Team Maim

 "It's always nice to meet a fan." The dark-haired girl purrs. "It's a real shame what happened to your town- I guess the Princesses of HED weren't good enough after all. Oh such a shame." "It's not over yet, you fiend!" The younger princess cries out, standing up on unsteady legs from where she's drawn a crest on the ground with her own blood, pulling out a dirt-stained scroll. "If I learned one thing from that monster, it was how to deal with pests like you. Soul- ah!" She's interrupted by the girl's knife; with swift precision, she threw it through the air and into her stomach. "Tr... tra..." the sigil glows under her feet as she takes a step forward. "Kima!" The elder princess rushes to her little sister, wrapping her arms around her to help her stay on her feet, turning her attention back to Morrisa. "How could you?" "How could I not?" Morrisa mocks the sisters, letting out a hearty laugh. "How could YOU allow your own sister to use dark magic? Darling, please- leave it to the professionals." "Soul..." Kima's voice is weak, her body strained from hours of spell use. "Tra..."Morrisa strolls up to the pair, pulling another knife off her hip. "You know, that sword of yours looks awfully familiar."

"CONTAINMENT!" A voice booms from above, and everything goes white.

Chapter 1:  A New World to Call Home

From a city on fire to a corrupted forest. Air filled with the last screams of civilians is replaced with the ruffles of leaves on the wind and the twitter of bugs and small critters as they scamper along. Maia closes her eyes in a hot city and opens them in a cold forest. Still clutched in her arms is her sister, thankfully. "Kima. Wake up." She gives her sister a shake. "What? Are..." Kima looks up at the canopy above them, at the trees that look different from the trees back home, at the streams of sunlight that shine down upon her skin, as safe as sunlight can be. "Are we dead?" As someone as familiar with magic as Kima, the air itself feels wrong- there's still magic in the air, sure, but it's a different kind of magic from HED. She'd go as far as to say it's different from any sort of Venellian magic at all. "You are not quite dead." Both sisters look up at the white-winged figure above them, watching as she spreads her wings and descends to the forest floor to stand with them. "My name is Rei. I had meant to solely contain the dark one who attacked your city, so I apologize that you two got caught up in here as well." "A containment spell!?" Kima pulls herself off of her sister. That would mean they're all in a new dimension! Of course! The sun is different here from the one in Venell, and of course the magic is different. "Well, just un-containment us and we can get back to fixing our city." "That is... a more difficult issue." "You can only reverse the spell if you have all the targets." Maia learned a thing or two from her sister's constant talk of magic. "And the one who ransacked our city is still out here, correct?" "Yes, that is correct. I don't know where exactly she is, but we still have to find her. And..." "And what?" Kima snaps a branch off a nearby tree. "You're an angel, right? You can still cast magic, even if you're in another dimension or an anti-magic field. You all have artifacts for that, don't you?" "We do. Unfortunately, however, my artifact has gone missing. Just like your sword," she gestures at Maia's hip, "and your books" she gestures at Kima. "We might be here for a while, unless another angel sees fit to bring us back from our home world." "So we wait a few hours until the angels save us?" Maia watches as her sister continues to attempt her magic. "They will save us, right? Then they can re-contain the dark one." "They... may." Rei is uncertain. "There are a lot of people who need help right now. And..." The news is going to come out sooner or later, so as the princesses turn to look at her, Rei raises her hand to look at it, tracing the lines of her palm with her finger. "And time moves differently here from the real world- a day here could be as little as a minute in Venell. Or an hour." Maia sighs, putting her hand on her face. This day just keeps getting worse. "So we bunker down and stay here for a week or two. With a murderer somewhere in this forest. Is there anything else?" "Well. We're not helpless, at least. As an angel, I have been taught how to use multiple methods of magic. Let me help you so we can all get out of here safely." "Well ain't this just a mess of possibilities." Morrisa just lies on her back in the forest. So what if she's been banished to another world? At least here she won't have to deal with everyone wanting to fear, arrest, or execute her for being a Dark One. "You know, living in a corrupted forest like this suits me. ...I wonder if I can eat the stuff in those pods."Hanging off of the canopy of the forest lie curious pods, large enough for a child. Some sort of creatures are inside them, but Morrisa can't make out exactly what that might be from her position on the forest floor. As she ponders her new predicament, one of the pods breaks off of the tree it had been hanging from, landing down some space away with a loud noise. Morrisa sits up and watches as the pod breaks open, and a large bug-like creature with dangerous-looking growths unfurls from it. Upon finding Morrisa, it begins to walk toward her and the girl stands up. Morrisa goes to pull out a knife to attack the creature, but her weapons are nowhere to be found! As the creature walks up to her, a few motes of light pop up around her- one as green as the creature's growths, one as dark as Morrisa herself, and a third one with a mix of the two, brighter and more brilliant than the others. This seems to calm the creature down, and it lowers its four arms. "Good. Now, what's there to eat out here? Come on, let's find something." She scales the creature, sitting on a shoulder and letting it walk her away, but the pods are still far out of reach. "You don't eat, do you? Know what: if you can kill us a bear or something, you can eat as much of it as you want." She doesn't even notice the third mote of light growing as dull as the other two as they walk through the woods together. "There's no shame in just telling us you don't know what you're doing." Kima calls over her shoulder. That angel has been trying to use some magic in this strange, corrupted, world for hours now! Kima turns around to face the others who had fallen back in their walk. "And we've been walking for hours, why is it all forest?" "That is where we are now, young princess. This is the dimension we have been contained in, after all." "So we're stuck in a forest for a few weeks, or until whenever your angel friends can bother to come around to save us, and you're saying there's nothing we can do about it? Ugh, talk about lame." As she walks, she doesn't even notice the pod that had fallen behind her until she walks into it. A firm wall of ooze comes to meet her and she recoils from just how gross it all is. "Ewww... eww eww eww!" She jumps away from the ooze, turning back to it as two more pods fall down by Maia and Rei. The pods open... and three people step out? "Baral?" The wizard stepping out of Kima's pod looks familiar to her- her textbook says that Baral is the father of the Silent Spellcast, an ability he perfected to counter one thousand spells without uttering a sound. The wizard nods to Kima's familiarity. "By the gods, what sort of a place is this?" A man and a woman step out from the pods next to Maia and Rei, respectfully. "Maidens, whatever may occur, it is my sworn duty to protect the weak." "I thank you for the offer, but I would prefer it if you could protect my sister instead, Baird." "My lady, how does thee know my name? I do not recall us being acquainted- I do not recall much, now that I consider it." "Well, it's a bit of a story, but we have time for it. Rei, if you-" Maia turns, but Rei and the new woman have separated from the party to have their own conversation. Maia turns back to Baird. "Well..." It takes a few hours to get everyone up to speed about everything that's going on, when Kima finally stands up, a note of blue light circling around her. "Ha! I got it before the angel! Of course! It's so clear!" "Kima? You cast a spell!" Maia is impressed by her sister's ability. Of course she knew that if anyone would be able to cast magic in her new world, her sister would. "Well. Not quite so much. It's not so much that I cast a spell as it just... started to work. It's the whole 'Inner light' you always talk about. I just focused, and it came out." Maia closes her eyes, letting out a breath and calming down for a bit, until a similar note of white light comes out to slowly drift around her as well. Rei gets her own note of light, blue like Kima's but not as bright, instead leaving her with a coin in her hand. Anyone familiar with ancient Venellian artifacts would recognize it, but anyone else would see a coin with two heads just oozing with good luck. "Perhaps through focus, you could make our situation better?" Rei offers. "If we have to be trapped in a forest, we could do with some proper food and shelter." "We're fine on that regard." Maia points out. "I took a vow when I was little. As long as the vow stands, I have no need for sustenance or sleep. The gods have been forgiving on their end, so I see no reason why they would recall their deal now." She doesn't mention that they've been there for hours and she still hasn't gotten hungry, but that only confirms that her sacred vows are still in place. "I'm a vampire." Kima admits. "I had spells in place to keep down the whole 'need for blood' and 'burning in the sun' things. I'll be fine as long as I can continue to feed from time to time." "Miss Kima, I offer up myself as a role to sustain you." Baird stands up, removing one of his gauntlets. "It would be my honour." "Right. Good. I'll take you up on that later." She waves off the soldier before turning to Rei. "What was that you were saying about changing things?" "I am... my training was never completed." Rei admits. "As you can tell from us all being here." She nervously flips the coin between her fingers, "But I remember reading about weak Dimensions. If the captive can best the creator in a contest of wills, the captive can change certain aspects of the containment. It won't let them escape, but a change of scenery can still do a world of good." Maia and Kima concentrate on their surroundings. On the people and trees and pods around them. With a slow breath and the dimming of their notes of light, the air around them shifts and changes. The others watch in astonishment as the world changes, leaving them in a small room with a fire flickering in a fireplace nearby. Stone walls surround them, with a window leading out to an unknown open world, trees larger than any they have ever seen for as far as they can see, sprouting from the ground far below and all the way into the clouds above. There's all sorts of food in a forest if you're willing to look for it. In a stone room with no vegetation for miles, not so much. "Well, I hope you're not about to go hungry in here. There's nothing here to-" The room begins to shimmer again, as if just to spite her and prove her wrong. The stone room around her fades away into an entire city, bigger than any she's ever seen before. A proper monstrosity of a city at dusk, and she still gets a good view of it all. The princesses are used to being in strange cities, of course, but it's just so eerie that they can't find anyone. Eventually they decide to split up- Kima with Baird and Baral, Maia with Rei and her companion. "Nothing wrong with a calm night, after all." Kima sighs; it's so hard to make conversation with a big dumb warrior and a wizard who doesn't talk. At least she has something to write for her next assignment: "Baral was an important wizard, but an absolute bore to adventure with. Still, at least she can get some blood from Baird, so the big dumb fighter still has some use. Overall, the evening was uneventful. Maia and Rei didn't fare much better, but Maia at least learns that Rei's companion is a bard. A bard who travelled to cities and towns, to hamlets and metropolises like this one, to spread word of cheer to the people, to raise armies of civilians to tear down those who would oppose them. As a princess, Maia should be concerned by such a person, but it just reminds her of how a similar such person played an important role to the HED some years before, so she smiles at the woman.