The Sky Garden; [Open]

Cassima looked at Jack, it seemed that he wanted the book now, so she allowed Jack to take it from her, but he stood beside him so she can look what was inside the book. Despite Liseran's objections, she looked up to see Mirabella taunt the girl, and mentioned an incident unrelated to the current situation. "Stalham, what ever does she mean Liseran?" She looked back at the book.

But was worried for Liseran as before she did moved her entire on the mysterious book on fairy tales, she noticed that the woman was trembling, almost like the town brought back, unwanted memory's to her.

"The disappearing girl?" Cassima began to read the chapter to find out more about the story, failing to realise the note for now. However her vision was a bit blurry...Could this perhaps be a time for Cassima to wear her glasses?

No, not right now. She feels that her glasses are not right for the situation, and she could always ask Jack if she has trouble figuring out a few words from the story.

Just studied the marked page carefully before putting his attention back on the people in front of him. He snapped the book shut before slipping it in the pack below his lower back.

"I don't know what you're talking about, but from what I've seen, you're the suspicious one," Jacks stated sternly. "From where I stand, you were the one who attacked fir-"

In a moment of hesitation, he seemed to look back at Liseran before going back to Mirai. "You were the first to attack while knowing what your were doing," he finished, quickly editing what he was about to say.

"Not only did you attack, but you put an inexperienced lass in the crossfire. And now you're leveraging something over this young missy here. Now I don't know what this Stahlmim business is about, what from what I see in the here and now is that the only ones who have anything to explain is you lot."

He pointed his spear in their direction warningly. His Green Man stomped in front of Jack and spread its arms like it was ready to wrestle someone.

"So answer me this. What's going to happen if I don't give you this stupid book?"

Liseran couldn't find it within herself to answer Cassima's question. It was still fresh in her memory: the deep-red hair, the pale paper-white body, a silver shot sounding in the air, the pooling of blood on the street floors...

Liseran closed her eyes tight shut as if trying not to let tears well in her eyes. Her reaction to Cassima's question was enough to make Mirai smirk.

"She's as guilty as she makes herself look," Mirai said.

Despite this, Jack made his own retort. For the first time, Mirai sneered. It seemed, at the very least, that the young woman was not used to not getting her way, and the time that was being wasted denying her of what she wanted was starting to get on her nerves.

"If you don't give me that book," Mirai said with a testy voice. "Then I'll have to--"

A loud, almost ungodly screech emerged from deep within the undergrowth. It sounded like something merging awake, like a chorus of screams of different tortured individuals being awoken from an uneasy rest.

Mirai's eyes widened, and even her companions looked fearful.

"It couldn't be," she said with clenched teeth. "I thought they said it had been dealt with ages ago!"

The girl with the talons slowly retracted her nails until they were back to looking like ordinary hands. She then looked at Mirai.

"Cantus erodes Carta magic over time," she said plainly. "Perhaps it's been too long."

The wolf Wanyu had gotten in front of Mirai and had motioned for her to get on his back. Mirai obliged, hopping on along with the girl, before looking at Jack, Cassima, and Liseran with disgust.

"If you'll excuse me, I have to leave now and get the proper authorities," she said. "But do feel free to stay."

Mirai would then throw another metal sphere to the ground, which caused bright sparks and pink smoke to appear. When the gas would dissipate, the three odd assailants were gone. What the three would see instead were the trees all around them slowly dying and twisting and gnarling. The clouds seemed to emerge from the sky, casting a dark shadow over the sunny dome.

As the dying plants fell to the ground, it would reveal a dry patch of what looked like purple grass surrounding a gray tree with violet and maroon leaves. In the trunk of the tree was something that looked like it had been swallowed by the trunk: a frosted glass encasement twice the length of a human; a glass coffin, if one will.

Liseran's eyes widened, and she looked at the others.

"Oh my gods...we have to leave. NOW!" she said.

But as she said this, she heard the slamming of doors deep from below, and black, gnarled thorns seemed to wrap around the stairway. The glass began to crack in the center, showing the silhouette of what looked like a woman.

It would burst open, spraying glass in the three's direction. Liseran would scream, as she tried to cast a glyph over her, and the others in a sort of repelling shield.

If Jack and Cassima would look, dry and withered long hair the color of dead wheat seemed to poor out from the glass casket and was soon followed by withered gray and blackening arms. The figure crawled out standing almost thrice their size: an emaciated like woman monster with the body of a mantis, and beaten down wings. Her face was almost completely covered by the dead hair, save for her jaw which unhinged to show sharp teeth. It slowly turned to them, and growled, as if hungry. It's eyes glowed the signature Incantus gold.

"Min birçî ye"

"RUN!!!" Liseran screamed.

The monster would charge towards them, its arms morphing into raptorial forelegs. One would slice down a dying tall palm tree that would try and fall over Cassima.

Cassima felt bad for Liseran, she didn't know her very well but she didn't like the way she was taking all of this abuse from Mirabella. She walked over to Liseran and grabbed her hand before glaring to Mirabella. "She's not guilty. I don't know her very well but Liseran is a kindly woman who wants to look out for her friends and she doesn't want to see them get mauled or frozen away from evil witches like you!" Cassima growled to Mirabella, no doubt feeling like Mirabella might cast a mark to retaliate over Cassima's insult, but before she waited for Mirabella to finish her threat.

The garden began to shake and everything around the group...Started to die. "Kill us?" Cassima guessed what Mirabella's threat to Jack was going to be as she ran towards the stairs and noticed that vines were beginning to sprout from around the stairs. She backed away, only to turn around and see that a glass coffin had appeared in front of the group, after Mirabella and her minions vanished. Cassima took a step back, reaching the edge of the stairs, as the glass coffin broke open and she yelped. Fortunately, the glass was blocked thanks again to Liseran.

"Come on!" Cassima was about to run down the stairs, but she noticed that a tree was about to fall on her. She screamed as she jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding getting crushed by the tree, but that didn't stop the fact that one of the large dead branches had managed to bang into one of her legs and kept it pinned down on the ground. "ARGH! Seven hells. I can't move my leg!" Cassima took out her dagger and tried to cut the branch off so she can move her now sore leg.

"What in heck is going on missy??" Jack exclaimed as things suddenly took a different turn. With the sudden appearance of the glass coffin, the young man got a foreboding feel in his gut. He spun around just as the tree fell on Cassima, pinning down one of her legs. Then the creature made a lunge towards her. Too much was happening at once!

"GREEN MAN!" Jack barked out. The plant golem made a mad run and got in front of Cassima, spreading its arms and intercepting the monster. Jack ran to Cassima while his golem preoccupied the abomination. He reach out and touched the dying tree. "Hold still!"

A faint glow emitted where he touched the tree and as if becoming alive, its branches bent and moved away, freeing the adolescent girl.

"Let's see if it likes this then!"

The glow became more radiant and the tree twisting and move, its branches extending and falling around both his golem and the the monster, forming a wooden cage.

"Get going! I'll hold it down here!" Jack barked as he readied his weapon and spun around to face the monster.

"Cassima!" Liseran shrieked, startled to find the girl under the branch. She was going to force the branch up with a spell, but Jack's green golem did it for her. Quickly, she supported Cassima while raising a golden glowing hand to slowly begin to heal her injuries from the crush.

"I don't want to be the bearer of bad news," Liseran shouted to Jack upon him asking about what was going on. "But I think that's the Golden Fairy. I knew it was bad luck with you two jinxing if she was real!!"

Liseran used a glyph to hasten her and Cassima's way to the stairs, but as they reached there, it began to pile up with thorny woody vines.

Speaking of vines, the monster did not take likely to being caged up, and upon being encased, it's left forearm glowed an ickish black before slicing at the cage, almost instantly corroding part of it and turning it into dead brambles. It was horribly uncanny for ordinary Cantus to quickly erode Cartic magic that quickly; suggesting what they were dealing with was no ordinary Incantus.

Seeing the way slowly becoming blocked, Liseran placed Cassima down.

"Stay there," she said.

Liseran pulled out her bells, ringing one in a figure "7" to have it connect three Cartic marks that spelled for "fire", "orb", and "shoot", therefore casting a fireball forth towards the brambles. The brambles began burning, and using her boot, Liseran kicked some down to open the path towards the stairs.

"Jack, let's go!" she said.

She then went back to Cassima and pulled at her to come along.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "Can you run?"

The monster would scream angrily before taking the fallen tree and throwing it towards the Green Man. Her thrashing would also toss random debris of trees and vines and thorns and bushes towards the group before running towards them, with Jack being the closest.

Cassima continued to cut into the branch, but her dagger wasn't doing anything to it. "Ugh, why won't you just cut in half you silly cursed tree!" Cassima scolded the tree for not doing what it's told. Jack, fortunately, ran up to her and freed her from her branch prison and she was sort of healed thanks to Liseran's magic. She stood up and kicked her leg in the air and quickly started to make her way down with the support of Liseran. "This library is quickly becoming filled with vines. At this current rate of succession, nobody's going to be able to enter it ever again!" Cassima sadly realised the sad future of this beautiful library garden and as the situation became bleak, she felt like nobody is going to get out alive.

If it wasn't for Liseran's magic that is. "Impressive." Cassima complimented Liseran's use of magic. "Yes, I had worse injury's back at my old home, but they never healed as fast as the way you did it. I can't wait to learn magic such as healing if I manage to get into this school." She allowed Liseran to grab her hand and followed her down the stairs. Raising her dagger high in the air as she looked back up to the top of the stairs, worried about Jack. "Jack hurry before she tries to trap you again and possibly kill you!" Cassima warned Jack before looking back, running forward as fast as she can. She sort of limped from her leg

"You've got to be kidding me..." Jack muttered, the corner of his mouth twitching as he saw the monster tear through everything. His Green Man got squashed under a tossed tree, not even lifted with magic, just with brute strength. It was making its way towards them in a mad dash, but even if he ran now he'd end up passing Liseran and Cassima who were walking shoulder to shoulder due to the latter's injury. They needed time.

Jack looked around and groaned. "Well, the garden is ruined anyway."

He raised his wooden arm high. Cartic runes traveled along the wood, gathering at his clenched fist and emitting a bright er light steadily.

"AND WHAT PART OF THIS THING IS GOLDEN OR A FAIRY ANYWAY??" he yelled as he slammed his fist into the ground. His magic spread across the area and in an instant all the plant life in the garden burst to life and grew unaccountable amounts, twisting and bursting all colliding on the monster, barreling it with a barrage of trunks and stems.

Once that was done, Jack spun around and sprinted after the girls, hoping his last ditch shot bought them enough time. With a turn of a dial, his spear revert back to a shovel which he slipped back to its holster, and with the force of a wild beast, he grabbed both girls under his arms and made a dash for the railing.

His mouth made a movement like he was picking something out of his teeth and he spat something out like a bullet over the railing.

"Magic bean barely worth a single cow, grow grow grow and reach the skies above!" Jack chanted as he reached the edge. "SKY TOUCHING BEAN STALK!!"

In a grand burst, a green pillar shot up in the air and limped over the railing, flourishing leaves sprouting along its stem.

"HANG ON!" Jack yelled as he leaped on the impossible plant. His boots slid down the stem and the three of them would surf down its slope at quickening speeds.

The spell Jack cast would start countering the corrosive effects of the Incantus' own magic, but just barely. It was as if all the plant life were being tugged across the thin line of death back and forth by their magic. Still, Jack's magic would begin to overtake and bury the monster in foliage, roots, and stems.

Liseran and Cassima had barely started walking before they found themselves being picked up by the man and slid them down the green pillar that jutted forth as a slide over the railing.

"HOW IS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE A GOOD IDEA!???" Liseran shrieked as the began to slide down.

Above them, they heard the Incantus shriek again before looming over the railing. Once more, it would raise its raptors before slicing at the pillar, severing the stem from the connection above.

"We're gonna fall!" Liseran said in panic.

Quickly, she took her bells, and three glyphs would appear, one under each of them. As the stem would lose its stability and crumble down, the three would start descending at a far slower rate. The Incantus would leap from the railings, breaking the several staircases as it chased after them. Liseran would manage to land them on one of the levels. She'd then start tossing several fireballs at the Incantus, which it would burn its raptorial forearms. It would screech in pain, but still go towards them, now morphing its forearms into clawed hands. One would hover over Cassima and Jack in the attempt to squash them, while the other jutted towards Liseran and managed to grab her by the waist. The girl would shriek and use one of her daggers to stab at the arm until it let her go.


"Is nothing going to affect it!??" she cursed in frustration.

Cassima ran as fast she could down the stairs with Liseran, even with her limp she unfortunately was very slow, so much in fact that she would probably be no match if the monster girl manages to catch up to the girls after her fight with Jack. Fortunately, thanks to Jack's planning, the girl was temporarily stalled and Cassima was quickly grabbed by Jack. "Thank you for helping us!" She said above Jack before moving towards the stem that he created from his magic and began to slide down it. Unlike the scared Liseran, Cassima enjoyed this fun, but serious slide that Jack has created to reach the door out of this library, as it reminded her of a great time that she and Fitz had back in Eislelyn.

But of course all good moments didn't last forever, and soon Cassima started to fall, thanks to Liseran's glyph however, her fall speed decreased and she landed safely next to Liseran. "No, I don't think we can stop it. Were halfway down towards the door though, so if she tries to break out of the library, then surely those who work in this academy will spot the girl and finish her off before she lays another hand on a student here and they will possibly reward all three of us for bringing the threat to the academy's attention instead of being punished for setting a crazed person loose." Cassima looked up to see a clawed hand hovering to her and she quickly jumped forward towards the set of stairs behind her. She took out her dagger and was ready to swing at the hand if she wasn't fast enough to escape it on time, which she melt thanks to her limp.

"How dare you ruin this sky garden and my new friend's efforts to try and restore it from your cursed presence!" Cassima wailed to the girl, mad that she was ruining such a beautiful but mostly abandoned building.