viciously, flames licking out the sides of its mouth. It's at this point Astrid realizes this is not her pet, but a wild hound. 

Uh oh. 

There's some noise from the caldera.

The mention of Cyran and an orphanage distracts her for a moment as Iryla turns to look at Astrid with large eyes. “He has a… what?” She knew that Cyran kept secrets, she did as well, but an orphanage and a gaggle of orphans seemed like a bit.. Well.

It wasn’t Iryla’s place to question him, really. She already knew he had a habit of picking up strays. She was one, after all. Maybe the only reason she didn’t know about his orphanage was because she was far too old to be living in one of those now. That would… Well. If he was running a charity, that would explain a lot of his behavior towards her.

The half-elf wasn’t quite sure why that thought left a bit of a bitter sting in her heart.

“Scratch that, I’m not going to ask too many questions.” She eventually finishes her thought. Then the subject of friends comes up, leaving her once again pausing.

Friends were a relatively new phenomenon for her. On the streets, you didn’t really have those unless you were a fool. “Friends” could easily stab you in the back, after all. Or they could be a liability. There was safety in numbers, sure, but only so long as those numbers were able bodied. And back in the orphanage…

Her time in the orphanage didn’t really bear thinking of.

Things were different now. She wasn’t in the orphanage any longer, and she wasn’t on the streets for that matter either. Where before friends might have betrayed her and left her even worse off than she already was, now she had some safety to fall back on, allies she was confident in (at least a little bit).

Friends…

Friends could be good for her.

“Yeah, we can be friends.” Maybe the side of an active volcano wasn’t the best time and place for this, but it didn’t hurt to try and be friendly, right? “But first, lets find our researcher and get out of here.” The mission had to come first after all, if only because it was hot and gross and Iryla wanted to go home as soon as she could.

Iryla’s eyes are sharp and her feet light as she carefully picks her way through the encampment that Astrid had brought them too. Clearly there had been some kind of struggle here, but carefully taking note of turned over tables and broken glass yields little in the way of clues as to what, exactly, that struggle might have been. It didn’t help that ash from the caldera had already covered what might have been footprints in the area. The hazards of a volcano search and rescue.

“It doesn’t look like he’s been here for quite some time.” Iryla agrees grimly. “But the ash has already covered any tracks we might have followed. We know he’s not back the way we came from, so we may need to check the other path-”

Astrid’s shout cuts her off and Iryla looks up in the direction she seems to be calling. The sight of some hellish dog startles the elven girl, and her hand goes to her dagger by pure instinct. At first, Astrid seems calm and familiar with the beast, but there’s something in it’s stance that has Iryla on edge.

Her nerves seem to be proven correct when the beast growls. Iryla’s hand tightens on her dagger as she draws it out of it’s holster and she drops into a stance, ready to either fight or flee.

Iryla steps forward slowly, placing herself in between the hellhound and the younger girl. A noise from above catches her attention and Iryla curses to herself.

“Well, I think we might have found what chased off our researcher.”

Hopefully he wasn’t dog food.

The hellhound approached slowly, growling menacingly. It took a step forward, its growl rising into a snarl as it glared at Astrid. Its took on a stance that said it was about to charge at the group. But, just as it started to shoot forward, a giant claw snapped shut around it and snatched it away. The hellhound whined an yapped as the claw shot back into the crater and the lava began to bubble violently.

Suddenly, an enormous abomination rose from the caldera. A head and body like that of a seahorse, but covered in a glowing red chiton-like armor shall that faded to a metallic black as it cooled unnaturally fast outside of the molten rock. Boney spikes protruded in a row down its back. On the sides of the torso were two long, shell-covered arms ending with fierce claws like a crab's. An unsettling amount of spiked, pointed crab legs supported the creature, its seahorse tail curled between them. In the center of its torso, an opening like a sideways mouth crunched and slurped in the remains of the unfortunate hellhound. When the last of it was devoured, tentacles began to worm their way from the opening and flail around, flicking  away bits of what might be saliva, possibly lava. Maybe hellhound.

The two protruding eyes looked around in discordant directions, not matching the other at all, until one locked onto the trio standing in the camp below. The other eye rotated to look in the same direction. The monster let out a horrifying, guttural roar as it spotted its next meal.

"Um, what's that?" Blue Raspberry asked calmly, looking at Astrid and pointing a finger at the abomination looming over them.

Having finally accepted that it might be time to swat an evil hound away from her, Astrid draws her hammers. Then Iryla puts herself between the younger girl and the hound, and while Astrid appreciates the gesture, she can handle herself. But really, there isn't enough time to really protest before suddenly the hellhound is snapped up and an enormous abomination of a creature looms over them. 

This thing is terrifying.

"Wh-What is that?" she echoes Blue Raspberry's question. "I-I don't know, but..." Maybe they should run? They could fight it... No, Blue's melting, and she doesn't know what Iryla can do. They're not in a position to fight this. And honestly, it's so horrific that Astrid can't find the confidence to charge at it the way she did a dragon only a few weeks ago. Nope. This is a big fat no. 

The creatures eyes snap to focus on them, and it lets out an awful roar.

Her voice is low at first then grows in intensity. "We...should... RUN!" With that, Astrid grabs Iryla and spins on her heel to push the half-elf along towards the ooze knight. "Go, go, go! Just go! I'll distract it! HURRY UP!" Then Astrid opens her wings and rockets into the sky. "HEY, YA BIG UGLY CRAB BOIL! OVER HERE!" She clangs her hammers together to draw the monster's attention while she flies away from her friends to give them a chance to escape. The abomination roars again, its feet scuttling along the black volcanic rock to turn and follow her movements. 

---

Bat Wings [post 1/3]
Challenging Mark [post 1/4]

What. The. Fuck?

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck- Fuck! Astrid!” What the fuck, Iryla wasn’t sure which development was more shocking. The horrible leviathan of the lava, or the fact that the twelve year old had wings and was currently trying to play hero.

The fact that said twelve year old was also strong enough to send Iryla stumbling nearly into Blue with a simple shove was something Iryla simply did not want to think about.

Not that right now was really time for any sort of thinking to begin with. Chitinous spears scrape against rock as the creature lunges for Astrid in the air, completely ignoring Iryla and Blue Raspberry for now. Astrid was right, they needed to run front this- Whatever it was- but the half-elf could not stop the fear seizing her heart at the sight of that thing setting it’s horrible beady eyes on the younger girl.

But what could Iryla really do? All she had was her daggers and her quick feet. She couldn’t fight something like this, couldn’t fly like Astrid to help protect her.

Iryla was-... Iryla was helpless here, wasn’t she? Worse than helpless, she was useless.

“..Fuck… Come on, Blue! We need to go!” Iryla grabbed onto one of Blue Raspberry’s vambraces as she took off running back down the mountain, gritting her teeth all the while.

Blue Raspberry didn't want to leave Astrid to deal with that monster alone, but their current, melty situation wasn't going to be the most helpful in a fight. They stood, not knowing what to do. Until they felt a tug on their arm and looked to see that it was gone. And Iryla was running away with it, down the side of the mountain and leaving a trail of Blue Raspberry behind her. Well, that didn't help the current situation either! What the heck!

Melted blue ooze leaked from the new opening in Blue Raspberry's armor, splattering on the ground. If they weren't going to be much help in a fight before, now they were going to be even less. They had no choice. They gave Astrid a thumbs up with their remaining arm and started running behind Iryla. Or they would have if the buckets on their feet hadn't made them trip and fall. They started rolling and tumbling down the mountain behind Iryla. Thankfully, they didn't lose any more limbs during their trip.

The horrid volcanic abomination glanced at the two escaping prey, but their attention was forcefully pulled to the flying little one flitting around, their eyes locking onto her. The tail of the giant seahorse bifurcated, a seem opening down the center, and then split into four. A single, long, boney point grew from between the four flaps of metallic, chitinous flesh and dripped with a glowing green liquid. As a drop hit the lava below it, the molten rock sizzled and then instantly solidified before cracking into a hundred pieces and bursting, sending razor sharp shards of obsidian in every direction.

The horrid stinger rose up and lunged for Astrid at the same time as the gigantic crab claws.

It got worse. It got so much worse. How could it get worse?! One hit from that massive stinger would probably be the end for Astrid. Her plan here isn't to fight this thing though. She's faced a dragon. This is an abomination. She is not confident in her ability to fight this thing. And if one of her hammers goes into the lava? She can kiss it goodbye probably. 

No, no, her focus is on distracting this thing for as long as possible while her friends get away. Honestly, the researcher is probably dead. They were probably just a snack for this big ugly bug thing. Its claws snap at her, and she dashes aside with magic to avoid each powerful, thunderous SNAP! The stinger starts striking at her. Nope. Nope!

Oh gods, oh gods, oh Avasha. Grant me the swiftness of yer lightnin'! 

The jumbled, desperate thoughts get interrupted by the sound of metal tumbling down the side of the volcano. Astrid glances away for a second to see her goopy ooze knight best friend helplessly clattering down the volcano like a can dropped down a set of stairs. Each impact leaves a bit of blooze behind. That's bad. That's very bad. 

What's also bad is that Astrid is burning through her magical energy zipping around dodging this awful, awful creature. She could fly up too high for it to reach, but she worries that if she gets too far, the effect of her Mark could fall off. So she grins and bears it. She just has to keep it up long enough for her friends to get to safety! 

---

Bat Wings [post 2/3]
Challenging Mark [post 2/4]