[IRP] Return to the Dread Isle

[Alusq]

"Pleasure," Renata murmured in response to Tiras as she geared up and re-tied her hair, although she froze for a moment when Raye spoke. Nergal... Wolfram... Scary guy? Were they the same person? She decided to refrain from looking so obviously like she was lost in thought: whoever these boogeymen were, they didn't deserve her dwelling on them. The only thing that mattered was finding some clue as to how they could all escape the Dread Isle in one piece.

... But, then, perhaps they are the clue... Apparently Renata was so frazzled that the thought only occurred to her when the group was on the move again (not that it would have helped to set up camp and attempt to rest anywhere within a mile of those yellow-eyed monsters). "... Ah, Raye?" Renata experimentally addressed one of her companions. "This 'Nergal' individual... do you—" She practically bit her tongue as Tiras halted and signaled the presence of more morphs. She was no archer, but a simple hunting bow would've worked wonders at this distance. She had magic, but seeing how it was light magic... Then it occurred to her what she was going to do.

"Keep moving," Renata said to the rest of the group as she strode in a trajectory perpendicular to their own, transitioning into a jog as she produced her tome. That'll do. She set her sights on a raggedy old tree at the edge of the woods, as far as she believed her magic could reach, and hissed the incantation with a flourish. A crack echoed through the open expanse as the fragile wood was rent by a small explosion of light: it wasn't powerful enough to completely fell the tree, but it left a glowing scar and a cloud of splinters all the same. As several of the apparitions began to clamber towards the tree, Renata made a break for the far side of the field. It normally would've been smarter to skirt around the treeline, but every morph she'd met so far had moved slower than she could run. As long as the morphs could do nothing to substantially slow them down...

A yelp escaped Renata as a tendril of dark magic closed around her legs to trip her. Another golden set of eyes appeared in the distance as a black-robed figure, practically invisible until now, shrugged off its hood. "This is a message..."