Maka followed up Fin and Quasit's arrows with a blast of blue flames.
Bulvi moved closer the new threat. His pistol left out a thunderous roar as he raised his shield up.
Selena decides to try out something new, casting Chill Touch, her hands wrapped in an icy blue aura, then she strikes out towards the monster with her fist despite the distance being far beyond her arm’s reach, and the icy blue aura seems to momentarily bridge the gap between Selena and the monster.
Kalchine reaches out to his connection with Nature and reels at the power of it in this chamber. He's never experienced so much Life. It's like a bright, ever shifting kaleidoscope imposing on his senses.
Yet, he finds the threads he needs and coaxes the water weeds and grass growing on the edge of the pool to fuller, wilder life.
A hail of projectiles meets the monster, and soon its knees buckle, and it collapses back into the water with a great splash. Its blood leaks into the bubbling water, leaving an sickly greenish-red film on the surface.
There's silence for a moment, and then Vigliv emerges again from her tree, holding a golden thread. She holds it up and says, "This thread represents Baba Yaga's fate. Twine the thread around the doll and soak them both in the poison blood of the beast. Then bathe the doll in the pool and the bars of her prison will weaken."
Selena steps forward and takes the thread. It’s her grandmother, so she sees it as her responsibility to do it.
With thread in hand, she holds a hand out towards Quasit, ”My grandmother please.”
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Quasit hesitates a moment, weighing the wisdom of handing the doll over to someone who considers herself Baba Yaga's grandchild, a claim she had always found dubious. But only a moment. She already had the thing in hand, so she flips it casually over to Selena, like it was a quince at the costermonger's.
"Take it. Just remember that when the Snow Queen shows up looking to stop us, anyone carrying that thing is going to have a target painted on their back. And she's every bit as powerful as Rasputin was."
”Then let us hope she feels gratitude.” She says with a predatory smile.
She twines the thread around the doll with a slip knot, whispering to the doll ”Well, I never thought I’d meet you grandmother, and certainly not like this. Funny how fickle fate can be. I am Selena Snoe Yelizaveta of Badelund, despite my current form.” Then she soaks them in the blood, then bathes them in the water. She caught that the prison will merely weaken, but she is prepared for either Baba Yaga to break out at that point or for a next step to mentioned.
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Quasit snorts. "Fin, that girl has been angling for the throne of Irrissen from Day 1. She's on her own side."
Fin nods, following it with a smirk. ”Aye, you’re right, Q…and if she succeeds Elvanna, it’ll be my fault. Remember those ice creatures I killed that knocked Selena unconscious, and nearly drug her under the frozen river, on our way to Artrosa? Upon reflection, perhaps I should’ve missed,” he replies, a sardonic tone to his voice…
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Quasit stows her bow and lifts the sniper goggles back up onto her forehead.
"I think I see how this is going to work now. That thread is 'the fate' of Baba Yaga, and twining it around the doll weakens the prison. There are 4 other objects that represent her power, her life, her death and her blood, and once we have all of those, the prison will be opened. And now that we have the first key to the prison, Baba Yaga should be able to tell us herself what the objects are and where to find them. And presumably they're all here in the Cauldron pocket dimension somewhere."
"And you can bet your last copper that Queen Elvanna herself will be coming to try and stop us."
She turns to the tree. "Does that about sum it up, Mrs. Vigliv?"
As Selena immerses the doll in the fallen monster's poisonous blood , the thread tied around the doll seems to soak into the doll itself. A moment later a seam appears where the thread was, and the doll splits in two... revealing a slightly smaller doll very similar in appearance to the outer one. You all feel a wave of relief pass over you... as well as irritation and impatience.
Vigliv speaks again as Selena finishes with the doll. “You have taken Baba Yaga’s fate into your hands. The first test is past, but many remain. You must now reclaim a symbol of her power. Know that the demon lord Kostchtchie and the witch queens of Irrisen were not Baba Yaga’s first attempts to elevate some mortal to supreme power to rule in her name over lesser peoples. There was another before, a great warrior called Bremagyr, whom Baba Yaga made a queen over a vast empire on her own world. Yet when the Queen of Witches sought the obeisance due her from this petty empress, Bremagyr forgot from whence her power came and refused to do honor unto Baba Yaga. Where Baba Yaga had raised her from warrior to queen in a year, she laid Bremagyr and all her empire low in a night. Never again has the sun risen or set over the crumbled empire of Bremagyr, as a lesson to all who would come after and seek Baba Yaga’s power but refuse her obedience.
“Bremagyr is now a shadow of the queen she once was, cursed to forever haunt her iron fortress of Vashliq, which was cast down by Baba Yaga and brought inside her Dancing Hut. Yet some vestige of Baba Yaga’s power still lies within Bremagyr, and only with the destruction of the dead queen will you be able to obtain that power and continue on your quest. Now go. Follow Baba Yaga’s guidance. Find the Canyon of the Drakes and enter the lost fortress of Vashliq. When you have reclaimed Baba Yaga’s power, bring it back to this sacred pool to unlock the next secret of the doll that imprisons her.”
Once Vigliv finishes speaking, you feel an urging from the doll to go down the passageway to the northwest.
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Almost before it's started, the fight with the monster is over. Sakitu looks over to Fin. "That didn't take long. That monsterous thing looked a lot scarier than it was. I guess." She is about to give him a hug when the norm steps out from the tree.
"This thread represents Baba Yaga's fate. Twine the thread around the doll and soak them both in the poison blood of the beast. Then bathe the doll in the pool and the bars of her prison will weaken."
Sakitu cocks her head to the side, suspicious of a trick. But before she can say anything Selena steps up to take the thread and get the doll from Quasit. A few moments later the deed is done.
”That’s my cue,” Fin says as he draws his bow and warily leads the way down the northwest passage…
Sakitu touches him on the arm just before he starts. "Be careful. I know I always say that and it's probably not necessary. But still..."
Selena stashes the doll in her pack after a moment of examination of the doll’s ability to push out emotions. However distasteful the old crone may turn out to be, of which Selena still holds a bit of hope that Baba Yaga isn’t as bad as some things are making her sound like, but she is still family, and in Selena’s mind, that makes Baba Yaga her responsibility.
She frowns at the news from Vigliv, certainly not liking the idea of power dependent upon Baba Yaga, and promising herself to not accept any deals requiring obedience to Baba Yaga. Freedom is definitely preferable, and she has the power to defy death itself, so Baba Yaga doesn’t have a lot to offer that Selena can’t just get on her own efforts and alliances woven without promising fealty much less obedience.
”So we have a few more messes to clean up. At least this one sounds like we might actually be able to make a significant difference for a lot of people. And it might just serve as a good practice run for dealing with Queen Elvanna. I don’t know about whether I can or should take over after the queen’s defeat, but this other place is one that might also need a power vacuum filled. Either we should fill that vacuum ourselves or make sure whoever steps up is an ally of ours.”
Then she points, ”Fin, Grandmother wants us to go that way. Thanks for taking point.”
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Quasit’s eyes practically cross in annoyance. She falls into place beside her friend.
”I say, Lady Sakitu, how many kingdoms would you care to run? Three is m’absolute limit. M’social calendar gets eveh so full, dewn’t you knew.” she says to Sakitu with a silly posh accent, flouncing a rag around like a hanky, and mincing along on her toes with tiny little steps.
And just like that, Baba Yaga, a being apparently of nightmares is a quarter of the way free.
Kalchine trails behind the group, wondering just how much fire they're playing with. After all, they're now going to face a queen who was both brought to power and deposed as practice for Baba Yaga's true purpose.
He knows it's all for a good cause, that the quest needs to be done, but the true weight of it bears down on him for a moment and he pats Chest Thumper on the shoulder to comfort himself.
The passage indicated twists and turns, splitting off into various canyons as the air grows colder and an icy wind starts to howl around you. Fin figures out fairly quickly that he has to stay within about 30' of Baba Yaga's doll for her to send him impressions on which branch to take, without which he'd have no idea which way to go, as there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the directions she gives.
Eventually the path ends in a cliff face, and the impression you get from the doll is *up*. Looking upward, you see a series of icy ledges, ascending upward toward what may be a cave mouth seventy feet above the ground. Fin can vaguely make out some movement on a couple of the ledges, but whatever they are, they're not coming out to the edge where he can see them clearly.
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Fin whispers to Quasit. ”I think there’s a cave on the northwestern most ledge, Q…I can climb up the ledge below it, secure the rope of climbing, and toss it down for the rest of you to climb up. Or we can fly up if we have spells enough, your call. However, there’s also movement on some of these ledges…but I cannot make out what creatures they be…would be prudent to assume they’re hostile…”
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"Oh, I'm sure they're hostile, and I bet they can already see us, no reason to be coy." says Quasit.
"Maka, can you save us a spell and go take a look?"
Quasit sighs to herself. Not at fighting cliff monsters, but at the sight of the ice on the ledges. She had been hoping that perhaps they'd finally be exploring a place that wasn't in the cold grips of winter.
"Oh, I'm sure they're hostile, and I bet they can already see us, no reason to be coy." says Quasit.
"Maka, can you save us a spell and go take a look?"
Quasit sighs to herself. Not at fighting cliff monsters, but at the sight of the ice on the ledges. She had been hoping that perhaps they'd finally be exploring a place that wasn't in the cold grips of winter.
"You got it, Quasit!" Maka said cheerfully as she took to the air.
Quasit rockets upward until she's overlooking the ledges. Six rather startled horse-sized dragon creatures with purple scales and red wings look up at her, and after a moment they take flight.
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As Maka took off into the sky, Quasit sauntered a step away from Findurel, reaching over her shoulder to finger her bow while squinting up at the cliffs. And when the dragon-like creatures rouse themselves into view, she is not exactly surprised.
"Yup, there they are." she says urgently as she grabs her bow, thrusts her sniper goggles up over her eyes and quickly fits an arrow to her bowstring and lets it fly.
"Spread out, they'll probably dive at us. And it might have a breath weapon."
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”I say, Lady Sakitu, how many kingdoms would you care to run? Three is m’absolute limit. M’social calendar gets eveh so full, dewn’t you knew.”
Sakitu grows wide-eyed. "Me? Run a kingdom. Oh. I don't think I could run any at all." She looks from Quasit to Fin then to the others before she notices a grin on a few of their faces.
"Oh. That was a joke." She blushes but the fur on her faces hides the color. She straightens her shoulders and lifts her chin.
"I do say, I believe I could run nine kingdoms with the swish of my tail."
Maka explosions rocked the air as Maka unleashed her fiery fury upon the drakes.
The drake the three of you targeted tumbles from the air while the other five fly towards you. Two fly at Maka, one spitting a ball of acid at her, the other snapping with its jaws and lashing with its tail.
The other three strafe the group still on the ground with blasts of acid.
Maka's aerial acrobatics allowed her to easily dodge the drake's breath weapons.
Chest Thumper does an impressively agile shoulder roll to avoid the blast of acid that comes at him.
Kalchine is not nearly so lucky and takes the full brunt of the acid.
Chest Thumper looks smug but then his expression turns to one of irritation and anger as he gestures helplessly at the flying figures and looks imploringly at Kalchine.
"What do you want me to do about it?" he asks through teeth gritted with pain. "Learn how to throw things, or something!"
He casts a surreptitious glance at Quasit, his own pain somewhat soothed by the fact that she has obviously avoided the acid, as well.
Kalchine reaches up to the heavens, and a cloud overhead roils and darkens. He clenches his fist and draws it down sharply and a bolt of lightning cracks down through one of the drakes.
Electricity.
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If they weren't so deadly, Sakitu would find beauty in the formation of the drakes as they fly swiftly across the bright blue sky. They spin and weave then one dives straight towards her. As it nears it shoots a ball of acid from its open mouth. Sakitu tries to dodge out of the way. She avoids a direct hit but is still burned by the caustic substance.
She turns to follow it's flight through the sky. She raises her hands, moving in a complex gesture, and shouts an arcane command directed at the drake.
With the drakes unable to match her mobility, Maka continued to rain fire upon them.
Selena dodged by blinking away entirely and trying to plop on the back of the creature, right where she can unleash spells while out of reach. The first spell however is Command, ”Fall!”
Bulvi raised his shield too late as the spray of acid slashed over him. Drawing his pistol he leveled it at the one to the south. As he fired he stepped slowly between shots to get them more spread out.
Fin's arrows strike home on one of the drakes, along with one of Quasit's. Kalchine adds a bolt of lightning that the drake partially evades, and Bulvi, struggling with the sticky goo that's left behind by the acid, adds one shot from his revolver. Through it all the drake manages to remain airborne, though it's bleeding freely from its many wounds.
Selena's target resists her spell. Sakitu feels her spell take hold... but nothing happens.
The two drakes facing Maka continue attacking with teeth and tail.
The other three make fly-by attacks on Chest Thumper, Fin, and Quasit.
Kalchine keeps the storm cloud overhead but does not call down another bolt of lightning. Given the damage the drakes have already done, and the fact that many of the group are bleeding, he sends out a wave of healing energy, instead.
