The Trials of Tiffany

[Nox]

Earlier Nick and Tiffany rescued Mr. Berkeley from the clutches of the Council while investigating the "Path of the Dark". Now they both wanted to relax. Nick exchanged his armor for his coat and they went off to looking for a change of pace.

“I’ve know!” Tiffany chimes in, “Let’s go to the beach. No one else will be there in February.”

Watching the moon come up over the beach at night was wonderful. There was a waterfall; the sound of water rushing over the rocks giving a surprising feeling of intimacy. The air was cold but it was an excuse to snuggle closer. Holding Tiffany in his arms kept them both warm enough for the moment. They talked about how they handled the mission, gossiped about people in school, and all kinds of random things two teenagers newly in love would meander on about.

“Nick, it’s getting cold. Maybe we should get out of the wind?” Tiffany suggests.

“Sure. How about over there? Those rocks look like a good windbreak.”

He takes a quick jog over to the rocks and plops down on a sandy spot.

“Come on over,” he says, patting the spot in the sand next to him.

Tiffany comes over and sits next to him, leaning back to get more comfortable. Suddenly, she loses her balance and falls backward, disappearing from sight.

"Tiffany? Where the heck did you go?"

[Tiffany Seagler]

Aaah!
Tiffany yelps slightly from the surprise of the fall.

Landing on her bottom she looks around her.
Her eyes adjust slowly to the darker surroundings shes landed in as she stands and brushes off the cave dirt.
No ocean , no beach , no cliff with the beautiful view.

" What the..." her voice trails as she looks around wondering what just happened.
Instead around her is damp cave. She hadn't remembered seeing a cave here. She was sure she hadn't.
They had explored the base of the cliffside and around the island looking for a spot and neither had seen a cave entrance.

She gazed around her looking for the opening from where she fell through with no luck.

" Nick? Nick can you hear me? I don't know where i am!" she yelled out hoping maybe he would hear and yell back to give her a bearing on where to go.

No answer. He couldn't hear her.
She knew he must be frantically looking for her as well.

"Well I'm not going to find a way out standing here." she thinks to herself .

Running her hand along one wall as she walked she could feel the moist moss.
"Moss grows on the north side... I think... maybe... god why didn.t i pay more attention in class, well its better then nothing at least its a direction" she mumbles.

She walks along the narrow paths feeling the wall occasionally to make sure the moss is still there. Small subterrainian creatures scatter as she comes close before she can see what they are.
Only thier scurrying sounds can be heard.

A soft glow ahead catches her eye and she excitedly heads that direction hoping for an exit.

As she nears , the glow becomes more greenish in color.
Almost like the one she emits herself.
Voices can be heard and she approaches quietly listening.
She recognized the robes right away.
" Circle of Thorns " she quietly sighed to herself.
In the center of the glow a very frightened blonde haired girl not much older than herself hung trapped in their magical grasp.

She manuevered herself as closely as she could staying behind the rock formations.
Assessing the situation , Tiffany counted them out, a Soul Mage and 3 minions. If she worked this right she could maybe confuse the minions and stun the Mage just long enough to grab the poor girl in their grasp and get past without being noticed.

She concentrated first on the Soul Mage. The glow he emitted around the trapped girl would maybe enough to hide her own as she focused on him. If she could surround him first it would make stunning him much easier,
and perhaps make it easier to confuse the minions into keeping each other busy while she grabbed the girl and ran.

Tiffany raised her head slighty above the boulder she hid behind.
Setting her sights on the Mage she concentrated hard.
It was working !
She had him caught in the glow , Now to stun him.

She began to reach foreward , her arms stretched slightly , as she entered his mind to render him unable to move or respond to anything or anyone near the scenrio changed.
The girl in the center made eye contact with Tiffany.
Tiff could see it coming, the terror in the girls face gave it away , she was going to scream .

"shhhhh don't make a sound shhhh please shhh"
Tiffany mouthed the words in hope the girl would catch on as she shook her head.
It was too late.
" Please help me!" the girl screamed frantically
The minions turned in Tiffanys direction. She had no choice now. She had to work fast there wouldn't be time to confuse them all.
She focused first on the one nearest and smiled slightly as he turned suddenly and ran toward one of the others.
"One down 2 to go' she whispered out loud. More for her own ears then anything else.
The one still coming toward her she focused on next . Tossing him in the air and watching as he landed with a loud thud as he hit the ground again. This gave her just enough time to Stun him as well.
"Two down...."
She turned to the one being attacked by the first she had confused and took a moment to confuse him as well.

She didn't have long left she knew before the Mage would regain conciousness.
Grabbing the terrified girl by the arm , Tiffany pulled hard and screamed ..
" Run! Run now! C'mon!"

[Nox]

"Think Nick, think," he says to himself.

The communicator? No signal - they had been synchronized for teaming but now her signal was gone.

Footprints in the sand - check.

Rock behind where she sat down - check.

Tiffany? - buzzer goes off, "Thank you for playing!" No Tiffany.

He wanted to smash the rock open with his hands but he was afraid to disturb any clues that might remain.

Gather data, figure out what it means, turn it into information. What's going on? "I work in a research lab designing inter-dimensional incursion detectors! What the hell am I looking for?"

No physical trace, no physical disturbance. Teleportation. It had to be teleportation. He couldn't bear to think of the alternative - disruption. Teleportation leaves traces, a contrail if you know what to look for. Disruption would leave traces too, like a vapor. He might not see those traces now but he could shift his perceptions…

His outline fades; for a fraction of a second his image is surrounded by smoke, then the smoke disappears. Within arm's reach you could see the ghostly outline; beyond that he isn't there.

Within his altered reality, Nick looks around again. There it is! A faint trace; fading even as he sees it, angling into the earth. He could follow the direction; by the track it left he could estimate how far it went. Still...

Blind teleportation sucks. You could end up embedded in solid matter or dead from materializing around something deadly. Some reflex popped him back where he started the only time he'd ever screwed up that bad but it felt like he'd been worked over with a baseball bat and his insides had their own demands. Projectile vomiting, loss of bladder and bowel control, it all sucked. But he was still alive.

"Ok, if I'm doing this I have to do it right." Get the armor on. Memorize current location. Shields up.

Deep breaths.

"1... 2... 3... GO!"

The world shifted around him.

[Tiffany Seagler]

Pulling the scared girl by the arm Tiffany continued to run down the narrow passageway.
She stumbled over a few rocky crevices in her haste but still managed to keep a hold of the girls hand.

Out of breath and not sure now where to turn she stopped and knelt down.
"Rest here" she said as she took deep breaths.
"My name is Tiffany.... do you know how you got here? " she asked the other girl .
Tiff remained hopeful that maybe this girl would know the way out.

"I'm Mandy and I'm not sure... I was walking down Division Street in Talos on my way to a friend’s and it felt like something pulled me into a hole. Then they were there....." she replied almost in tears. "Take us back the way you came in!" she demanded, her eyes full of fear.

"I can't , I mean I'm not sure how I got here either. And in the running I'm not sure where we are from where I started," Tiffany told her sadly.

" What are we going to do? How will we get out? What if they find us!" Mandy was frantically screaming .
"Shhhh calm down... please hush , if you're yelling they will find us. We HAVE to stay calm!"
Tiffany was panicking inside as she tried to calm the girl.

"Ok so here’s the plan. We have stay close together and we have to stay as quiet as possible . I'll navigate us the best I can through here. Maybe we can find and exit. There must be some way out of here." Tiffany told her confidently.
Mandy nodded and continued holding Tiffs hand as they worked their way through more tunneled passage ways.

A small pool of water came into view. Clear enough to see the bottom .
"There’s water... that means it has to feed into the cave from somewhere. I remember seeing a small pool with waterfall and wondering where it was coming from on one of the cliffs. Maybe we can find where this feeds through." Tiffany told Mandy as she guided them both closer.
"What if we swim down and see?" Mandy asked.
"No the water will be too cold I’m sure. I don't know how far down we are from the surface but its chilly enough down here I don't want to chance the water being colder. If we listen along the walls maybe we will hear something," Tiff replied.

Mandy nodded and followed Tiffany’s lead.

[Nox]

Nick reappeared with a wrenching sensation. The teleportation didn’t feel right, as if he’d been shoved in the middle of warping. His shields were still up and he quickly scanned the area to orient himself.

It looked like he landed in a room made of crystal. It was lit from the outside; light shining through the walls from unknown sources. The outline of an opening could be seen in one of the walls but it too was covered by crystal. Due to distortion, movement could be seen outside but it was hard to make out any details.

Nick considered what it would take to break open the door when a shadow appeared in the doorway. A figure cloaked in a brown robe could be seen peering in from the other side. It looked like a Circle of Thorns functionary. The figure looked inside for a while and then turned and left. One of Nick’s shields had the effect of making him hard to see; it was a stealth field of sorts. Combined with the irregular crystal walls the observer may have missed him completely.

The communication unit issued a soft beep as it established contact with someone. It was getting a weak signal. “Tiff, you there?” he whispers into the comm.

[Tiffany Seagler]

Surprised to hear Nick, Tiff quickly responds, "I'm here Nick but I'm not sure where here is. It's a little bit hard to hear you too, but don't stop talking."

She listens closely to the words he says between bursts of static. Then she explains briefly to Mandy who Nick is. Mandy follows close behind as Tiff maneuvers her way through the tunneled passageways.

"He’s stuck in some sort of crystal it sounds like. If we can find that we will find Him," Tiff explains.

The tunnel they are in opens into a wide V, forking off in two directions and Tiff stops to contemplate which way she should go.

"Ok, we don't know what’s down either tunnel, so here is the plan. Stay close, I will try and focus as best I can and if we should happen to see anyone up here we aren't expecting, I'll confuse them like when I saw you the first time ok?"

Mandy nods and says, "Ok but I still don't get how you do that."

"Hard to explain but it works most the time so lets go," Tiffany replies with a smile.

The two traveled down the tunnel quite a ways when they come to a small room. A few mudpots bubbling and the smell of sulfur give warning that this probably isn't a room to enter.

"What do we do now?" Mandy hesitantly asks.

"Stay here a sec, let me just edge in and look around a moment. I won't go in far I just want to make sure there’s not another tunnel in there we might miss."

Tiffany edges along the wall. It's a little hard to make out the room in the semi-darkness, but she’s confident there are no missed tunnels here.
Backing her way out she reaches Mandy again and the two begin the track back to the fork.

"Ok so we know now that tunnel leads nowhere," Tiffany tells her.

A soft beep on the GPS device sounds and Tiffany looks down to see where the signal is coming from.

"Oh this is great! It’s picking up on Nick! Ok... we have a point to travel to now. And with this working again it will help us navigate through these tunnels too!"

Tiffany is relieved; they could have traveled for hours through these tunnels and maybe never found the right path without the GPS help.
As they hurriedly advance down this pathway Mandy spots something move nearby. She grabs Tiffs arm and pulls her back into a shadowed corner just as one of the robed figures comes into view.

Tiffany watches quietly, focusing and ready to confuse him if needed.

He passes and both girls sigh relieved.

"That was close, thanks Mandy, I was so enthused with finding Nick I wasn't paying attention like I should"

Mandy smiles as she replies, “It’s ok, let’s go. I want out of this creepy place too"

As they near the room Nick is in the girls see a small group ahead. They were most likely the same ones who had held Mandy when Tiffany stumbled across her.

One Mage and two servants, the third was probably the one who passed them a few moments ago.

"If we can get past them one more time we can get to Nick and figure out how to get out of here," Tiffany tells the other girl. "Ok here’s what we do. You stay hidden. Don't make any noise and don't come out ‘til I say ok? I'm going to do what I did when I found you but it's going to be a little trickier this time with one wandering around. Keep an eye out for him to come back and if you see him toss this towards my feet ok? The noise should divert his attention to me and I’ll focus on him then"

Tiffany hands Mandy a small rock that was lying nearby.

With Mandy hidden and watching, Tiffany approaches the group quietly. She focuses on the Mage first. She can't emit the glow to assist in weakening him without the other two noticing so she hopes for the best and concentrates hard.

He wobbles slightly for a moment but isn't stunned. It didn't work.

Again she focuses. This time she concentrates harder. He falters a second then grabs his head in his hands. She had him.

Tiffany grins back at Mandy and turns to focus on one of the remaining robed figures.

He turns suddenly grasping the remaining minion and pinning him to wall.

Tiffany pauses a moment to regain her thoughts and focuses again on the remaining one, confusing him as well.

As the two minions battle each other Tiffany signals Mandy and they quickly pass the group and head towards Nick.

[Nox]

Sneaking through the tunnels and caves, the dots that show their locations on the communicator get closer to each other. The signals between them are stronger too though neither speaks for fear of giving themselves away. Finally, around a bend, Tiffany can see a room with suspended crystal cages connected to platforms by wood and rope catwalks. One of those cages could be what Nick said he was stuck in.

“Nick, I think I can see where you are,” she whispers into the communicator.

“Great,” comes the whispered reply, “can you see how many there are out there?”

“I can see four mages in fancy robes, three of the fiery demons, about a dozen thorn wielders and guards and some of the ghostly things flying around. It’s a mess in there.”

“Well, where are you now?”

“I’m hiding in a tunnel that leads into there.” She checks the directions on her comm. “We’re on the south side.”

“Ok. I’m pretty sure I can break out but I don’t know if I can make it past all of them. I’m afraid to try teleporting or I might end up in another one of those crystals.”

He pauses a moment and then asks, “Have you seen anything that looks like a way to get out of here?”

Tiffany considers a moment. “I saw a few portals in one of the rooms we passed. Maybe there’s a way out there.”

“Good eyes! If one of them is the way out, I can probably find it. Assuming it’s active at the time.”

He continues, saying, “Here’s the plan: I’m going to break out of here and head your way. Don’t show yourself, I don’t want them coming after you. Then we’ll find a way to get to that portal room and see about getting out of here. Sound good?”

"All right, but be careful. Keep your com on if possible and if it sounds bad I'm coming in," Tiffany replies with a worried tone.

“Here goes!”

Nick steps up to the door of the crystal cell and pounds on it with his dark energy wrapped fists. Wham, wham, wham! A steady rhythm of hard, sledgehammer blows. Cracks show quickly in the crystalline surface, followed by a total collapse as the door shatters and falls in on itself.

Wasting no time, his translucent form exits and heads southward on the suspended catwalk. The breakout attracted the attention of a nearby mage and some guards. They spot him in spite of his near invisibility, shout for help, and move to catch him.

“I can outrun the guards,” he says to himself while pouring on the speed. He makes it to the last platform before the exit when he realizes his path is blocked by one of the ghostly Nerva demon lords. It was the only path to the exit; there was no other way he could go without being mobbed first. A fiery demon was already moving in to backup the demon lord. “No time for anything else, GO!” he says in his mind and charges.

His first punches land, solid and clean. The ghostly demon lord, affected more by the dark energy than his fists, reels and counters with a slashing swing of its claws. Black tentacles erupt from beneath him, cast by a mage off to the side; they grasp his legs and hold him to the spot. Crossbows discharge as nearby guards try to shoot him down. The flaming demon closes in.

“I have to move, get them off me,” he thinks but he is still held by the tentacles trapping him. The ghostly demon lord strikes again, his vision fuzzes and he starts seeing two of everything. He focuses and absorbs the energy from those around him, refreshing his beaten body. Another second and he emits a field of energy with a pulsing, reddish glow. This interferes with the thoughts others; some guards affected are struck dumb, stumbling as if drunk.

Two seconds are an eternity in close combat. The ghostly demon lord struck him again; the fiery one moved in swinging; mages, safely out of sight and reach, cast more spells to harm or trap him.

“Tiffany, get out of here,” he says, half to himself as darkness closes in on his consciousness.

The sounds of fighting come through the com. Tiffany listens closely as she tries to determine what to do next.

Nicks voice comes in, telling her to leave and she knows something’s terribly wrong.

"I'm not leaving you Nick! I'm coming hold on ok?"

She can't hear anything through the com anymore and she knows Nick needs her right now.

Turning to Mandy she tells her, "Don't move from this spot. Understand? Stay here, stay hidden, don't move!"

Mandy nods, her eyes wide with fear.

Tiffany slips quietly down the tunnel. She knows she has to get to Nick quickly but she also needs the advantage of surprise. As she nears the end of the opening she sees the demons standing over Nick’s collapsed body.

Panic strikes for a moment; she fights the urge to run to him.

Focusing on the demon lord, she envelopes him in a radiant aura, making him an easier target.

Following that she reaches out with a psionic attack; she attempts to incapacitate him with pain. The fiery demon grabs his head; giving Tiffany a quick moment to send healing energy to Nick before attacking the ghostly demon lord. She concentrates, grabbing the ghostly form with her mind. She pictures her hands grabbing the figure and throwing it away from Nick. The figure before her is suddenly forced upwards into the air allowing Tiffany time to reach Nick and pull him away from the flaming Demon.

As the ghostly one lands she focuses again, this time confusing him so he attacks the fiery Demon. She quickly switches targets, again attacking the fiery demon psionically, watching as his grip tightens once more on his head.

"Nick, can you stand? Please try I’ll help you. We don't have long we have to get out of here!"

Suddenly, Mandy is beside them grabbing Nick’s other arm, helping to pull him to his feet.

"Mandy I told you to stay hidden!" Tiffany blurts out.

Mandy looks up, startled at first, and then forces a half smile as she responds, "I thought you may need a hand."

Tiffany gives in, half smiling herself. Mandy was right, she couldn't have pulled Nick out alone.

"Thanks... I'm glad you showed up when you did."

The two girls help Nick stumble along as they hurry down the tunnel.