Edit History

The low thrum of the Portal filled the air of the trading post with the smell of ozone, sharp and pungent. Every time one of the Hunters happened to glance at it, it seemed like more and more arcs of 'lightning' danced around it's circumference, and...by all the Powers!...was it getting LARGER?!?

None of the six could be entirely sure at first, but it seemed like, even as they watched, the sparking, humming portal was inching ever so slightly outward with every breath they took.

Unfortunately, other events necessitated that they not pay as much attention to the clearly dangerous phenomenon as they might otherwise like. The Zyclops, having been alerted to their presence, were beginning to react to them...right up until the moment when five of them disappeared from sight. The undead stumbled to a halt, even in the midst of moving, heads swinging this way and that, great flaming eyes searching for their foes.

From within the buildings, the moaning built further, somehow managing to take on an even more ominous air.

After that, several things happened simultaneously.

From his elevated position on the second floor of the boarding house, Yukito surveyed the area. Choosing his landing spot, the swordsman flashed down to the street. Only to instantly double over in pain. Waves of agony flooded his body, and it felt like his every nerve ending was dipped in acid. Looking on in horrid fascination, he could see parts of his body flickering, as though some bits had been left behind, only to reappear, each such flicker causing fresh new hell to erupt across his body. The effects lasted for only a second or two, but felt like it lasted far, far longer, and when he finally, fully snapped back to reality, his entire body was drenched in sweat...and, even worse, the cherry on his cigarette seemed to have gone out...in fact, fully half of the small white cylinder was completely missing.

Gritting his teeth, the Hunter took a moment to get his bearings. Spotting one of the Zyclops close by, ironically, on the stairs attached to the outside of the building he had just been in, he whipped out his blade and sent a lance of force leaping across the distance and slamming into the nearest cyclops, a female townie, who appeared to be wearing the garb of a cook, including a rather nice flowered apron. The apron, despite the bright, cheery sun embroidered on it, did nothing to stop the wave of numbing cold that struck it's wearer. The initial force of the 'slice' tore open the woman's chest, allowing the bone-chilling cold to slam into her torso. Frost immediately covered her entire upper body, seeming to dig right into her bones. Horrific snapping and cracking sounds filled the air as several of her ribs shattered, and one of her arms snapped completely off at the shoulder from the pressure wave of the attack. The flames that made up her eye seemed to dim momentarily, but quickly built back up once more, even as she howled in response to the damage.

Spurred on by his action, and being the only one of the Hunters she could currently see, the Zyclops immediately charged down the stairs she stood on, her eye blazing and her mien a twisted snarl. She only managed a few steps, however, before a second blast of raw cold slammed into her, slicing her giant body in twain and sending the two halves tumbling down the stairs, one after the other, to land in a bloody, ichorous, frozen heap on the ground.

Nivel, after getting his own bearings, as well as having consulted with his comrades, caused a massive Black Dragon to suddenly appeared in their midst, seeming to come straight out of the Portal as well. The huge beast raised it's head to the sky and gave a massive, earth shuddering roar, then began glaring around at the, comparatively, puny beings that dared to threaten it. Mantling it's powerful wings, the dragon opened it's maw, prepared to spew a rain of ichorous death all about it...

...unfortunately, it was in that instant that the rapidly lashing tail of Nivel's 'pet' impacted with the outermost edge of the slowly expanding Portal. A high pitched SHRIEK echoed around the area, startling all of the living occupants, and the dragon disappeared in a huge burst of light, appearing to have not so much been Dispelled, as magically shredded. Even as the construct of light, shadows, and mana evaporated into the aether, a small spark of energy leapt from the core of the disappearing dragon, flowed around the edge of the portal, then leapt, like a bolt of ebon lightning, straight to the illusion's originator, striking him, not in the chest, but deep within, seemingly drawn straight to his magical core!

Nivel gasped involuntarily as PAIN rocked his entire being, pain somehow even worse than that he experienced when passing through the portal originally. A shivering, muscle jumping shudder wracked his body from head to toe, before seemingly grounding out and leaving his body. The experience left him profoundly shaken and disturbed, and he could still feel small tremors of pain running through his magical core.

Even as the Mistsoul bound assassin was dealing with the physical and magical aftershocks, Monique, recovering from her impromptu Human Bowling demonstration of a few seconds ago, gathered herself and teleported closer to her compatriots...only to immediately double over, clutching her stomach as waves of pain poured through her, as she suffered the same awful agony that Yukito had just experienced. Like him, the experienced Huntress managed to fight through the pain and focus enough to cast the spells needed to aid her compatriots, but it was neither easy nor pleasant.

Cal, after giving himself a shake to rid himself of the bark and splinters pressed into his back, sent another ray of pure, positive energy lancing into the already damaged Zyclops. The flaming thing that had once been a female Cyclops screeched, a high, sharp steamwhistle-like sound, then collapsed, seeming to fold in on itself. Even as he turned away to greet his compatriots, the large pile of former Cyclops continued to merrily burn, emitting a foul, noisome smoke.

Blaidd, after shifting into his huge combat form, danced forward, slashing at the Zyclops in front of him. His claws sunk deeply into the monstrosity, tearing away a large portion of it's back and at least one rib. He was just raising his other clawed hand for a second strike, when, from deep within the body of the undead, pitch-black flames came ravening out of it's body. The flames raced up his clawed fingers, swiftly encased his arm in a sheath of fire, then just as quickly sputtered out. The giant Hunter staggered back a couple of steps, mentally reevaluating this new tactical information.

Devlin, moving across the battlefield, left a nasty surprise on the doors of the small chapel, then moved into the center of the road and flung a pair of even nastier concoctions towards the two Zyclops who stood on the balcony, overlooking the street. Both spheres arced gracefully through the air and unerringly impacted on the chest of the male Zyclops. A burst of heat/light/fire surrounded the two undead and sent both staggering. The electricity generated by the alchemical mixture chewed through their bodies, causing them to twitch and spasm uncontrollably. Unfortunately, it seems that whatever the source of their resistance to flame, whether that be the innate toughness leftover from their Cyclopean origins, or some mystical defense that the nullsteel couldn't manage to dispel, the flaming napalm simply cascaded down their bodies, failing to gain purchase, and pooled at their feet.

On the other hand, it did manage to cause the old, dry wood of the balcony, now heaving damaged and splintered by the concussive force of his flashbangs, to begin to smolder quite nicely.

Of note, however, was that, once the electricity stopped causing involuntary spasms in the two Zyclops, they both completely stopped moving. From what the scholar could tell, they weren't howling anymore either, merely standing, stock still, in the exact same position they'd ended after their bout with electrocution.

While he went about his deadly business, the temporal wanderer's finger brushed one of the sapphires on his bracelet, causing it to instantly crumble to dust in it's setting (OOC: Make a note on your sheet/OOC/somewhere that you've used one of the sapphires, please. ). For a moment after passing on his message, Devlin received no reply, only the rather ominous sound of silence...

...And then a half frantic voice burst through, echoing unpleasantly through the entire link. Cryoleptus' voice sounded oddly distorted, and the communication was filled with an unpleasant hissing, popping noise (OOC: Literally sounds just like radio static).

"...till alive? Thank...e to a...he Powers! Ther...s a massiv...xplosio...is end. Thoug...u were dead! ...tting interfer...is end. Hol...n!"

The Vizier's voice goes silent for a moment, then almost immediately comes back, stronger than before, though still plagued by the hissing noise. "Can you hear me now? Dont speak, just listen, all of you. Hardblade is channeling her magic to me, but she's wounded...all of us are. There was a massive explosion on this end just after you stepped through, and the Portal is badly damaged. Two of the other anchors are dead, killed when they tried to shield the rest of us."

He paused, seeming to take a mental breath, then continued rapidly. "The portal is rapidly decaying, and as best I can tell, it's going to break, catastrophically, very soon. Likely, you have less than a minute to get as far away as you can. I recommend you get at least a furlong away, possibly farther. DO NOT, whatever you do, teleport out. One of the anchors tried that, and the magical backlash nearly stopped his heart. What? What's that? Ok, ok...dammit! Sorry, we have to go. We're evacuating the Guildhouse as well. The Portal is going completely unstable, and I dont know if we can stop it! Just get out of the immediate vicinity, and contact us again in one hour. If we dont hear from you, we'll assume you didn't make it, and that the mission is a failure. If you cant contact us, assume the same. Go, with The Lady's blessing."

A second voice, that of Hardblade, rough and clearly in pain, joined the link for a moment. "Stay alive, my Hunters, whatever you have to do. Hunters, Hunt!"

With those words, the connection was broken and silence filled all of their minds.

At the exact same instant, within the center of the sphere circle that defined the portal, a large, night black sphere, appeared. It was roughly the size of a melon, and it's entire surface was surrounded by what appeared to be a flowing, swirling cloud of glass-like shards...shards just as black and impenetrable as the sphere itself.

At the same time, every instinct gained over a long and storied career, from dangers faced and monsters overcome, began screaming at the Hunters. Whatever that sphere was, it was absolutely, immensely, deadly dangerous.

For two of their number, however, it was even more ominous than that.

For Devlin, it was as though a tear had appeared in the fabric of space-time. He could literally see a swirling vortex of temporal power surrounding the black sphere. Whatever the glass-like shards were, they were spinning about on winds spun from Time itself.

For Monique, it was like looking at a manifestation of her deity, only one seen through a funhouse mirror. All the energies of Life and Death swirled around the sphere, coalesced into physical form, and represented as the shards of 'glass'. As for the sphere itself...somewhere deep within her, at the point where her soul ended and her connection with the divine spark began, a tiny, voiceless voice was telling her that the sphere was pure, congealed, quintessence. The raw stuff of Fate.

Unfortunately, none of them were given much time to deliberate the ramifications of this new danger as, not only did the Zyclops they could see begin to mount a counterattack, but several of the storefonts that surrounded them began to disgorge even more of their one-eyed, undead foes.

Large zombies poured from several buildings, some using doorways, some simply charging straight through the damaged walls.  And despite Nivel's best efforts, and impressive magic, it seemed that somehow, someway, and despite the fact that just a few seconds ago they were clearly casting about blindly to spot the Hunters, the Zyclops were now heading unerringly towards their chosen targets.

From out of the bottom floor of the building he had landed in, Yukito spotted a pair of Zyclops crashing out through the large, gallery windows, seemingly heading for his companions. Both were dressed like typical townsfolk, and a certain similarity of dress indicated that they were probably employed by the boarding house. He spotted the woman first and managed to get off a strike at her, removing one of her arms and slashing deeply into her side. The male of the two also moved into range and was similarly slashed, but both were almost immediately out of range. All was not lost, however...more 'friends' had arrived.

From the other nearby building, another Zyclops emerged, this one dressed in homespun and carrying a walking staff that look like it was carved from a fairly large tree. He was far enough away that the swordsman was able to make quick work of him, since he actually exited through the door on the north side of the building. However, while dealing with the shepherd, two much more serious foes presented themselves. One came crashing through the nearby wall, a tall, broad shouldered specimen of Zyclops, clad neck to knees in thick, soot-stained leather, and bearing a positively huge hammer. His bald head, as well as a pattern of burn scars on his forearms made his profession quite obvious. Yukito lashed out with another of his blasts of frigid power, slashing through the smith's apron and deeply...though not so deeply as he did with the regular townsfolk...into his torso.

The swordsman's final foe was even more fearsome, dressed head to toe in a mix of plate and mail armour, bearing a shield that would have doubled quite nicely as a barn door, and wielding a sword longer than Yukito was tall. Another blast of power left the smoking swordsman, but this one was turned by the mighty shield the Zyclops bore, though it did scar the surface of the metal.

An instant later, both of the still moving Zyclops converged on him, raining blows down with hammer and blade.

The two Zyclops from the boarding house who'd managed to escape Yukito's wrath converged on Nivel, who was still recovering from the assault by the portal. Both swung their huge fists, attempting to emulate a farmer driving a fencepost into the ground...with the assassin substituting for the piece of wood.

At the same time, Devlin was beset by a pair of nattily dressed townsfolk from the building opposite the boarding house. Both appeared to be wearing what probably construed local finery, the woman wearing a soft, cashmere-like sweater, and the man an odd sort of silky doublet. Both their clothes were heavily stained with blood and each sported terrible wounds, but both seemed equally determined to grind the temporal scholar into the dusty roadbed.

Blaidd, who'd pulled back from his initial attack on the cyclops quickly found himself confronted by not only that undead monstrosity, but two others, both of whom simply tore their way through the nearby wall and immediately set about attacking him with fists, or, in the case of the shepherd and smith, a walking staff and hammer, respectively.

A third Zyclops come barreling out from the upper floor, and onto the balcony...whereupon he immediately stopped dead as soon as he entered the cloud of nullmetal infused smoke that hung in the air from Devlin's earlier attack.

Finally, from the north end of the street, a large explosion ripped through the air as another Zyclops exited the chapel, triggering Devlin's trap. The shepherd appeared to be moderately damaged by the blast, and had succumbed to the tripwire, landing in a heap just beyond it. A second later, another Zyclops, another of the armoured ones, came barrelling out, and quickly joined the shepherd on the ground, having fallen to the tripwire as well.

Throughout all the mayhem, the high, keening sound of the Zyclops' wails had been growing and crescendoing until, abruptly, it stopped, filling the air with heavy silence...

...silence that was torn asunder by the sound of splintering, tearing wood, and the high pitched sound of concentrated beams of energy slicing through the air. The roof of the boarding house erupted in a torrent of black flame, and from out of the ensuing chaos arose the absolutely MASSIVE form of a floating, bone white beholder!

The huge beast measured at least twenty feet across, and each of it's eyestalks was at least two yards long. All of them, as well as it's great, central eye, were a pale, corpse-like white, but each burned, deep within, with the same black flame that was mirrored in the eyes of all the Zyclops. It's huge, toothed maw drooled a mixture of dark saliva and runnels of ebon fire, a horrid mixture which almost immediately began to cause the debris underneath it to smoke and sizzle. The Death Orb, for there was no doubt in any of the Hunter's minds that this was anything other than a Death Tyrant Beholder...though one significantly larger and, presumably, more powerful than any seen before...rose in stately, terrifying majesty and swept it's many-eyed gaze across the field of battle...and, again, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that, the great beast could see them all, quite clearly.

The low thrum of the Portal filled the air of the trading post with the smell of ozone, sharp and pungent. Every time one of the Hunters happened to glance at it, it seemed like more and more arcs of 'lightning' danced around it's circumference, and...by all the Powers!...was it getting LARGER?!?

None of the six could be entirely sure at first, but it seemed like, even as they watched, the sparking, humming portal was inching ever so slightly outward with every breath they took.

Unfortunately, other events necessitated that they not pay as much attention to the clearly dangerous phenomenon as they might otherwise like. The Zyclops, having been alerted to their presence, were beginning to react to them...right up until the moment when five of them disappeared from sight. The undead stumbled to a halt, even in the midst of moving, heads swinging this way and that, great flaming eyes searching for their foes.

From within the buildings, the moaning built further, somehow managing to take on an even more ominous air.

After that, several things happened simultaneously.

From his elevated position on the second floor of the boarding house, Yukito surveyed the area. Choosing his landing spot, the swordsman flashed down to the street. Only to instantly double over in pain. Waves of agony flooded his body, and it felt like his every nerve ending was dipped in acid. Looking on in horrid fascination, he could see parts of his body flickering, as though some bits had been left behind, only to reappear, each such flicker causing fresh new hell to erupt across his body. The effects lasted for only a second or two, but felt like it lasted far, far longer, and when he finally, fully snapped back to reality, his entire body was drenched in sweat...and, even worse, the cherry on his cigarette seemed to have gone out...in fact, fully half of the small white cylinder was completely missing.

Gritting his teeth, the Hunter took a moment to get his bearings. Spotting one of the Zyclops close by, ironically, on the stairs attached to the outside of the building he had just been in, he whipped out his blade and sent a lance of force leaping across the distance and slamming into the nearest cyclops, a female townie, who appeared to be wearing the garb of a cook, including a rather nice flowered apron. The apron, despite the bright, cheery sun embroidered on it, did nothing to stop the wave of numbing cold that struck it's wearer. The initial force of the 'slice' tore open the woman's chest, allowing the bone-chilling cold to slam into her torso. Frost immediately covered her entire upper body, seeming to dig right into her bones. Horrific snapping and cracking sounds filled the air as several of her ribs shattered, and one of her arms snapped completely off at the shoulder from the pressure wave of the attack. The flames that made up her eye seemed to dim momentarily, but quickly built back up once more, even as she howled in response to the damage.

Spurred on by his action, and being the only one of the Hunters she could currently see, the Zyclops immediately charged down the stairs she stood on, her eye blazing and her mien a twisted snarl. She only managed a few steps, however, before a second blast of raw cold slammed into her, slicing her giant body in twain and sending the two halves tumbling down the stairs, one after the other, to land in a bloody, ichorous, frozen heap on the ground.

Nivel, after getting his own bearings, as well as having consulted with his comrades, caused a massive Black Dragon to suddenly appeared in their midst, seeming to come straight out of the Portal as well. The huge beast raised it's head to the sky and gave a massive, earth shuddering roar, then began glaring around at the, comparatively, puny beings that dared to threaten it. Mantling it's powerful wings, the dragon opened it's maw, prepared to spew a rain of ichorous death all about it...

...unfortunately, it was in that instant that the rapidly lashing tail of Nivel's 'pet' impacted with the outermost edge of the slowly expanding Portal. A high pitched SHRIEK echoed around the area, startling all of the living occupants, and the dragon disappeared in a huge burst of light, appearing to have not so much been Dispelled, as magically shredded. Even as the construct of light, shadows, and mana evaporated into the aether, a small spark of energy leapt from the core of the disappearing dragon, flowed around the edge of the portal, then leapt, like a bolt of ebon lightning, straight to the illusion's originator, striking him, not in the chest, but deep within, seemingly drawn straight to his magical core!

Nivel gasped involuntarily as PAIN rocked his entire being, pain somehow even worse than that he experienced when passing through the portal originally. A shivering, muscle jumping shudder wracked his body from head to toe, before seemingly grounding out and leaving his body. The experience left him profoundly shaken and disturbed, and he could still feel small tremors of pain running through his magical core.

Even as the Mistsoul bound assassin was dealing with the physical and magical aftershocks, Monique, recovering from her impromptu Human Bowling demonstration of a few seconds ago, gathered herself and teleported closer to her compatriots...only to immediately double over, clutching her stomach as waves of pain poured through her, as she suffered the same awful agony that Yukito had just experienced. Like him, the experienced Huntress managed to fight through the pain and focus enough to cast the spells needed to aid her compatriots, but it was neither easy nor pleasant.

Cal, after giving himself a shake to rid himself of the bark and splinters pressed into his back, sent another ray of pure, positive energy lancing into the already damaged Zyclops. The flaming thing that had once been a female Cyclops screeched, a high, sharp steamwhistle-like sound, then collapsed, seeming to fold in on itself. Even as he turned away to greet his compatriots, the large pile of former Cyclops continued to merrily burn, emitting a foul, noisome smoke.

Blaidd, after shifting into his huge combat form, danced forward, slashing at the Zyclops in front of him. His claws sunk deeply into the monstrosity, tearing away a large portion of it's back and at least one rib. He was just raising his other clawed hand for a second strike, when, from deep within the body of the undead, pitch-black flames came ravening out of it's body. The flames raced up his clawed fingers, swiftly encased his arm in a sheath of fire, then just as quickly sputtered out. The giant Hunter staggered back a couple of steps, mentally reevaluating this new tactical information.

Devlin, moving across the battlefield, left a nasty surprise on the doors of the small chapel, then moved into the center of the road and flung a pair of even nastier concoctions towards the two Zyclops who stood on the balcony, overlooking the street. Both spheres arced gracefully through the air and unerringly impacted on the chest of the male Zyclops. A burst of heat/light/fire surrounded the two undead and sent both staggering. The electricity generated by the alchemical mixture chewed through their bodies, causing them to twitch and spasm uncontrollably. Unfortunately, it seems that whatever the source of their resistance to flame, whether that be the innate toughness leftover from their Cyclopean origins, or some mystical defense that the nullsteel couldn't manage to dispel, the flaming napalm simply cascaded down their bodies, failing to gain purchase, and pooled at their feet.

On the other hand, it did manage to cause the old, dry wood of the balcony, now heaving damaged and splintered by the concussive force of his flashbangs, to begin to smolder quite nicely.

Of note, however, was that, once the electricity stopped causing involuntary spasms in the two Zyclops, they both completely stopped moving. From what the scholar could tell, they weren't howling anymore either, merely standing, stock still, in the exact same position they'd ended after their bout with electrocution.

While he went about his deadly business, the temporal wanderer's finger brushed one of the sapphires on his bracelet, causing it to instantly crumble to dust in it's setting (OOC: Make a note on your sheet/OOC/somewhere that you've used one of the sapphires, please. ). For a moment after passing on his message, Devlin received no reply, only the rather ominous sound of silence...

...And then a half frantic voice burst through, echoing unpleasantly through the entire link. Cryoleptus' voice sounded oddly distorted, and the communication was filled with an unpleasant hissing, popping noise (OOC: Literally sounds just like radio static).

"...till alive? Thank...e to a...he Powers! Ther...s a massiv...xplosio...is end. Thoug...u were dead! ...tting interfer...is end. Hol...n!"

The Vizier's voice goes silent for a moment, then almost immediately comes back, stronger than before, though still plagued by the hissing noise. "Can you hear me now? Dont speak, just listen, all of you. Hardblade is channeling her magic to me, but she's wounded...all of us are. There was a massive explosion on this end just after you stepped through, and the Portal is badly damaged. Two of the other anchors are dead, killed when they tried to shield the rest of us."

He paused, seeming to take a mental breath, then continued rapidly. "The portal is rapidly decaying, and as best I can tell, it's going to break, catastrophically, very soon. Likely, you have less than a minute to get as far away as you can. I recommend you get at least a furlong away, possibly farther. DO NOT, whatever you do, teleport out. One of the anchors tried that, and the magical backlash nearly stopped his heart. What? What's that? Ok, ok...dammit! Sorry, we have to go. We're evacuating the Guildhouse as well. The Portal is going completely unstable, and I dont know if we can stop it! Just get out of the immediate vicinity, and contact us again in one hour. If we dont hear from you, we'll assume you didn't make it, and that the mission is a failure. If you cant contact us, assume the same. Go, with The Lady's blessing."

A second voice, that of Hardblade, rough and clearly in pain, joined the link for a moment. "Stay alive, my Hunters, whatever you have to do. Hunters, Hunt!"

With those words, the connection was broken and silence filled all of their minds.

At the exact same instant, within the center of the sphere circle that defined the portal, a large, night black sphere, appeared. It was roughly the size of a melon, and it's entire surface was surrounded by what appeared to be a flowing, swirling cloud of glass-like shards...shards just as black and impenetrable as the sphere itself.

At the same time, every instinct gained over a long and storied career, from dangers faced and monsters overcome, began screaming at the Hunters. Whatever that sphere was, it was absolutely, immensely, deadly dangerous.

For two of their number, however, it was even more ominous than that.

For Devlin, it was as though a tear had appeared in the fabric of space-time. He could literally see a swirling vortex of temporal power surrounding the black sphere. Whatever the glass-like shards were, they were spinning about on winds spun from Time itself.

For Monique, it was like looking at a manifestation of her deity, only one seen through a funhouse mirror. All the energies of Life and Death swirled around the sphere, coalesced into physical form, and represented as the shards of 'glass'. As for the sphere itself...somewhere deep within her, at the point where her soul ended and her connection with the divine spark began, a tiny, voiceless voice was telling her that the sphere was pure, congealed, quintessence. The raw stuff of Fate.

Unfortunately, none of them were given much time to deliberate the ramifications of this new danger as, not only did the Zyclops they could see begin to mount a counterattack, but several of the storefonts that surrounded them began to disgorge even more of their one-eyed, undead foes.

Large zombies poured from several buildings, some using doorways, some simply charging straight through the damaged walls.  And despite Nivel's best efforts, and impressive magic, it seemed that somehow, someway, and despite the fact that just a few seconds ago they were clearly casting about blindly to spot the Hunters, the Zyclops were now heading unerringly towards their chosen targets.

From out of the bottom floor of the building he had landed in, Yukito spotted a pair of Zyclops crashing out through the large, gallery windows, seemingly heading for his companions. Both were dressed like typical townsfolk, and a certain similarity of dress indicated that they were probably employed by the boarding house. He spotted the woman first and managed to get off a strike at her, removing one of her arms and slashing deeply into her side. The male of the two also moved into range and was similarly slashed, but both were almost immediately out of range. All was not lost, however...more 'friends' had arrived.

From the other nearby building, another Zyclops emerged, this one dressed in homespun and carrying a walking staff that look like it was carved from a fairly large tree. He was far enough away that the swordsman was able to make quick work of him, since he actually exited through the door on the north side of the building. However, while dealing with the shepherd, two much more serious foes presented themselves. One came crashing through the nearby wall, a tall, broad shouldered specimen of Zyclops, clad neck to knees in thick, soot-stained leather, and bearing a positively huge hammer. His bald head, as well as a pattern of burn scars on his forearms made his profession quite obvious. Yukito lashed out with another of his blasts of frigid power, slashing through the smith's apron and deeply...though not so deeply as he did with the regular townsfolk...into his torso.

The swordsman's final foe was even more fearsome, dressed head to toe in a mix of plate and mail armour, bearing a shield that would have doubled quite nicely as a barn door, and wielding a sword longer than Yukito was tall. Another blast of power left the smoking swordsman, but this one was turned by the mighty shield the Zyclops bore, though it did scar the surface of the metal.

An instant later, both of the still moving Zyclops converged on him, raining blows down with hammer and blade.

The two Zyclops from the boarding house who'd managed to escape Yukito's wrath converged on Nivel, who was still recovering from the assault by the portal. Both swung their huge fists, attempting to emulate a farmer driving a fencepost into the ground...with the assassin substituting for the piece of wood.

At the same time, Devlin was beset by a pair of nattily dressed townsfolk from the building opposite the boarding house. Both appeared to be wearing what probably construed local finery, the woman wearing a soft, cashmere-like sweater, and the man an odd sort of silky doublet. Both their clothes were heavily stained with blood and each sported terrible wounds, but both seemed equally determined to grind the temporal scholar into the dusty roadbed.

Blaidd, who'd pulled back from his initial attack on the cyclops quickly found himself confronted by not only that undead monstrosity, but two others, both of whom simply tore their way through the nearby wall and immediately set about attacking him with fists, or, in the case of the shepherd and smith, a walking staff and hammer, respectively.

A third Zyclops come barreling out from the upper floor, and onto the balcony...whereupon he immediately stopped dead as soon as he entered the cloud of nullmetal infused smoke that hung in the air from Devlin's earlier attack.

Finally, from the north end of the street, a large explosion ripped through the air as another Zyclops exited the chapel, triggering Devlin's trap. The shepherd appeared to be moderately damaged by the blast, and had succumbed to the tripwire, landing in a heap just beyond it. A second later, another Zyclops, another of the armoured ones, came barrelling out, and quickly joined the shepherd on the ground, having fallen to the tripwire as well.

Throughout all the mayhem, the high, keening sound of the Zyclops' wails had been growing and crescendoing until, abruptly, it stopped, filling the air with heavy silence...

...silence that was torn asunder by the sound of splintering, tearing wood, and the high pitched sound of concentrated beams of energy slicing through the air. The roof of the boarding house erupted in a torrent of black flame, and from out of the ensuing chaos arose the absolutely MASSIVE form of a floating, bone white beholder!

The huge beast measured at least twenty feet across, and each of it's eyestalks was at least two yards long. All of them, as well as it's great, central eye, were a pale, corpse-like white, but each burned, deep within, with the same black flame that was mirrored in the eyes of all the Zyclops. It's huge, toothed maw drooled a mixture of dark saliva and runnels of ebon fire, a horrid mixture which almost immediately began to cause the debris underneath it to smoke and sizzle. The Death Orb, for there was no doubt in any of the Hunter's minds that this was anything other than a Death Kiss Beholder...though one significantly larger and, presumably, more powerful than any seen before, rise in stately, terrifying majesty and swept it's many-eyed gaze across the field of battle...and, again, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that, the great beast could see them all.

The low thrum of the Portal filled the air of the trading post with the smell of ozone, sharp and pungent. Every time one of the Hunters happened to glance at it, it seemed like more and more arcs of 'lightning' danced around it's circumference, and...by all the Powers!...was it getting LARGER?!?

None of the six could be entirely sure at first, but it seemed like, even as they watched, the sparking, humming portal was inching ever so slightly outward with every breath they took.

Unfortunately, other events necessitated that they not pay as much attention to the clearly dangerous phenomenon as they might otherwise like. The Zyclops, having been alerted to their presence, were beginning to react to them...right up until the moment when five of them disappeared from sight. The undead stumbled to a halt, even in the midst of moving, heads swinging this way and that, great flaming eyes searching for their foes.

From within the buildings, the moaning built further, somehow managing to take on an even more ominous air.

After that, several things happened simultaneously.

From his elevated position on the second floor of the boarding house, Yukito surveyed the area. Choosing his landing spot, the swordsman flashed down to the street. Only to instantly double over in pain. Waves of agony flooded his body, and it felt like his every nerve ending was dipped in acid. Looking on in horrid fascination, he could see parts of his body flickering, as though some bits had been left behind, only to reappear, each such flicker causing fresh new hell to erupt across his body. The effects lasted for only a second or two, but felt like it lasted far, far longer, and when he finally, fully snapped back to reality, his entire body was drenched in sweat...and, even worse, the cherry on his cigarette seemed to have gone out...in fact, fully half of the small white cylinder was completely missing.

Gritting his teeth, the Hunter took a moment to get his bearings. Spotting one of the Zyclops close by, ironically, on the stairs attached to the outside of the building he had just been in, he whipped out his blade and sent a lance of force leaping across the distance and slamming into the nearest cyclops, a female townie, who appeared to be wearing the garb of a cook, including a rather nice flowered apron. The apron, despite the bright, cheery sun embroidered on it, did nothing to stop the wave of numbing cold that struck it's wearer. The initial force of the 'slice' tore open the woman's chest, allowing the bone-chilling cold to slam into her torso. Frost immediately covered her entire upper body, seeming to dig right into her bones. Horrific snapping and cracking sounds filled the air as several of her ribs shattered, and one of her arms snapped completely off at the shoulder from the pressure wave of the attack. The flames that made up her eye seemed to dim momentarily, but quickly built back up once more, even as she howled in response to the damage.

Spurred on by his action, and being the only one of the Hunters she could currently see, the Zyclops immediately charged down the stairs she stood on, her eye blazing and her mien a twisted snarl. She only managed a few steps, however, before a second blast of raw cold slammed into her, slicing her giant body in twain and sending the two halves tumbling down the stairs, one after the other, to land in a bloody, ichorous, frozen heap on the ground.

Nivel, after getting his own bearings, as well as having consulted with his comrades, caused a massive Black Dragon to suddenly appeared in their midst, seeming to come straight out of the Portal as well. The huge beast raised it's head to the sky and gave a massive, earth shuddering roar, then began glaring around at the, comparatively, puny beings that dared to threaten it. Mantling it's powerful wings, the dragon opened it's maw, prepared to spew a rain of ichorous death all about it...

...unfortunately, it was in that instant that the rapidly lashing tail of Nivel's 'pet' impacted with the outermost edge of the slowly expanding Portal. A high pitched SHRIEK echoed around the area, startling all of the living occupants, and the dragon disappeared in a huge burst of light, appearing to have not so much been Dispelled, as magically shredded. Even as the construct of light, shadows, and mana evaporated into the aether, a small spark of energy leapt from the core of the disappearing dragon, flowed around the edge of the portal, then leapt, like a bolt of ebon lightning, straight to the illusion's originator, striking him, not in the chest, but deep within, seemingly drawn straight to his magical core!

Nivel gasped involuntarily as PAIN rocked his entire being, pain somehow even worse than that he experienced when passing through the portal originally. A shivering, muscle jumping shudder wracked his body from head to toe, before seemingly grounding out and leaving his body. The experience left him profoundly shaken and disturbed, and he could still feel small tremors of pain running through his magical core.

Even as the Mistsoul bound assassin was dealing with the physical and magical aftershocks, Monique, recovering from her impromptu Human Bowling demonstration of a few seconds ago, gathered herself and teleported closer to her compatriots...only to immediately double over, clutching her stomach as waves of pain poured through her, as she suffered the same awful agony that Yukito had just experienced. Like him, the experienced Huntress managed to fight through the pain and focus enough to cast the spells needed to aid her compatriots, but it was neither easy nor pleasant.

Cal, after giving himself a shake to rid himself of the bark and splinters pressed into his back, sent another ray of pure, positive energy lancing into the already damaged Zyclops. The flaming thing that had once been a female Cyclops screeched, a high, sharp steamwhistle-like sound, then collapsed, seeming to fold in on itself. Even as he turned away to greet his compatriots, the large pile of former Cyclops continued to merrily burn, emitting a foul, noisome smoke.

Blaidd, after shifting into his huge combat form, danced forward, slashing at the Zyclops in front of him. His claws sunk deeply into the monstrosity, tearing away a large portion of it's back and at least one rib. He was just raising his other clawed hand for a second strike, when, from deep within the body of the undead, pitch-black flames came ravening out of it's body. The flames raced up his clawed fingers, swiftly encased his arm in a sheath of fire, then just as quickly sputtered out. The giant Hunter staggered back a couple of steps, mentally reevaluating this new tactical information.

Devlin, moving across the battlefield, left a nasty surprise on the doors of the small chapel, then moved into the center of the road and flung a pair of even nastier concoctions towards the two Zyclops who stood on the balcony, overlooking the street. Both spheres arced gracefully through the air and unerringly impacted on the chest of the male Zyclops. A burst of heat/light/fire surrounded the two undead and sends both staggering. The electricity generated by the alchemical mixture chewed through their bodies, causing them to twitch and spasm uncontrollably. Unfortunately, it seems that whatever the source of their resistance to flame, whether that be the innate toughness leftover from their Cyclopean origins, or some mystical defense that the nullsteel couldn't manage to dispel, the flaming napalm simply cascaded down their bodies, failing to gain purchase, and pooled at their feet.

On the other hand, it did manage to cause the old, dry wood of the balcony, now heaving damaged and splintered by the concussive force of his flashbangs, to begin to smolder quite nicely.

Of note, however, was that, once the electricity stopped causing involuntary spasms in the two Zyclops, they both completely stopped moving. From what the scholar could tell, they weren't howling anymore either, merely standing, stock still, in the exact same position they'd ended after their bout with electrocution.

While he went about his deadly business, the temporal wanderer's finger brushed one of the sapphires on his bracelet, causing it to instantly crumble to dust in it's setting (OOC: Make a note on your sheet/OOC/somewhere that you've used one of the sapphires, please. ). For a moment after passing on his message, Devlin received no reply, only the rather ominous sound of silence...

...And then a half frantic voice burst through, echoing unpleasantly through the entire link. Cryoleptus' voice sounded oddly distorted, and the communication was filled with an unpleasant hissing, popping noise (OOC: Literally sounds just like radio static).

"...till alive? Thank...e to a...he Powers! Ther...s a massiv...xplosio...is end. Thoug...u were dead! ...tting interfer...is end. Hol...n!"

The Vizier's voice goes silent for a moment, then almost immediately comes back, stronger than before, though still plagued by the hissing noise. "Can you hear me now? Dont speak, just listen, all of you. Hardblade is channeling her magic to me, but she's wounded...all of us are. There was a massive explosion on this end just after you stepped through, and the Portal is badly damaged. Two of the other anchors are dead, killed when they tried to shield the rest of us."

He paused, seeming to take a mental breath, then continued rapidly. "The portal is rapidly decaying, and as best I can tell, it's going to break, catastrophically, very soon. Likely, you have less than a minute to get as far away as you can. I recommend you get at least a furlong away, possibly farther. DO NOT, whatever you do, teleport out. One of the anchors tried that, and the magical backlash nearly stopped his heart. What? What's that? Ok, ok...dammit! Sorry, we have to go. We're evacuating the Guildhouse as well. The Portal is going completely unstable, and I dont know if we can stop it! Just get out of the immediate vicinity, and contact us again in one hour. If we dont hear from you, we'll assume you didn't make it, and that the mission is a failure. If you cant contact us, assume the same. Go, with The Lady's blessing."

A second voice, that of Hardblade, rough and clearly in pain, joined the link for a moment. "Stay alive, my Hunters, whatever you have to do. Hunters, Hunt!"

With those words, the connection was broken and silence filled all of their minds.

At the exact same instant, within the center of the sphere circle that defined the portal, a large, night black sphere, appeared. It was roughly the size of a melon, and it's entire surface was surrounded by what appeared to be a flowing, swirling cloud of glass-like shards...shards just as black and impenetrable as the sphere itself.

At the same time, every instinct gained over a long and storied career, from dangers faced and monsters overcome, began screaming at the Hunters. Whatever that sphere was, it was absolutely, immensely, deadly dangerous.

For two of their number, however, it was even more ominous than that.

For Devlin, it was as though a tear had appeared in the fabric of space-time. He could literally see a swirling vortex of temporal power surrounding the black sphere. Whatever the glass-like shards were, they were spinning about on winds spun from Time itself.

For Monique, it was like looking at a manifestation of her deity, only one seen through a funhouse mirror. All the energies of Life and Death swirled around the sphere, coalesced into physical form, and represented as the shards of 'glass'. As for the sphere itself...somewhere deep within her, at the point where her soul ended and her connection with the divine spark began, a tiny, voiceless voice was telling her that the sphere was pure, congealed, quintessence. The raw stuff of Fate.

Unfortunately, none of them were given much time to deliberate the ramifications of this new danger as, not only did the Zyclops they could see begin to mount a counterattack, but several of the storefonts that surrounded them began to disgorge even more of their one-eyed, undead foes.

Large zombies poured from several buildings, some using doorways, some simply charging straight through the damaged walls.  And despite Nivel's best efforts, and impressive magic, it seemed that somehow, someway, and despite the fact that just a few seconds ago they were clearly casting about blindly to spot the Hunters, the Zyclops were now heading unerringly towards their chosen targets.

From out of the bottom floor of the building he had landed in, Yukito spotted a pair of Zyclops crashing out through the large, gallery windows, seemingly heading for his companions. Both were dressed like typical townsfolk, and a certain similarity of dress indicated that they were probably employed by the boarding house. He spotted the woman first and managed to get off a strike at her, removing one of her arms and slashing deeply into her side. The male of the two also moved into range and was similarly slashed, but both were almost immediately out of range. All was not lost, however...more 'friends' had arrived.

From the other nearby building, another Zyclops emerged, this one dressed in homespun and carrying a walking staff that look like it was carved from a fairly large tree. He was far enough away that the swordsman was able to make quick work of him, since he actually exited through the door on the north side of the building. However, while dealing with the shepherd, two much more serious foes presented themselves. One came crashing through the nearby wall, a tall, broad shouldered specimen of Zyclops, clad neck to knees in thick, soot-stained leather, and bearing a positively huge hammer. His bald head, as well as a pattern of burn scars on his forearms made his profession quite obvious. Yukito lashed out with another of his blasts of frigid power, slashing through the smith's apron and deeply...though not so deeply as he did with the regular townsfolk...into his torso.

The swordsman's final foe was even more fearsome, dressed head to toe in a mix of plate and mail armour, bearing a shield that would have doubled quite nicely as a barn door, and wielding a sword longer than Yukito was tall. Another blast of power left the smoking swordsman, but this one was turned by the mighty shield the Zyclops bore, though it did scar the surface of the metal.

An instant later, both of the still moving Zyclops converged on him, raining blows down with hammer and blade.

The two Zyclops from the boarding house who'd managed to escape Yukito's wrath converged on Nivel, who was still recovering from the assault by the portal. Both swung their huge fists, attempting to emulate a farmer driving a fencepost into the ground...with the assassin substituting for the piece of wood.

At the same time, Devlin was beset by a pair of nattily dressed townsfolk from the building opposite the boarding house. Both appeared to be wearing what probably construed local finery, the woman wearing a soft, cashmere-like sweater, and the man an odd sort of silky doublet. Both their clothes were heavily stained with blood and each sported terrible wounds, but both seemed equally determined to grind the temporal scholar into the dusty roadbed.

Blaidd, who'd pulled back from his initial attack on the cyclops quickly found himself confronted by not only that undead monstrosity, but two others, both of whom simply tore their way through the nearby wall and immediately set about attacking him with fists, or, in the case of the shepherd and smith, a walking staff and hammer, respectively.

A third Zyclops come barreling out from the upper floor, and onto the balcony...whereupon he immediately stopped dead as soon as he entered the cloud of nullmetal infused smoke that hung in the air from Devlin's earlier attack.

Finally, from the north end of the street, a large explosion ripped through the air as another Zyclops exited the chapel, triggering Devlin's trap. The shepherd appeared to be moderately damaged by the blast, and had succumbed to the tripwire, landing in a heap just beyond it. A second later, another Zyclops, another of the armoured ones, came barrelling out, and quickly joined the shepherd on the ground, having fallen to the tripwire as well.

Throughout all the mayhem, the high, keening sound of the Zyclops' wails had been growing and crescendoing until, abruptly, it stopped, filling the air with heavy silence...

...silence that was torn asunder by the sound of splintering, tearing wood, and the high pitched sound of concentrated beams of energy slicing through the air. The roof of the boarding house erupted in a torrent of black flame, and from out of the ensuing chaos arose the absolutely MASSIVE form of a floating, bone white beholder!

The huge beast measured at least twenty feet across, and each of it's eyestalks was at least two yards long. All of them, as well as it's great, central eye, were a pale, corpse-like white, but each burned, deep within, with the same black flame that was mirrored in the eyes of all the Zyclops. It's huge, toothed maw drooled a mixture of dark saliva and runnels of ebon fire, a horrid mixture which almost immediately began to cause the debris underneath it to smoke and sizzle. The Death Orb, for there was no doubt in any of the Hunter's minds that this was anything other than a Death Kiss Beholder...though one significantly larger and, presumably, more powerful than any seen before, rise in stately, terrifying majesty and swept it's many-eyed gaze across the field of battle...and, again, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that, the great beast could see them all.

The low thrum of the Portal filled the air of the trading post with the smell of ozone, sharp and pungent. Every time one of the Hunters happened to glance at it, it seemed like more and more arcs of 'lightning' danced around it's circumference, and...by all the Powers!...was it getting LARGER?!?

None of the six could be entirely sure at first, but it seemed like, even as they watched, the sparking, humming portal was inching ever so slightly outward with every breath they took.

Unfortunately, other events necessitated that they not pay as much attention to the clearly dangerous phenomenon as they might otherwise like. The Zyclops, having been alerted to their presence, were beginning to react to them...right up until the moment when five of them disappeared from sight. The undead stumbled to a halt, even in the midst of moving, heads swinging this way and that, great flaming eyes searching for their foes.

From within the buildings, the moaning built further, somehow managing to take on an even more ominous air.

After that, several things happened simultaneously.

From his elevated position on the second floor of the boarding house, Yukito surveyed the area. Choosing his landing spot, the swordsman flashed down to the street. Only to instantly double over in pain. Waves of agony flooded his body, and it felt like his every nerve ending was dipped in acid. Looking on in horrid fascination, he could see parts of his body flickering, as though some bits had been left behind, only to reappear, each such flicker causing fresh new hell to erupt across his body. The effects lasted for only a second or two, but felt like it lasted far, far longer, and when he finally, fully snapped back to reality, his entire body was drenched in sweat...and, even worse, the cherry on his cigarette seemed to have gone out...in fact, fully half of the small white cylinder was completely missing.

Gritting his teeth, the Hunter took a moment to get his bearings. Spotting one of the Zyclops close by, ironically, on the stairs attached to the outside of the building he had just been in, he whipped out his blade and sent a lance of force leaping across the distance and slamming into the nearest cyclops, a female townie, who appeared to be wearing the garb of a cook, including a rather nice flowered apron. The apron, despite the bright, cheery sun embroidered on it, did nothing to stop the wave of numbing cold that struck it's wearer. The initial force of the 'slice' tore open the woman's chest, allowing the bone-chilling cold to slam into her torso. Frost immediately covered her entire upper body, seeming to dig right into her bones. Horrific snapping and cracking sounds filled the air as several of her ribs shattered, and one of her arms snapped completely off at the shoulder from the pressure wave of the attack. The flames that made up her eye seemed to dim momentarily, but quickly built back up once more, even as she howled in response to the damage.

Spurred on by his action, and being the only one of the Hunters she could currently see, the Zyclops immediately charged down the stairs she stood on, her eye blazing and her mien a twisted snarl. She only managed a few steps, however, before a second blast of raw cold slammed into her, slicing her giant body in twain and sending the two halves tumbling down the stairs, one after the other, to land in a bloody, ichorous, frozen heap on the ground.

Nivel, after getting his own bearings, as well as having consulted with his comrades, caused a massive Black Dragon to suddenly appeared in their midst, seeming to come straight out of the Portal as well. The huge beast raised it's head to the sky and gave a massive, earth shuddering roar, then began glaring around at the, comparatively, puny beings that dared to threaten it. Mantling it's powerful wings, the dragon opened it's maw, prepared to spew a rain of ichorous death all about it...

...unfortunately, it was in that instant that the rapidly lashing tail of Nivel's 'pet' impacted with the outermost edge of the slowly expanding Portal. A high pitched SHRIEK echoed around the area, startling all of the living occupants, and the dragon disappeared in a huge burst of light, appearing to have not so much been Dispelled, as magically shredded. Even as the construct of light, shadows, and mana evaporated into the aether, a small spark of energy leapt from the core of the disappearing dragon, flowed around the edge of the portal, then leapt, like a bolt of ebon lightning, straight to the illusion's originator, striking him, not in the chest, but deep within, seemingly drawn straight to his magical core!

Nivel gasped involuntarily as PAIN rocked his entire being, pain somehow even worse than that he experienced when passing through the portal originally. A shivering, muscle jumping shudder wracked his body from head to toe, before seemingly grounding out and leaving his body. The experience left him profoundly shaken and disturbed, and he could still feel small tremors of pain running through his magical core.

Even as the Mistsoul bound assassin was dealing with the physical and magical aftershocks, Monique, recovering from her impromptu Human Bowling demonstration of a few seconds ago, gathered herself and teleported closer to her compatriots...only to immediately double over, clutching her stomach as waves of pain poured through her, as she suffered the same awful agony that Yukito had just experienced. Like him, the experienced Huntress managed to fight through the pain and focus enough to cast the spells needed to aid her compatriots, but it was neither easy nor pleasant.

Cal, after giving himself a shake to rid himself of the bark and splinters pressed into his back, sent another ray of pure, positive energy lancing into the already damaged Zyclops. The flaming thing that had once been a female Cyclops screeched, a high, sharp steamwhistle-like sound, then collapsed, seeming to fold in on itself. Even as he turned away to greet his compatriots, the large pile of former Cyclops continued to merrily burn, emitting a foul, noisome smoke.

Blaidd, after shifting into his huge combat form, danced forward, slashing at the Zyclops in front of him. His claws sunk deeply into the monstrosity, tearing away a large portion of it's back and at least one rib. He was just raising his other clawed hand for a second strike, when, from deep within the body of the undead, pitch-black flames came ravening out of it's body. The flames raced up his clawed fingers, swiftly encased his arm in a sheath of fire, then just as quickly sputtered out. The giant Hunter staggered back a couple of steps, mentally reevaluating this new tactical information.

Devlin, moving across the battlefield, left a nasty surprise on the doors of the small chapel, then moved into the center of the road and flung a pair of even nastier concoctions towards the two Zyclops who stood on the balcony, overlooking the street. Both spheres arced gracefully through the air and unerringly impact on the chest of the male Zyclops. A burst of heat/light/fire surrounded the two undead and sends both staggering. The electricity generated by the alchemical mixture chewed through their bodies, causing them to twitch and spasm uncontrollably. Unfortunately, it seems that whatever the source of their resistance to flame, whether that be the innate toughness leftover from their Cyclopean origins, or some mystical defense that the nullsteel couldn't manage to dispel, the flaming napalm simply cascaded down their bodies, failing to gain purchase, and pooled at their feet.

On the other hand, it did manage to cause the old, dry wood of the balcony, now heaving damaged and splintered by the concussive force of his flashbangs, to begin to smolder quite nicely.

Of note, however, was that, once the electricity stopped causing involuntary spasms in the two Zyclops, they both completely stopped moving. From what the scholar could tell, they weren't howling anymore either, merely standing, stock still, in the exact same position they'd ended after their bout with electrocution.

While he went about his deadly business, the temporal wanderer's finger brushed one of the sapphires on his bracelet, causing it to instantly crumble to dust in it's setting (OOC: Make a note on your sheet/OOC/somewhere that you've used one of the sapphires, please. ). For a moment after passing on his message, Devlin received no reply, only the rather ominous sound of silence...

...And then a half frantic voice burst through, echoing unpleasantly through the entire link. Cryoleptus' voice sounded oddly distorted, and the communication was filled with an unpleasant hissing, popping noise (OOC: Literally sounds just like radio static).

"...till alive? Thank...e to a...he Powers! Ther...s a massiv...xplosio...is end. Thoug...u were dead! ...tting interfer...is end. Hol...n!"

The Vizier's voice goes silent for a moment, then almost immediately comes back, stronger than before, though still plagued by the hissing noise. "Can you hear me now? Dont speak, just listen, all of you. Hardblade is channeling her magic to me, but she's wounded...all of us are. There was a massive explosion on this end just after you stepped through, and the Portal is badly damaged. Two of the other anchors are dead, killed when they tried to shield the rest of us."

He paused, seeming to take a mental breath, then continued rapidly. "The portal is rapidly decaying, and as best I can tell, it's going to break, catastrophically, very soon. Likely, you have less than a minute to get as far away as you can. I recommend you get at least a furlong away, possibly farther. DO NOT, whatever you do, teleport out. One of the anchors tried that, and the magical backlash nearly stopped his heart. What? What's that? Ok, ok...dammit! Sorry, we have to go. We're evacuating the Guildhouse as well. The Portal is going completely unstable, and I dont know if we can stop it! Just get out of the immediate vicinity, and contact us again in one hour. If we dont hear from you, we'll assume you didn't make it, and that the mission is a failure. If you cant contact us, assume the same. Go, with The Lady's blessing."

A second voice, that of Hardblade, rough and clearly in pain, joined the link for a moment. "Stay alive, my Hunters, whatever you have to do. Hunters, Hunt!"

With those words, the connection was broken and silence filled all of their minds.

At the exact same instant, within the center of the sphere circle that defined the portal, a large, night black sphere, appeared. It was roughly the size of a melon, and it's entire surface was surrounded by what appeared to be a flowing, swirling cloud of glass-like shards...shards just as black and impenetrable as the sphere itself.

At the same time, every instinct gained over a long and storied career, from dangers faced and monsters overcome, began screaming at the Hunters. Whatever that sphere was, it was absolutely, immensely, deadly dangerous.

For two of their number, however, it was even more ominous than that.

For Devlin, it was as though a tear had appeared in the fabric of space-time. He could literally see a swirling vortex of temporal power surrounding the black sphere. Whatever the glass-like shards were, they were spinning about on winds spun from Time itself.

For Monique, it was like looking at a manifestation of her deity, only one seen through a funhouse mirror. All the energies of Life and Death swirled around the sphere, coalesced into physical form, and represented as the shards of 'glass'. As for the sphere itself...somewhere deep within her, at the point where her soul ended and her connection with the divine spark began, a tiny, voiceless voice was telling her that the sphere was pure, congealed, quintessence. The raw stuff of Fate.

Unfortunately, none of them were given much time to deliberate the ramifications of this new danger as, not only did the Zyclops they could see begin to mount a counterattack, but several of the storefonts that surrounded them began to disgorge even more of their one-eyed, undead foes.

Large zombies poured from several buildings, some using doorways, some simply charging straight through the damaged walls.  And despite Nivel's best efforts, and impressive magic, it seemed that somehow, someway, and despite the fact that just a few seconds ago they were clearly casting about blindly to spot the Hunters, the Zyclops were now heading unerringly towards their chosen targets.

From out of the bottom floor of the building he had landed in, Yukito spotted a pair of Zyclops crashing out through the large, gallery windows, seemingly heading for his companions. Both were dressed like typical townsfolk, and a certain similarity of dress indicated that they were probably employed by the boarding house. He spotted the woman first and managed to get off a strike at her, removing one of her arms and slashing deeply into her side. The male of the two also moved into range and was similarly slashed, but both were almost immediately out of range. All was not lost, however...more 'friends' had arrived.

From the other nearby building, another Zyclops emerged, this one dressed in homespun and carrying a walking staff that look like it was carved from a fairly large tree. He was far enough away that the swordsman was able to make quick work of him, since he actually exited through the door on the north side of the building. However, while dealing with the shepherd, two much more serious foes presented themselves. One came crashing through the nearby wall, a tall, broad shouldered specimen of Zyclops, clad neck to knees in thick, soot-stained leather, and bearing a positively huge hammer. His bald head, as well as a pattern of burn scars on his forearms made his profession quite obvious. Yukito lashed out with another of his blasts of frigid power, slashing through the smith's apron and deeply...though not so deeply as he did with the regular townsfolk...into his torso.

The swordsman's final foe was even more fearsome, dressed head to toe in a mix of plate and mail armour, bearing a shield that would have doubled quite nicely as a barn door, and wielding a sword longer than Yukito was tall. Another blast of power left the smoking swordsman, but this one was turned by the mighty shield the Zyclops bore, though it did scar the surface of the metal.

An instant later, both of the still moving Zyclops converged on him, raining blows down with hammer and blade.

The two Zyclops from the boarding house who'd managed to escape Yukito's wrath converged on Nivel, who was still recovering from the assault by the portal. Both swung their huge fists, attempting to emulate a farmer driving a fencepost into the ground...with the assassin substituting for the piece of wood.

At the same time, Devlin was beset by a pair of nattily dressed townsfolk from the building opposite the boarding house. Both appeared to be wearing what probably construed local finery, the woman wearing a soft, cashmere-like sweater, and the man an odd sort of silky doublet. Both their clothes were heavily stained with blood and each sported terrible wounds, but both seemed equally determined to grind the temporal scholar into the dusty roadbed.

Blaidd, who'd pulled back from his initial attack on the cyclops quickly found himself confronted by not only that undead monstrosity, but two others, both of whom simply tore their way through the nearby wall and immediately set about attacking him with fists, or, in the case of the shepherd and smith, a walking staff and hammer, respectively.

A third Zyclops come barreling out from the upper floor, and onto the balcony...whereupon he immediately stopped dead as soon as he entered the cloud of nullmetal infused smoke that hung in the air from Devlin's earlier attack.

Finally, from the north end of the street, a large explosion ripped through the air as another Zyclops exited the chapel, triggering Devlin's trap. The shepherd appeared to be moderately damaged by the blast, and had succumbed to the tripwire, landing in a heap just beyond it. A second later, another Zyclops, another of the armoured ones, came barrelling out, and quickly joined the shepherd on the ground, having fallen to the tripwire as well.

Throughout all the mayhem, the high, keening sound of the Zyclops' wails had been growing and crescendoing until, abruptly, it stopped, filling the air with heavy silence...

...silence that was torn asunder by the sound of splintering, tearing wood, and the high pitched sound of concentrated beams of energy slicing through the air. The roof of the boarding house erupted in a torrent of black flame, and from out of the ensuing chaos arose the absolutely MASSIVE form of a floating, bone white beholder!

The huge beast measured at least twenty feet across, and each of it's eyestalks was at least two yards long. All of them, as well as it's great, central eye, were a pale, corpse-like white, but each burned, deep within, with the same black flame that was mirrored in the eyes of all the Zyclops. It's huge, toothed maw drooled a mixture of dark saliva and runnels of ebon fire, a horrid mixture which almost immediately began to cause the debris underneath it to smoke and sizzle. The Death Orb, for there was no doubt in any of the Hunter's minds that this was anything other than a Death Kiss Beholder...though one significantly larger and, presumably, more powerful than any seen before, rise in stately, terrifying majesty and swept it's many-eyed gaze across the field of battle...and, again, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that, the great beast could see them all.

The low thrum of the Portal filled the air of the trading post with the smell of ozone, sharp and pungent. Every time one of the Hunters happened to glance at it, it seemed like more and more arcs of 'lightning' danced around it's circumference, and...by all the Powers!...was it getting LARGER?!?

None of the six could be entirely sure at first, but it seemed like, even as they watched, the sparking, humming portal was inching ever so slightly outward with every breath they took.

Unfortunately, other events necessitated that they not pay as much attention to the clearly dangerous phenomenon as they might otherwise like. The Zyclops, having been alerted to their presence, were beginning to react to them...right up until the moment when five of them disappeared from sight. The undead stumbled to a halt, even in the midst of moving, heads swinging this way and that, great flaming eyes searching for their foes.

From within the buildings, the moaning built further, somehow managing to take on an even more ominous air.

After that, several things happened simultaneously.

From his elevated position on the second floor of the boarding house, Yukito surveyed the area. Choosing his landing spot, the swordsman flashed down to the street. Only to instantly double over in pain. Waves of agony flooded his body, and it felt like his every nerve ending was dipped in acid. Looking on in horrid fascination, he could see parts of his body flickering, as though some bits had been left behind, only to reappear, each such flicker causing fresh new hell to erupt across his body. The effects lasted for only a second or two, but felt like it lasted far, far longer, and when he finally, fully snapped back to reality, his entire body was drenched in sweat...and, even worse, the cherry on his cigarette seemed to have gone out...in fact, fully half of the small white cylinder was completely missing.

Gritting his teeth, the Hunter took a moment to get his bearings. Spotting one of the Zyclops close by, ironically, on the stairs attached to the outside of the building he had just been in, he whipped out his blade and sent a lance of force leaping across the distance and slamming into the nearest cyclops, a female townie, who appeared to be wearing the garb of a cook, including a rather nice flowered apron. The apron, despite the bright, cheery sun embroidered on it, did nothing to stop the wave of numbing cold that struck it's wearer. The initial force of the 'slice' tore open the woman's chest, allowing the bone-chilling cold to slam into her torso. Frost immediately covered her entire upper body, seeming to dig right into her bones. Horrific snapping and cracking sounds filled the air as several of her ribs shattered, and one of her arms snapped completely off at the shoulder from the pressure wave of the attack. The flames that made up her eye seemed to dim momentarily, but quickly built back up once more, even as she howled in response to the damage.

Spurred on by his action, and being the only one of the Hunters she could currently see, the Zyclops immediately charged down the stairs she stood on, her eye blazing and her mien a twisted snarl. She only managed a few steps, however, before a second blast of raw cold slammed into her, slicing her giant body in twain and sending the two halves tumbling down the stairs, one after the other, to land in a bloody, ichorous, frozen heap on the ground.

Nivel, after getting his own bearings, as well as having consulted with his comrades, caused a massive Black Dragon to suddenly appeared in their midst, seeming to come straight out of the Portal as well. The huge beast raised it's head to the sky and gave a massive, earth shuddering roar, then began glaring around at the, comparatively, puny beings that dared to threaten it. Mantling it's powerful wings, the dragon opened it's maw, prepared to spew a rain of ichorous death all about it...

...unfortunately, it was in that instant that the rapidly lashing tail of Nivel's 'pet' impacted with the outermost edge of the slowly expanding Portal. A high pitched SHRIEK echoed around the area, startling all of the living occupants, and the dragon disappeared in a huge burst of light, appearing to have not so much been Dispelled, as magically shredded. Even as the construct of light, shadows, and mana evaporated into the aether, a small spark of energy leapt from the core of the disappearing dragon, flowed around the edge of the portal, then leapt, like a bolt of ebon lightning, straight to the illusion's originator, striking him, not in the chest, but deep within, seemingly drawn straight to his magical core!

Nivel gasped involuntarily as PAIN rocked his entire being, pain somehow even worse than that he experienced when passing through the portal originally. A shivering, muscle jumping shudder wracked his body from head to toe, before seemingly grounding out and leaving his body. The experience left him profoundly shaken and disturbed, and he could still feel small tremors of pain running through his magical core.

Even as the Mistsoul bound assassin was dealing with the physical and magical aftershocks, Monique, recovering from her impromptu Human Bowling demonstration of a few seconds ago, gathered herself and teleported closer to her compatriots...only to immediately double over, clutching her stomach as waves of pain poured through her, as she suffered the same awful agony that Yukito had just experienced. Like him, the experienced Huntress managed to fight through the pain and focus enough to cast the spells needed to aid her compatriots, but it was neither easy nor pleasant.

Cal, after giving himself a shake to rid himself of the bark and splinters pressed into his back, sent another ray of pure, positive energy lancing into the already damaged Zyclops. The flaming thing that had once been a female Cyclops screeched, a high, sharp steamwhistle-like sound, then collapsed, seeming to fold in on itself. Even as he turned away to greet his compatriots, the large pile of former Cyclops continued to merrily burn, emitting a foul, noisome smoke.

Blaidd, after shifting into his huge combat form, danced forward, slashing at the Zyclops in front of him. His claws sunk deeply into the monstrosity, tearing away a large portion of it's back and at least one rib. He was just raising his other clawed hand for a second strike, when, from deep within the body of the undead, pitch-black flames came ravening out of it's body. The flames raced up his clawed fingers, swiftly encased his arm in a sheath of fire, then just as quickly sputtered out. The giant Hunter staggered back a couple of steps, mentally reevaluating this new tactical information.

Devlin, moving across the battlefield, left a nasty surprise on the doors of the small chapel, then moved into the center of the road and flung a pair of nasty concoctions towards the two Zyclops who stood on the balcony, overlooking the street. Both spheres arced gracefully through the air and unerringly impact on the chest of the male Zyclops. A burst of heat/light/fire surrounded the two undead and sends both staggering. The electricity generated by the alchemical mixture chewed through their bodies, causing them to twitch and spasm uncontrollably. Unfortunately, it seems that whatever the source of their resistance to flame, whether that be the innate toughness leftover from their Cyclopean origins, or some mystical defense that the nullsteel couldn't manage to dispel, the flaming napalm simply cascaded down their bodies, failing to gain purchase, and pooled at their feet.

On the other hand, it did manage to cause the old, dry wood of the balcony, now heaving damaged and splintered by the concussive force of his flashbangs, to begin to smolder quite nicely.

Of note, however, was that, once the electricity stopped causing involuntary spasms in the two Zyclops, they both completely stopped moving. From what the scholar could tell, they weren't howling anymore either, merely standing, stock still, in the exact same position they'd ended after their bout with electrocution.

While he went about his deadly business, the temporal wanderer's finger brushed one of the sapphires on his bracelet, causing it to instantly crumble to dust in it's setting (OOC: Make a note on your sheet/OOC/somewhere that you've used one of the sapphires, please. ). For a moment after passing on his message, Devlin received no reply, only the rather ominous sound of silence...

...And then a half frantic voice burst through, echoing unpleasantly through the entire link. Cryoleptus' voice sounded oddly distorted, and the communication was filled with an unpleasant hissing, popping noise (OOC: Literally sounds just like radio static).

"...till alive? Thank...e to a...he Powers! Ther...s a massiv...xplosio...is end. Thoug...u were dead! ...tting interfer...is end. Hol...n!"

The Vizier's voice goes silent for a moment, then almost immediately comes back, stronger than before, though still plagued by the hissing noise. "Can you hear me now? Dont speak, just listen, all of you. Hardblade is channeling her magic to me, but she's wounded...all of us are. There was a massive explosion on this end just after you stepped through, and the Portal is badly damaged. Two of the other anchors are dead, killed when they tried to shield the rest of us."

He paused, seeming to take a mental breath, then continued rapidly. "The portal is rapidly decaying, and as best I can tell, it's going to break, catastrophically, very soon. Likely, you have less than a minute to get as far away as you can. I recommend you get at least a furlong away, possibly farther. DO NOT, whatever you do, teleport out. One of the anchors tried that, and the magical backlash nearly stopped his heart. What? What's that? Ok, ok...dammit! Sorry, we have to go. We're evacuating the Guildhouse as well. The Portal is going completely unstable, and I dont know if we can stop it! Just get out of the immediate vicinity, and contact us again in one hour. If we dont hear from you, we'll assume you didn't make it, and that the mission is a failure. If you cant contact us, assume the same. Go, with The Lady's blessing."

A second voice, that of Hardblade, rough and clearly in pain, joined the link for a moment. "Stay alive, my Hunters, whatever you have to do. Hunters, Hunt!"

With those words, the connection was broken and silence filled all of their minds.

At the exact same instant, within the center of the sphere circle that defined the portal, a large, night black sphere, appeared. It was roughly the size of a melon, and it's entire surface was surrounded by what appeared to be a flowing, swirling cloud of glass-like shards...shards just as black and impenetrable as the sphere itself.

At the same time, every instinct gained over a long and storied career, from dangers faced and monsters overcome, began screaming at the Hunters. Whatever that sphere was, it was absolutely, immensely, deadly dangerous.

For two of their number, however, it was even more ominous than that.

For Devlin, it was as though a tear had appeared in the fabric of space-time. He could literally see a swirling vortex of temporal power surrounding the black sphere. Whatever the glass-like shards were, they were spinning about on winds spun from Time itself.

For Monique, it was like looking at a manifestation of her deity, only one seen through a funhouse mirror. All the energies of Life and Death swirled around the sphere, coalesced into physical form, and represented as the shards of 'glass'. As for the sphere itself...somewhere deep within her, at the point where her soul ended and her connection with the divine spark began, a tiny, voiceless voice was telling her that the sphere was pure, congealed, quintessence. The raw stuff of Fate.

Unfortunately, none of them were given much time to deliberate the ramifications of this new danger as, not only did the Zyclops they could see begin to mount a counterattack, but several of the storefonts that surrounded them began to disgorge even more of their one-eyed, undead foes.

Large zombies poured from several buildings, some using doorways, some simply charging straight through the damaged walls.  And despite Nivel's best efforts, and impressive magic, it seemed that somehow, someway, and despite the fact that just a few seconds ago they were clearly casting about blindly to spot the Hunters, the Zyclops were now heading unerringly towards their chosen targets.

From out of the bottom floor of the building he had landed in, Yukito spotted a pair of Zyclops crashing out through the large, gallery windows, seemingly heading for his companions. Both were dressed like typical townsfolk, and a certain similarity of dress indicated that they were probably employed by the boarding house. He spotted the woman first and managed to get off a strike at her, removing one of her arms and slashing deeply into her side. The male of the two also moved into range and was similarly slashed, but both were almost immediately out of range. All was not lost, however...more 'friends' had arrived.

From the other nearby building, another Zyclops emerged, this one dressed in homespun and carrying a walking staff that look like it was carved from a fairly large tree. He was far enough away that the swordsman was able to make quick work of him, since he actually exited through the door on the north side of the building. However, while dealing with the shepherd, two much more serious foes presented themselves. One came crashing through the nearby wall, a tall, broad shouldered specimen of Zyclops, clad neck to knees in thick, soot-stained leather, and bearing a positively huge hammer. His bald head, as well as a pattern of burn scars on his forearms made his profession quite obvious. Yukito lashed out with another of his blasts of frigid power, slashing through the smith's apron and deeply...though not so deeply as he did with the regular townsfolk...into his torso.

The swordsman's final foe was even more fearsome, dressed head to toe in a mix of plate and mail armour, bearing a shield that would have doubled quite nicely as a barn door, and wielding a sword longer than Yukito was tall. Another blast of power left the smoking swordsman, but this one was turned by the mighty shield the Zyclops bore, though it did scar the surface of the metal.

An instant later, both of the still moving Zyclops converged on him, raining blows down with hammer and blade.

The two Zyclops from the boarding house who'd managed to escape Yukito's wrath converged on Nivel, who was still recovering from the assault by the portal. Both swung their huge fists, attempting to emulate a farmer driving a fencepost into the ground...with the assassin substituting for the piece of wood.

At the same time, Devlin was beset by a pair of nattily dressed townsfolk from the building opposite the boarding house. Both appeared to be wearing what probably construed local finery, the woman wearing a soft, cashmere-like sweater, and the man an odd sort of silky doublet. Both their clothes were heavily stained with blood and each sported terrible wounds, but both seemed equally determined to grind the temporal scholar into the dusty roadbed.

Blaidd, who'd pulled back from his initial attack on the cyclops quickly found himself confronted by not only that undead monstrosity, but two others, both of whom simply tore their way through the nearby wall and immediately set about attacking him with fists, or, in the case of the shepherd and smith, a walking staff and hammer, respectively.

A third Zyclops come barreling out from the upper floor, and onto the balcony...whereupon he immediately stopped dead as soon as he entered the cloud of nullmetal infused smoke that hung in the air from Devlin's earlier attack.

Finally, from the north end of the street, a large explosion ripped through the air as another Zyclops exited the chapel, triggering Devlin's trap. The shepherd appeared to be moderately damaged by the blast, and had succumbed to the tripwire, landing in a heap just beyond it. A second later, another Zyclops, another of the armoured ones, came barrelling out, and quickly joined the shepherd on the ground, having fallen to the tripwire as well.

Throughout all the mayhem, the high, keening sound of the Zyclops' wails had been growing and crescendoing until, abruptly, it stopped, filling the air with heavy silence...

...silence that was torn asunder by the sound of splintering, tearing wood, and the high pitched sound of concentrated beams of energy slicing through the air. The roof of the boarding house erupted in a torrent of black flame, and from out of the ensuing chaos arose the absolutely MASSIVE form of a floating, bone white beholder!

The huge beast measured at least twenty feet across, and each of it's eyestalks was at least two yards long. All of them, as well as it's great, central eye, were a pale, corpse-like white, but each burned, deep within, with the same black flame that was mirrored in the eyes of all the Zyclops. It's huge, toothed maw drooled a mixture of dark saliva and runnels of ebon fire, a horrid mixture which almost immediately began to cause the debris underneath it to smoke and sizzle. The Death Orb, for there was no doubt in any of the Hunter's minds that this was anything other than a Death Kiss Beholder...though one significantly larger and, presumably, more powerful than any seen before, rise in stately, terrifying majesty and swept it's many-eyed gaze across the field of battle...and, again, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that, the great beast could see them all.

The low thrum of the Portal filled the air of the trading post with the smell of ozone, sharp and pungent. Every time one of the Hunters happened to glance at it, it seemed like more and more arcs of 'lightning' danced around it's circumference, and...by all the Powers!...was it getting LARGER?!?

None of the six could be entirely sure at first, but it seemed like, even as they watched, the sparking, humming portal was inching ever so slightly outward with every breath they took.

Unfortunately, other events necessitated that they not pay as much attention to the clearly dangerous phenomenon as they might otherwise like. The Zyclops, having been alerted to their presence, were beginning to react to them...right up until the moment when five of them disappeared from sight. The undead stumbled to a halt, even in the midst of moving, heads swinging this way and that, great flaming eyes searching for their foes.

From within the buildings, the moaning built further, somehow managing to take on an even more ominous air.

After that, several things happened simultaneously.

From his elevated position on the second floor of the boarding house, Yukito surveyed the area. Choosing his landing spot, the swordsman flashed down to the street. Only to instantly double over in pain. Waves of agony flooded his body, and it felt like his every nerve ending was dipped in acid. Looking on in horrid fascination, he could see parts of his body flickering, as though some bits had been left behind, only to reappear, each such flicker causing fresh new hell to erupt across his body. The effects lasted for only a second or two, but felt like it lasted far, far longer, and when he finally, fully snapped back to reality, his entire body was drenched in sweat...and, even worse, the cherry on his cigarette seemed to have gone out...in fact, fully half of the small white cylinder was completely missing.

Gritting his teeth, the Hunter took a moment to get his bearings. Spotting one of the Zyclops close by, ironically, on the stairs attached to the outside of the building he had just been in, he whipped out his blade and sent a lance of force leaping across the distance and slamming into the nearest cyclops, a female townie, who appeared to be wearing the garb of a cook, including a rather nice flowered apron. The apron, despite the bright, cheery sun embroidered on it, did nothing to stop the wave of numbing cold that struck it's wearer. The initial force of the 'slice' tore open the woman's chest, allowing the bone-chilling cold to slam into her torso. Frost immediately covered her entire upper body, seeming to dig right into her bones. Horrific snapping and cracking sounds filled the air as several of her ribs shattered, and one of her arms snapped completely off at the shoulder from the pressure wave of the attack. The flames that made up her eye seemed to dim momentarily, but quickly built back up once more, even as she howled in response to the damage.

Spurred on by his action, and being the only one of the Hunters she could currently see, the Zyclops immediately charged down the stairs she stood on, her eye blazing and her mien a twisted snarl. She only managed a few steps, however, before a second blast of raw cold slammed into her, slicing her giant body in twain and sending the two halves tumbling down the stairs, one after the other, to land in a bloody, ichorous, frozen heap on the ground.

Nivel, after getting his own bearings, as well as having consulted with his comrades, caused a massive Black Dragon to suddenly appeared in their midst, seeming to come straight out of the Portal as well. The huge beast raised it's head to the sky and gave a massive, earth shuddering roar, then began glaring around at the, comparatively, puny beings that dared to threaten it. Mantling it's powerful wings, the dragon opened it's maw, prepared to spew a rain of ichorous death all about it...

...unfortunately, it was in that instant that the rapidly lashing tail of Nivel's 'pet' impacted with the outermost edge of the slowly expanding Portal. A high pitched SHRIEK echoed around the area, startling all of the living occupants, and the dragon disappeared in a huge burst of light, appearing to have not so much been Dispelled, as magically shredded. Even as the construct of light, shadows, and mana evaporated into the aether, a small spark of energy leapt from the core of the disappearing dragon, flowed around the edge of the portal, then leapt, like a bolt of ebon lightning, straight to the illusion's originator, striking him, not in the chest, but deep within, seemingly drawn straight to his magical core!

Nivel gasped involuntarily as PAIN rocked his entire being, pain somehow even worse than that he experienced when passing through the portal originally. A shivering, muscle jumping shudder wracked his body from head to toe, before seemingly grounding out and leaving his body. The experience left him profoundly shaken and disturbed, and he could still feel small tremors of pain running through his magical core.

Even as the Mistsoul bound assassin was dealing with the physical and magical aftershocks

Monique, recovering from her impromptu Human Bowling demonstration of a few seconds ago, gathered herself and teleported closer to her compatriots...only to immediately double over, clutching her stomach as waves of pain poured through her, as she suffered the same awful pain that Yukito had just experienced. Like him, the experienced Huntress managed to fight through the pain and focus enough to cast the spells needed to aid her compatriots, but it was neither easy nor pleasant.

Cal, after giving himself a shake to rid himself of the bark and splinters pressed into his back, sent another ray of pure, positive energy lancing into the already damaged Zyclops. The flaming thing that had once been a female Cyclops screeched, a high, sharp steamwhistle-like sound, then collapsed, seeming to fold in on itself. Even as he turned away to greet his compatriots, the large pile of former Cyclops continued to merrily burn, emitting a foul, noisome smoke.

Blaidd, after shifting into his huge combat form, danced forward, slashing at the Zyclops in front of him. His claws sunk deeply into the monstrosity, tearing away a large portion of it's back and at least one rib. He was just raising his other clawed hand for a second strike, when, from deep within the body of the undead, pitch-black flames came ravening out of it's body. The flames raced up his clawed fingers, swiftly encased his arm in a sheath of fire, then just as quickly sputtered out. The giant Hunter staggered back a couple of steps, mentally reevaluating this new tactical information.

Devlin, moving across the battlefield, left a nasty surprise on the doors of the small chapel, then moved into the center of the road and flung a pair of nasty concoctions towards the two Zyclops who stood on the balcony, overlooking the street. Both spheres arced gracefully through the air and unerringly impact on the chest of the male Zyclops. A burst of heat/light/fire surrounded the two undead and sends both staggering. The electricity generated by the alchemical mixture chewed through their bodies, causing them to twitch and spasm uncontrollably. Unfortunately, it seems that whatever the source of their resistance to flame, whether that be the innate toughness leftover from their Cyclopean origins, or some mystical defense that the nullsteel couldn't manage to dispel, the flaming napalm simply cascaded down their bodies, failing to gain purchase, and pooled at their feet.

On the other hand, it did manage to cause the old, dry wood of the balcony, now heaving damaged and splintered by the concussive force of his flashbangs, to begin to smolder quite nicely.

Of note, however, was that, once the electricity stopped causing involuntary spasms in the two Zyclops, they both completely stopped moving. From what the scholar could tell, they weren't howling anymore either, merely standing, stock still, in the exact same position they'd ended after their bout with electrocution.

While he went about his deadly business, the temporal wanderer's finger brushed one of the sapphires on his bracelet, causing it to instantly crumble to dust in it's setting (OOC: Make a note on your sheet/OOC/somewhere that you've used one of the sapphires, please. ). For a moment after passing on his message, Devlin received no reply, only the rather ominous sound of silence...

...And then a half frantic voice burst through, echoing unpleasantly through the entire link. Cryoleptus' voice sounded oddly distorted, and the communication was filled with an unpleasant hissing, popping noise (OOC: Literally sounds just like radio static).

"...till alive? Thank...e to a...he Powers! Ther...s a massiv...xplosio...is end. Thoug...u were dead! ...tting interfer...is end. Hol...n!"

The Vizier's voice goes silent for a moment, then almost immediately comes back, stronger than before, though still plagued by the hissing noise. "Can you hear me now? Dont speak, just listen, all of you. Hardblade is channeling her magic to me, but she's wounded...all of us are. There was a massive explosion on this end just after you stepped through, and the Portal is badly damaged. Two of the other anchors are dead, killed when they tried to shield the rest of us."

He paused, seeming to take a mental breath, then continued rapidly. "The portal is rapidly decaying, and as best I can tell, it's going to break, catastrophically, very soon. Likely, you have less than a minute to get as far away as you can. I recommend you get at least a furlong away, possibly farther. DO NOT, whatever you do, teleport out. One of the anchors tried that, and the magical backlash nearly stopped his heart. What? What's that? Ok, ok...dammit! Sorry, we have to go. We're evacuating the Guildhouse as well. The Portal is going completely unstable, and I dont know if we can stop it! Just get out of the immediate vicinity, and contact us again in one hour. If we dont hear from you, we'll assume you didn't make it, and that the mission is a failure. If you cant contact us, assume the same. Go, with The Lady's blessing."

A second voice, that of Hardblade, rough and clearly in pain, joined the link for a moment. "Stay alive, my Hunters, whatever you have to do. Hunters, Hunt!"

With those words, the connection was broken and silence filled all of their minds.

At the exact same instant, within the center of the sphere circle that defined the portal, a large, night black sphere, appeared. It was roughly the size of a melon, and it's entire surface was surrounded by what appeared to be a flowing, swirling cloud of glass-like shards...shards just as black and impenetrable as the sphere itself.

At the same time, every instinct gained over a long and storied career, from dangers faced and monsters overcome, began screaming at the Hunters. Whatever that sphere was, it was absolutely, immensely, deadly dangerous.

For two of their number, however, it was even more ominous than that.

For Devlin, it was as though a tear had appeared in the fabric of space-time. He could literally see a swirling vortex of temporal power surrounding the black sphere. Whatever the glass-like shards were, they were spinning about on winds spun from Time itself.

For Monique, it was like looking at a manifestation of her deity, only one seen through a funhouse mirror. All the energies of Life and Death swirled around the sphere, coalesced into physical form, and represented as the shards of 'glass'. As for the sphere itself...somewhere deep within her, at the point where her soul ended and her connection with the divine spark began, a tiny, voiceless voice was telling her that the sphere was pure, congealed, quintessence. The raw stuff of Fate.

Unfortunately, none of them were given much time to deliberate the ramifications of this new danger as, not only did the Zyclops they could see begin to mount a counterattack, but several of the storefonts that surrounded them began to disgorge even more of their one-eyed, undead foes.

Large zombies poured from several buildings, some using doorways, some simply charging straight through the damaged walls.  And despite Nivel's best efforts, and impressive magic, it seemed that somehow, someway, and despite the fact that just a few seconds ago they were clearly casting about blindly to spot the Hunters, the Zyclops were now heading unerringly towards their chosen targets.

From out of the bottom floor of the building he had landed in, Yukito spotted a pair of Zyclops crashing out through the large, gallery windows, seemingly heading for his companions. Both were dressed like typical townsfolk, and a certain similarity of dress indicated that they were probably employed by the boarding house. He spotted the woman first and managed to get off a strike at her, removing one of her arms and slashing deeply into her side. The male of the two also moved into range and was similarly slashed, but both were almost immediately out of range. All was not lost, however...more 'friends' had arrived.

From the other nearby building, another Zyclops emerged, this one dressed in homespun and carrying a walking staff that look like it was carved from a fairly large tree. He was far enough away that the swordsman was able to make quick work of him, since he actually exited through the door on the north side of the building. However, while dealing with the shepherd, two much more serious foes presented themselves. One came crashing through the nearby wall, a tall, broad shouldered specimen of Zyclops, clad neck to knees in thick, soot-stained leather, and bearing a positively huge hammer. His bald head, as well as a pattern of burn scars on his forearms made his profession quite obvious. Yukito lashed out with another of his blasts of frigid power, slashing through the smith's apron and deeply...though not so deeply as he did with the regular townsfolk...into his torso.

The swordsman's final foe was even more fearsome, dressed head to toe in a mix of plate and mail armour, bearing a shield that would have doubled quite nicely as a barn door, and wielding a sword longer than Yukito was tall. Another blast of power left the smoking swordsman, but this one was turned by the mighty shield the Zyclops bore, though it did scar the surface of the metal.

An instant later, both of the still moving Zyclops converged on him, raining blows down with hammer and blade.

The two Zyclops from the boarding house who'd managed to escape Yukito's wrath converged on Nivel, who was still recovering from the assault by the portal. Both swung their huge fists, attempting to emulate a farmer driving a fencepost into the ground...with the assassin substituting for the piece of wood.

At the same time, Devlin was beset by a pair of nattily dressed townsfolk from the building opposite the boarding house. Both appeared to be wearing what probably construed local finery, the woman wearing a soft, cashmere-like sweater, and the man an odd sort of silky doublet. Both their clothes were heavily stained with blood and each sported terrible wounds, but both seemed equally determined to grind the temporal scholar into the dusty roadbed.

Blaidd, who'd pulled back from his initial attack on the cyclops quickly found himself confronted by not only that undead monstrosity, but two others, both of whom simply tore their way through the nearby wall and immediately set about attacking him with fists, or, in the case of the shepherd and smith, a walking staff and hammer, respectively.

A third Zyclops come barreling out from the upper floor, and onto the balcony...whereupon he immediately stopped dead as soon as he entered the cloud of nullmetal infused smoke that hung in the air from Devlin's earlier attack.

Finally, from the north end of the street, a large explosion ripped through the air as another Zyclops exited the chapel, triggering Devlin's trap. The shepherd appeared to be moderately damaged by the blast, and had succumbed to the tripwire, landing in a heap just beyond it. A second later, another Zyclops, another of the armoured ones, came barrelling out, and quickly joined the shepherd on the ground, having fallen to the tripwire as well.

Throughout all the mayhem, the high, keening sound of the Zyclops' wails had been growing and crescendoing until, abruptly, it stopped, filling the air with heavy silence...

...silence that was torn asunder by the sound of splintering, tearing wood, and the high pitched sound of concentrated beams of energy slicing through the air. The roof of the boarding house erupted in a torrent of black flame, and from out of the ensuing chaos arose the absolutely MASSIVE form of a floating, bone white beholder!

The huge beast measured at least twenty feet across, and each of it's eyestalks was at least two yards long. All of them, as well as it's great, central eye, were a pale, corpse-like white, but each burned, deep within, with the same black flame that was mirrored in the eyes of all the Zyclops. It's huge, toothed maw drooled a mixture of dark saliva and runnels of ebon fire, a horrid mixture which almost immediately began to cause the debris underneath it to smoke and sizzle. The Death Orb, for there was no doubt in any of the Hunter's minds that this was anything other than a Death Kiss Beholder...though one significantly larger and, presumably, more powerful than any seen before, rise in stately, terrifying majesty and swept it's many-eyed gaze across the field of battle...and, again, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that, the great beast could see them all.

The low thrum of the Portal filled the air of the trading post with the smell of ozone, sharp and pungent. Every time one of the Hunters happened to glance at it, it seemed like more and more arcs of 'lightning' danced around it's circumference, and...by all the Powers!...was it getting LARGER?!?

None of the six could be entirely sure at first, but it seemed like, even as they watched, the sparking, humming portal was inching ever so slightly outward with every breath they took.

Unfortunately, other events necessitated that they not pay as much attention to the clearly dangerous phenomenon as they might otherwise like. The Zyclops, having been alerted to their presence, were beginning to react to them...right up until the moment when five of them disappeared from sight. The undead stumbled to a halt, even in the midst of moving, heads swinging this way and that, great flaming eyes searching for their foes.

From within the buildings, the moaning built further, somehow managing to take on an even more ominous air.

After that, several things happened simultaneously.

From his elevated position on the second floor of the boarding house, Yukito surveyed the area. Choosing his landing spot, the swordsman flashed down to the street. Only to instantly double over in pain. Waves of agony flooded his body, and it felt like his every nerve ending was dipped in acid. Looking on in horrid fascination, he could see parts of his body flickering, as though some bits had been left behind, only to reappear, each such flicker causing fresh new hell to erupt across his body. The effects lasted for only a second or two, but felt like it lasted far, far longer, and when he finally, fully snapped back to reality, his entire body was drenched in sweat...and, even worse, the cherry on his cigarette seemed to have gone out...in fact, fully half of the small white cylinder was completely missing.

Gritting his teeth, the Hunter took a moment to get his bearings. Spotting one of the Zyclops close by, ironically, on the stairs attached to the outside of the building he had just been in, he whipped out his blade and sent a lance of force leaping across the distance and slamming into the nearest cyclops, a female townie, who appeared to be wearing the garb of a cook, including a rather nice flowered apron. The apron, despite the bright, cheery sun embroidered on it, did nothing to stop the wave of numbing cold that struck it's wearer. The initial force of the 'slice' tore open the woman's chest, allowing the bone-chilling cold to slam into her torso. Frost immediately covered her entire upper body, seeming to dig right into her bones. Horrific snapping and cracking sounds filled the air as several of her ribs shattered, and one of her arms snapped completely off at the shoulder from the pressure wave of the attack. The flames that made up her eye seemed to dim momentarily, but quickly built back up once more, even as she howled in response to the damage.

Spurred on by his action, and being the only one of the Hunters she could currently see, the Zyclops immediately charged down the stairs she stood on, her eye blazing and her mien a twisted snarl. She only managed a few steps, however, before a second blast of raw cold slammed into her, slicing her giant body in twain and sending the two halves tumbling down the stairs, one after the other, to land in a bloody, ichorous, frozen heap on the ground.

Nivel, after getting his own bearings, as well as having consulted with his comrades, caused a massive Black Dragon suddenly appeared in their midst, seeming to come straight out of the Portal as well. The huge beast raised it's head to the sky and gave a massive, earth shuddering roar, then began glaring around at the, comparatively, puny beings that dared to threaten it. Mantling it's powerful wings, the dragon opened it's maw, prepared to spew a rain of ichorous death all about it...

...unfortunately, it was in that instant that the rapidly lashing tail of Nivel's 'pet' impacted with the outermost edge of the slowly expanding Portal. A high pitched SHRIEK echoed around the area, startling all of the living occupants, and the dragon disappeared in a huge burst of light, appearing to have not so much been Dispelled, as magically shredded. Even as the construct of light, shadows, and mana evaporated into the aether, a small spark of energy leapt from the core of the disappearing dragon, flowed around the edge of the portal, then leapt, like a bolt of ebon lightning, straight to the illusion's originator, striking him, not in the chest, but deep within, seemingly drawn straight to his magical core!

Nivel gasped involuntarily as PAIN rocked his entire being, pain somehow even worse than that he experienced when passing through the portal originally. A shivering, muscle jumping shudder wracked his body from head to toe, before seemingly grounding out and leaving his body. The experience left him profoundly shaken and disturbed, and he could still feel small tremors of pain running through his magical core.

Even as the Mistsoul bound assassin was dealing with the physical and magical aftershocks

Monique, recovering from her impromptu Human Bowling demonstration of a few seconds ago, gathered herself and teleported closer to her compatriots...only to immediately double over, clutching her stomach as waves of pain poured through her, as she suffered the same awful pain that Yukito had just experienced. Like him, the experienced Huntress managed to fight through the pain and focus enough to cast the spells needed to aid her compatriots, but it was neither easy nor pleasant.

Cal, after giving himself a shake to rid himself of the bark and splinters pressed into his back, sent another ray of pure, positive energy lancing into the already damaged Zyclops. The flaming thing that had once been a female Cyclops screeched, a high, sharp steamwhistle-like sound, then collapsed, seeming to fold in on itself. Even as he turned away to greet his compatriots, the large pile of former Cyclops continued to merrily burn, emitting a foul, noisome smoke.

Blaidd, after shifting into his huge combat form, danced forward, slashing at the Zyclops in front of him. His claws sunk deeply into the monstrosity, tearing away a large portion of it's back and at least one rib. He was just raising his other clawed hand for a second strike, when, from deep within the body of the undead, pitch-black flames came ravening out of it's body. The flames raced up his clawed fingers, swiftly encased his arm in a sheath of fire, then just as quickly sputtered out. The giant Hunter staggered back a couple of steps, mentally reevaluating this new tactical information.

Devlin, moving across the battlefield, left a nasty surprise on the doors of the small chapel, then moved into the center of the road and flung a pair of nasty concoctions towards the two Zyclops who stood on the balcony, overlooking the street. Both spheres arced gracefully through the air and unerringly impact on the chest of the male Zyclops. A burst of heat/light/fire surrounded the two undead and sends both staggering. The electricity generated by the alchemical mixture chewed through their bodies, causing them to twitch and spasm uncontrollably. Unfortunately, it seems that whatever the source of their resistance to flame, whether that be the innate toughness leftover from their Cyclopean origins, or some mystical defense that the nullsteel couldn't manage to dispel, the flaming napalm simply cascaded down their bodies, failing to gain purchase, and pooled at their feet.

On the other hand, it did manage to cause the old, dry wood of the balcony, now heaving damaged and splintered by the concussive force of his flashbangs, to begin to smolder quite nicely.

Of note, however, was that, once the electricity stopped causing involuntary spasms in the two Zyclops, they both completely stopped moving. From what the scholar could tell, they weren't howling anymore either, merely standing, stock still, in the exact same position they'd ended after their bout with electrocution.

While he went about his deadly business, the temporal wanderer's finger brushed one of the sapphires on his bracelet, causing it to instantly crumble to dust in it's setting (OOC: Make a note on your sheet/OOC/somewhere that you've used one of the sapphires, please. ). For a moment after passing on his message, Devlin received no reply, only the rather ominous sound of silence...

...And then a half frantic voice burst through, echoing unpleasantly through the entire link. Cryoleptus' voice sounded oddly distorted, and the communication was filled with an unpleasant hissing, popping noise (OOC: Literally sounds just like radio static).

"...till alive? Thank...e to a...he Powers! Ther...s a massiv...xplosio...is end. Thoug...u were dead! ...tting interfer...is end. Hol...n!"

The Vizier's voice goes silent for a moment, then almost immediately comes back, stronger than before, though still plagued by the hissing noise. "Can you hear me now? Dont speak, just listen, all of you. Hardblade is channeling her magic to me, but she's wounded...all of us are. There was a massive explosion on this end just after you stepped through, and the Portal is badly damaged. Two of the other anchors are dead, killed when they tried to shield the rest of us."

He paused, seeming to take a mental breath, then continued rapidly. "The portal is rapidly decaying, and as best I can tell, it's going to break, catastrophically, very soon. Likely, you have less than a minute to get as far away as you can. I recommend you get at least a furlong away, possibly farther. DO NOT, whatever you do, teleport out. One of the anchors tried that, and the magical backlash nearly stopped his heart. What? What's that? Ok, ok...dammit! Sorry, we have to go. We're evacuating the Guildhouse as well. The Portal is going completely unstable, and I dont know if we can stop it! Just get out of the immediate vicinity, and contact us again in one hour. If we dont hear from you, we'll assume you didn't make it, and that the mission is a failure. If you cant contact us, assume the same. Go, with The Lady's blessing."

A second voice, that of Hardblade, rough and clearly in pain, joined the link for a moment. "Stay alive, my Hunters, whatever you have to do. Hunters, Hunt!"

With those words, the connection was broken and silence filled all of their minds.

At the exact same instant, within the center of the sphere circle that defined the portal, a large, night black sphere, appeared. It was roughly the size of a melon, and it's entire surface was surrounded by what appeared to be a flowing, swirling cloud of glass-like shards...shards just as black and impenetrable as the sphere itself.

At the same time, every instinct gained over a long and storied career, from dangers faced and monsters overcome, began screaming at the Hunters. Whatever that sphere was, it was absolutely, immensely, deadly dangerous.

For two of their number, however, it was even more ominous than that.

For Devlin, it was as though a tear had appeared in the fabric of space-time. He could literally see a swirling vortex of temporal power surrounding the black sphere. Whatever the glass-like shards were, they were spinning about on winds spun from Time itself.

For Monique, it was like looking at a manifestation of her deity, only one seen through a funhouse mirror. All the energies of Life and Death swirled around the sphere, coalesced into physical form, and represented as the shards of 'glass'. As for the sphere itself...somewhere deep within her, at the point where her soul ended and her connection with the divine spark began, a tiny, voiceless voice was telling her that the sphere was pure, congealed, quintessence. The raw stuff of Fate.

Unfortunately, none of them were given much time to deliberate the ramifications of this new danger as, not only did the Zyclops they could see begin to mount a counterattack, but several of the storefonts that surrounded them began to disgorge even more of their one-eyed, undead foes.

Large zombies poured from several buildings, some using doorways, some simply charging straight through the damaged walls.  And despite Nivel's best efforts, and impressive magic, it seemed that somehow, someway, and despite the fact that just a few seconds ago they were clearly casting about blindly to spot the Hunters, the Zyclops were now heading unerringly towards their chosen targets.

From out of the bottom floor of the building he had landed in, Yukito spotted a pair of Zyclops crashing out through the large, gallery windows, seemingly heading for his companions. Both were dressed like typical townsfolk, and a certain similarity of dress indicated that they were probably employed by the boarding house. He spotted the woman first and managed to get off a strike at her, removing one of her arms and slashing deeply into her side. The male of the two also moved into range and was similarly slashed, but both were almost immediately out of range. All was not lost, however...more 'friends' had arrived.

From the other nearby building, another Zyclops emerged, this one dressed in homespun and carrying a walking staff that look like it was carved from a fairly large tree. He was far enough away that the swordsman was able to make quick work of him, since he actually exited through the door on the north side of the building. However, while dealing with the shepherd, two much more serious foes presented themselves. One came crashing through the nearby wall, a tall, broad shouldered specimen of Zyclops, clad neck to knees in thick, soot-stained leather, and bearing a positively huge hammer. His bald head, as well as a pattern of burn scars on his forearms made his profession quite obvious. Yukito lashed out with another of his blasts of frigid power, slashing through the smith's apron and deeply...though not so deeply as he did with the regular townsfolk...into his torso.

The swordsman's final foe was even more fearsome, dressed head to toe in a mix of plate and mail armour, bearing a shield that would have doubled quite nicely as a barn door, and wielding a sword longer than Yukito was tall. Another blast of power left the smoking swordsman, but this one was turned by the mighty shield the Zyclops bore, though it did scar the surface of the metal.

An instant later, both of the still moving Zyclops converged on him, raining blows down with hammer and blade.

The two Zyclops from the boarding house who'd managed to escape Yukito's wrath converged on Nivel, who was still recovering from the assault by the portal. Both swung their huge fists, attempting to emulate a farmer driving a fencepost into the ground...with the assassin substituting for the piece of wood.

At the same time, Devlin was beset by a pair of nattily dressed townsfolk from the building opposite the boarding house. Both appeared to be wearing what probably construed local finery, the woman wearing a soft, cashmere-like sweater, and the man an odd sort of silky doublet. Both their clothes were heavily stained with blood and each sported terrible wounds, but both seemed equally determined to grind the temporal scholar into the dusty roadbed.

Blaidd, who'd pulled back from his initial attack on the cyclops quickly found himself confronted by not only that undead monstrosity, but two others, both of whom simply tore their way through the nearby wall and immediately set about attacking him with fists, or, in the case of the shepherd and smith, a walking staff and hammer, respectively.

A third Zyclops come barreling out from the upper floor, and onto the balcony...whereupon he immediately stopped dead as soon as he entered the cloud of nullmetal infused smoke that hung in the air from Devlin's earlier attack.

Finally, from the north end of the street, a large explosion ripped through the air as another Zyclops exited the chapel, triggering Devlin's trap. The shepherd appeared to be moderately damaged by the blast, and had succumbed to the tripwire, landing in a heap just beyond it. A second later, another Zyclops, another of the armoured ones, came barrelling out, and quickly joined the shepherd on the ground, having fallen to the tripwire as well.

Throughout all the mayhem, the high, keening sound of the Zyclops' wails had been growing and crescendoing until, abruptly, it stopped, filling the air with heavy silence...

...silence that was torn asunder by the sound of splintering, tearing wood, and the high pitched sound of concentrated beams of energy slicing through the air. The roof of the boarding house erupted in a torrent of black flame, and from out of the ensuing chaos arose the absolutely MASSIVE form of a floating, bone white beholder!

The huge beast measured at least twenty feet across, and each of it's eyestalks was at least two yards long. All of them, as well as it's great, central eye, were a pale, corpse-like white, but each burned, deep within, with the same black flame that was mirrored in the eyes of all the Zyclops. It's huge, toothed maw drooled a mixture of dark saliva and runnels of ebon fire, a horrid mixture which almost immediately began to cause the debris underneath it to smoke and sizzle. The Death Orb, for there was no doubt in any of the Hunter's minds that this was anything other than a Death Kiss Beholder...though one significantly larger and, presumably, more powerful than any seen before, rise in stately, terrifying majesty and swept it's many-eyed gaze across the field of battle...and, again, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that, the great beast could see them all.

The low thrum of the Portal filled the air of the trading post with the smell of ozone, sharp and pungent. Every time one of the Hunters happened to glance at it, it seemed like more and more arcs of 'lightning' danced around it's circumference, and...Powers!...what it getting LARGER?!?

None of the six could be entirely sure at first, but it seemed like, even as they watched, the sparking, humming portal was inching ever so slightly outward with every breath they took.

Unfortunately, other events necessitated that they not pay as much attention to the clearly dangerous phenomenon as they might otherwise like. The Zyclops, having been alerted to their presence, were beginning to react to them...right up until the moment when five of them disappeared from sight. The undead stumbled to a halt, even in the midst of moving, heads swinging this way and that, great flaming eyes searching for their foes.

From within the buildings, the moaning built further, somehow managing to take on an even more ominous air.

After that, several things happened simultaneously.

From his elevated position on the second floor of the boarding house, Yukito surveyed the area. Choosing his landing spot, the swordsman flashed down to the street. Only to instantly double over in pain. Waves of agony flooded his body, and it felt like his every nerve ending was dipped in acid. Looking on in horrid fascination, he could see parts of his body flickering, as though some bits had been left behind, only to reappear, each such flicker causing fresh new hell to erupt across his body. The effects lasted for only a second or two, but felt like it lasted far, far longer, and when he finally, fully snapped back to reality, his entire body was drenched in sweat...and, even worse, the cherry on his cigarette seemed to have gone out...in fact, fully half of the small white cylinder was completely missing.

Gritting his teeth, the Hunter took a moment to get his bearings. Spotting one of the Zyclops close by, ironically, on the stairs attached to the outside of the building he had just been in, he whipped out his blade and sent a lance of force leaping across the distance and slamming into the nearest cyclops, a female townie, who appeared to be wearing the garb of a cook, including a rather nice flowered apron. The apron, despite the bright, cheery sun embroidered on it, did nothing to stop the wave of numbing cold that struck it's wearer. The initial force of the 'slice' tore open the woman's chest, allowing the bone-chilling cold to slam into her torso. Frost immediately covered her entire upper body, seeming to dig right into her bones. Horrific snapping and cracking sounds filled the air as several of her ribs shattered, and one of her arms snapped completely off at the shoulder from the pressure wave of the attack. The flames that made up her eye seemed to dim momentarily, but quickly built back up once more, even as she howled in response to the damage.

Spurred on by his action, and being the only one of the Hunters she could currently see, the Zyclops immediately charged down the stairs she stood on, her eye blazing and her mien a twisted snarl. She only managed a few steps, however, before a second blast of raw cold slammed into her, slicing her giant body in twain and sending the two halves tumbling down the stairs, one after the other, to land in a bloody, ichorous, frozen heap on the ground.

Nivel, after getting his own bearings, as well as having consulted with his comrades, caused a massive Black Dragon suddenly appeared in their midst, seeming to come straight out of the Portal as well. The huge beast raised it's head to the sky and gave a massive, earth shuddering roar, then began glaring around at the, comparatively, puny beings that dared to threaten it. Mantling it's powerful wings, the dragon opened it's maw, prepared to spew a rain of ichorous death all about it...

...unfortunately, it was in that instant that the rapidly lashing tail of Nivel's 'pet' impacted with the outermost edge of the slowly expanding Portal. A high pitched SHRIEK echoed around the area, startling all of the living occupants, and the dragon disappeared in a huge burst of light, appearing to have not so much been Dispelled, as magically shredded. Even as the construct of light, shadows, and mana evaporated into the aether, a small spark of energy leapt from the core of the disappearing dragon, flowed around the edge of the portal, then leapt, like a bolt of ebon lightning, straight to the illusion's originator, striking him, not in the chest, but deep within, seemingly drawn straight to his magical core!

Nivel gasped involuntarily as PAIN rocked his entire being, pain somehow even worse than that he experienced when passing through the portal originally. A shivering, muscle jumping shudder wracked his body from head to toe, before seemingly grounding out and leaving his body. The experience left him profoundly shaken and disturbed, and he could still feel small tremors of pain running through his magical core.

Even as the Mistsoul bound assassin was dealing with the physical and magical aftershocks

Monique, recovering from her impromptu Human Bowling demonstration of a few seconds ago, gathered herself and teleported closer to her compatriots...only to immediately double over, clutching her stomach as waves of pain poured through her, as she suffered the same awful pain that Yukito had just experienced. Like him, the experienced Huntress managed to fight through the pain and focus enough to cast the spells needed to aid her compatriots, but it was neither easy nor pleasant.

Cal, after giving himself a shake to rid himself of the bark and splinters pressed into his back, sent another ray of pure, positive energy lancing into the already damaged Zyclops. The flaming thing that had once been a female Cyclops screeched, a high, sharp steamwhistle-like sound, then collapsed, seeming to fold in on itself. Even as he turned away to greet his compatriots, the large pile of former Cyclops continued to merrily burn, emitting a foul, noisome smoke.

Blaidd, after shifting into his huge combat form, danced forward, slashing at the Zyclops in front of him. His claws sunk deeply into the monstrosity, tearing away a large portion of it's back and at least one rib. He was just raising his other clawed hand for a second strike, when, from deep within the body of the undead, pitch-black flames came ravening out of it's body. The flames raced up his clawed fingers, swiftly encased his arm in a sheath of fire, then just as quickly sputtered out. The giant Hunter staggered back a couple of steps, mentally reevaluating this new tactical information.

Devlin, moving across the battlefield, left a nasty surprise on the doors of the small chapel, then moved into the center of the road and flung a pair of nasty concoctions towards the two Zyclops who stood on the balcony, overlooking the street. Both spheres arced gracefully through the air and unerringly impact on the chest of the male Zyclops. A burst of heat/light/fire surrounded the two undead and sends both staggering. The electricity generated by the alchemical mixture chewed through their bodies, causing them to twitch and spasm uncontrollably. Unfortunately, it seems that whatever the source of their resistance to flame, whether that be the innate toughness leftover from their Cyclopean origins, or some mystical defense that the nullsteel couldn't manage to dispel, the flaming napalm simply cascaded down their bodies, failing to gain purchase, and pooled at their feet.

On the other hand, it did manage to cause the old, dry wood of the balcony, now heaving damaged and splintered by the concussive force of his flashbangs, to begin to smolder quite nicely.

Of note, however, was that, once the electricity stopped causing involuntary spasms in the two Zyclops, they both completely stopped moving. From what the scholar could tell, they weren't howling anymore either, merely standing, stock still, in the exact same position they'd ended after their bout with electrocution.

While he went about his deadly business, the temporal wanderer's finger brushed one of the sapphires on his bracelet, causing it to instantly crumble to dust in it's setting (OOC: Make a note on your sheet/OOC/somewhere that you've used one of the sapphires, please. ). For a moment after passing on his message, Devlin received no reply, only the rather ominous sound of silence...

...And then a half frantic voice burst through, echoing unpleasantly through the entire link. Cryoleptus' voice sounded oddly distorted, and the communication was filled with an unpleasant hissing, popping noise (OOC: Literally sounds just like radio static).

"...till alive? Thank...e to a...he Powers! Ther...s a massiv...xplosio...is end. Thoug...u were dead! ...tting interfer...is end. Hol...n!"

The Vizier's voice goes silent for a moment, then almost immediately comes back, stronger than before, though still plagued by the hissing noise. "Can you hear me now? Dont speak, just listen, all of you. Hardblade is channeling her magic to me, but she's wounded...all of us are. There was a massive explosion on this end just after you stepped through, and the Portal is badly damaged. Two of the other anchors are dead, killed when they tried to shield the rest of us."

He paused, seeming to take a mental breath, then continued rapidly. "The portal is rapidly decaying, and as best I can tell, it's going to break, catastrophically, very soon. Likely, you have less than a minute to get as far away as you can. I recommend you get at least a furlong away, possibly farther. DO NOT, whatever you do, teleport out. One of the anchors tried that, and the magical backlash nearly stopped his heart. What? What's that? Ok, ok...dammit! Sorry, we have to go. We're evacuating the Guildhouse as well. The Portal is going completely unstable, and I dont know if we can stop it! Just get out of the immediate vicinity, and contact us again in one hour. If we dont hear from you, we'll assume you didn't make it, and that the mission is a failure. If you cant contact us, assume the same. Go, with The Lady's blessing."

A second voice, that of Hardblade, rough and clearly in pain, joined the link for a moment. "Stay alive, my Hunters, whatever you have to do. Hunters, Hunt!"

With those words, the connection was broken and silence filled all of their minds.

At the exact same instant, within the center of the sphere circle that defined the portal, a large, night black sphere, appeared. It was roughly the size of a melon, and it's entire surface was surrounded by what appeared to be a flowing, swirling cloud of glass-like shards...shards just as black and impenetrable as the sphere itself.

At the same time, every instinct gained over a long and storied career, from dangers faced and monsters overcome, began screaming at the Hunters. Whatever that sphere was, it was absolutely, immensely, deadly dangerous.

For two of their number, however, it was even more ominous than that.

For Devlin, it was as though a tear had appeared in the fabric of space-time. He could literally see a swirling vortex of temporal power surrounding the black sphere. Whatever the glass-like shards were, they were spinning about on winds spun from Time itself.

For Monique, it was like looking at a manifestation of her deity, only one seen through a funhouse mirror. All the energies of Life and Death swirled around the sphere, coalesced into physical form, and represented as the shards of 'glass'. As for the sphere itself...somewhere deep within her, at the point where her soul ended and her connection with the divine spark began, a tiny, voiceless voice was telling her that the sphere was pure, congealed, quintessence. The raw stuff of Fate.

Unfortunately, none of them were given much time to deliberate the ramifications of this new danger as, not only did the Zyclops they could see begin to mount a counterattack, but several of the storefonts that surrounded them began to disgorge even more of their one-eyed, undead foes.

Large zombies poured from several buildings, some using doorways, some simply charging straight through the damaged walls.  And despite Nivel's best efforts, and impressive magic, it seemed that somehow, someway, and despite the fact that just a few seconds ago they were clearly casting about blindly to spot the Hunters, the Zyclops were now heading unerringly towards their chosen targets.

From out of the bottom floor of the building he had landed in, Yukito spotted a pair of Zyclops crashing out through the large, gallery windows, seemingly heading for his companions. Both were dressed like typical townsfolk, and a certain similarity of dress indicated that they were probably employed by the boarding house. He spotted the woman first and managed to get off a strike at her, removing one of her arms and slashing deeply into her side. The male of the two also moved into range and was similarly slashed, but both were almost immediately out of range. All was not lost, however...more 'friends' had arrived.

From the other nearby building, another Zyclops emerged, this one dressed in homespun and carrying a walking staff that look like it was carved from a fairly large tree. He was far enough away that the swordsman was able to make quick work of him, since he actually exited through the door on the north side of the building. However, while dealing with the shepherd, two much more serious foes presented themselves. One came crashing through the nearby wall, a tall, broad shouldered specimen of Zyclops, clad neck to knees in thick, soot-stained leather, and bearing a positively huge hammer. His bald head, as well as a pattern of burn scars on his forearms made his profession quite obvious. Yukito lashed out with another of his blasts of frigid power, slashing through the smith's apron and deeply...though not so deeply as he did with the regular townsfolk...into his torso.

The swordsman's final foe was even more fearsome, dressed head to toe in a mix of plate and mail armour, bearing a shield that would have doubled quite nicely as a barn door, and wielding a sword longer than Yukito was tall. Another blast of power left the smoking swordsman, but this one was turned by the mighty shield the Zyclops bore, though it did scar the surface of the metal.

An instant later, both of the still moving Zyclops converged on him, raining blows down with hammer and blade.

The two Zyclops from the boarding house who'd managed to escape Yukito's wrath converged on Nivel, who was still recovering from the assault by the portal. Both swung their huge fists, attempting to emulate a farmer driving a fencepost into the ground...with the assassin substituting for the piece of wood.

At the same time, Devlin was beset by a pair of nattily dressed townsfolk from the building opposite the boarding house. Both appeared to be wearing what probably construed local finery, the woman wearing a soft, cashmere-like sweater, and the man an odd sort of silky doublet. Both their clothes were heavily stained with blood and each sported terrible wounds, but both seemed equally determined to grind the temporal scholar into the dusty roadbed.

Blaidd, who'd pulled back from his initial attack on the cyclops quickly found himself confronted by not only that undead monstrosity, but two others, both of whom simply tore their way through the nearby wall and immediately set about attacking him with fists, or, in the case of the shepherd and smith, a walking staff and hammer, respectively.

A third Zyclops come barreling out from the upper floor, and onto the balcony...whereupon he immediately stopped dead as soon as he entered the cloud of nullmetal infused smoke that hung in the air from Devlin's earlier attack.

Finally, from the north end of the street, a large explosion ripped through the air as another Zyclops exited the chapel, triggering Devlin's trap. The shepherd appeared to be moderately damaged by the blast, and had succumbed to the tripwire, landing in a heap just beyond it. A second later, another Zyclops, another of the armoured ones, came barrelling out, and quickly joined the shepherd on the ground, having fallen to the tripwire as well.

Throughout all the mayhem, the high, keening sound of the Zyclops' wails had been growing and crescendoing until, abruptly, it stopped, filling the air with heavy silence...

...silence that was torn asunder by the sound of splintering, tearing wood, and the high pitched sound of concentrated beams of energy slicing through the air. The roof of the boarding house erupted in a torrent of black flame, and from out of the ensuing chaos arose the absolutely MASSIVE form of a floating, bone white beholder!

The huge beast measured at least twenty feet across, and each of it's eyestalks was at least two yards long. All of them, as well as it's great, central eye, were a pale, corpse-like white, but each burned, deep within, with the same black flame that was mirrored in the eyes of all the Zyclops. It's huge, toothed maw drooled a mixture of dark saliva and runnels of ebon fire, a horrid mixture which almost immediately began to cause the debris underneath it to smoke and sizzle. The Death Orb, for there was no doubt in any of the Hunter's minds that this was anything other than a Death Kiss Beholder...though one significantly larger and, presumably, more powerful than any seen before, rise in stately, terrifying majesty and swept it's many-eyed gaze across the field of battle...and, again, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that, the great beast could see them all.

The low thrum of the Portal filled the air of the trading post with the smell of ozone, sharp and pungent. Every time one of the Hunters happened to glance at it, it seemed like more and more arcs of 'lightning' danced around it's circumference, and...Powers!...what it getting LARGER?!?

None of the six could be entirely sure at first, but it seemed like, even as they watched, the sparking, humming portal was inching ever so slightly outward with every breath they took.

Unfortunately, other events necessitated that they not pay as much attention to the clearly dangerous phenomenon as they might otherwise like. The Zyclops, having been alerted to their presence, were beginning to react to them...right up until the moment when five of them disappeared from sight. The undead stumbled to a halt, even in the midst of moving, heads swinging this way and that, great flaming eyes searching for their foes.

From within the buildings, the moaning built further, somehow managing to take on an even more ominous air.

After that, several things happened simultaneously.

From his elevated position on the second floor of the boarding house, Yukito surveyed the area. Choosing his landing spot, the swordsman flashed down to the street. Only to instantly double over in pain. Waves of agony flooded his body, and it felt like his every nerve ending was dipped in acid. Looking on in horrid fascination, he could see parts of his body flickering, as though some bits had been left behind, only to reappear, each such flicker causing fresh new hell to erupt across his body. The effects lasted for only a second or two, but felt like it lasted far, far longer, and when he finally, fully snapped back to reality, his entire body was drenched in sweat...and, even worse, the cherry on his cigarette seemed to have gone out...in fact, fully half of the small white cylinder was completely missing.

Gritting his teeth, the Hunter took a moment to get his bearings. Spotting one of the Zyclops close by, ironically, on the stairs attached to the outside of the building he had just been in, he whipped out his blade and sent a lance of force leaping across the distance and slamming into the nearest cyclops, a female townie, who appeared to be wearing the garb of a cook, including a rather nice flowered apron. The apron, despite the bright, cheery sun embroidered on it, did nothing to stop the wave of numbing cold that struck it's wearer. The initial force of the 'slice' tore open the woman's chest, allowing the bone-chilling cold to slam into her torso. Frost immediately covered her entire upper body, seeming to dig right into her bones. Horrific snapping and cracking sounds filled the air as several of her ribs shattered, and one of her arms snapped completely off at the shoulder from the pressure wave of the attack. The flames that made up her eye seemed to dim momentarily, but quickly built back up once more, even as she howled in response to the damage.

Spurred on by his action, and being the only one of the Hunters she could currently see, the Zyclops immediately charged down the stairs she stood on, her eye blazing and her mien a twisted snarl. She only managed a few steps, however, before a second blast of raw cold slammed into her, slicing her giant body in twain and sending the two halves tumbling down the stairs, one after the other, to land in a bloody, ichorous, frozen heap on the ground.

Nivel, after getting his own bearings, as well as having consulted with his comrades, caused a massive Black Dragon suddenly appeared in their midst, seeming to come straight out of the Portal as well. The huge beast raised it's head to the sky and gave a massive, earth shuddering roar, then began glaring around at the, comparatively, puny beings that dared to threaten it. Mantling it's powerful wings, the dragon opened it's maw, prepared to spew a rain of ichorous death all about it...

...unfortunately, it was in that instant that the rapidly lashing tail of Nivel's 'pet' impacted with the outermost edge of the slowly expanding Portal. A high pitched SHRIEK echoed around the area, startling all of the living occupants, and the dragon disappeared in a huge burst of light, appearing to have not so much been Dispelled, as magically shredded. Even as the construct of light, shadows, and mana evaporated into the aether, a small spark of energy leapt from the core of the disappearing dragon, flowed around the edge of the portal, then leapt, like a bolt of ebon lightning, straight to the illusion's originator, striking him, not in the chest, but deep within, seemingly drawn straight to his magical core!

Nivel gasped involuntarily as PAIN rocked his entire being, pain somehow even worse than that he experienced when passing through the portal originally. A shivering, muscle jumping shudder wracked his body from head to toe, before seemingly grounding out and leaving his body. The experience left him profoundly shaken and disturbed, and he could still feel small tremors of pain running through his magical core.

Even as the Mistsoul bound assassin was dealing with the physical and magical aftershocks

Monique, recovering from her impromptu Human Bowling demonstration of a few seconds ago, gathered herself and teleported closer to her compatriots...only to immediately double over, clutching her stomach as waves of pain poured through her, as she suffered the same awful pain that Yukito had just experienced. Like him, the experienced Huntress managed to fight through the pain and focus enough to cast the spells needed to aid her compatriots, but it was neither easy nor pleasant.

Cal, after giving himself a shake to rid himself of the bark and splinters pressed into his back, sent another ray of pure, positive energy lancing into the already damaged Zyclops. The flaming thing that had once been a female Cyclops screeched, a high, sharp steamwhistle-like sound, then collapsed, seeming to fold in on itself. Even as he turned away to greet his compatriots, the large pile of former Cyclops continued to merrily burn, emitting a foul, noisome smoke.

Blaidd, after shifting into his huge combat form, danced forward, slashing at the Zyclops in front of him. His claws sunk deeply into the monstrosity, tearing away a large portion of it's back and at least one rib. He was just raising his other clawed hand for a second strike, when, from deep within the body of the undead, pitch-black flames came ravening out of it's body. The flames raced up his clawed fingers, swiftly encased his arm in a sheath of fire, then just as quickly sputtered out. The giant Hunter staggered back a couple of steps, mentally reevaluating this new tactical information.

Devlin, moving across the battlefield, left a nasty surprise on the doors of the small chapel, then moved into the center of the road and flung a pair of nasty concoctions towards the two Zyclops who stood on the balcony, overlooking the street. Both spheres arced gracefully through the air and unerringly impact on the chest of the male Zyclops. A burst of heat/light/fire surrounded the two undead and sends both staggering. The electricity generated by the alchemical mixture chewed through their bodies, causing them to twitch and spasm uncontrollably. Unfortunately, it seems that whatever the source of their resistance to flame, whether that be the innate toughness leftover from their Cyclopean origins, or some mystical defense that the nullsteel couldn't manage to dispel, the flaming napalm simply cascaded down their bodies, failing to gain purchase, and pooled at their feet.

On the other hand, it did manage to cause the old, dry wood of the balcony, now heaving damaged and splintered by the concussive force of his flashbangs, to begin to smolder quite nicely.

Of note, however, was that, once the electricity stopped causing involuntary spasms in the two Zyclops, they both completely stopped moving. From what the scholar could tell, they weren't howling anymore either, merely standing, stock still, in the exact same position they'd ended after their bout with electrocution.

While he went about his deadly business, the temporal wanderer's finger brushed one of the sapphires on his bracelet, causing it to instantly crumble to dust in it's setting (OOC: Make a note on your sheet/OOC/somewhere that you've used one of the sapphires, please. ). For a moment after passing on his message, Devlin received no reply, only the rather ominous sound of silence...

...And then a half frantic voice burst through, echoing unpleasantly through the entire link. Cryoleptus' voice sounded oddly distorted, and the communication was filled with an unpleasant hissing, popping noise (OOC: Literally sounds just like radio static).

"...till alive? Thank...e to a...he Powers! Ther...s a massiv...xplosio...is end. Thoug...u were dead! ...tting interfer...is end. Hol...n!"

The Vizier's voice goes silent for a moment, then almost immediately comes back, stronger than before, though still plagued by the hissing noise. "Can you hear me now? Dont speak, just listen, all of you. Hardblade is channeling her magic to me, but she's wounded...all of us are. There was a massive explosion on this end just after you stepped through, and the Portal is badly damaged. Two of the other anchors are dead, killed when they tried to shield the rest of us."

He paused, seeming to take a mental breath, then continued rapidly. "The portal is rapidly decaying, and as best I can tell, it's going to break, catastrophically, very soon. Likely, you have less than a minute to get as far away as you can. I recommend you get at least a furlong away, possibly farther. DO NOT, whatever you do, teleport out. One of the anchors tried that, and the magical backlash nearly stopped his heart. What? What's that? Ok, ok...dammit! Sorry, we have to go. We're evacuating the Guildhouse as well. The Portal is going completely unstable, and I dont know if we can stop it! Just get out of the immediate vicinity, and contact us again in one hour. If we dont hear from you, we'll assume you didn't make it, and that the mission is a failure. If you cant contact us, assume the same. Go, with The Lady's blessing."

A second voice, that of Hardblade, rough and clearly in pain, joined the link for a moment. "Stay alive, my Hunters, whatever you have to do. Hunters, Hunt!"

With those words, the connection was broken and silence filled all of their minds.

At the exact same instant, within the center of the sphere circle that defined the portal, a large, night black sphere, appeared. It was roughly the size of a melon, and it's entire surface was surrounded by what appeared to be a flowing, swirling cloud of glass-like shards...shards just as black and impenetrable as the sphere itself.

At the same time, every instinct gained over a long and storied career, from dangers faced and monsters overcome, began screaming at the Hunters. Whatever that sphere was, it was absolutely, immensely, deadly dangerous.

For two of their number, however, it was even more ominous than that.

For Devlin, it was as though a tear had appeared in the fabric of space-time. He could literally see a swirling vortex of temporal power surrounding the black sphere. Whatever the glass-like shards were, they were spinning about on winds spun from Time itself.

For Monique, it was like looking at a manifestation of her deity, only one seen through a funhouse mirror. All the energies of Life and Death swirled around the sphere, coalesced into physical form, and represented as the shards of 'glass'. As for the sphere itself...somewhere deep within her, at the point where her soul ended and her connection with the divine spark began, a tiny, voiceless voice was telling her that the sphere was pure, congealed, quintessence. The raw stuff of Fate.

Unfortunately, none of them were given much time to deliberate the ramifications of this new danger as, not only did the Zyclops they could see begin to mount a counterattack, but several of the storefonts that surrounded them began to disgorge even more of their one-eyed, undead foes.

Large zombies poured from several buildings, some using doorways, some simply charging straight through the damaged walls.  And despite Nivel's best efforts, and impressive magic, it seemed that somehow, someway, and despite the fact that just a few seconds ago they were clearly casting about blindly to spot the Hunters, the Zyclops were now heading unerringly towards their chosen targets.

From out of the bottom floor of the building he had landed in, Yukito spotted a pair of Zyclops crashing out through the large, gallery windows, seemingly heading for his companions. Both were dressed like typical townsfolk, and a certain similarity of dress indicated that they were probably employed by the boarding house. He spotted the woman first and managed to get off a strike at her, removing one of her arms and slashing deeply into her side. The male of the two also moved into range and was similarly slashed, but both were almost immediately out of range. All was not lost, however...more 'friends' had arrived.

From the other nearby building, another Zyclops emerged, this one dressed in homespun and carrying a walking staff that look like it was carved from a fairly large tree. He was far enough away that the swordsman was able to make quick work of him, since he actually exited through the door on the north side of the building. However, while dealing with the shepherd, two much more serious foes presented themselves. One came crashing through the nearby wall, a tall, broad shouldered specimen of Zyclops, clad neck to knees in thick, soot-stained leather, and bearing a positively huge hammer. His bald head, as well as a pattern of burn scars on his forearms made his profession quite obvious. Yukito lashed out with another of his blasts of frigid power, slashing through the smith's apron and deeply...though not so deeply as he did with the regular townsfolk...into his torso.

The swordsman's final foe was even more fearsome, dressed head to toe in a mix of plate and mail armour, bearing a shield that would have doubled quite nicely as a barn door, and wielding a sword longer than Yukito was tall. Another blast of power left the smoking swordsman, but this one was turned by the mighty shield the Zyclops bore, though it did scar the surface of the metal.

An instant later, both of the still moving Zyclops converged on him, raining blows down with hammer and blade.

The two Zyclops from the boarding house who'd managed to escape Yukito's wrath converged on Nivel, who was still recovering from the assault by the portal. Both swung their huge fists, attempting to emulate a farmer driving a fencepost into the ground...with the assassin substituting for the piece of wood.

At the same time, Devlin was beset by a pair of nattily dressed townsfolk from the building opposite the boarding house. Both appeared to be wearing what probably construed local finery, the woman wearing a soft, cashmere-like sweater, and the man an odd sort of silky doublet. Both their clothes were heavily stained with blood and each sported terrible wounds, but both seemed equally determined to grind the temporal scholar into the dusty roadbed.

Blaidd, who'd pulled back from his initial attack on the cyclops quickly found himself confronted by not only that undead monstrosity, but two others, both of whom simply tore their way through the nearby wall and immediately set about attacking him with fists, or, in the case of the shepherd and smith, a walking staff and hammer, respectively.

A third Zyclops come barreling out from the upper floor, and onto the balcony...whereupon he immediately stopped dead as soon as he entered the cloud of nullmetal infused smoke that hung in the air from Devlin's earlier attack.

Finally, from the north end of the street, a large explosion ripped through the air as another Zyclops exited the chapel, triggering Devlin's trap. The shepherd appeared to be moderately damaged by the blast, and had succumbed to the tripwire, landing in a heap just beyond it. A second later, another Zyclops, another of the armoured ones, came barrelling out, and quickly joined the shepherd on the ground, having fallen to the tripwire as well.

Throughout all the mayhem, the high, keening sound of the Zyclops' wails had been growing and crescendoing until, abruptly, it stopped, filling the air with heavy silence...

...silence that was torn asunder by the sound of splintering, tearing wood, and the high pitched sound of concentrated beams of energy slicing through the air. The roof of the boarding house erupted in a torrent of black flame, and from out of the ensuing chaos arose the absolutely MASSIVE form of a floating, bone white beholder!

The huge beast measured at least twenty feet across, and each of it's eyestalks was at least two yards long. All of them, as well as it's great, central eye, were a pale, corpse-like white, but each burned, deep within, with the same black flame that was mirrored in the eyes of all the Zyclops. It's huge, toothed maw drooled a mixture of dark saliva and runnels of ebon fire, a horrid mixture which almost immediately began to cause the debris underneath it to smoke and sizzle. The Death Orb, for there was no doubt in any of the Hunter's minds that this was anything other than a Death Kiss Beholder...though one significantly larger and, presumably, more powerful than any seen before, rise in stately, terrifying majesty and swept it's many-eyed gaze across the field of battle...and, again, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that, the great beast could see them all.

The low thrum of the Portal filled the air of the trading post with the smell of ozone, sharp and actinic. Every time one of the Hunters happened to glance at it, it seemed like more and more arcs of 'lightning' danced around it's circumference, and...Powers!...what it getting LARGER?!?

None of the six could be entirely sure at first, but it seemed like, even as they watched, the sparking, humming portal was inching ever so slightly outward with every breath they took.

Unfortunately, other events necessitated that they not pay as much attention to the clearly dangerous phenomenon as they might otherwise like. The Zyclops, having been alerted to their presence, were beginning to react to them...right up until the moment when five of them disappeared from sight. The undead stumbled to a halt, even in the midst of moving, heads swinging this way and that, great flaming eyes searching for their foes.

From within the buildings, the moaning built further, somehow managing to take on an even more ominous air.

After that, several things happened simultaneously.

From his elevated position on the second floor of the boarding house, Yukito surveyed the area. Choosing his landing spot, the swordsman flashed down to the street. Only to instantly double over in pain. Waves of agony flooded his body, and it felt like his every nerve ending was dipped in acid. Looking on in horrid fascination, he could see parts of his body flickering, as though some bits had been left behind, only to reappear, each such flicker causing fresh new hell to erupt across his body. The effects lasted for only a second or two, but felt like it lasted far, far longer, and when he finally, fully snapped back to reality, his entire body was drenched in sweat...and, even worse, the cherry on his cigarette seemed to have gone out...in fact, fully half of the small white cylinder was completely missing.

Gritting his teeth, the Hunter took a moment to get his bearings. Spotting one of the Zyclops close by, ironically, on the stairs attached to the outside of the building he had just been in, he whipped out his blade and sent a lance of force leaping across the distance and slamming into the nearest cyclops, a female townie, who appeared to be wearing the garb of a cook, including a rather nice flowered apron. The apron, despite the bright, cheery sun embroidered on it, did nothing to stop the wave of numbing cold that struck it's wearer. The initial force of the 'slice' tore open the woman's chest, allowing the bone-chilling cold to slam into her torso. Frost immediately covered her entire upper body, seeming to dig right into her bones. Horrific snapping and cracking sounds filled the air as several of her ribs shattered, and one of her arms snapped completely off at the shoulder from the pressure wave of the attack. The flames that made up her eye seemed to dim momentarily, but quickly built back up once more, even as she howled in response to the damage.

Spurred on by his action, and being the only one of the Hunters she could currently see, the Zyclops immediately charged down the stairs she stood on, her eye blazing and her mien a twisted snarl. She only managed a few steps, however, before a second blast of raw cold slammed into her, slicing her giant body in twain and sending the two halves tumbling down the stairs, one after the other, to land in a bloody, ichorous, frozen heap on the ground.

Nivel, after getting his own bearings, as well as having consulted with his comrades, caused a massive Black Dragon suddenly appeared in their midst, seeming to come straight out of the Portal as well. The huge beast raised it's head to the sky and gave a massive, earth shuddering roar, then began glaring around at the, comparatively, puny beings that dared to threaten it. Mantling it's powerful wings, the dragon opened it's maw, prepared to spew a rain of ichorous death all about it...

...unfortunately, it was in that instant that the rapidly lashing tail of Nivel's 'pet' impacted with the outermost edge of the slowly expanding Portal. A high pitched SHRIEK echoed around the area, startling all of the living occupants, and the dragon disappeared in a huge burst of light, appearing to have not so much been Dispelled, as magically shredded. Even as the construct of light, shadows, and mana evaporated into the aether, a small spark of energy leapt from the core of the disappearing dragon, flowed around the edge of the portal, then leapt, like a bolt of ebon lightning, straight to the illusion's originator, striking him, not in the chest, but deep within, seemingly drawn straight to his magical core!

Nivel gasped involuntarily as PAIN rocked his entire being, pain somehow even worse than that he experienced when passing through the portal originally. A shivering, muscle jumping shudder wracked his body from head to toe, before seemingly grounding out and leaving his body. The experience left him profoundly shaken and disturbed, and he could still feel small tremors of pain running through his magical core.

Even as the Mistsoul bound assassin was dealing with the physical and magical aftershocks

Monique, recovering from her impromptu Human Bowling demonstration of a few seconds ago, gathered herself and teleported closer to her compatriots...only to immediately double over, clutching her stomach as waves of pain poured through her, as she suffered the same awful pain that Yukito had just experienced. Like him, the experienced Huntress managed to fight through the pain and focus enough to cast the spells needed to aid her compatriots, but it was neither easy nor pleasant.

Cal, after giving himself a shake to rid himself of the bark and splinters pressed into his back, sent another ray of pure, positive energy lancing into the already damaged Zyclops. The flaming thing that had once been a female Cyclops screeched, a high, sharp steamwhistle-like sound, then collapsed, seeming to fold in on itself. Even as he turned away to greet his compatriots, the large pile of former Cyclops continued to merrily burn, emitting a foul, noisome smoke.

Blaidd, after shifting into his huge combat form, danced forward, slashing at the Zyclops in front of him. His claws sunk deeply into the monstrosity, tearing away a large portion of it's back and at least one rib. He was just raising his other clawed hand for a second strike, when, from deep within the body of the undead, pitch-black flames came ravening out of it's body. The flames raced up his clawed fingers, swiftly encased his arm in a sheath of fire, then just as quickly sputtered out. The giant Hunter staggered back a couple of steps, mentally reevaluating this new tactical information.

Devlin, moving across the battlefield, left a nasty surprise on the doors of the small chapel, then moved into the center of the road and flung a pair of nasty concoctions towards the two Zyclops who stood on the balcony, overlooking the street. Both spheres arced gracefully through the air and unerringly impact on the chest of the male Zyclops. A burst of heat/light/fire surrounded the two undead and sends both staggering. The electricity generated by the alchemical mixture chewed through their bodies, causing them to twitch and spasm uncontrollably. Unfortunately, it seems that whatever the source of their resistance to flame, whether that be the innate toughness leftover from their Cyclopean origins, or some mystical defense that the nullsteel couldn't manage to dispel, the flaming napalm simply cascaded down their bodies, failing to gain purchase, and pooled at their feet.

On the other hand, it did manage to cause the old, dry wood of the balcony, now heaving damaged and splintered by the concussive force of his flashbangs, to begin to smolder quite nicely.

Of note, however, was that, once the electricity stopped causing involuntary spasms in the two Zyclops, they both completely stopped moving. From what the scholar could tell, they weren't howling anymore either, merely standing, stock still, in the exact same position they'd ended after their bout with electrocution.

While he went about his deadly business, the temporal wanderer's finger brushed one of the sapphires on his bracelet, causing it to instantly crumble to dust in it's setting (OOC: Make a note on your sheet/OOC/somewhere that you've used one of the sapphires, please. ). For a moment after passing on his message, Devlin received no reply, only the rather ominous sound of silence...

...And then a half frantic voice burst through, echoing unpleasantly through the entire link. Cryoleptus' voice sounded oddly distorted, and the communication was filled with an unpleasant hissing, popping noise (OOC: Literally sounds just like radio static).

"...till alive? Thank...e to a...he Powers! Ther...s a massiv...xplosio...is end. Thoug...u were dead! ...tting interfer...is end. Hol...n!"

The Vizier's voice goes silent for a moment, then almost immediately comes back, stronger than before, though still plagued by the hissing noise. "Can you hear me now? Dont speak, just listen, all of you. Hardblade is channeling her magic to me, but she's wounded...all of us are. There was a massive explosion on this end just after you stepped through, and the Portal is badly damaged. Two of the other anchors are dead, killed when they tried to shield the rest of us."

He paused, seeming to take a mental breath, then continued rapidly. "The portal is rapidly decaying, and as best I can tell, it's going to break, catastrophically, very soon. Likely, you have less than a minute to get as far away as you can. I recommend you get at least a furlong away, possibly farther. DO NOT, whatever you do, teleport out. One of the anchors tried that, and the magical backlash nearly stopped his heart. What? What's that? Ok, ok...dammit! Sorry, we have to go. We're evacuating the Guildhouse as well. The Portal is going completely unstable, and I dont know if we can stop it! Just get out of the immediate vicinity, and contact us again in one hour. If we dont hear from you, we'll assume you didn't make it, and that the mission is a failure. If you cant contact us, assume the same. Go, with The Lady's blessing."

A second voice, that of Hardblade, rough and clearly in pain, joined the link for a moment. "Stay alive, my Hunters, whatever you have to do. Hunters, Hunt!"

With those words, the connection was broken and silence filled all of their minds.

At the exact same instant, within the center of the sphere circle that defined the portal, a large, night black sphere, appeared. It was roughly the size of a melon, and it's entire surface was surrounded by what appeared to be a flowing, swirling cloud of glass-like shards...shards just as black and impenetrable as the sphere itself.

At the same time, every instinct gained over a long and storied career, from dangers faced and monsters overcome, began screaming at the Hunters. Whatever that sphere was, it was absolutely, immensely, deadly dangerous.

For two of their number, however, it was even more ominous than that.

For Devlin, it was as though a tear had appeared in the fabric of space-time. He could literally see a swirling vortex of temporal power surrounding the black sphere. Whatever the glass-like shards were, they were spinning about on winds spun from Time itself.

For Monique, it was like looking at a manifestation of her deity, only one seen through a funhouse mirror. All the energies of Life and Death swirled around the sphere, coalesced into physical form, and represented as the shards of 'glass'. As for the sphere itself...somewhere deep within her, at the point where her soul ended and her connection with the divine spark began, a tiny, voiceless voice was telling her that the sphere was pure, congealed, quintessence. The raw stuff of Fate.

Unfortunately, none of them were given much time to deliberate the ramifications of this new danger as, not only did the Zyclops they could see begin to mount a counterattack, but several of the storefonts that surrounded them began to disgorge even more of their one-eyed, undead foes.

Large zombies poured from several buildings, some using doorways, some simply charging straight through the damaged walls.  And despite Nivel's best efforts, and impressive magic, it seemed that somehow, someway, and despite the fact that just a few seconds ago they were clearly casting about blindly to spot the Hunters, the Zyclops were now heading unerringly towards their chosen targets.

From out of the bottom floor of the building he had landed in, Yukito spotted a pair of Zyclops crashing out through the large, gallery windows, seemingly heading for his companions. Both were dressed like typical townsfolk, and a certain similarity of dress indicated that they were probably employed by the boarding house. He spotted the woman first and managed to get off a strike at her, removing one of her arms and slashing deeply into her side. The male of the two also moved into range and was similarly slashed, but both were almost immediately out of range. All was not lost, however...more 'friends' had arrived.

From the other nearby building, another Zyclops emerged, this one dressed in homespun and carrying a walking staff that look like it was carved from a fairly large tree. He was far enough away that the swordsman was able to make quick work of him, since he actually exited through the door on the north side of the building. However, while dealing with the shepherd, two much more serious foes presented themselves. One came crashing through the nearby wall, a tall, broad shouldered specimen of Zyclops, clad neck to knees in thick, soot-stained leather, and bearing a positively huge hammer. His bald head, as well as a pattern of burn scars on his forearms made his profession quite obvious. Yukito lashed out with another of his blasts of frigid power, slashing through the smith's apron and deeply...though not so deeply as he did with the regular townsfolk...into his torso.

The swordsman's final foe was even more fearsome, dressed head to toe in a mix of plate and mail armour, bearing a shield that would have doubled quite nicely as a barn door, and wielding a sword longer than Yukito was tall. Another blast of power left the smoking swordsman, but this one was turned by the mighty shield the Zyclops bore, though it did scar the surface of the metal.

An instant later, both of the still moving Zyclops converged on him, raining blows down with hammer and blade.

The two Zyclops from the boarding house who'd managed to escape Yukito's wrath converged on Nivel, who was still recovering from the assault by the portal. Both swung their huge fists, attempting to emulate a farmer driving a fencepost into the ground...with the assassin substituting for the piece of wood.

At the same time, Devlin was beset by a pair of nattily dressed townsfolk from the building opposite the boarding house. Both appeared to be wearing what probably construed local finery, the woman wearing a soft, cashmere-like sweater, and the man an odd sort of silky doublet. Both their clothes were heavily stained with blood and each sported terrible wounds, but both seemed equally determined to grind the temporal scholar into the dusty roadbed.

Blaidd, who'd pulled back from his initial attack on the cyclops quickly found himself confronted by not only that undead monstrosity, but two others, both of whom simply tore their way through the nearby wall and immediately set about attacking him with fists, or, in the case of the shepherd and smith, a walking staff and hammer, respectively.

A third Zyclops come barreling out from the upper floor, and onto the balcony...whereupon he immediately stopped dead as soon as he entered the cloud of nullmetal infused smoke that hung in the air from Devlin's earlier attack.

Finally, from the north end of the street, a large explosion ripped through the air as another Zyclops exited the chapel, triggering Devlin's trap. The shepherd appeared to be moderately damaged by the blast, and had succumbed to the tripwire, landing in a heap just beyond it. A second later, another Zyclops, another of the armoured ones, came barrelling out, and quickly joined the shepherd on the ground, having fallen to the tripwire as well.

Throughout all the mayhem, the high, keening sound of the Zyclops' wails had been growing and crescendoing until, abruptly, it stopped, filling the air with heavy silence...

...silence that was torn asunder by the sound of splintering, tearing wood, and the high pitched sound of concentrated beams of energy slicing through the air. The roof of the boarding house erupted in a torrent of black flame, and from out of the ensuing chaos arose the absolutely MASSIVE form of a floating, bone white beholder!

The huge beast measured at least twenty feet across, and each of it's eyestalks was at least two yards long. All of them, as well as it's great, central eye, were a pale, corpse-like white, but each burned, deep within, with the same black flame that was mirrored in the eyes of all the Zyclops. It's huge, toothed maw drooled a mixture of dark saliva and runnels of ebon fire, a horrid mixture which almost immediately began to cause the debris underneath it to smoke and sizzle. The Death Orb, for there was no doubt in any of the Hunter's minds that this was anything other than a Death Kiss Beholder...though one significantly larger and, presumably, more powerful than any seen before, rise in stately, terrifying majesty and swept it's many-eyed gaze across the field of battle...and, again, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that, the great beast could see them all.