Not sure if anyone's going to show up, but eh, here's a new room to continue in anyway. :D
I'll be lurking around.

Hello there.

Oh hi Aggron. :D

BOAT

I'll see if I can participate today,
Can someone bring the last comments? :0

Oohh hi Alk!

My characters aren't doing anything, I need to figure something out there. XD

I could find and copy over Xeno's last comment for you, but I'll wait and see if they want to do it themselves--

Naw, do it rad.

(I'll do both comments.)

Alk's:

"Huh?" She tilted her head looking confused. "I've always wanted to try a good bowl of fruit, but it's hard to find berries in the highlands and farming villages always would chase me off. Calling me a devil that'd gobble their children. But all I wanted was some watermelons. Maybe I'd try their chickens."
"I think we'd be fine with anything honestly." Mumbled Shepherd.

Xeno's:

{Dianne blinks a few times at the nebulous response.}

Dianne: "Omnivore it is...Ok, come, sit. I'll have the cook bring you something."

{Dianne then leads the group to a table in the middle of the room, then walks into the kitchen.}

Dianne: "Sammy, give me a large ceasar salad, a steak and a baked potato with everything on it. Oh, and put extra chicken and throw some extra berries on the salad."

Sammy: "You got it, boss."

(Nowww I gotta sit back and think of what I wanna do...)

( Thanks, Rad.)

(Ty!)
@Xeno
The group began to settle down comfortably as they waited for their meals.
Euterpe remained on the floor with Marco though as the chairs looked a tad difficult for her to seat comfortably.
"A baked potato with everything sounds like a lot. WAIT, does that mean you're adding seafood to it?" Asked Euterpe.

Outside the city, in the southern woodlands that bordered one of the small rural villages there, something stirred.

It made almost no noise as it slithered across the forest floor, appearing drawn to the lights and noise of the distant city. It was a creature rarely seen by anyone, for they were not normally found in Aether at all. But in recent years, more and more of them had been creeping out of the forests and mountain caves, hungering... preying on anything they could catch.

The creature was not aware that entering the city might be dangerous. It was only aware that the city was full of things it could eat.

Behind it, a row of other creatures emerged from the damp darkness. All of them were jet-black in colour, with grey markings resembling veins spreading across their bodies.

With no visible communication, they began to move out towards the distant silhouettes of Caelum's buildings.

(ohno!
Zombos coming :00000
Time to yeet again)

(The monster dragons want to c o n s u m e us all)

( r u n )

(Sorry for late reply.)

@Alk
{Dianne laughs from the other room.}

Dianne: “No. I don’t mean literally everything. You see when it comes.”

Meanwhile, at Gray's house, Stal was being... less than patient.

'Is it too early to go over there?' he growled, glancing up from his lyric sheets to look at the clock on the wall.

Loch rolled her eyes. 'It's barely noon. I'd give it another hour or two at the very least.'

With a convulsive movement, the lead singer swept his lyric sheets off the table. 'I don't want to wait that long! I need to /do/ something!'

'Stal, what you need to do is calm down. Imagine how bad it'll look for us if you show up at the bar in this kind of state.'

(I see a bad moon a-rising
I see trouble on the way)
@Xeno
"Oh, ok" Euterpe said her interest peaking.

"By the way, you seemed to Arc and the other guy? Are you friends or something, why was Stella so mad?" Shepherd asked shifting subjects.

(We good)

{Dianne pokes her head out of the kitchen.}

Dianne: "Oh, they're just a musical group who want to play here. And Stella, well...She's just really stressed out. You see, the colorful guy came here before we were ready to open, and Stella really doesn't like it when people snoop around without her knowing. It's ok, though, he didn't mean anything by it."

After a few minutes of bickering over how long they should wait before going to the Serpent's Tomb, Stal sighed and reached down to scoop up his papers. 'Look, I just don't want to be late. We're supposed to be there /before/ five, right?'

'Yes,' said Arc, 'but that's, like, four hours away...'

'Well, let's leave now. It'll take us a while to /get/ there, right?'

Everyone was so tired of Stal's complaints by that point that they agreed, and thus the band left the house and began walking at a leisurely pace towards the bar. Loch and Arc tried to slow the journey down even more by stopping to browse every shop window they passed.

'Did you hear something?' said Arc suddenly, coming to an halt right as they were walking past the mouth of an alleyway.

'Like what?' said Stal.

@Xeno
"I can see why." Snorted Euterpe
"That brightly colored dude is nosey." She muttered.

{Dianne comes out of the kitchen, holding plates of food.}

Dianne: "Yeah, but that one strikes me as...a little socially awkward. The garish clothes, the disregard for particular boundaries. But, I'm sure he's harmless."

{Dianne puts the steak and baked potato in front of Shepherd, and the salad in front of Euterpe. The steak was medium well and the potato had all the fixings: Butter, sour cream, cheese, green onion, and chives. The salad was in a large bowl topped with extra grilled chicken and assorted berries. She also brought a steak for Marco, and made sure to get his attention away from his friend's meals with it, before dropping it for him.}

'I dunno,' said Arc, sounding uneasy. 'Like... a sort of hissing noise.'

All five of them stood and stared down the alleyway for a long moment.

'...Probably just litter rustling or something,' said Gray in a low voice.

Stal grumbled incoherently and started to walk away. Just as he did, a black shape seemed to solidify from the darkness, claws extended as it threw itself towards the nearest person, who happened to be Loch.

'Look out!' she yelled, instinctively shifting into her dragon form. The black creature skidded to a halt in front of her and then swiftly backed up, a web of orange and purple veins springing to life all over its body. It cocked its head, hissing, and seemed to hesitate.

(Excuse me while I quietly write novels in the corner)

(No! You're making me hungry >:[ )

Marco immediately trots over to Dianne eagerly to receive the steak. Unable to contain his excitement he jumps up and barks.
"Marco don't be so rude!" Euterpe said scolding him. "Even I still have SOME manners, watch, 'Thank you very much Madame.'" She said in her best voice.

"When did you learn manners?" Chuckled Shepherd.
"Well,,," Euterpe began. "I don't remember, but for some reason I feel like it is owed at this moment to this person in this time."
"Y'know that's weird." Shepherd said finishing some water.

Euterpe feathers ruffled and replied with. "Oh yeah? How do /you/ know what's weird? I think this place and the people are weird but obviously everything seems to think the contrary."
"Now you're being even more weird" Shepherd said, which only made her grunt in frustration.

* @Xeno

(I was already hungry, and there is not even any food in this house)

(I actually almost order Italian to be brought out for delivery, but then I realized-
It's too expensive bc we live in bad area for food delivery.
Better to go out and buy it, but I don't have time for that. So I settled for tater tots and chicken:Y
And grrr I hate it when there's nothing good to eat )

(Big hope came out of shadows

(I already had dinner but I always get hungry at night. Was looking for something to snack on, but we don't have anything except chocolate biscuits. XD
...And whatever long-forgotten horrors you might find in the back of the freezer.)

The eyeless creature kept hesitating, while Loch stretched out her wings and moved aggressively to block the mouth of the alleyway, stopping it from going after her bandmates.

'Better watch yourselves!' she called out, then opened her jaws and blasted the alleyway with a jet of flame. The monster shrieked, scurrying backwards to save itself from being instantly incinerated. When Loch snapped off the flames, the creature was nowhere to be seen.

'Where is it?' said Gray, his normally calm voice tight with fear.

Loch warily glanced around, then shifted back to human form. 'I don't know,' she said. 'What WAS that? It looked like a dragon, but it definitely didn't smell like one.' She wrinkled her nose. 'Smelled more like three-day-old carrion.'

( @all Oh no, whoops. I was just describing the food. Sorry y'all. XD)

{Dianne chuckles as she drops the steak for Marco, away from the table.}

Dianne: "Well, I don't think you two are weird. I'm sure this city must seem strange to the both of you. Judging by your reaction to cars alone, I'm willing to guess you're from a very distant land, one that hasn't had an industrial revolution."

{Dianne then sits at their table.}

"And crossing an entire ocean eating nothing but fish sounds exhausting. Please, eat, enjoy your meals."

(Ooooooh, eyeless monsters. Very scary. 0_0)

The band spent a few minutes investigating the area to see if they could find the creature, but no trace of it remained.

'It scarpered when it realised we had it outnumbered,' said Loch smugly, seeming quite at ease with the situation. As long as the creature was gone, she didn't think it was worth worrying about anymore. Arc, though, had other ideas.

'That thing looked dangerous, what if it comes back and hurts someone?' he said. 'One of you should really call the police and tell them what happened.'

Loch looked doubtful. 'Would they even believe us? 'Yes, officer, we saw a scary black monster with no eyes in an alleyway'. They'd probably think we were just drunk and got scared by a garbage bag or something.'

Arc sighed. 'I'm just worried. I've never seen anything like that in my life.'

"Industrial?" They both asked.

"Is that how you describe this place?" Euterpe said curiously before taking a bite of her salad. Her eyes lit up as she tasted the food and quieted down to eat the rest of it.

"Well,, I don't know,,, I never actually saw any real towns or cities there, but..." Shepherd trailed for moment. "Will you promise not to tell anyone?" He whispered to Dianne. Hoping Euterpe wouldn't protest, she seemed to not care for the moment.

{Dianne gives a curious look.}

Dianne: "Of course. What do you have to tell me?"

Stal visibly shook off the surprise of the creature's ambush attack, and began to briskly walk down the street again. 'If you're all OK, then let's not waste any more time,' he growled. 'Whatever it was, it's gone now, and I don't care what it was as long as it doesn't come back.'

The rest of the band had little choice but to give pursuit.

'I really hope it doesn't hurt anyone else,' Arc fretted.

'Don't worry so much,' said Loch in an attempt to reassure him. 'Sure, it looked freaky, but it ran away at the sight of us, so it's probably not as dangerous as you think. Even if it does show up again, someone will deal with it.'

Arc wasn't entirely convinced, but a quick glance at each of his bandmates told him they were not sharing his concerns. They were all too busy thinking about the Serpent's Tomb and their musical careers - it would take more than a strange creature jumping out of the shadows to sidetrack them.

He sighed, in a long-suffering kind of way, and tried to keep up.

(I think I'll have to head off now, but you guys can feel free to continue if you want.
Stal's guys are just going to be doing a long slow walk through the city. X))

(I'm drawing as a small break and I got hw to do so I think I'll pick up tomorrow :0)

(Alrighty.)

@Xeno
Shepherd swallowed. "We'll, I'm from what I think is called a concentration camp. Grew up there actually, everyday was grueling nasty work. There was always an underlying fear, you didn't know how the guards would react. Conversations were few but in between and they never gave us enough time to eat not that it was any good..."

His hands shook little as began cutting the steak. "I'm sorry for being so on edge, and breaking out of the hospital. But the doctor asked a lot of questions.I thought- I thought they were going to send me back and take away Eu and Marco...."

(Yo Rad should I introduce double trouble? ;P
I was thinking they could be investigating the werewolf breaking -try to steal from other thieves lol.)

( @Alk - Yeah! :D I wanna see those guys, they seem like they're gonna be fun. XD
Mason's pack aren't going to be happy if anyone tries to steal from them, haha.)

(Alrighty I'll get something going! I want to at least write some stuff before I have to go back to doing hw >:D )

(AH COLORS LOCK ME OUT BEFORE I COULD POST)

(Noooooo D:)
Colors is annoying sometimes.)

(It was a lot and I got demotivated to write it again after that,,, *sadness all around*)

(I thought Colors saved your post if you got logged out while typing - like you could just log back in and post it - but I guess not. :()

(Ruined :[ )

( @Alk Oof. I hate it when that happens. :( )

{Dianne raised her brows in surprise at all of this. When Shepherd started to shake, she leans in slightly, trying to reassure him.}

Dianne: "Hey, hey, don't worry about that...We don't do that kind of thing here. I promise you, no one is going to send you back to that."