Bethany McNuggie
Topaz Thunder Lance
Ruins of a dark room, Lynchburg Tennessee
7am Jan 1st, 2013

A faint trickle of light was enough to wake Beth from her deep sleep. She groaned and lied there unmoving for quite some time. Finally with a grunt of effort she sat up and looked at the room she was in. What a dumpy party. Like, seriously. It looked like everyone had cleared out of there already which was fine by her, Beth felt like if someone said so much as a word to her she'd break their nose. The pizza had been cleared off the table, there was a dried splotch of vomit (ugh, some people), and there was this gaping hole in the roof letting in all the sunlight. Wait, what? The girl might not be the most observant but even she could tell something was amiss with the suddenly redesigned ceiling structure.

"What the ffffffffff--" she trailed off as she inspected it. When did this happen? Where was everybody? What had she just slept through? She stood there barefoot on the carpet for a moment all the while rubbing her nose distractedly. The lightning! It must've blasted a hole in the roof so awesome that everyone was still outside staring at it. And they'd brought the pizza! It was sound logic considering the circle of friends she had decided to hang out with tonight. Forgetting her shoes for the moment Beth headed outside barefoot eager to see this spectacle from the other side. Swinging the backdoor open she was disappointed to find nobody. Not a single person. The disappointment was short lived though because something even better caught her eye in the distance.

A about fifty yards out lay in smoldering ruins, no doubt it was on the receiving end of some seriously wicked storm based light show that Beth would have killed to see. "Ha-ha-holy crap!" the redhead chuckled as she approached the charred remains. But there was something else going on here. The closer she got to the tree the more she started to see something had been forced down into it. It was in there pretty good too by the looks of it. Whatever it was it was it had a clearly defined handle pointing skyward. 'Ah man, this is like that one hammer hero movie guy!' she thought to herself as she stood in front of it. She grasped the handle tightly but was surprised to find it came out much easier than anticipated. It was really quite something, whatever it was. Beth wasn't so up to speed on all that nerd stuff but she was recognized this as a pointy thing to hit people with from medieval times but decorated with some diamonds or something. A lance adorned with inset topaz gems.

She gave it a couple of swings admiring how easy and natural it felt in her hands, though she had no idea how to actually fight with such a naturally cumbersome weapon. What had it been doing here anyways?

A groan alerted her that she wasn't alone. "Oh, there you gu--" she stopped mid sentence as she turned to find a shadow of a man standing before her. "Uh, well hi." she said with a hint of confusion. "You lost?" The shadow gave no answer. "Um, is this yours?" she asked giving the lance a shimmy. Still no response. Bethany stood there for several uncomfortable moments with this total stranger. "Well alright then, guess I should be going then." As nonchalantly as possible while holding a bright orange stabber-on-a-stick she slowly walked back to the house. The echo took after her, charging at her with an unnatural gait. With luck Beth was able to whirl around and bring up the lance across her front in defense. The full force of the echo's body came crashing into the lance but Beth held her ground pushing back on the lance caught between them. She reeled her head back and brought it down into a full force headbutt that sent the echo staggering back. Catching herself on her back foot Beth eagerly braced herself for a fight, she took on a battle ready stance with her eyes fixed on the dark figure before her; oblivious to the sparks that started to dance along the length of the lance.