Jess was first to wake... She looked around, seeing an unconscious Mortimer and then Joseph... "Wha-" There was still some mild pain in her back... Nothing serious though, which led her to conclude that the shadowy stuff had healed her while she slept. "What time is it?" Thanks to being not fully awake she didn't remember what'd happened with Joseph attacking Mortimer. "And Joseph, when did you get here?"

Joseph woke up to the sound of Jess, "Jess!! You're awake!" Joseph said as he got up and hugged Jess. Realizing this was the first time he had huggerd her, Joseph baked off, "Sorry about that. I was... worried?"

"You shouldn't you know. What you SHOULD worry about, is what I do to apprentices who interrupt a fight" Mortimer said as he rose up behind The crouching Joseph. With uncharacteristic enthuseasim, he continued, "Hello, my name is Mortimer C. Graves. And I... Don't like getting stabbed in the stomach. Now, do YOU like getting stabbed in the stomach?"

"Hehehe" was all Joseph could say with worry in his tone. He turned around to Mortmier and got on his knees, "I'm sorry. I didn't know who you were and i didn't know what your intentions were. As a man I apologize." Joseph stood there waiting for to Mortmier to probably attack him, and he knew he deserved it.

"Well then that's perfectly alright then" he said in the same overly happy voice. "So you are Jess's apprentice correct? If you don't mind I'd like to know who you are, what you're doing here, where you're going, why you're going there, who do you work for, when were you born, how did you learn magic or ki, are you a magic or ki user, and what your desired relationship with Jess is?"

"Ummm is this a job interview?" Joseph said trying to liven the mood a little but saw that Mortmier was pretty serious. "Ok, I have nothing to hide. My name is Joseph. I'm not Jess aprentices per say, we just knew each other through a duel and she say's she'll let me be a teacher at her school. As for what I'm doing here, I was on my to Syrtis for a little training session alone, and i heard that Jess would be around here, so i decided to stop by and say goodbye for awhile. As for who i work for..." Joseph suddenly remember his guardian Jose Santo "...um... I work for myself. I believe I was born 17 or 18 years ago, at least thats what my guardian thought when he took me in. My guardian taught me about earth magic and protecting what was important to you, his name was Jose Santo...." Joseph got lost for a moment in his thoughts. "As for my relationship with Jess..." he looked at Jess and became a bit shy "I just want to be her friend for now..."

Jess gave a nervous laugh... "Hey Joseph," She started upon remembering. "Sorry about the fright I gave you... Guess we just took things a bit too far didn't we Mortimer?" True Joseph had beaten her, but not in a way so painful... And after the fight Joseph fainted himself from exhaustion... At least that's what Jess heard, but she trusted her students. Speaking of Jess's students, it seemed Alice was now at the edge of the lake.

"Sorry Jess. I probably should have warned you that when I fight I get a little...intense. My bad. Anywho we should probably get going now. At dawn and dusk the water elementals are unusually active and you don't want to get caught in the middle of the lake when they are." Standing up and observing the sun which had nearly completed its arc across the sky.

"Ok" Joseph said as he saw the sun setting. "I need to keep moving anyway. Again I apologize to you Mortmier. Are you sure your ok?" Joseph said to Mortmier still feeling bad about his actions.

But it was too late... The water elementals had started getting riled up, and the first person they attacked was Jess. "Aw drat..." She muttered under her breath, bringing up an earthen wall to try and defend against them. But it was useless. Earth magic didn't do anything against water...

The combat mage cursed under his breath. They were already active. They must have been drawn by the energy released during the fight.

In total he counted five of them so far but more could come later. His primary goal was to reach the meadow just past the sandbar... which was blocked by half a lake between the little island and there. Not to mention the elementals.

Highly territorial by nature, water elementals were spirits composed almost entirely of magic and water. In addition to their amorphous bodies they could manipulate water, even causing tidal waves if the conditions were right.

In this case they had chosen to forgo the hydromancy and attack with their whiplike arms. As the creatures whiplike arms lashed at Jess she through up a small earthen wall. The tendril turned the dirt of the wall to mud... or was it that the dirt of the wall turned the tendril to mud... regardles the outcome was that the wall collapsed but the elementals arm had been saturated with mud and so fell onto the small islet, useless. However the creature still had a second arm and so lashed with it. Already the arm was regenerating.

Joseph was being assaulted as well by two actually. Both of whom were rapidly cracking their whiplike arms in his direction. Then again Mortimer was in about the same boat as he attempted to shundo across the tiny lump of sand and escape the four watery whips.

(I guess this could still keep going)

Joseph saw how a couple of water spirits were rising up and now attacking the three of them. Joseph saw how water spirits started attacking Jess and was on his way to help her when 2 of those spirits appeared before him. "Out of my way." Joseph said as he summoned 2 earth spears infront of him. He threw both of them, one at each spirit but the spirit dodge them. One of them got behind Joseph and used his whiplike arms to wrap Joseph. Joseph struggled for a bit and then chanted "Orbis terrarum est meus domus , orbis terrarum mos servo mihi ex vulnero". A wall of earth came between the spirit and Joseph, breaking the whiplike arms and releasing Joseph.