The view is unfortunately lost on the blind being. But nonetheless, it surveys its surroundings. Searching for life, a trickle of movement in the cold. Dust knows it could easily ascend the cliffside, either with a thousand clawed limbs or simply flying above it. But it is disguised as Lycaon, and he cannot do either of those. So, he walks some more. Along the walls. Looking for something, perhaps somewhere to begin climbing or perhaps others already facing the next challenge.

Lycaon grins, with his too sharp teeth, and its empty face. Dust changes its form, and its surface becomes more akin to stone than armour and flesh. Its face distorts into that of a snarling hound-like thing, and it still has no eyes. Its arms crack and distend, as it puts one to the wall and begins to climb both up and closer to the group. Claws silently tear into the stony cliffside, as it approaches from above. Where it had once had hair, instead grows a crown of horns, glistening like metal in the... I feel like it's probably close to sundown, so let's say that. It glistens like metal in the red light of the setting sun. A tail, with a point like an arrow's tip, grows from the twisted creature. And now it can see the mortals below, and then it falls from the wall. The stony creature lands on the antsy mortal, a clawed hand trapping him to the ground by covering his entire torso.

Unfortunately for the shadowy figure, Dust sees best in the dark. If anything, they would be the most visible person there to it.

The stony skin of this monstrous form protects it largely from the sword, as it merely chips the skin slightly, however the other two attacks do slightly more damage; breaking about an inch of skin per shot. The beast raises a stone-scale wing to protect its face from the guns, but did it always have wings?

With its, seemingly growing, long neck it snaps down on the armoured warrior, cracking into whatever magicks and metal protected him, but not killing or perhaps even injuring him depending on the strength of what he wore.

Its whip-like tail(Did it always have a tail?) lashes out to assault the woman and cloaked figure, producing a loud crack  as it snaps towards them and probably smacks the gun out of the woman's hands.

The bowsman would hear claws tearing through the dirt, as it begins to close its hand around the man.
---------------
A man emerges from shadows, some distance away. Not close enough to interact with the group in any meaningful way, but close enough to hear the gunshots and the scream. Metal boots begin to slowly walk closer, as Lycaon strides forward to assist with the beast the rest of his mind conjured.

Well I'd imagine that the swordsman would struggle greatly with that, since he can't see where he's punching. Because the majority of his upper body is in its mouth. He might notice the magic protecting him beginning to falter and fade, as something is draining the energy.

The woman would find some difficulty in that, with its legs at differing angles, but she'd manage it. The heavy stone creature however, does not find much challenge in resisting being ensnared by the restraints. It does look like it can't move its legs too much however.

The stone beast growls, as the shot of light hits it. It finally draws blood, revealing that its is black. The hand restraining the bowman closes, claws tearing into him; and pressure between the stone skin and the regular killing him in its hand. It throws the corpse at the gunsperson, before turning to claw the woman; likely disorienting the swordsman completely.

-------------

Lycaon finally runs into the commotion, holding the grips of his blades but not yet drawing them. He arrived merely a moment after the body is thrown, and doesn't have time to do anything else before I cut myself off.

With the new strength from the magic, the armored man is able to wrench open its tooth-filled mouth; at least for the moment that the armour's magic persists. With the beast seemingly having consumed the magic of his armour, the swordsman can feel the additional strength leave him; and the maw closing again around him. With a snap of shattering metal, tearing flesh, and breaking bone, the man is torn in half, and his legs fall to the ground as he is consumed by a vicious darkness rushing around him and dissolving him into it.

The beast's feast is however interrupted, as an explosion pushes against its under. The stone monster is temporarily stunned as it regains its bearings, before it turns to growl at the gunswoman and-

------

Lycaon took little more than a moment to draw both his blades, and a second later stood before the monster; both swords plunged deep into the beast's heart. His long hair whipped forward with the speed, now covering his shoulder.

The knight, who's claim to fame was indeed his ability to match blades with even The Wolven Shadow of Rot, pulls his blades from the beast, and leaps onto its arm before bouncing to where its head nestles atop its neck, and summarily removes that from the rest of the creature.

As the stone head falls to the ground, large enough to crush a man, the earth shakes slightly and the body follows suit; crumpling onto the ground with a heavy thud, probably even cracking the stony ground beneath it. Black blood pours from both, pooling into one puddle between the corpse. Red leaks out from the beast's teeth, assuredly the blood from the man ensnared within.

With a small click, Lycaon lands with his swords sheathed, before rising from his near silent plummet. "Hail! Did the beast harm either of you?"

"I am Lycaon, a knight. I apologize, that I was unable to save your companions. We may continue this conversation if you'd like, but we should not stay here; lest we meet other beasts drawn by the stench of death." Lycaon steps away from his kill, and towards the other two and elsewhere. He flicks his blue hair back behind his shoulder, as he walks.

"So I take it that you're new to the wilderness aspect of this game, then? It is not heartless, but merely wild. Things need to survive, so they take what they need to survive. And bodies are never exempt from such treatment." Lycaon continues to move forward, at angle from the wall; not quite moving straight back to the town, but more fanning out to get a better view of the cliffside. "It is unfortunate, but we can't exactly dig graves in stone."

As the currently unnamed woman studies Lycaon, she finds that he... is honestly just mildly bizarre. His tied up hair resembles a wolf's tail, his gait seems more fitting of a creature with more bent legs, one, only one, of his pauldrons is spiked, and he seems shockingly confident in his stride for somebody most assuredly blind-folded. There's a mark on the pommel of his swords that seems familiar, however just out of recognizability of her eye. His armour looks too clean for somebody who's made it this far, but perhaps there was an armour smith back in the town.

Anyways, Lycaon is speaking with the man as the woman learns all of those visual things. "It is simply the way of the wild, tomorrow is not always a guarantee. Burials are rite of man, a mark of civility. Beasts do not recognize such respects, and to survive their land is to be as beast." Lycaon pauses a moment, before changing the topic slightly, "Although that thing did not bleed like a beast. And I've never seen a creature with skin of stone. I think we might have been lucky back there, or perhaps it is indication the flowers desire only the strongest groups."

------

Back, where the ground is of stone and the wall looms near, the stone creature shifts into a malleable black sludge; and it devours the remains of the swordsman and archer, leaving nothing but torn shards of armor and ruined weaponry.

"Not quite. Moreso saying that the flowers might be changing creatures, and warding off people in general. The strongest of groups would therefore be those that can either tear through or slip past such creatures. I suppose a better way to frame it would be those that're most equipped for the flowers' challenges." Lycaon slows down his stride slightly, more easily letting the man keep pace. Y'know it's strange how quickly Lycaon is able to walk, considering that he is wearing nearly full plate armour. Although it's probably just him being strong, he was able to behead that stone thing back there afterall.

Lycaon laughs, before speaking, "Strength is not enough to make one fully capable, but I appreciate the compliment. I've never been one for climbing, so who knows if I'll make it any further along." It takes a few more steps before he responds to the other thing the man mentioned. "And I don't believe myself fit to say what it takes to be ready, given that none of us know exactly what to expect in the trials ahead. Adaptability would likely be the best trait for getting to the flowers."

"It is no problem, it is always pleasant to meet newer adventurers. And to answer your question my young fellow, that is the point of staying adaptable. You think ahead, and prepare yourself to utilize your skills to the fullest. " Lycaon takes a moment for breath, before continuing, "Take that monstrosity back there for example, most blades wouldn't be able to do much of anything, and projectiles wouldn't do much either, but would allow you to keep your distance for some amount of time. The solution, then, would be cunning, or perhaps a hefty hammer. It did not seem the most intelligent creature, and I imagine it could've been easily tricked into hurting itself with some taunting and swift dodging."

"I am Lycaon, as I had claimed earlier. And neither of you have said your names, which most would say is odd. As for my ability to cleave through its stone hide, I'd like to think it was the same strength that allowed me to match blades with the now-divine Wolf. That shadow of Ash's that came to life. Although, realistically, your explosive had cracked at least its underbelly, and I had simply struck the crack over its heart."

As the man, now named Rain, looks back, he would see that the only thing left visibly is stone rubble. One would think that black blood would stand out more, but if the thing appeared at sundown; it's likely turning twilight now.

-----------

As Rain looks back, Lycaon stops walking, and similiarly turns to face the cliffs. However he can't exactly see to the cliffs, given the blindfold. "I am hoping at least one of you is more sighted than I for this, but looking at the large walls from this distance, can either of you see fault in its smooth face?"
 

"Ah. Perhaps those towers are the points of entry then. It would be worth checking, probably with a larger group. And in daylight. Night is falling, We'd best to keep walking before it gets too much darker."

I'm going to work with the assumption that Lycaon departed perhaps like three hours after midday, and it's now sundown because you haven't told me to not to assume that it's about the early twilight after the beast fight, I think about a third of that time was spent with Lycaon walking along the wall before meeting them. Let's say that they've been talking and walking for about 10 minutes. That would mean that while dawdling, Lycaon walked from the town to the wall in about 2 hours and 40 minutes; and then walked 80 minutes along the wall before meeting with the group. For our convenience, I am going to say that he walked in a direction which would make the distance shorter, and that would mean that since they're going to be walking faster due to trying to make it back before night falls proper... 80 minutes along the cliff divided by 40 subtracts 20 minutes from the walk time, plus the 10 they've already walked so 30 minutes, and with the hastened speed I'll calc out another 10, which leaves them about 2 hours to walk. And also means that since the sun is setting somewhere between 7-8 pm, it's about mid to late spring/early to mid autumn. Or maybe I just thought way too hard about this. Either way, about 2 hours back to the town sounds reasonable to me, and we can just. skim through the small talk if you would like. Regardless of everything else though, it's going to take quite some time for the other thread to get to this point in time. I think. I haven't been looking at it.

Lycaon turns back and begins walking again, after Rain secures his rifle. "Is there any other way to the flowers? If there aren't any we can use, it should be relatively easy to convince at least a few others to join into a group, more people means more eyes to see the twisted beasts which would otherwise find our throats."