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Ceridwen managed to nod at Chin's question (though the usage of "was" from the laguz caused her to visibly cringe) -- though she was still panicking, she was managing to wrestle enough of her mind into submission to at least respond less jaggedly to Chin... and, apparently, Kerr, as he moved up to meet them. "From the description you gave... yes, it sounds like he could be... we were just sent here to rescue an officer, we didn't know exactly who, but..." Ceridwen stopped for a moment, her mouth suddenly dry once again, before she looked at Kerr; it would be likely fairly obvious to the man that she was a whirling disaster of emotions, panic and fear and sadness at what could be. "We-- we got a hint of who the Mid-Wing Commander is, and sh-she's showing us where he might be, and..."

"I like dreams of blood," the cantankerous samurai protested, "dreams of the sound of steel reverberating off of steal, the whish and crack of an arrow being split, the jar of my blade striking against armor, traveling up through my sword and my arms to my shoulders, the physicality of battle, watching where the enemy goes, anticipating their plans, sizing up their warriors and approaching them..." Kietasenshi waxed ironically poetic for somebody who had on many occasions expressed his distaste for poetry, before suddenly breaking it: "I bet you only care for... floral dreams, of courts and shit." With that said, he returned his attention to The Bird. "Well of course, Lord Yama, you're the one who seems to most get into it. Half-hearted battles are much less fun, you know." Of course, that also hadn't exactly stopped Kietasenshi from rather continually trying to pick fights with everybody else, anyhow. "Say, on your recent travels, have you found any interesting battles? I miss being out of this damn forest terribly sometimes."

Despite the fact that she was so, so barely holding it together herself, Ceridwen tried to reassure Chin, though her voice was shaky, quiet, and halting. "W-we didn't... kill any of them. We fought them, but..." Ceridwen let out a breath, and had to take a few moments to be able to gather her thoughts enough to finish her sentence. She was already falling apart, she realized, just from the thoughts of what could have happened. She was so scared... "We made a deal with, with Hati, that we wouldn't kill any of them and if we beat them and found Grayson, she'd let us through... but I found Grayson and... I'm- I'm sorry."

Judging by the casual scratch of his cheek, the fighting-obsessed youkai seemed... pretty much undisturbed by the cat's comments. "I mean, I'm pretty tall, so it's not like my legs are stubby. But I wouldn't want to catch you in the first place, I did kinda just explain that." Kietasenshi fell silent for a few moments. "Honestly, of the lot of you Megumi and Lord Yama are the only ones who are consistently entertaining and challenging. The rest of you just don't fight, it's honestly very disappointing, even if I like some of your attitudes. And then there's Yoriie, but he always takes out that damn talisman when I try..."

Kietasenshi opted to respond to Megumi first, languidly looking over at her. "I hope it's not just a forest witch. Assuming it's not some sort of master witch, fighting the weak does not really appeal to me. It's not a challenge." Plus, living samurai and court officials did that enough already. "A proper youkai would be much more interesting. Hey, it would even mean Yoriie could get another shikigami, right? A win-win for everyone involved, as far as I see it." With another turn of Kietasenshi's head came his response to Ivoh'to. "Well, yeah, of course. I didn't reject the afterlife for the sake of poetry and calligraphy, I'll tell you that. There's... nothing quite like a battlefield, I have always found. ...and I don't suspect I would much enjoy sparring with you anyway, Ivoh'to, unless you improve. I suspect I could just quite literally punt you and then that would be the end of that. It would be very disappointing."

The newest of Yoriie’s shikigami, a rather combative figure in black samurai armor, a mixture of leather and metal plates, with short black hair defying the typical topknot in favor of being unkempt unruly and a hole in his face emitting spirit fire, had been idly swinging his large sword around, occasionally clipping some grass or small shrug with it. Yoriie actually speaking for once drew the attention of the shikigami, Kietasenshi, who rested his odachi on his shoulder, listening — and then when the Baku spoke, Kietasenshi made his reply. “Maybe it’s some sort of youkai causing the season change. That’d be fun - I’d get a chance for a new battle. I mean, I like,” picking fights with, “sparring with you all, but there’s only so many times that I can have the same fights in the middle of this damn forest before it starts to become monotonous.”

Gladiatorial combat? No, please, no, not if it was Gareth, please... he was capable of fighting, he was a Mid-Wing Commander, but he was getting up there in age, and if it was him who had been captured, who knew what injuries had, what— what had been done to him, Oppenheimer had killed his own steward, he couldn’t be trusted to not do horrible things to anyone... Ceridwen gasped for breath, her wave of increasing panic nearly overwhelming her. “Where— where could we find this room?”

Ceridwen had to hold herself back from reaching over to stroke the poor girl's face in an attempt to comfort her, both because she'd react poorly and because, well, it would possibly kill her. The sheer misery and cruelty of her situation weighed heavily on Ceridwen -- the burns of magic that spoke of pointless, sadistic torture, the bloody and spotty nature of her plumage that spoke of the brutal exploitation that she had clearly gone through for her poison, the way she hugged herself, and the way she began to cry, just at the mere mention of potential freedom... it was nearly too much for Ceridwen herself. Back in the Stronghold she had never imagined this sort of thing to be possible, and yet here she now was staring its victim in the face. "I'm... I'm so, so sorry this happened to you. Oppenheimer was... an unspeakably cruel man. We won't do the things he did." But at the girl's next words, Ceridwen's countenance changed from one drooped with sorrow to a floundering of increasing panic. The young Dragon Knight gasped for breath, her mouth moving without any words coming out for a few moments, shock widening her eyes and a sparkle of fear playing clearly in them. No, she'd worried about this but she'd thought that he was too clever-- Not him, not here, no, no-- Ceridwen's eyes flicked to Rhian's hair for a moment, she had never noticed the similarity-- Please, maybe it isn't him, maybe it's someone else-- Maybe, maybe she had to see-- Sucking in a couple more gasps of air, Ceridwen finally spoke: "I-- yes-- maybe-- that... it could be..."

Ceridwen slowly and sadly shrugged at the feathered, tortured girl's question. "We... didn't really know what to expect down here. We were looking for someone else, actually. We can get you healed, but I don't think we really have any plans for you after that. We could let you free, if that's what you want. Are... you the only one alive in here? There were those others up in the castle, Hati and, erh, whatever his name was, but I-- I don't see anyone else alive in here..." Ceridwen let out a breath and had to take a few more moments to be able to speak again -- it was important she asked what she needed to ask, but in the face of all of this evil and death, it was hard to force the breath out of her lungs just to speak. "And for who we were looking for... have you seen a human prisoner who would have recently been brought in? Some sort of important status, not from the immediate area...?"

The dungeon... it was the worst thing she had seen in her life. She had been involved in terribly, gory battles, and had watched an execution (including of a girl who couldn't possibly have done anything wrong) and the latter especially had haunted her... but the malice and fear that pervaded every stinking inch of this terrible place, that suffused the air so thickly it could almost be tasted, the combination of mad cruelty and sociopathic neglect that could see the corpses of torture victims rotting into bones on the cold stone on which they'd been killed or left to die. Ceridwen leaned against the wall for a few moments as Rhian approached the prisoner, holding her stomach for a few moments, trying to avoid releasing the overwhelming, instinctual wave of nausea that consumed her as much at the horror of it as at the disgust of the filth and decay. And Ceridwen failed -- vomiting on the floor, before holding her mouth for moments more. Of course, this dungeon being the way it was, it's hardly as if she made it too much filthier. Eventually, Ceridwen managed to advance towards the cell, her expression downcast and still shocked, Yn Ddiddorol following her closely and nuzzling the side of her head with his in an unsuccessful attempt to cheer her up, though she absently reached out to stroke his head. The dragon would, at least, provide visual evidence for Ceridwen's following words: "...we're the Allied Guard. It's... a group they made to represent the alliance between Caliss and the Dragon Knights, but... Oppenheimer attacked the Dragon Knights, so we moved in to take over his castle. We killed him and most of his soldiers in the process. ...I don't think I'm sad about that, not this time."

"He really was a terrible person, wasn't he?" At least that was a was, now. Bending down (very cautiously, despite the now-inert status of the spores) Ceridwen picked up the dead soldier's halberd, looking it over for a moment with a keen eye. "I guess there's something ironic about taking one of the weapons they'd meant to use to kill us Knights and using it for myself... but it is a good weapon... well balanced, no visible flaws... yeah." Ceridwen took the Steel Halberd. "I'm coming, Rhian!" And Ceridwen followed the archer-knight.

Ceridwen just quietly nodded at Rhian's offer to join her -- Rhian wasn't the nicest person in the group, but right now all she cared about was finding and helping the hostage, and that was something that she trusted Rhian to be able to help her to do. Rhian had been one of the steadiest members of the Allied Guard, after all. Ceridwen let out a breath, then stood up a bit straighter (though she hissed from the pain of doing so; despite the healing, she was still in rough shape). She had to brace herself, after all. With Milich doing what he did, this could be... bad. "Right... let's go, then." And Ceridwen set off with Rhian to search the castle for the hostage -- well, prepared to set off, anyhow, as the very first thing she did was check the throne room for any of the sorts of secret tunnels this place had already proven to have. ...She really hoped it wasn't bad.

Ceridwen briefly shrunk back at Johanna's glare and Idriss' growl, while Yn Ddiddorol met the other dragon's stare until Ceridwen lightly pushed his head away from Idriss' eye contact, rather hoping to avoid fighting betwene the two dragons. But she didn't actually reflect on Johanna's displeasure for very long, nor did she quite slump over, despite the fact that the wounds and savage injuries that she had taken throughout the battle were far more severe than Johanna's. ...well, she'd been unsteady and shaky in her posture for a while, and that was still true now, but she wasn't quite letting herself rest yet, even though blood still stained a massive portion of her armor from her only-recently-sealed injuries. There was still something left to attend to, after all. "Johanna! What about the Commander he captured -- shouldn't we look for them? Who knows what condition they're in..."

Ceridwen had gone through an intense gamut of emotions in but a few seconds. First, relief and elation as instead of being brought painfully to the ground once more by the enemy mage, her javelin hit him in the throat and then carried through, piercing him and pinning his corpse to the ground. Gory as it was, that victory did a great deal to reassure Ceridwen of her usefulness. Then her emotions turned into shock and frustration as Argos proceeded to be brutalized and mocked by the bastard Milich, to raw intensity as the battle with him continued, and then an unidentifiable mix of emotions when Fallon finally killed him. She hadn't managed to get involved in the fight against Milich, but her eyes came to settle on his throne, and a resolution snapped into place in her eyes -- she plodded towards that throne, and Yn Ddiddorol followed her, his body language tense but wondering. She walked up to the side of the throne, raised a leg, and kicked it as hard as she could, a titanic blow that put a hole in the throne's side and put it ajar but didn't manage to unseat it. She did it again, tipping it over, but it remained hooked in the ground by a bolt -- growling quietly Yn Ddiddorol bent his head down and proceeded to pluck the bolt right out of the chair with his teeth, before giving it a savage whip of his tail which knocked it fully to the floor. Ceridwen then stomped on the throne, flattening it into planks of wood and thoroughly ruined finery, before reaching out to stroke her dragon's head. "To hell with this place, and all the evil things that have been done here!" I3, seize obliterate that throne.

Ceridwen let out a shaky breath, still bleeding, and brushed some blood away from her eye before setting herself once again and advancing at one of Milich's men with her lance raised. The enemy was a mage, and she knew that if she failed yet again she was going to be awash with agony once again, but... she had to carry her own weight, no matter what the cost. "..." I8, Slim Lance the Tactician.

"Mmmmm... you see that guy? Yeah, that one over there? I reckon we can take him -- I'm gonna go kick his ass."

She had managed to stay on her feet despite the blasts of magic that once again rocked her, despite the immediate illness the magic had instilled within her -- and then an arrow hit her, a graze that bounced off of her head and normally would not have meant much... but as she was, it brought her down into a slow, loud topple to the ground. When she was healed, Ceridwen clenched a fist, and grit her teeth to prevent tears from escaping her eyes; it would be inexcusable weakness, when she already had been brought down again and again this mission. "I-I..." Ceridwen trailed off.

Lizaveta didn't reply verbally to Baldur, but that didn't stop her from taking the opportunity to flip Baldur off for a little before trotting along after Mim and Shin. "Here, Snowbird, you might need a little help. Ficus doesn't deserve the abuse he gets from Orchid, but... hehe, well, sorry but you are kind of super dirty Ficus. But that's okay, we can fix that!"

The sound of Baldur shouting is a rather distinctive one, and as it echoed into the room where Lizaveta had been resting after the fight (just because she'd been kicking ass didn't actually mean she wasn't exhausted) she almost automatically got back to her feet and started beelining out of the room -- sure enough, Baldur was shouting at Shin, and Lizaveta's pace picked up as she began to hurtle towards inevitable conflict. When she got near enough to see what was happening (Shin was rather covered with blood), she began of course to chastise Baldur in turn. "Really, Orchid? Really? Are you so utterly obsessed with this classist, pointless vendetta of yours against Ficus that you're this desperate to find a reason to criticize him? You're so hellbent on grasping for straws that you decide his being blood-spattered immediately after battle is sufficient excuse for you to go on some tirade at him? I bet that's what you were going to do, isn't it? It's sad."

Lizaveta let out a long breath as the battle wound down, and she wrung her hands together for a little bit to get the jitters out before smiling, very clearly proud of herself. "Well, while I admit to continuing hesitance over this deal with the royalty of Ceda, I believe we have here once again proven that no monarch's forces of evildoers can stand against the true valor of Virtuous and the hearts of the people."

Candide felt quite similarly to his Dragonborn compatriot — well, less sadness, perhaps, but more than enough disappointment. He had heard a great many tales of Sir Lancelot’s valor and might, but also of his chivalry. Perhaps those latter tales had merely been twisted and exaggerated by their travel overseas. But alternatively... “No, he was certainly an unwelcome shock to me as well. But, if I may, I have perhaps a theory. Lancelot appeared to have sequestered himself on this town and clearly did not want to be found. When you combine that with his demeanor... perhaps it is the case that the death of Arthur drove Lancelot to abandon his chivalry and retire from the battlefield. He would still desire to avoid bloodshed, perhaps even more, but he would not feel constrained more than slightly by his broken vows of chivalry. ...but, to tell the truth, I am still far from impressed. To quit one’s order, one’s duty, because of pain, no matter how large... Well, I can no longer swing a sword and require a cane in unfamiliar cities, and yet I am here. I would look down on him, I think, were I yet capable of looking at all.”

Nader grinned behind his mask at the kid's glassy-eyed expression: Bingo. He'd pulled off the act of the middle aged man with strong values he felt it was important to impart on the young'uns perfectly (of course, ignoring the fact that he was getting close to middle age himself and did in fact have some pretty strongly-felt values). But he heard Lucine saying the words "I don't think that was a monster" -- and, immediately, Nader acted to prevent the young monster from cottoning onto human presence, clearing his throat and talking loudly and authoritatively enough to hopefully jar the monster child out of thinking too hard about what Lucine had just said. "Alright, all, we should probably get moving. We only have so much time, and we want to see the rest of this place, you know."

Isobel crossed her arms and frowned at Marisa's complaining -- to tell the truth, she was still feeling rather put out over having the tar beaten out of her by Marisa's spells over and over again. "Don't go feeling too sorry for yourself, the only reason we "ruined your afternoon" is because you jumped us when we were traveling through this place and started shooting massive magic spells all over the place at us. The ass-kicking we gave you was an ass-kicking of self-defense, and you certainly banged us up pretty bad too." LOTUS, meanwhile, was taking on a pensive expression and frowning. "Maybe it's because of the... extenuating circumstances... of the time," she wasn't used to either the whole body or the she thing, "but I actually don't remember exactly why we were in this forest. We've been investigating strange occurrences around Gensokyo, suspecting they're coming from a particular outside threat we're devoted to dealing with. This was just the first destination we were supposed to follow Chen to -- maybe Yukari knew that this would happen? This is going to be a pain if that's the case."

Candide's mouth remained twisted in a frown, though his hand remained on Blodeuyn's pouch, keeping her from throwing whatever it is that she was throwing. To tell the truth, he had been skeptical of the battle taking place within the city from the very start, so it was not as if Lancelot was incorrect there. But the man's tone, the way he dripped with crude insults, the way he was dominated by anger to the point of, if Candide was hearing correctly, wildly throwing magic and choking someone... by the sounds of their position, one of Nicolos' bunch, but choking them nonetheless. Softly, he spoke to himself. "Je pense, peut-être, que je suis désappointé moi-même."

Splat. Wait, what was going on? Candide frowned, and heard additional splats and bouncing sounds, and heard Blodeuyn struggling very audibly, the rustle of her pouch and the groans of her breaths. Honestly, he was a little flabbergasted, and it showed in the hesitance of his motions, but... "Euh... petite mademoiselle..." Candide slowly bent down and gently but firmly put a hand on her pouch -- well, actually, first her arm, as he missed, but then her pouch, keeping her from withdrawing another mushroom. "You... should not be trying to stand until Monsieur Lucan has an opportunity to tend to you... much less, euh, whatever this is."