Banishment PV Professors

Zahid doubted that armour would have stopped Caradoc from trying to kill him. Not unless it was especially enchanted, warded armour and he did not think what was essentially hall decoration to fall under that particular category. More importantly, he was not even completely sure if Caradoc's words were not meant as a threat as he did not catch a proper look at the man's eyes. Besides, even if it was friendly now how was he supposed to know that Caradoc would not just turn on him again? He could not be sure. Fool me once: shame on you, fool me twice: shame on me and all that. But he tried not to think about that too much. After all, had not his last encounter with a hag also been while in Caradoc's company? There was time to unpack that particular can of worms (figuratively (hopefully) and not literally) when danger was less imminent.

Keep your head in the game, Zahid, and do not think about the fact that one of your closest friends just attacked you. You need to get through this first.

Keeping a wary eye on the maybe-friendly-maybe-not armour in front of him, Zahid tried to figure out how Eide was doing. At least he had stopped the skeleton attacking him but as that was only due to the other professor's help, he should probably attempt to help him. The grounds keeper was further away, so he would have to fend for himself a bit longer. Zahid was not about to approach the man and turn his back on that suit of armour. No sir.

Instead he kept the suit in his eyeline as he cast another “Immobulus!”, this time at the skeleton attacking the CoMC professor. If he was also warily keeping a watch on Caradoc... that was neither here nor there.

Do not think about the fact that having allies you cannot trust at your back is worse and more dangerous than having no allies at all.

Action(s): Cast Immobulus at Ivar's skeleton.

It was dark. The blue flames had burned their course.

Funny, how Elena hadn't noticed, too preoccupied with her own murderous thoughts and trying to keep the nurse alive, though the darkness around them might not be much more dangerous to his health than the Head of Gryffindor herself, going by the fact that she'd dosed him with a yet of flames a few minutes ago that could have been quite lethal under more unlucky circumstances.

She stopped in her strides, face pensive if anyone would have been close enough to see in the murky darkness cast by the far-away light of the corridor they had come from. Looking down she could barely see the outline of her own raised hand.

Another witch would have cast light immediately, but her hands were still unsteady. Casting any spell wasn't an idea she would entertain in the near future, at least not if her life wasn't on the line. Her magic was too volatile, her mind too unstable.

Instead, Elaine walked deeper into the corridor. Her eyes were wide open, her heels clicking on the stone floor.

"Where have you hidden, little shade?" Her voice echoed from the stone walls, high and mocking and unhinged, matching the mad gleam in her eyes that went unseen by any one of her colleagues. "I've killed one of you already. Pity, she didn't put up much of a fight. I'm here, all alone in the dark, why don't you come out and play?"

It was a challenge, a dare, and had the circumstances been different she would have turned around instead and tried to save her niece, their caretaker, and the Charms Professor, but right now this was her best chance. Become bait. Try to lure the creatures, the hags, whatever it was that was hunting them, out of its hiding place. Maybe here she could learn something about their enemy. Eyes, unfocused, ears open, senses on high alert, she stared into nothing.

Alone in the darkness, Elena waited – as alone as she would ever be, in any case, given her own shadows.

Action: Taunting the shadows and looking for clues.

Reducio

Stats: ♠ Stamina: 12 ♠ Evasion: 10 ♠ Strength: 4 ♠ Wisdom: 20 ♠ Arcane Power: 12 ♠ Accuracy: 12

Abilities: Fearless ♠ Perfectionist ♠ Sixth Sense ♠ Non-Human Enthusiast ♠

Just as Marcus turned to launch himself at the hag, a blinding light took over the room and he ended up looking directly into it. Ouch. He winced and looked away as quickly as he could, but launching himself at the last area he had seen the hag turned out to be a ridiculous idea since his vision was now impaired. He was beyond lucky that he didn't end up falling into the enormous hole that he now saw in the ground - that must've been what the spell from earlier had caused.

The room was fading back into darkness as the sunlight disappeared, but he looked over his shoulder at the entrance where he knew the invisible reinforcements were. He saw a circle of flames being summoned, and at the same time there was a vine attacking that area. It must've succeeded in grabbing its target, because it wrapped around something and yanked into the air. Someone was now dangling up there, but he didn't have time to figure out if it was Nora or the other one that had come. He was starting to realize there were no others coming yet, so he wondered if the others had been held up by another encounter of some sort. Regardless, he turned his mind back to the situation at hand.

The hag was not clearly visible to any of them, so he would take this moment to really search the area for her and avoid falling into the hole that had been made for her to fall into. He would glance down into it just to check she wasn't there, and if she wasn't, he would raise his nose in the air slightly, using his amber eyes and heightened sense of smell to try and locate her despite the entire area smelling of death and rot like her. Maybe there was a concentrated area. Maybe there was an exit that she had gone through. Maybe she was just invisible like Marcus' comrades behind him. They needed to find her before she escaped and caused even more of a ruckus.

Action: Take the time to locate the hag through whatever means available (sight, smell)
Health: 700/1500

Racial Abilities: Werewolf Form (Rend, Bite, +10% damage) | Heightened Senses (tell familiar people by smell) | Track Hidden People (within 24 hours) | Wolf's Cry | Predatory Abilities (+25% chance to enter hidden, +2 stealth) | Intimidation (uneasiness, -1 acc, +1 crit fail to all around)
Chosen Abilities: Obnoxiously Strong (+10% strength) | Martial Artist

Stats: Stamina: 15 | Evasion: 7 | Strength: 20 (22) | Wisdom: 4 | Arcane Power: 4 | Accuracy: 15

The hallway seemed neverending. What Maya felt was a new hallway, was only the same one that they had gone through earlier. It was leading towards the entrance. The dungeons was like a maze, but even moreso, with everything that had happened thus far, it was clear that it messed with Maya's sense of direction.

"Lumos", Maya whispered, and her wand lit up. It did not light up the entirety of the hallway, but at least she saw where she was going. On the ground were the usual bones that she saw earlier of rats and other creatures. She used such bones to create her torch earlier, both not on her. One fell into the dark depths of the pit and the other she gave to Elaine Pendrast. She was no all out of muggle amo. Her best bet was to get back to the entrance and see if she could be of any help there.

Maya offered the extension to come with her to Aleks, but of course, she was not going to wait. If he wanted to come, he would come with her on his own accord. Maya began to walk down the hallway to the entrance only to hear more sounds getting louder and louder. She could not recognize the sounds, but it did seem like trouble.

Her steps quickened and Maya took a deep breath, relaxing her adrenaline, ready for whatever was at hand.

ACTION: Cast Lumos and travel back to the entrance

Reducio

Stamina: 11 || Evasion: 7 || Strength: 7 || Wisdom: 20 || ArcPower: 15 || Accuracy: 10
Currently applying/pending for:
The Muggle Condition
Wandless Magic
Non-Verbal Magic

Rosalind dismounted clumsily from the broom as River hovered along, her boots squeaking on the tile as she caught herself against the wall of the corridor. She chased after Nora, through the wall where she thought she'd seen her. Then there was a crack, and it was like the light in the room was snuffed out. There was still the fire light, but seeing by that wasn't much help when half of the room's occupants were invisible. Flames scoured the cavern as she crept in, her boots sliding along the rocky floor. There was no use to trying to sneak in, here - the jig appeared to be up. "I'm here," she called, peering through the firestorm to find out where her friends and foes lied.

Marcus was here, looking worse for wear, and sniffing around the cavern like a bloodhound on the trail. Or perhaps a very confused puppy, depending on his success. So much can happen when you spend just a minute in a hole in the ground. "Lumos duo," she said, holding her wand high like a torch to provide the hunting wolf with a bit more light by which to hunt his prey while Rosalind remained in the entry, trying to discern what exactly he might be hunting. "What the hell is going on?"

action: Light up a lumos duo and bask in confusion.
Stamina: 8 || Evasion: 13 || Strength: 10 || Wisdom: 12 || Arcane Power: 10 || Accuracy: 12

The Charms professor realised in time what to do. It was as if he was luring a tiny mouse into the perfect trap. Right in the claws of the cat. With the shadows surrounded, @Artemis Vernatis lashed out with another stroke of his wand. Yet another arm of fire reached out and smashed forward right into the shadows. It was almost too quickly the way the darkness was dispersed and obliterated by the sheer abundance of light. One threat down, but the battle was far from over...

@Hjørdis Jensen's eyes opened as she took in the room. Her mind had pushed aside all hopes and dreams as a simple voice had nestled itself between her ears. Slowly the branch would lower her thin frame, leaving the Head of Slytherin invisible on the floor. Her objective was clear. With intent in her eyes, the silver haired woman strode forward. Her wand extended, she first aimed for the origin from where the fire kept extending to attack the shadows until she finally pointed upwards. Her spell landed on the ceiling of the cavern right above the Charms professor. Three large blocks of stalactites came rocking (no pun intended) down onto the man, forcing him to jump out of the way. Whilst the ring of fire kept raging, the professor was met with two of his colleagues entering the room.

@Rosalind Kibitzer & @Aleksander Ostrowski both arrived to see rocks tumbling down and breaking across the floor. Sticking to the walls, they were both left unharmed but their invisible colleague caught some damage in his escape. Not that they'd notice that unless he called out to them. No, the pair of professors would have their eyes on the figure across the room, beyond the barricade of rubble they'd have to climb in order to help. On the other side, they'd witness the figure of Marcus being lifted into the air, grappled by one vine on each arm. Slowly both roots would start to pull him in from the other side.




The suit of armour stood still beside @Zahid al-Benghazi ibn Masoud, ready to defend the historian. As the professor lashed out and immobilised another skeleton, the armour would march forward at once. It simply ran over the skeleton on the ground, crushing its skull underneath a heavy metal plated boot. Shuffling past the hole in the ground, the hollow knight would make its way over to Gargott's location. With a large swing in the air, it tried to bring the mace down hard into the undead as it stood over Gargott's body. Caradoc's bright blue eyes lingered on the scene transpiring in front of him. He was tired after something had wriggled itself inside his head. With great struggle he tried to lift himself up against the wall. His legs were barely bending and one of his arms and hand seemed to not move at all. The others were still in there. These skeletons had to be distractions, they seemed too easily defeated over hags. So she had to be toying with them.

Caradoc had noticed the wary look in Zahid's eyes. Something had shaken the old man, considering the fact his own body felt frozen and hard to move he gathered something bad had just happened. The hags still got in his head. What he had done, he did not know. The worst scenarios came to mind. Though luckily for his old friend, he did not actually know any fatal spells. The Head of Hufflepuff was a healer by profession, while he knew how to mend someone it usually did not mean he could do the reverse of those sorts of magic. All Caradoc was able to do was sigh to himself. For now, he seemed back in control. Amends would need to be made after this was all done and who knew how much time had passed in the meantime.

Caradoc's mind drifted off. His thoughts taking shape in all manners of disturbing revelations of danger. Maybe he should have gone with her. He thought he would have been save from the hag's grasp here by the entrance, but it seemed their reach had grown far into the castle. What if they got to her as well? Worry furrowed his brow as he stared down the hall. "Zahid... we need to go after them. They need us." He coughed as he tried to gain control over his breathing. He extended his hand towards the unmoving skeleton his friend had managed to immobilise earlier. Without any effort and the whispered words of a reductor curse, the Head of Hufflepuff reduced the undead frame to a mere pile of ashes.

The tapping of shoes would sound behind him as @Maya Galim approached from the darkness, her wand lit. She would see a hallway wrapped in chaos. Ivar and Gargott both struggling near the end of the tunnel. And Zahid and a walking suit of armour advancing on their attacker. Caradoc would seem slow and pondering as he would acknowledge her rejoining them.



The halls would remain silent for @Elaine Pendrast. As she closed off her mind and burrowed herself in the darkness, there was an odd sensation of peace that fell over her. Whilst the hallways seemed to not hold any more hags or biting shadows down here, there was a soft breeze that pushed a few strands of her hair back. Wind? Down here? The breeze would caress her face and lead her further down the tunnel. It was coming from somewhere near her. Was that sulphur she smelled?

Allies
Marcus Iwasaki
600/1500

Artemis Vernatis
600/1200

Gargott Dunaid
850/1300

Rosalind Kibitzer
700/800

Maya Galim
1000/1100

Zahid al-Benghazi ibn Masoud
1300/1400

Ivar Eide
1100/1200

Caradoc Browne
1100/2000

Enemies
Auntie Etta
1400/1500

Sister Hattie
Disintegrated.

Third Hag
Escaped.

Hjørdis Jensen
700/1500

His chuckle filled the room like music to her ears. “I know I’m asleep… I know this is a dream…” She whispered as she snuggled her face into his chest, holding onto him as though to say that she did not care, she did not wish to wake up and she had no intention of facing reality. This was a dream and it was beautiful. He gently lifted her head, placing a kiss on her forehead, “Then it is a good dream.” He replied before raising his hand as though he was offering her a dance, a smirk playing on his lips.

She rolled her eyes at the gesture he made with her hand - knowing full well what he wanted to do, “Uh huh. Of course.” She teased back but took his hand nonetheless and adjusted the position of her other hand to wrap around his shoulder. With that, she allowed him to sway with her for a few moments.

Resting her cheek against the side of his as they danced close. The acoustics of the guitar in the background continued. After some time, she pulled away from a little, catching his eye. There was a smirk forming on the side of his lip. She narrowed her eyes a little, wondering what he was thinking. It could not have been good.

But the smirk appeared and as it did, she felt light droplets hit her. It was raining? Indoors? She looked up to see snow… created just above their heads and nowhere else. Looking back at him, “What are you up t-” She started before he suddenly took action. Stepping away, he continued by spinning her around all of a sudden.

Hjørdis gaped at him for a moment, a look of pride on his face as though he was successfully doing something. Her face instantly cracked into a smile, laughing softly, “You are ridiculous. Absolutely bloody ridiculous!” She replied as she wrapped both arms around his neck and continued to sway with him. The snow fell all around them. Magically, it appeared to not fall on her hair - which meant that her hair was perfectly kept and dry. It was amazing!

It did not feel cold, despite all of the snow that was slowly building up around them. “Maybe… we should tango.” He sprouted out with all of a sudden, the smirk growing on his face. She narrowed her eyes at him as though to say ‘hell no’ or ‘don’t be ridiculous, I cannot dance’, “Oh don’t look at me like that, Chuis, I know you can tango.” He retorted back smugly as though he had won, calling her by the nickname he affectionately had called her before.

“Uh-huh…” She responded with, making absolutely no attempts whatsoever to actually tango with him. It had been many years since she had danced properly. It was something she did over a decade ago. By no means was she a professional then but it was one of the few hobbies that she had taken up in her teenage years. More out of curiosity to see if she would like it. But it had been so long since she had actually practised it that she honestly had no idea if she could even really recall it. Though she supposed, if this was a dream, everything would just magically work out, right?

Elsk hummed along to the tune that the guitar was playing. There was a twinkle in his eye. One that she was about to question. He looked far too mischievous. He clicked his fingers and a fiddle started to play, “How about… we dance…” Leaning closer to her, he placed a finger under her chin and gently lifted her face, whispering into her ear, “Til the light goes out...”

* * *

As soon as the words escaped his mouth, everything went dark. Pitch black dark for the briefest of moments. The music playing was intense. A battle cry. She opened her eyes slowly, allowing them to adjust to the room she appeared to be in. Lights flickered in her face. There was injuries and marks over her body. But more importantly… she could no longer see him… Her silver eyes would search the room for the man of her dreams but he was not there... She did hear a voice, other figures appearing in front of her.

The room appeared to be a dark cavern. Her feet dangled in the air for a moment or two whilst her eyes adjusted to the new setting. As she reached the floor, she got up. Picking up the wooden object from the ground, she armed herself with it. She had to continue. She had to dance...

ACTION: -Secret-
STATUS: Injured, Invisible and Mind-Controlled | HEALTH: 700/1500

Stamina: 15 | Evasion: 9 | Strength: 2 | Wisdom: 20 | Arcane Power: 10 | Accuracy: 14
Abilities: Sixth Sense | Evasive Maneuvers | Perfectionist | Poison Resistance [others pending]

Outfit of the day

OOC: Inspiration: LOTR Quote, Gifs (in post) & Youtube video (in post). Her actions are fully controlled by the moderator and are in the mod's post.

Ivar was on his back, lying on the floor. He could feel the cool stone on his neck, it was rather soothing actually… Had only the rest of the atmosphere been so soothing. Ivar scoffed to himself as he kept wrestling the skeleton above him. The yellowish white-boned fiend seemed to want nothing more than to murder him, biting, clawing, strangling, whatever it could get its boney fingers around it would try to break.

With one hand constantly pushing at the monster, wand still in hand, Ivar was rummaging in his immediate vicinity with his left. Where was it, he had let it go in the fall, stupid man, where was it…
Ivar tried to shrink his head into his neck once more as a swing from the skeleton came threateningly close to his forehead.

Ah, what else couldn’t he be doing now, if he hadn’t said yes to this. Drink some cool mead in his stables, pick up a nice looking witch with his friendly and pretty looks at the Three Broomsticks perhaps, a nice sacrifice to magic maybe, or some calm woodcarving… all the options. Instead… Ivar looked up at the empty eye sockets staring at him from above, instead he was stuck here, stuck here with this thing.
Finally having found what he looked for, Ivar wrapped his hand around the intricate carved handle of his well used utility axe. He swung it upwards, trying to break the blasted things skull in with the axe's blunt end. “Satan! Dø! Dø!” [Devil! Die! Die!] Ivar would keep hitting the thing until it stopped moving or there was no head left to hit.

Actions:
Keep Skeleton from killing him.
Lovingly and supportive bap skeleton in the head with the blunt side of an axe until the skeleton doesn't move.

Stats:
Stamina: 12 | Evasion: 15 | Strength: 13 | Wisdom: 7 | Arcane Power: 10 | Accuracy: 13

Abilities:
Cats's Grace
Fearless
Keen Eye
Evasive Maneuvers x2

Oh, now Caradoc wanted him to go somewhere with him? Zahid did not think so. That smelled like a trap. It even quacked like a--

No.

Zahid forced himself to take a deep breath and let it out again. There was a healthy dose of caution and then there was unneeded paranoia. That train of thought had left the first domain and jumped fully into the latter. He knew Caradoc well enough by now, surely, to know better than to suspect the worst on principle. Besides, whatever had taken hold of his friend only moments earlier had seemed far too straight-forward.

So he only had to worry about Caradoc attacking him head on (again) and less to not at all about him leading him into a trap – unless, of course, both ventures to do with hags were traps themselves. Well, they were traps, he supposed. Only they were traps set by hags (at least indirectly) and not Caradoc.

Nonetheless, Zahid could not help but grimace at the thought of going further into the dark with a (potentially) untrustworthy ally. Besides, there were still Eide and Dunaid to consider. They were still here, too, after all. The CoMC professor seemed to be back in the game and dealing with the immobilised skeleton himself now – that left the groundskeeper. The Freezing Spell seemed to work quite well on the skeleton and besides, third time's the charm.

“Immobulus!” Ignoring Caradoc's words for the moment – he could not quite yet bring himself to trust the man enough to follow his advice right now, he needed a breather still and at least helping Dunaid was more productive than straight-up freezing up in indecision – he growled the spell at the skeleton attacking him.

Action(s): Cast Immobulus at Gargott's skeleton this time.

Marcus' attempt at locating the hag had apparently been useless. His mind was running a mile a minute, trying to determine what to focus on. Perhaps being distracted by the fact that his friend was behind him bleeding a fair amount - despite having insisted on capturing the hag - and he had no idea if more reinforcements were coming.

Just as he thought that, he glanced behind him and saw two faces appear at the entrance of the cavern. Two of the Hogwarts staff, one of whom he recognized more than the other. Aleksander Ostrowski. The other was an older lady - the Divination professor, Rosalind Kibitzer. But he still could not see Nora and whoever she had come with - it was clear to him now that they were invisible, probably in an attempt to sneak up on the hag. But with one of them having been grabbed by the vines above, he wondered why they did not dispel the invisibility. Perhaps it would take too much time. That's when he saw the area above the entrance collapse, raining rubble and debris.

Being distracted and unable to find the hag, Marcus found himself once again yanked and suspended in the air. He was not being careful enough, it seemed. This time the vines seemed determined to rip him apart. He felt the vines on each arm begin to tug in each direction. He instinctively flexed his arms and struggled against them, attempting to bring his arms together in the center so that the vines could not literally pull him apart.

Action: Struggle against restraints
Health: 600/1500

Racial Abilities: Werewolf Form (Rend, Bite, +10% damage) | Heightened Senses (tell familiar people by smell) | Track Hidden People (within 24 hours) | Wolf's Cry | Predatory Abilities (+25% chance to enter hidden, +2 stealth) | Intimidation (uneasiness, -1 acc, +1 crit fail to all around)
Chosen Abilities: Obnoxiously Strong (+10% strength) | Martial Artist

Stats: Stamina: 15 | Evasion: 7 | Strength: 20 (22) | Wisdom: 4 | Arcane Power: 4 | Accuracy: 15