((OOC:  Sorry for the delay, peeps.  My Intarweb died yesterday for a time, and then there was RL stuff...  ick.  ON WITH IT!!  PS:  Excellent joint post, Chirouso & Ome!!))<br/><br/>Maeve ushered Dreamer out into the open, aware of Kitten - whom she know as "Keydan" - following close behind.  She cast an eye back at the thin blond man, making sure he was with them.  The people parted around them.  The doorway was left open and Maeve led Dreamer through it, down the steps, past Lakran's festering head.<br/><br/>Maeve's eyes filled with tears and she collapsed to her knees, bawling into her bruised hands.  The gun fell to the dirt, kicking up a small cloud of dust.  The flies buzzed about their dirty business of returning Maeve's late husband to the dust.  The wind rustled the grain.  The sun, well on its way upwards, gleamed down unapologetically.<br/><br/>Inside, nobody moved.  One or two curious sets of eyes watched their former mistress weep over the death of her husband... the death they had made possible.  Caleb sank onto an overturned sofa, cradling his gushing nose in his hands.  Tears streamed down between the cracks in his fingers, mixing with the smeared blood.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>Fenson looked down at himself, trying to see his neck, but only managing to look foolish in the attempt.  He looked back at Heretic, saying, "Chiro's sister did this to me.  She's some sort of healer."<br/><br/>"I don't think I'll know what she did to me until later," added Janus.  "We'll have to wait and see if the blood curse got taken away."  He thought about what Heretic had said earlier, then suddenly a look of concern crossed his face.  "Wait... that shrinking stuff's not temporary?  You're gonna be stuck like that forever?"<br/><br/>Fenson, too, was worried.  "And what about that dude?" he said, pointing at the wolf. "Is the mind control stuff ever gonna wear off?"<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>Halvorson's gun settled on the two agonized guards, and he began to chuckle - then Feign careened into the hallway beside him and Mad, just as a loud explosion sounded from the main hallway behind them.  The grenades had gone off, damaging nothing except the stone of the floor and walls.  Sara, the medic, and O'Toole were unharmed from their holding point in the funeral corridor.<br/><br/>Shrapnel whizzed down the dungeon hallway containing the four other members of the group, but it was so few that it pinged harmlessly off the walls and ceiling,  unable to hit anyone there.  Halvorson looked at Mad.  "Shit.  Good hearing."  He looked down the corridor to the right.  "All right, which cell is his?"  Then he looked down at Feign from where the young man hid behind a groaning, squeaking Palace Guard.  "Damn it, Feign, you get back there and hold our escape route!"<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>Alhanda grinned wildly, knowing that Chiro's fate was sealed even as the arena was severely damaged from his combat with Mag.  It was only a matter of time now...<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>The wolf-like creature howled as Raice's khukuri lacerated its arm, and bucked twice as Marice's shots found their marks in its center of mass.<br/><br/>But the creature did not drop.  Instead it whirled on the shrieking Jenten, its good hand lashing out at the bat-morph's throat.  Its bad hand dropped the long blade it had held, but as it rose to strike at Raice - the creature seemingly multi-tasking - the damage that it had sustained was diminishing, receding, fading away as if the creature's healing metabolism was massively accelerated.  From where she was, Marice could see that the wounds she had caused were no longer there, closed up as if they had never been.  The foot atop Jenten's twisted, trying to elicit more pain from the shattered bones.<br/><br/>The two privates that had ascended with the group tried to rush forward to help, but in the crowded, narrow hall, they couldn't reach.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>As Arget made his way through the air-handler, he heard very little from the room outside, and the scents were all sterile.  Nothing was out there, it seemed.<br/><br/>That is, until he loosened the bottom plate of the unit as he had on the upper floor, and was greeted by two guards standing there, waiting for him.  Their blades sliced out...