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Continuing in her scan, Elara was sure she could hear some kind of shuffling, but that was probably the people behind her in the caravan, right? It suddenly dawned on the woman how ill-defended this caravan was, her being at the front and entirely unprepared to defend the back of the cart and the traveling party there. Let alone that Elara simply was not a fighter to begin with. A rock tumbled from far up the cliff face, too high to have been knocked loose by anyone. "Mmm." Elara mused aloud, a grumble to break the silence. Silence? She turned to see that the rest of the caravan was stopped behind her, all surveying in their own way, taking a small breather. Elara turned back and kept glaring at the hillside, still feeling as though she were being watched.



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Another member of the group had started to speak, the quiet utterance of a syllable cut short by a new sound besides wind and pine. An odd chiming filled the air as if moving in from someplace distant, like a crystal glass of too many dimensions being played. Something like how Elara imagined an otherworldly angelic choir, or...



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"Prismatic car?" The convertible very comfortably passed Eel and the caravan at large, swinging in a mild u-turn to face her at an angle. Though the car settled immediately and didn't seem to hum like a thing with an engine would, the wisps of floating red hair took it's time to fall into place, and Elara found herself smiling a little. It was a weird coincidence to meet Ingrid in this way, but a very welcome one.



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"Oh gods, likewise!" She managed a small bit of excitement in her tone and moved towards the door. "Yeah. I'm doing... okay, considering-" Elara gestured to nothing and everything. "-and you look flawless and wonderful, as always." Eel recognized that Miss Karina had fallen into a different language for the most part, and found it to be quite pleasant. "I like your new wheels, too. Perfect for seeing the sights I reckon."



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As if on cue, something caught Elara's sight. Not a car swinging in from her peripheral this time, but a humanoid silhouette, moving forward along the lower canyon area and settling behind cover once again. It was starting to flatten out on that side the higher the caravan got, and the tree cover was growing more dense. Eel had been so focused on Ingrid, but now she was squinting a little, staring off into space seemingly. She turned her attention back to her acquaintance- or friend? No, probably still an acquaintance at this point, but Eel could dream. "I'm supposed to accompany these folks to a little town a few miles more ahead, if you want to tag along. You could tell me about what you've been up to?" Elara hefted her pack and made clear she was ready to walk alongside the vehicle if Ingrid didn't invite her to sit shotgun.

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Elara found her attention falling back to Ingrid and fully engaged in the conversation back and forth, nodding and smiling here and there. The fashionable femme had a sort of high-aire to her that Eel was entirely unused to, but it was fun in a way to be around someone with such an ego and the wherewithal to reign it in. Someone who also seemed deserving of a good deal of that ego. Elara found herself drawn into the gravitas of the designer. She found herself nodding perhaps a little too vigorously at being given "A ride" with Ingrid- something to think about later.



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She also found herself getting caught up in what she could even do with her hair at this point. She preferred it shorter, easy to manage and style, even easier to just sweep back behind her on those rare occasions she exercised. What would a salon change at this point; did hair stylists do things besides trim and, like, shape? Elara usually just trimmed her own hair at home. Too much potential dysphoria to talk to other people, given that she did very little voice training. Still, new Earth, new vibes, perhaps. If she went with Ingrid to the salon, maybe...



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"Ah-" Her friendquaintance sped off in the shimmering car, in the wrong direction no less. Other caravanners seemed quite impatient by this point, and Eel continued her ascent of the mountains. Easy come Ingrid, easy go it seemed. And yet, Elara still thought she hard that chiming. It became somewhat faint, but as a cloud of dust puffed well behind the traveling party, the sound got closer. Then closer still. Eel thought she saw a flat pathway of shimmering prisma. "Is she a damn ghost?" Had Elara been talking to a dead person this whole time or something?



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The new, larger and more concentrated cloud of dust did nothing to disperse her outlandish suspicions, but did reveal a new shape within the tumult- a tall, broad-shouldered fellow with a sword in one hand and his other arm covering his mouth, coughing up a storm as he was showered in particulate dirt. His exclaimed expletives rang down the pathway of the mountain, and he turned to the caravan as if realizing he was no longer hidden, even though Elara had barely seen him over there. Had he not been coughing and making so much noise, she probably would have missed him up there.



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"Ah wells, weird weather aint stopping me. Oy, travelers, this here's a waylay! Gimme yer food!" He stomped out of his hiding spot and toward the group, brandishing his weapon and doing his best to clear his lungs while looking tough. Ingrid was still nowhere to be seen, presumably having driven off the cliff edge or, more likely, just left entirely.



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"Damn, I really wanted that ride." Elara contained her disappointment best as she could and brandished her own weapon, which was just a mean-ass glare. Nobody else would see it, but inflicting Anathema on this bandit meant he would regard her visage as one of a gaunt face, skin greyed and peeling to reveal a bare cervid skull and antlers, eye sockets sunken to reveal pale, slightly glowing orbs, and teeth jagged as if filed or chipped on bone. A face hungry for something far worse than flesh. He seemed stricken, and halted in place just in front of her.



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"If you leave, I'll just give you some food." Eels gathered some of her traveling rations and threw them towards the man, who didn't even bend over to grab them, eyes still fixated on Eel's face. From afar, it might look like he still had fight in him.



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Used Anathema - Enemy is Guilt Ridden

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Face-to-face with the potential for violence, stuck here in this desolate world of gamified pain, Elara found herself short on patience. Short on grace, even. This man was just trying to survive, sure, but his readiness, the insistent energy that he seemed so ready to carry out violence, the grin he wore brandishing a weapon with old bloody flakes still on it. Combined with the fact that the bandit type could just... leave. And yet he didn't. He stood his ground, clearly shaken and unwilling to approach Elara, yet uninterested in giving up on his quarry.



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"He can have the food when we're done." She swiped at the air in front of her and sent that hurtling skull, a replicant of her spiritual visage. It's teeth cut on the bones of the disheveled and dishonest spirits, eyes lifeless and hungry, bone showing past desiccated foul skin. It flew forward and bit at the man, who for his part swiped at it with his blade but glanced off of it. It bit into him, and he would feel as though his arm had been torn at by an animal or monster, but it left no visible mark. Just pain and guilt, the full remorse and weight of his actions to date, the self-inflicted pain of the harm he'd caused to others. Eel felt her indignant response necessary, but not at all enjoyable. Still, she turned to Ingrid, a tone with markers of restraint.



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"Give him a love tap, as it were. If he wants to come to town after and ask for help, I wouldn't be against giving it to him." She leaned toward the newly revealed Ingrid whose upper half seemed to hang from the invisible air, and took a moment to listen to the chime of the car before giving the approximate space of the hood a gentle knock. "Then we can go for a ride, if that's okay." Elara looked to Ingrid, and would meet her eyes if the other woman looked her way.


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Used Core - Enemy is both Guilt Ridden and Guilty

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