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Ellara... continued leading the guards away, although she did take care to look like she was getting out of breath. Nobody gave up a chase when they felt they were close to victory, after all... and she wanted to buy the rest of the group as much time as possible.
Ellara continued to move at a rapid pace - helped along by an improved land speed, courtesy of one of her types of transformations. She made sure to stick to a pace others could follow at, though, since it wouldn't do to make them believe they couldn't catch her if they kept at it. The longer she could distract them, the better off her group would be.
"From the facility." she said with a grin. A moment later, her body blurred, and a rather frighteningly close copy of the princess stood there. It wasn't perfect - oddly, Ellara's shifting couldn't easily duplicate a specific person - but she had enough traits in common to likely fool distant observers. She vanished a moment later, warping away and heading out to go draw some attention while the rest of the group proceeded.
"That's true." Ellara noted without shame. ...And in fairness, it was. It was a point of pride for her... but she was also a little hesitant to leave the princess all alone. "Would you like me to do that, Your Highness?"
Ellara muttered something about being a much better pigeon than said assassin, but sighed slightly and stayed in her normal form. She was a proud member of House Khalavest, darnit! ...Which meant helping the princess however she could. Well, she could always take the form of something if trouble happened.
"Sooooo... what kind of animals do they allow?" Ellara inquired. She enjoyed being as innocuous as possible - overlooked until the moment she shifted into a much larger creature and mauled her targets' faces off. Surprise was a powerful weapon, and she tried to get it whenever she could.
Ellara simply tilted her head to the side. "Well, I'm all for safety." she noted. They did want to care for the Princess, after all, and the less risk they had, the better. (She could already hear her family yelling at her if she took chances with Her Highness... ugh.)
Ellara thought about that for a moment, tallying on her fingers. "Uh... if I need to, yeah. I can carry a couple people and their things if I get big enough, and stash their gear in a different space if we've got time to prepare." she said. "Might slow down a bit if everyone weighs too much, though, so it is best to travel as light as possible."
Ellara took a seat - in human form. "Your wishes are my commands, Your Highness." she answered. "If you wish to flee, I can teleport us away, then take a form to cross land or sky and go as far as needed. I have no magics that could knock people out without harming them, but House Khalavest may have something available to put them to sleep."
Ellara was quite happy to follow the princess' requests and demands alike - and spent a fair bit of the trip serving as a mount for the girl and scouting the path to be sure it was clear. Mostly, though, this just seemed to drive home how she'd gotten her name - Ellara was regularly moving from one form to the next. Sometimes she was small and flew to investigate, sometimes she was a canine sniffing out their route, other times she was more like a horse... either way, she seemed quite intent on being whatever she needed to be at any given moment. And at this moment, she'd become a small flying creature with a great nose, checking out the route they planned to take to the ship.
"Hmm." Ellara mused. "Well, my family could probably get us in." They were one of the major houses, after all, and it wasn't exactly unusual for them to have an issue to bring up for one reason or another. House Khalavest tended to make requests in public, too... a show of goodwill, basically, so others had a general sense of what they were up to and weren't as likely to freak out over it.
"Arf!" Ellara nodded a few times, still in puppy form, then padded around the princess a few times. As she did so, her quadrupedal form grew larger and larger until she resembled something much more akin to a riding dog that had been bred for transporting people. As a member of House Khalavest, keeping the Princess safe was her main concern... and that would be much easier if she could run away and carry the princess with her. She was quite confident in the speed of her animal forms - when she focused on being speedy, anyway - and it would take a very unusual person indeed to be able to keep pace when the Hundred Forms decided to flee.
Ellara's tail wagged back and forth even harder as the princess praised her, and she gently nuzzled their young charge before licking her hand a few times. She did, however, pause a few moments later to fill her form with healing magic...
...and despite her rather impressive reserves of energy, even she was starting to run low. They'd had a heck of a time getting here, and she couldn't remember the last time she'd spent this much power so fast... but they weren't done yet.
As things calmed down and Ellara's confusion passed, she morphed into what could only be described as a puppy - and her tail wagged furiously as she padded over to the princess, gently rubbing against her and generally trying to look as cute and comforting as possible. Kids tended to like animals, after all... and more than anything else, Ellara wanted to help reassure the girl. She wasn't always so good at talking, but she could certainly help out in other ways.
Ellara was hit - hard - and bleeding rather badly now after the various wounds she'd taken. Unfortunately for her, there wasn't much she could do, given the current state of her mind...
...but despite the confusion, she was at least alert enough to try and make good decisions. Mostly, though, those decisions involved slamming the golem as hard as she could. for
Ellara was hit rather hard - although her vitality was such that she still had a fair bit of health left, and-
-while she was rather woozy, at least for the moment, she managed to gather her wits together. Her body erupted upward a moment later as she massively increased in size. At the same time, she spoke the word that disabled her amulet and allowed her to actually make use of the enhanced strength her massive body gave her. This thing wanted power? She'd give it power.
Ellara's mind was tough... but not quite tough enough. Not this time, anyway.
Without much thought behind her actions, she darted forward and lashed out at the golem (the closest creature to her, given her positioning), and moved almost automatically into one of her combat techniques. for
Ellara paused as she saw the electricity crackle along the creature. "Huh. You think we should hit it with more electricity?" she asked, shifting her body again and gathering her power.
Ellara's form twisted slightly as she exchanged some of her powers for something else - and frost arced around the edges of her jaws as she opened them and exhaled a long stream of deathly cold energy. The best part? It wasn't a spell, so it ought to be able to circumvent the golem's general resistance to magical energy.
Mostly, I'm looking forward to the full version. XD Also, hoping Paizo fixes its error sometime soon.
Ellara almost darted forward, but paused a moment before she could. A creature that big could probably smack her before she got close. Instead, she crouched down, then whipped around and sent a Forceful Blast its way. Something about it was making her think 'golem' - if it really did have that kind of resistance to magic, this was going to get more complicated. (But not outside of her ability to deal with. She was quite confident in her shapechanging - and one way or another, she'd find something that would work.) for
Ellara let out a yelp of pain as she was hurt - but fell down to all fours as the door was open and a familiar figure was seen. She darted forward as she changed, then focused the enhanced power of her nose - the ability to Scent things - on the princess. That was one of the better ways of telling if somebody was actually who they appeared to be.
"Well, I wanted to see what the effect was." Ellara said cheerfully. "You seem fine enough."
"Ooh, fun." Ellara said, looking far too interested in the corridor. She did, however, take a moment to try and analyze the spells as Julie examined them.
As the Little Sister returned, Ellara shrugged slightly - and then her form abruptly turned into rock and stone as she sunk into the ground and began to Burrow underneath it, fully intending to simply peek inside before deciding what to do next. It may have been warded against ghosts, but most people didn't ward against traveling right through the rock itself...
"Hm? Well, I don't mind." Ellara answered. They'd stopped the other guy from leaving, which had been the main point - she had no problem with any of their group going through.
Ellara looked more amused than anything else, but energy gathered into an aura around her hand as she cut at the lock.
"Pfft. Want through?" Ellara asked Julie. One thing Ellara prided herself on was the ability to get practically anywhere, and she'd yet to meet a door she couldn't get past if she really wanted to. Of course, breaking it down was so blah... but she could do that if needed, too.
"...Anyone else?" Ellara asked, eyeing the rest of the room. "I've got plenty more if need be." A few glimmers of magic could be seen on the ends of her fingers. She didn't usually threaten people into submission, but... well, she wanted them to know that any further violence was going to get the same response.
With a shrug, Ellara reached back and grabbed hold of some energy, then hurled it like a bolt of lightning at the fleeing man. for It wasn't as strong of a blast as it could have been - the Shapeshifter could most definitely have hit harder, but she was trying to avoid killing him. Knocking him unconscious, though? That was something she was okay with doing.
I'm still here. o wo/ And plan to stay here for as long as the game's going to be running.
Ellara's eyes moved towards the other outsiders here, curious about what they were planning on... and while she was ready to hurl another bolt of energy if someone else decided to get violent, it really was better to try and limit the number of bodies.
...is what could have happened. Reality, however, was rather nicer than the worst-case scenario that flicked through Ellara's mind. for
The moment after the man exhaled, Ellara swiped out with both her claws-
-but failed to come anywhere close to actually striking the man this time, despite her best efforts. It... might have been time to rethink her strategy, and perhaps try something different.
Darting forward, Ellara jabbed at the big man with her claws - and more importantly, she was aiming right for one of his weak points. One of the benefits of being a shapeshifter was that she had a pretty good idea of what worked and what didn't for the average form - and she'd put that knowledge to good use with the development of a useful martial technique. for
Well, at least bigger targets were harder to miss - though bulkier bodies actually slowed her down, and Ellara shrunk back to a more normal size before pitching a blast through the air and towards the berserker. If reason wasn't going to work, well, she'd just have to back it up with force... for
"Hi." Ellara said brightly. "We'd appreciate it if you could stop fighting now, and we're quite prepared to use overwhelming force to enforce peace if we really need to." Her body shifted again - and this time she got distinctly bigger than the large man. Size spoke to a lot of people in a way other... suggestions... didn't. "I really would prefer to do this in a way that ensures nobody else has to get hurt."
Ellara sniffed a few more times, then shrugged and shoved the doors open. One way or another, their little group probably wanted in on whatever was happening here, and she saw no reason to delay.
Before answering, Ellara dropped to all fours as she morphed into something akin to a wolf and started sniffing at the ground, looking for any distinct and unusual scents. If they'd passed by recently, their smells ought to be more than strong enough for her to track - and that was the direction she planned to go.
"Oooooh~" Ellara said, admiring the handiwork. She was curious about interesting effects like this one, and poked a bit at the stone. Still, they had a job to do, and she led the way inside while keeping an eye on their surroundings.
If she has no objections, I'd be happy to leave them with her. o wo/
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