Ursa Den

Wild Card was certainly impressed at the interior to the Den, his eyes darting around and looking at everything he could. He did this because he wanted to memorise the place, lest he need to get from one place to another, using the tour as a way to do this, but also he simply wanted to have a good look at the designs and magical artwork that appeared on the walls. 'This place is magnificent.' 'Ew. Dragon throat innards.' 'I didn't take you to not be one for depictions like that.' 'They're okay really, but I wanted to react anyhow. I couldn't come up with anything better... so...' Wild thought to himselves, blissfully unaware of Alu's conversation with another spirit.

Lavender Gladiolus on the other hand, had to be aware of his own conversation. Surprise was one of the feelings he had when he was pulled into a hug. "Lancea, I hardly count what the world is like now as our work being undone. Without our work, this world would not be as it is right now." The centurion said calmly, dusting off his armour idly with his free hand. "And a necromancer or a spiritual medium? Well if you see no darkness within her then necromancy is not something she possesses, by my guess. As to why she can see us and why she has a..." The warrior motioned towards the griffon spirit behind the unicorn, as he had never seen one and had no idea as to what in the world it was. "Bird following her, we may have to ask."

Lavender then started to walk with the group, motioning for the others to follow. The other spirits in the Den unnerved Lavender slightly, he was never too used to being seen or... smiled at. "To answer your question, Unicorn. I am a Centurion of the Pegasopolian Army. I commanded one hundred ponies, stallions and mares, leading them into battle against your kind and the Earth Ponies. They were my family away from my family, so I did what I could to make sure they were at their best at all times. I am also guessing you celebrate Hearths Warming, yes? I... died, a few decades before that truce, if the tales of its year are correct. Divinus died years before me whilst in battle against your kind." The pegasus explained politely, slightly disregarding Divinus's request not to reminisce in front of the mare and also slowly getting used to the unicorn as she seemed more inquisitive than hostile. He did hesitate just before mentioning his death, but only to find a suitable word for it as technically he didn't die. Lavender simply wanted to keep that a secret from the others.

Garland quietly observed all the wall paintings, not listening to Lunar, just once again silently envying those on the walls-sans Star-Swirl, whom he was familiar with, but didn't care much for him, even if he was partially responsible for the guild.

Sophie listens to Lancea with rapt attention. She turns to examine the new spirit, frowning at the interruption to beloved History. Scraping the round with a hoof, she mumbles shyly "Erm, I'm a spiritual medium..." Sophie trails off as Lavender begins discussing his past, albeit briefly. She gave no sign of reaction at the reference to slaughtering unicorns, for it was now part of beloved History, and therefor something to treasure.
She pouts as Lancea tells her to leave for now.... She was relatively sure they'd keep their promise to answer her questions later, but patience was hard!
Her griffon companion places a claw on her shoulder, nodding to the pair of pegasi warriors. Sighing, Sophie addresses them both "Very well. I will wait for the two for you to catch up before asking anymore questions. But I will hold you to that! I want to hear everything about your lives." She turns around to follow the guide and the Ursa's.

Xereth continued walking through the massive cave, occasionally glancing at the images that they were showing. The one with a dragon defeated with an ursa caused him to slightly shudder. When he heard that he could fly though the cave if he wanted, he nodded to himself before spreading his large webbed wings and started flapping them, getting into the air after just a moment before continuing to fly after the mare.

The path would finally come to end at a yellow paw print on the floor, with a giant hole above it. "Alright everyone, get ready to get off." She said while the Major neared the painted paw and finally lower itself to its belly in order to make sure that they wouldn't have to jump to far to get off the bear. The ponies on the Minors would begin to unload as well as the Guild Master stepped onto the paw and waited for all the others to follow her onto it.

Once everyone was on, she tapped the floor with her cane before the floor moving upwards towards the hole in the cave. "Time to get started with the quick training session." She said as small white lights blinked into existence in order to provide light to the group. "Try to last as long as you can and if you manage to keep standing until we finally reach the top then I'll makemsure you can have a cookie. The stars now swirled around at a snail's pace. "Go!" Then, ten stars leapt from the walls and shot towards each pony in pairs. They could have been easily avoided with regular skill or simply defenses, which the green unicorn having made a barrier to protect himself with to protect himself with. On the off chance that they did hit then, the shots would simply push the person back a little and blind them with a brief flash of light.

The Guild Master's horn hadn't lite the entire time this had happened.

((Yeah, long hiatus for this and I apologize for it, but hope that you giys are happy to get to do some fighting  ))

Zen had pulled up to a stop when he approached the door, and hovered there patiently while the others arrived. When the stars started flying about, he grinned brightly before beginning to fly about the area with a decent bit of speed. "Heh, this all?" he called back while deftly dodging the slow moving obstacles.

Krix, who'd opted to ride on the ursa and had gotten off with the others adopted a much different strategy as he adjusted the large shield on his arm. While standing in place, he simply moved the shield between him and any star that was getting too close, using the large bulwark to shield his eyes from any of the flashes that may have come from a star colliding with his shield and using his strength to simply hold his ground.

Sophie eeps as to of the stars fire towards her. Iron Talon stands in front of her, drawing on her magic to take a physical form, albeit briefly. He is pushed back slightly, while Sophie scrambles to her feet.
"Th-Thank you Iron!" The spirit nods, backing up to match step with her as it returns to an incorporeal form. Sophie moves towards the center of the platform as her guardian looks around warily for more stars.

Lancea simply laughed as he re-united with his body. He swiftly drew his lance out from its sheath, bringing it to bear to defend himself. "This level of charm is child's play. Best us'd as an insult. Hast at it!" He held his lance in a defensive position, soon moving it with blinding speed to deflect the stars away from himself.

Wild Card hopped off the Ursa, using his wings to steady his descent before landing softly on the ground. He watched intently as the Guild Master tapped the floor with her cane, and as soon as she asked them all if they were ready he etched a reddish-orange symbol, which looked very basic but also gave the impression of a fire-y orb, with his index finger on a few blank cards and held five of them up in one hand.

Then he noticed it was a simple defense exercise... which he silently cursed. 'Dammit... no defensive runes yet...' 'Shame... though it seems one of the others has brought along quite the shield.' He mentally commented to himself, wandering nonchalantly - ducking under a star flying at him - and then continuing to stand behind Krix, moving around just to dodge the stray stars and stay behind the large diamond dog. 'I want that cookie.'

Lavender right now simply stood and watched the whole affair, even though he was standing bolt upright with his halberd in hand as if guarding something precious. "Odd... to put them on this platform and then send these, pitiful magic bolts at them. Hardly a test..." He said idly, holding a hand up to his head afterwards and looking rather confused, mainly at the mention of a cookie. Sighing to himself, he passed through several of the beings on the platform to then stand within Wild Card, his spirit form disappearing into the dark blue pegasus. 'Why not use my cards to protect yourself, rather than hiding behind this dog?' 'Because, this is easier.' 'And we'd rather not use the Runic cards unless it's necessary to do so. We're here to learn more about our magic, not use yours all the time.' Wild thought to himself.

Garland, not paying attention to the stars, almost immediately gets hit by one of them, pushing him back slightly, and blinding him.

"Gah!", he exclaims as the star blinds him momentarily. He notices another star coming at him, and dodges it, if only barely. He then moves near the center of the platform and keeps his guard up, dodging any incoming stars.

Xereth casually followed the group until they stopped on a platform. "Okay.. defense huh..." he mumbles to himself as he prepared himself for the stars. His red eyes started glowing slightly as he waited for the stars to appear. When they finally did, Aerv grinned and simply watched as thin rock pillars appeared out of the ground and hit the stars that were coming for him, destroying them.

The mare had to chuckle at the fact that one would have gotten hit by the stars racing down at them though hope he pay more attention to the second thing of stars. It was just one more star than before for each of this in the group and would have just increased their speed slightly in order to give a harder hit when they made contact though it would still give a small burn at best if it hit anyone.

The colt would fair well with his construct and would look over at the others for a bit and then at the stars that were currently unused. This only jinx things and soon the stars started to move groups of four would shoot off notice again though their course altered at the last second. Those that were defending, would soon have the stars attack them at the sides, one staying in front to keep them focused on it while the others attacked from the left, right, and back. Blade would have a simple solution to the change to it, morph his barrier into a circle. In the end, his construct would shatter as all the blasts hit from the force of the combined four attacks despite only feeling like being punched in the guts a few times to anyone unluckily enough to get hit by some of the stars. As for the others, two would shot at their feet in order to knock them back a few steps or just blind them long enough for the others to home in their new location.

The ones coming for the flying pegasus would just follow him like homing missiles though again would suffer from the same thing as all missiles, they were terrible at banking.

Noticing the hard time the stars were having at making sharp maneuvers, Zen upped the ante. His wings were even built more for tight maneuvers rather than speed so he wasn't even having too much trouble yet as he bobbed and weaved about to avoid the stars.

Krix however was having a little rougher time. The change in the attack of the stars meant the first time this new form attacked him, two stars got him, one going around each side of his shield. The blows however were more or less shrugged off by the bulky dog as he prepared to change his method slightly. Krix planted his shield into the platform, strongly enough that it stood strongly and formed a nice little wall to continue holding off the stars from that direction. Then Krix turned around so that his back was to the shield and readied himself to begin striking the stars that came at his sides with punches and other strikes. Thin barriers of magic formed over his fists to offer at least some shielding to his punches as well. It was now though that he noticed a couple of the others that had chosen to stand behind him, but Krix didn't seem to mind and simply continued punching the stars to keep them from striking more vulnerable spots.

Sophie balks as more stars come rushing in. Iron Talon was mighty, but she could t keep manifesting him like this. She runs over to hide behind Krix, Iron Talon briefly manifesting to block another star. If she could get to the shield before Iron Talon overused her magic, she could hopefully wait this out.
Barely avoiding another star, Sophie ducks behind the Dog while Iron guards his back. He wouldn't be able to block as well with her limited mana, but he could probably knock them off course.

Wild Card was rather surprised to see the large diamond dog plant his shield in the ground, turn around to face him, and begin punching away any stars that came from the sides. He turned around to see Sophie on the other side of him, with stars begin deflected from that side as well. So this left Wild wondering what to do in this very strange and magical sandwich, a shield being at one end, something at the other and Krix defending the sides.

"Um... Well this is a most interesting situation we seem to be in." Wild said idly, looking through the cards in hand and wiping away the runes on them, leaving them blank-faced once more. He only did this as he felt they would be useless right now, which in all fairness was the case. Then an amusing idea struck him just after he deftly weaved his head around a star that would have done so as well. The pegasus took off his hat, spun it around in his hands, and held the bottom of it out in front of him to capture any stars that managed to make their way around the shields and Krix's fists. 'So you use the hat but not my cards?' 'Dude, come on. If we're gonna fight someone we want to keep that a secret till then. Make it our big surprise and such.'

Lancea looked around, finding his master. Seeing that his master didn't need his help to deal with the stars, he decided to deal with the ones coming towards him. He sheathed his lance, clapping his hands together, and inhaled deeply. Golden light began to flow over his body, emitting a soft humming noise as it glowed. The hum grew louder and louder, then Lancea shouted. "OVERDRIVE!" The light shot away from his body in all directions, knocking anything within 10 feet of him away in a lightning filled shockwave.

Garland internally groaned at the introduction of another set of stars. He then saw the dog began to strike the stars physically, and thought that he'd try the same. He then began to parry the stars away from him using his axe, which consisted mainly of him batting the stars away from him, swinging his axe like it was a baseball bat.

He also noticed the lance wielding Pegasus do his light show thing, which distracted him enough to almost get hit by a star. He quickly grumbled something about showing off before returning his attention to the stars.

Aerv would continue with his earth attacks to destroy the starts before they got to him, up until the point where they started coming from all directions. He attempted using his wings to protect his back before a sturdy dirt wall began emerging from the ground around him slowly. He didn't look at others and what they were doing, as he was trying to focus on making the wall.

After the small blast that Lancea had cast, the blasts stopped and those were following simply had crashed into the walls already due to Zen's flying. "Alright, home stretch!" She said as a small little hole of light started to shine above them, showing the end of the test. Soon, hundreds of little stars formed around them and created a dome above them. There would be about a good ten seconds for those that hadn't grouped up yet sometime to do so. "Celestial Assault." She said as her horn finally lite and signaled the barrage of stars coming from every direction. There was no room to dodge the attack leaving those that were outside of protection would be pelleted by numerous stars. There was no room for dodging due to all of the blasts firing at once.

The difference between the blasts were not going any faster than usual and could be defended against like before, which would only benefit those that had managed to make a sturdy one. Those that had not would easily be knocked down to the ground as they would pinned by the onslaught of the stars. Those that had been pinned would feel the usual pain that came from the blasts. Instead they would only feel it grab onto their bodies and start to force that part of the body down, the collective effect being able to pin them to the floor.

The stars would be the same for those that had grouped up and simply use their speed to hit the defenses put up to only drag it down with their weight. The colt would have managed to get Krix and those who had gotten close to him and quickly put up a barrier in the shape of dome around them as he kneeled with his palm on the floor. His magic would move out of his hand and make circle, about 20 meters across, and had the dome from at the very edge of it. It would crack just a second or two of the in total assault. He would keep repeating the action, but his horn's light got dimmer each time as it was recreated just a few matters of closer in. Each breaking caused him to tense and start to sweat as he gave his all to keep it up. He would buy the group about ten seconds total, having been able to recreate the barrier five times before finally buckling under the punishment and lurched over as the stars came in like a tidal wave.

Zen chuckled and grinned as the dome of stars surrounded him. He stopped his flying around and settled on just hovering in place for the moment. "Well, that's not fair," he said before the dome began it's barrage. "But neither am I," he added just as the assault began. With a swing of his hoof, a portal was opened in front of him, and into it he disappeared before the opening closed. A secondary portal opened a moment later above the dome and Zen flew out of the new opening to watch what happened to those still inside.

Krix had been about to punch another star when the scenario changed. Before he could bring forth his own defenses though, the dog found a colt erecting a barrier of his own around them. Krix was glad to see the help from the colt, but grimaced as he saw the strain it was putting him through. Not wanting to waste the precious few moments the colt had given him, Krix gathered up his own magic and slammed his fist into the ground. As the colt's barrier fell for the last time a new one would spring forth in it's place, carrying the amber color of Krix's magic. The dog however wasn't faring much better, and would quickly feel the impacts of the stars upon his shield. Krix would force his shield to keep up a few seconds longer, but after it broke he'd create a new one in the same fashion the colt had. Krix however could only re-create the barrier 3 times before he was left down on one knee and panting, ready to try and resume punching stars should the barrage last longer than his shields could.

Sophie ducks down, hiding under Krix's shield as she brings Iron Talon into it. She directs her own mana into the shield, though because she is inexperienced much of it disperses before reaching. Iron Talon returns incorporeal, not yet ready to rematerialized again. Luckily, the shield stayed up long enough for this two happen, with Sophie feeding her remaining mana back into her spirit who assisted Krix in blocking the stars, using his formidable claws to defend Krix's blindspots.

Wild Card continued hiding behind Krix, now seeing the large dome of stars surrounding them. "Oh... bugger." He muttered to himself, before watching Zen portal out of the danger zone. "Cheating git." Was the second thing his muttered under his breath. The pegasus was glad for the magical barrier that was created around them, but saw the unicorn creating it have difficulty in maintaining it, however Krix had his own magical defenses to put up which was a happy outcome.

But right now, Wild felt useless. He didn't know any defensive runes, and his fireball rune couldn't do anything to the sheer amount of stars that flew at them, so all the stallion could do was sit down and wait for whatever happened next, though he hated the idea of his suit being ruined by these stars as it did cost a lot of money and he was rather fond of it. A final plan would have been to use the Runic Cards at his disposal, but again, Wild didn't want to use them right now and wished to keep to his own magic, which right now was proving itself to be lacking in the versatility front.

Lancea looked around, seeing all of the stars above and around them. "So that's what this is..." He cast aside his upper armor and his lance, both items making rather large cracks in the ground nearby. "Mmm...it feels good to lighten up." He then inhaled deeply, the glow and the humming showing up again, before he lunged forward and just about vanished, moving at extreme speed.

Suddenly, Lancea stopped right next to the mage, ready to strike her head on with his fists. "SUNLIGHT YELLOW OVERDRIVE" If his first strike connected, he would unleash a flurry of charged blows, attempting to knock the mage out and shut off her magic.

The Guild Master didn't even seem to care about his speed or the fact he was right next to her. She actually seemed a bit annoyed. The stars fell while he charged at her, but yet those that would hit, had been redirected to hit the main group. The moment he opened his mouth, he would have it full of ice and the rest of his body was froze solid less than a second. If he could see her, she would smile as the barrier group tried valiantly to keep each other from harm and working as an unit to ensure so. Yet, while the top seemed to be only a few seconds away, the last barrier broke. The efforts to defend themselves after their barriers broke ultimately failed due to gaps in their defenses. They would be assaulted from all sides and even above them, with no one left to close them. Blade was still trying to gain his second wind, obviously not used to exerting such large amount of magic. That was unless a certain somepony aided them by using his outside source of magic in order to close the openings to provide the added coverage that they needed while being able to keep minimize his losses. If not then it would be only a few moments of pummeling by the stars that would faded away as the platform stopped its ascent.

Zen would not get the luxury of protection due him suddenly reappearing above the dome resulted in different beating. The Guild Master would seem to teleport in front of him and try to kick him, but when the blow landed, another hit him from behind. They would punish him as they beat his body with their attacks before finally knocking him down when the dome began to vanish, a soft breeze would slow his descent and allow for a soft landing. He would be a little sore, but overall, he’d be fine.

Those that were foolish enough not to join the barrier group would be pummeled into submission soon after the barrage was fired. They would be shot upon until they were on the ground, where the blasts stopped hitting them until they tired to get up once again. They as well would be sore, but fine overall.

The ponies from before would be on this floor and the area around them would be a large rocky area that had a few hotsprings nearby. The light would come from the ceiling though lacked any flames or bulbs to provide it. Once everyone got up or at least the majority that did, Blade having troubles doing so, the other ponies would get buckets filled with the spring water and toss it onto them. If they managed to stop the water from hitting them, another bucket full would hit them from behind to the amusement of the sneaky pony that got them. They would feel their sores to fade and damaged clothing being repaired, the water being nice enough to dry up though made things a bit humid.

Lunar would unfreeze Lancea if he had not broken free from his icy prison at this point. Either way, she would greet everyone the same. “Splendid! Simply splendid!” She said while clapping for them. “Not many have gotten that far before. It is good to see that we such gifted members like yourselves!” She beamed. "Normally we would have to soak our new members in the hotsprings so that the healing waters could help them recover." Lunar paused briefly and smiled at the group to see how they were doing before speaking up again. “So, does anyone know the reasons for that little exercise? There’s three.” She held up three fingers to provide visual aid to it.

As he felt the last of his barriers failing, Krix used his large bulk to try and shield the smaller ponies around him. His shield serving as one wall and his body serving as the other three and ceiling for those that he could. Bearing the brunt of the star's attacks, Krix felt his body being pummeled by the dozens, if not hundreds of stars that bashed against him. When the splash of water came, to him, Krix let out a relaxed sigh as he lifted himself up from the pile and looked over to regard Lunar. "See..work....to-gether....see...power" Krix forced out in his mangled and garbled speech, but before he could get the third one out, Zen spoke up.

Speaking of Zen, he hadn't fared as well under the punishment from the guild members that had enjoyed turning him into a punching bag, and he remained laying where he was after the water was splashed on him. "Oh umm, let's see... you're sadistic and enjoy seeing us struggle. Wanted to personally have a chance to beat me up. Discourage creative alternatives to avoiding the danger. Just have a bit of fun in general," he replied with a blatant amount of sarcasm to his speech.