Ash/Liyal/Merri/Aspel
Merri barely had time to take in a deep breath when he saw the tidal wave come crashing down over him, sweeping him off his feet and threatening to drag him into the depths of the ocean. It was with some luck that he managed to dig his staff into something to keep him in place, and when the water cleared, he saw exactly what that something was: an iguion that had been trying to flee the wave itself, and its dying hop had been Merri's saving grace from getting pulled into the depths of the ocean. He frowned. Why was the iguion trying to flee the water?
When he flopped onto his back to catch his breath, hoarse gasps escaping his mouth, he saw what he had been too busy to notice before: the serpent, flying up into the air, seeming to give chase to--
No!
In that instant, Merri regained his line of sight with The Love, and his heart raced as he saw the serpent flying after it. "Wil!" he cried out, his voice cracking. But then the beast seemed to recoil, and Merri closed his eyes and tried to placate his fears knowing that Peony was aboard the ship, too, and if anyone on this earth could keep the serpent at bay and the captain alive, she could. Still, he sent one more prayer to Faram for the safety of the captain, Peony, and her friend, but he barely had it completed when yet another iguion had barreled straight over him.
He hit the ground, hard, knocking the air he had just regained out of him. They still had a city to protect, and he could not lose focus now. Except this time when he cast his gaze to the sky, he saw that the serpent had fallen to the nearby shoreline, and the other monsters around him were headed that way as well. He scrambled back to his feet, hissing as he felt a too familiar sharp pain in his ankle, and he heard the call of a senior mage warning him that the palings were now under attack.
"We need to protect the palings," he told her. "Protect the civilians if you see them--" He hoped they had all gotten out by now. "--but otherwise, the palings are our first priority."
Protect the palings to protect the city, after all, and it meant that the mages would still have to fight all the creatures that were now migrating to the beach. He pulled out his network device -- the waterproof casing he had purchased for it after the last Docks attack had done wonders to keep it safe -- to quickly tap in a message to the guild. Casting one more glance up to the sky to make sure that The Love was still there and thanking Faram that it was, he then looked around for Aspel, Liyal, and the dancer, hoping that they were still on solid ground and alive and well. They needed to get to the beach, and fast.