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Shocked and amazed at the terror and awe of the beast they are about to face, Power prances over to the flank, hoping to take advantage of the loud and barbaric vanguard that Zathra is playing.
Off to the side, Rankev takes a moment to wonder about what he had discerned--his _assuredness_ that the beast is, itself, not what it appears to be.
He takes a new green sprig from a nearby ceder tree, crushes it in his fingers and sniffs it. He looks for certain hints that nature will give you about arcane intruders...if you know how to listen.
Laguna nods to Zathra. "Alright...whoever you are! Didn't catch your name. Address that when there isn't a crazy monster." He takes a look around him. "Quill, Teren, can one of you get yourself into a blind spot? We need someone in position where it won't be able to see an attack coming, and I need to cover the group."
"That thing can see right through my forms. I could try and be bait, but probably won't work as the trap." He turns to Quill. " How about you? Any ideas? "
There's plenty of places in the forest to take cover, but picking a strategically good one quickly might be problematic.
Who's going to be the hidden attacker? What are you doing?
Laguna, what position are you taking to cover the red-sashes, relative to the direction of the sounds you hear the creature making?
"Laguna, I'll help you cover the group. "
With everyone in position, and Zathra banging her spear on her shield loudly, suddenly everyone hears a commotion coming from *behind* you!
Turning quickly, everyone sees that the monster is now behind the entire group, right next to the unprotected red-sashes! You hear screams, mixed in with shouts of 'it's behind us!' and 'how did it get there?'.
The terrible, black creature reaches down with its gaping maw and grabs one of the red-sashes in its mouth - you can hear the sickening sounds of his bones breaking even over the din.
Two of its black, whip-like tentacles snake down from its back and encircle two more children, lifting them into the air.
What do you do?
Teren races towards the beast, calling inward and drawing forth the spirit of Roar Shakes the World...
And launches at one of the tentacles holding a red-sash, trying to free the child from the beast's grasp.
Zathra howls and charges the monster, still trying to attract it's attention so it will come and face her, and it's own mortality.
Sarthel tries to blast the thing with her mind :
(Forceful and Messy)
Teren, a free tentacle whips in your direction, slapping you hard out of the way, onto the ground. Roll d8 damage.
Rankev, your magical spears hit the hide of the creature, going in deep. It howls in pain, apparently too distracted to teleport away...
What do you all do?
Zathra continues to charge towards the monster, screaming like a madwoman.
The lion hits a tree, hard.
He turns, roars, and moves to reengage the beast, again focusing his efforts on rescuing the imperiled cubs.
As the beast moves to swat Teren, Zathra appears, shoving Teren out of the way of the attack and raising her shield to help deflect the blow. "Here beast, I am your foe! face me and know fear, before you die!"
Laguna blinks, and shakes his head clear. Then he growls at the beast like an angry wolf - quite literally. "Alright, you've done enough!" Taking his bardiche in both hands, he runs up and takes a brutal swing at the creature.
The black monster, having been hurt by Rankev the most, takes a lumbering step or two towards him, maw open, intending to chomp him in half.
But then, Zathra appears out of nowhere, interposing herself between them, and it picks her up in its mouth instead. Zathra, roll 2d12 and take the largest of the two in damage. You remain in its mouth for the moment.
Rankev, despite being shaken at almost being the creature's dinner, manages to throw another round of magical spears at the creature, but they do far less damage this time.
Teren leaps into the air and bites one of the tentacles holding a child, and tears it in two! Growling in pain, the beast arches its back and whips another tentacle at Teren, slapping him hard into the ground again.
Zathra's in the mouth of the beast, and once it gathers its senses, it's likely to teleport away - what do you all do?
The beast still holds one cub. The lion takes a few steps, limping at first, before pouncing again, trying to free the other red-sash.
As Laguna's attack misses, a tentacle whips around and grabs his bardiche, and yanks on it!
Laguna, you can attempt to yank it out of the tentacle (DD/Str), or let go of it and possibly lose it. What do you do?
Zathra switches from Defense to Offense at the drop of a silver piece, lashing out at the creature with her spear, howling laughter as she does.
Rankev's missile's strike true, and the beast growls in pain, altho not as loud as before.
Teren bites thru another tentacle, and the child drops to the ground. Finding itself out of free tentacles, the beast arches its back, bumping into Teren and throwing him away from itself, and he lands on the ground, but not as hard as before, when the tentacles threw him down.
Laguna thinks that he should be stronger than a mere whip of a tentacle, and so chooses to hold on to his bardiche. But the tentacle proves stronger than he thought, and he's is picked up and flung into a nearby tree headfirst! He collapses to the ground, unconscious.
While Zathra's attack didn't do much damage, since she is in its mouth, she has a soft spot available to aim at - it's nose! Sticking her spear up a nostril and twisting, this time the beast howls, dropping Zathra to the ground.
Seeing that picking up a meal "to go" isn't going to be as easy at it thought it was going to be, the beast roars in anger, and vanishes.
What do you do?
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"Oh CONFOUND!" the mage declares as the beast -again- leaves glorious combat and escapes the end it so richly deserves. "Again it has left glorious combat and escaped the end it so richly deserved! By the Seven Spheres I swear that someday I shall injuncture that! You hear me? I shall injuctture that!"
Nodding in a way that says all that he has to say, Rankev looks at the others. "Well, have we aught else to do or shall we continue to follow the knight to the ruins?"
As he hits the ground, Teren returns to his human form. He gets up slowly, and calls out for Varus to tend to the two red sashes.
He moves (somewhat slowly - those blows definitely hurt!) and inspects first the place where the beast appeared, then the spots it disappeared from, calling on the spirits he carried with him to see what they could tell him about this monster.
As it teleports away, Zathra begins laughing at it.
"Run beast. You'll only die tired! I have bloodied you and will track you to the ends of hell should I need to."
Turning to the group, Zathra will put her spear up on her shoulders and say "Hello, my name is Zathra, also called the Bonebreaker." To Teren, she will add "Are these the refugees you mentioned?"
LifeCleric Varus comes over and tries to heal Teren's wounds :
Sarthel pulls out another bandage from her pack and heals 4 more HP.
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"No no no!" Rankev bellows as he sees LifeCleric Varus make a right bullocks of the Healing ritual on Teren. "No, you need to weave half thrice widdershins and then keep the Emperor next to the Consular, see, look,"
"Okay, there, see? Now, once the noose is around the bunny, you can extend the Sword of Longitus into the--"
"Oh hellz! Obviously this place is a connected to the Dark Dimension in some Strange way. Let us be off to a place more smiled upon by Thor and his ilk."
Teren shoos the healers away. "I'll live, go check on those the beast grabbed!"
Zathra gets an affirmative nod in reply to his question.
"I can see why you need my help. I don't know how they survived to adulthood, bickering like that."
"You fight well, Teren, even if you deny yourself the pleasure of the kill by hiding inside a different creature. You should relish the feel of your feet bouncing hard on the ground as you run towards your prey, the feel of your weapon in your hand and the wind in your hair, knowing that the next few moments mean death for someone."
The two children grabbed by the tentacles only have bumps and bruises, having fallen only a few feet. The child the monster first bit however, is...well, let's just say his middle half is missing. Many of the younger children are crying, and the older ones are putting on brave faces, trying not to throw up.
Teren gives Zathra a cool stare. "I don't think you understand. Take the feelings you describe, but replace your feet with legs literally born to close a distance, your made weapon with claws and fangs that are for the hunt, and a mind that stalks and strikes without needing to form thoughts about it." As he speaks, Teren's eyes begin to unfocus, and faint suggestions of the lion's face flickers over his features; then his focus snaps back. "The tiergeist can hardly be described as denying pleasure."
"You're right, I don't understand. Why would you want to be anything but yourself?"
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"Cease thy prattling like old maids around a common knitting circle," Rankev chastises the two as he wobbles back to the group at large. "The best way, of course, is to break the laws of physics and matter and simply cause thy foe discomfit by the power of writhing sigils. Anything else is simply eating with your hands."
Power heads over with LifeCleric Varus to try and shush the children as best they can, using bright lights and literal parlor tricks when needed.
"Oh, come along then, unless you wish to be snapped in half yourself. Our chances of being eaten alive or mauled beyond recognition drop considerably once we've gotten to where we are going to."
No one ever accused Rankev of having to soft a bedside manner.
"What's wrong with eating with your hands? Are your hands not good enough for you, you poncy wizard?"
Teren, for all the damage that you and your comrades inflicted on this monster, there's very little blood on the ground where it stood. Perhaps it recovers from wounds quicker than normal...
Teren had to pause before answering Zathra's question; it's not one most Chromians would even think to ask. "Because there's no better way to understand something than to become it, and understanding the things around us makes everything easier."
Rankev gets an eye roll in response. "Yes, yes, you prefer to wiggle your fingers first and ask questions later." He hefts one of the creature's severed tentacles and tosses it towards the wizard. "A little something for you to study." The other tentacle gets tied in a loop, then tied to Teren's pack.