It's just one thing after another today, isn't it.

The swarms are impairing for a moment, and then she reaches in a direction that wasn't there yesterday and acquires a beekeeper suit complete with mesh veil. (It's a very elegant and stylish beekeeper suit, with blue and green accents and lines that flatter her figure, and it goes under her magic items when possible and over them when necessary but doesn't conceal any of them.)

Anyway, STAB.

Deskari doesn't normally bother to hate mortals; they're too far beneath his notice for him to even care. Even Iomedae's own herald barely rates that kind of attention, which he typically reserves for his rivals amongst demon lords and anyone sufficiently connected to Aroden. But right now, he thinks, he's willing to make an exception. If he can't kill her now and be done with it, he'll at least get her out of his way. Deskari goes at her with his scythe once more, but this time in the hopes of getting her to dodge close enough to one of his legs that he can kick her and then imprison her.

She can tell he's trying to sweep her that way so she's going to dodge this way. It takes her out of stabbing range of his legs (she has got to learn some magic so she has ranged options) but if she lines things up right she can hack at the scythe handle, or try to get Deskari overextended so Terendelev has an opening--

He's hardly going to lose this fight. He's not sure Terendelev has enough anathema of his on hand to beat his spell resistance or his will save, much less do so reliably enough that she can manage it with the number of slots she has left, and while this mortal is incredibly annoying and her attacks actually hurt he can open up the range for a bit if she ever starts dealing damage more quickly than he can regenerate it. He'll get lucky eventually, and then it'll be over - if they don't die first of running out of spell slots or buff duration. The problem is, he doesn't actually have all day. What Deskari actually has is a probably small but unknown magnitude amount of time before one of the good gods notices he's hanging out on the prime material and decides to come smite him for it. Which would be one thing if it meant he got a chance to fight Iomedae at a time of his choosing in land half-tainted by the abyss, but he's pretty sure it'd be Desna.

And that means that if they won't die quickly and won't let him get close enough to trap them magically, he'll have to do it the old fashioned way. This girl can dodge a lot, but can she dodge a 20 meter wide chasm appearing right under her feet just as she lands? Riftcarver comes down like a meteor in a great overhand blow and splits the earth.

Nope, she cannot dodge that, now she's in a hole. As soon as the rocks stop falling under her she'll start climbing right back out, but while she's falling she falls basically like a normal human.

Climbing out? That sounds like a problem for someone who doesn't have earthquake as a spell like ability. There won't be a way out, unless she can teleport or turn intangible. Now, as for Terendelev-

Plane Shift.

Well, they’re not dead, but at least they’re gone. Now, who here is strong enough to be worth a moment’s time to kill them?

Maybe some of those butterflies gathering?

Did he say worth a moment? Actually, he meant just leaving.

Greater Teleport.

Brenda has missed the end of the fight, because she's still in a hole. Actually it's more of a cave at this point. Good thing she packed a flashlight! What's down here, apart from rocks and more rocks? (Her beekeeper suit has replaced itself with a (beautiful yet understated) long sleeve shirt and pants and knee-high boots.)

A short way down the crevasse she's in is a woman wearing metal armor, who seems to be struggling to move some of the rocks next to her. She looks up when the light falls on her, but thanks to how flashlights work she isn't able to tell who is holding it.

"Who's there?"

Brenda points her flashlight at the ground between them to stop blinding the other woman with the glare. "My name's Brenda. You were fighting the demons too, I take it? I can help with those rocks if you want."

“Thanks! Anevia got caught under them when we fell, but it’s a bit difficult for one person to move.”

"Oh, yikes. Is she okay?" Brenda can pick up rocks one at a time and put them down somewhere more convenient, while being careful not to let anything slide down farther onto Anevia. She feels kind of bad about it probably having been her fault that there was a hole to fall down in the first place, and now that she's not actively fighting she feels some kind of way about having killed enough demons to lose count of without having thought through the ethics of it first, but getting someone out from under a bunch of rocks is uncomplicatedly helpful.

“My leg is killing me, but I think that’s as much from the fall as the rocks. Seelah, you wouldn’t happen to have another lay on hands in you, would you?”

“No, I used the last one so I could get up after that landing, and all the rest of them before. That fight sure was something, though; just a couple of minutes of it and I already feel exhausted.”

She should have packed a first aid kit. And learned how to use it. Crap.

"I got here from another world about--wow, less than hour ago still. I have a weird grab bag of magic powers but no healing, sorry. Um, Seelah, is your healing ability something you were born with or something you learned? If it's the former I might be able to mimic it."

"They're a gift to me from the goddess Iomedae, not something I was born with; I'm a paladin, which means I swear to follow a code and stay lawful good and in exchange I get powers useful for fighting evil. I'm sure some people have innate healing powers but you'd have to be, like, an angel, or maybe a dragon. And wow, from another world? I guess we get all kinds here crusading at the worldwound."

"I can try mimicking Terendelev in case she has any and I manage to get it. . . . I hope I can do it without looking at her; I only got the grab bag of magic powers when I came here and I don't have much practice with them yet." The wording really makes it sound like it ought to work but she really should have asked yesterday.

Okay, how does this work and does she want to try it with Alpina first? . . . No, she wants to wait to try it with Alpina until she can tell her about it immediately. She wanted Alpina to be her first copied species but trying for healing now is more important.

So then, what does she do to make this happen? She wants to discover her dragon heritage--

There it is.

Scales that shine like polished silver appear on her temples and the backs of her hands, and her hair turns silver to match; her fingernails lengthen and harden into metallic claws and she knows instinctively that she can switch them back and forth at will. A sense of inner warmth blooms in her chest; she could walk outside in a t-shirt in the Iowa winter and not be bothered by the cold. Spell structures crystallize in her mind, waiting to be unfolded into the world.

"Woah! Your hair just went all silver, and your skin- can you just turn all the way into a dragon now, or is that as much as you're able to get?"