Ary watches as first Unafe, then Hinagiku charge forward, with a grateful nod to Xanderghul she follows after, making up the difference in distance with surprising ease. She takes a tight turn and just nearly loses her balance during the process... but she brings the Lucerne Hammer around in a heavy sweep towards the upper mass of the ooze, setting herself right at the cost of leverage.
The mist falls thick on Unafe, but she barely registers it, her hide protected by Ary's magic. Xanderghul circles around, his scorching ray blasting through the writhing ooze just as Ary arrives behind of it, smashing her hammer into it. Meanwhile, Hinagiku wades into the bog, the murky water coming up to her chest. The closer she comes to the ooze, the air becomes thick with cloying mist. It sticks to her fur, seeping into her body.
Unafe is up!
Unafe smiles a sharp-toothed grin as she shakes off the pseudopod, and feels the power of her allies flowing through her.
Emboldened by Ary's magical protections and inspiring strike--heart lifted by Isilme's incantation--she shoves the ooze and then goes in for three quick punches.
As Unafe strikes, she lets loose a terrifying WAR HONK, hoping to inspire her allies to even greater vigor.
In order to utilize his next attack, Xander must approach closer. Calling on his improved mastery of time magic, Xander sloughs through the mire until he gets close enough to fire. When he gets within range, he reaches out with two fingers towards the ooze and releases a white ray of chronal energy. When the ray would strike its target, it would assail the ooze with the damaging effects of age and time -- rot, wrinkle, dessicate, and exhaust. He feels the positive effects of his allies' enhancements as he does so, and his good feeling amplifies the power of his beam which blazes towards the ooze.
Unafe's three punches obliterate the ooze in front of her. It melts into the bog. The trees around them pulse and bubble and drip noxious yellow goo from their long branches. The noxious mist thickens and coalesces around Ary and Hinagiku within the bog.
The mists move with a will of their own. They are swarms of tiny oozes!
Round 3!
Isilme, Hinagiku, Xanderghul, Ehren, and Ary are up!
Still in the process of completing his summoning spell, Ehren looks on as Unafe destroys the first of her oozes with her bare hands. Rather easily, all things considered. Just as the druid is about to ask Xanderghul to lower his wall of force, however, he notices something strange about the lingering bog mist. Particularly, the fact that it appears to be moving of its own volition. Eyeing the mist more closely, it suddenly becomes clear to Ehren why Dolok could not have possible destroyed the ooze on his own.
"Watch out!" he shouts, without ceasing his spell's somatic motions. "The mist itself is made of oozes! I don't think you'll be able to punch them out, Unafe."
Tossing his hands outward, Ehren sends out his mass of starlights, which promptly plunges into the waters of the bog. From out of the bog erupts a large elemental, the crystal clear, shimmering water composing its body a stark contrast from the filthy swamp water. Ideal for aquatic combat with an ooze... but perhaps not against tiny, airborne ones.
"Back away from the clouds, I'll trap them. Ehren, Xander, can either of you protect us from sonic energy? This wall generates a cacophony when touched, it should harm the swarms and keep them from passing through, and anyone who is protected could help trigger it further," she says to the others as she begins to cast a spell. As she casts, she utters a quick prayer to the Song of Spheres to bolster her magic.
Hinagiku nods to herself as her Ehren-kun's word demistify the source of the poison slowly seeping through her fur and skin. Knowing that, the monk waves her hands above her head in a wide arc, gathering threads of ley which she slowly forms into a yellow ball in front of her chest and pushing it away. Momentarily freed from the cloud, Hinagiku trudges across the water away from the smaller oozes, and toward the larger one right across the force wall and falls into a defensive stance.
Ary quickly runs through her options in how to deal with flying swarms of oozes... and arrives at the conclusion that the quickest way for her to be of any use would be to fly to Nerosyan, buy a swarmbane clasp, then fly back. The other alternatives were... throwing alchemists fire?
Then Isilme calls out that she's going to force them into a wall... and that if an ally were given protection, they would be able to trigger the wall to damage the swarm. She nods to Isilme, and looks between Unafe and Hinagiku, deciding who best to aid. Ultimately, she settles upon Unafe - she was faster and seemed to be more hardy from moment to moment than anyone else in the group. Golden motes spill out in her wake as she turns and flies past the Saurian Warrior, only slowing just as she's nearly out of reach. Motes flow from her wings and down her arms once more, before slipping into Unafe's skin. A sheen ripples across her scales before returning to normal.
Xanderghul is up!
Also without any ability to harm flying gaseous amoral creatures, Xander moves through the bog to a more central place among his allies before radiating the same cosmic aura of wound rewinding that he did while he was among the dinosaurs in the Taranau Valley. "What do we do?" he calls out to his allies. "Can we even do anything against creatures like these? Ehren?"
Meanwhile, the soft hum of power begins to radiate from him, suffusing the forms and spirits of his allies. Should they be wounded, Xander could restore them fully to their present condition.
The thick mists coalesce around Unafe, but she can barely register them (beyond an uncomfortable, slimy sort of feeling) thanks to Ary's wards.
Unafe is up!
Seeing Ehren's nod of approval at her War Honk, Unafe finds she can dig further into her reserves.
Unafe gets goosebumps as the golden motes setting into her skin. She's aware of the intensity of Isilme's wall of sound--and the acidic cloud--but she finds she's unaffected by it.
Not sure what will work, she decides to see if she can still stomp the swarm of tiny slimes.
Unafe flails around inside of the mists coalescing on her, comically attempting to destroy a gas cloud with just her feet to not much avail.
Round 4!
Hinagiku, Xanderghul, Ehren, Ary and Isilme are up!
Mentally reviewing his available magic, Xander realizes that he truly has nothing that could be used against the oozes. He briefly considers retreat until the following day, when they can return better-prepared, but then he decides that it is still too early to make that assessment. The creatures didn't truly threaten them yet, and Ehren could theoretically restore their health if they were to contract disease, so Xander is still not worried. "Sorry, Unafe, this is all I have! I told you that you should keep your distance!" Xander shouts.
Then he withdraws his spellbook from its pouch. Calling on a reservoir of desperate energy normally reserved for emergencies, he casts a spell directly from the book. A small bead of fire appears in front of him and with a whizz flies into the center of the wall of sound. It impacts with the ground and spreads into an explosion of fire, washing over Unafe, Hinagiku, the water elemental, and the ooze-mists.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ary looks to Xanderghul as he calls out a pre-emptive apology, wait, what..?' she has time to ask herself mentally as the tiny mote of flame flutters through the air. Her eyes widen in recognition of the spell that had detonated Crusaders when wielded by brimorak and an herbalist's trove during a siege. She reaches out instinctively towards Unafe and grabs one of the horns sticking out of her armor, pulling her away from the center mass of the orb. Even as she does, a tether of golden energy flies from her to Unafe, lingering tenuously.
With as much of the crisis averted as Ary could manage, she takes a deep breath and exhales, allowing another of her motes to flutter from her form and back into her body. Her form ripples as Hinagiku's had, and then as Isilme had instructed, she flies headlong through the wall of sound. There's a cacophony of sound as she flies through the first wall, causing her aegis to reappear, rippling in counterpoint and absorbing the worst of the magic, and allowing her to know that she seemed mostly safe to utilize the unorthodox tactic, allowing her to fly through the other end. "Sorry, Bubbles!" she calls to the air elemental as another resonating blow echoes from her passing.
"Do not let the insidious nature of these oozes cause us to falter in our task," she calls out to her allies, "we will not fail in freeing the Demetae from their curse and Dolok from his burden!" She weaves her bardic magic through her exhortation, inspiring them to greatness.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ehren grimaces as Unafe resorts to stomping at the oozes instead of punching them, perhaps taking his warning a little too literally. Unsurprisingly, her attacks appear to be ineffectual against the clouds of swamp gas. Xanderghul, on the other hand, appears to have the right idea; unfortunately, the execution of that idea involves friendly fire. The fiery explosion engulfs Ehren's summoned water elemental, evaporating a significant portion of its body. It quickly regains its humanoid shape, but its drooping features indicate that it is clearly worse for wear.
With Unafe still in the thick of things, Ehren taps into his bond to nature, calling on the howling winds of the Rimethirst. The still air around the Demetae warrior suddenly begins to stir, whipped into a frenzy. The winds envelop her huge body, its every surface warded by their currents.
Hearing Xanderghul’s call, Hinagiku turns toward Unafe and Ary to see a small ball of fire heading their way. Stepping forward to help, the monk only realizes too late that she won’t make it in time and barely has enough time to close her eyes and weather the fire engulfing her.
Breathing out slightly in response to the pain, Hinagiku calls to her companions:
"Mrs. Unafe, please leave the area. Trust in Mrs. Isilme's magic to destroy the clouds."
Unafe frowns as she realizes she’s powerless against the mist--and then flinches as Xander recklessly hits her with an exploding ball of fire. Fortunately, she’s able to turn her shoulder to the worst of it and mostly shrug it off.
She nods to Hinagiku. "If I can't hurt this ooze, I'll see if I can hurt the other big one."
On powerful legs, Unafe leaps straight up, over the walls of sound and force, and lands with a splash beside the remaining intact ooze. She shoves it as she lands, and then tries to punch it and force it into a grapple.
"Xander, once I grab this one, if you let down your force wall I'll try to shove it into Isilme's pen. Maybe then it's easier for magicks to take them both out?"
Xanderghul's blast utterly obliterates all of the dead trees within the wall of sound, and nearly all of the ooze mist as well. The mist spreads out thin to fill the area it has been entrapped in, and attempts to press outwards, causing loud discordant tones to reverberate through the forest. The ooze fully penetrates Ehren's summoned water elemental, turning it the same sickly brownish-yellow color as the swamp.
As soon as the blast clears, Unafe leaps out of the wall and falls into the water across the invisible wall with an enormous splash. She punches the ooze in front of her, attempting to get a grip on it, but her arm simply slides deep into the gooey creature with an unpleasantly warm and slimy sensation. Her forearm starts to burn from coming into prolonged contact with the acidic goo.
Round 4!
Hinagiku, Xanderghul, Ehren, Ary and Isilme are up!
Ehren winces in sympathy for his poor elemental, trapped in the wall of sound and left at the mercy of a creature it had no way of fighting. As it begins to succumb to the plague, the druid waves his hand and utters the word of dismissal. With one last gurgle, the elemental promptly dissolves back into starlights, returning to the plane from whence it came.
With the elemental gone, Ehren steps closer to the bog and the trapped oozes, surveying the area. Strategic missteps aside, they appeared to have the situation under control. However, he could only wonder whether this was the full extent of the infection. He eyes the ruined trees with a frown, pondering the origin of their apparently mindless adversary.
Xanderghul continues to use his mastery of magic to assail the ooze-mists, this time relying on a more powerful specialty illusion spell. He consults his book for a second time, using the powers of illusion to draw energy from the Shadow Plane. He replicates a spell designed itself as a mimic, copying a copy of a dragon's breath. He steps within range of the ooze mists, takes a deep and abiding breath, and then releases a powerful cone of fire from his mouth that washes over the plagued oozes.
"Xander, we need the wall down so Unafe can get the other ooze into the ring created by the wall of sound. It can contain the swarms until we can hit them all at once," she suggests when she notices Unafe successfully grab a hold of the ooze on the other side of the force wall and call for it to be lowered.
Knowing that her wall will likely continue to be of use, she concentrates on maintaining the spell while letting the others focus on getting control of the other ooze.
Hinagiku and Ary are up!
One of the mist clouds disintegrates upon touching the Wall of Sound, melting into the swamp water as discordant sounds ring out across the forest. Hinagiku watches Xanderghul as he wades out into the bog for a position to breath fire onto the two remaining slimes, the disgusting water reaching well up past his waste. Ary pauses and considers what to do as the remaining clouds press up against the vibrating walls again and again, as another mist is obliterated from the air. The tree behind her drips a long string of vibrant yellow mucosal ooze from its highest branches down onto her shoulder, where it runs down her breastplate, staining her tabard.
While all of the trees in the bog appear dead and lifeless, only two that Ehren can see are dripping disgusting slime (marked on the map). Perhaps the trees themselves are sick? Xanderghul's fiery spell completely obliterated the trees within the wall of sound...
Ary and Unafe are up!
With her damp sleeve, Hinagiku gracefully brushes off some of her still burning fur before looking at the sign that Xanderghul’s wall was still up: a strangely long and square gap in the water of the swamp.
Not wanting to leave Unafe alone any longer, the monk closes her eyes and focuses on the lines of ley suffusing the area. Gracefully, she jumps upward, one foot landing on some invisible step which she uses to skillfully propel herself to the next invisible step until she can grasp the top of the wall and let herself fall next to the slime.
Ary turns in time to watch events beginning to unfold, Xanderghul opting for more fire. She floats for a moment... and is rewarded by being slimed by one of the overhead trees. She purses her lips, and leans forward.
She floats over the top of the water, crashing through the walls - this time causing her armor to vibrate as it rips through her protections. She winces visibly and veers slightly, but rights herself, plunging through the wall opposite her entrance, her aegis rippling in time with the cascade of sound once more.
She slows in her flight as she reaches Hinagiku and winces more at the sight than at the impact with Isilme's wall. How does one care for singed fur?
She reaches a hand out as the kitsune prepares to leap, and brushes against her shoulder, a glowing mote floating out of Ary and into her ally. A sheen of energy ripples across the monk's body, preparing her for the worst of the swarms - though perhaps not the larger foes.
Isilme calls out to Unafe the half-saurian wrestles with the ooze on the far side of the force barrier. Adding to the cacophony of the her wall ringing out with each impact, she adds her best impression of a saurian roar as encouragement.
"The slime is coming out of those two trees over there!" Ehren calls out over the ululations of the invisible wall, pointing them out to the others. "We should destroy them before more of these oozes emerge!"
Unafe does her best to maintain her hold on the slime, even as it burns her skin. She lifts it roughly, slams it to the ground, and then attempts to pummel it three more times in quick succession.
"In the name of Goryon the Wise, your days of spreading filth and destroying lives are OVER!!"
Hinagiku gracefully jumps over the wall, coming up in front of Unafe as she attempts to pummel the ooze into the filthy bog water, splashing mud all over the kitsune monk. When she lifts her fist up again, it is dripping with thick yellowish slime that spreads up her forearm. Her forearm continues to burn from the prolonged contact. The corrosive acid even begins to warp and turn the adamantine handwraps that she wears around her wrists.
On the other side of the wall, Ary's continued efforts eventually vibrate the gaseous slime out of existence, even as it futilely tries to follow her to catch her. She simply can move faster than it.
Round 5!
The Heroes Are Up!
Isilme moves up to stay close to the others while maintaining concentration on her spell.
Unafe smiles as she sees the ooze starting to splatter and sag.
Her spirits souring with the sound of Isilme's encouragement, Unafe pulls steps for a haymaker...and as she does she nearly steps into a hole in the murky bog, throwing her strike off. Miraculously, at the last moment the ancestors guide her food to steadier ground and her strike is true.
If that's not enough to destroy it, she leans her shoulder into it as well, hoping to finish it off.
”Mrs. Unafe, … I… am… here.” Hinagiku manages to say in between waves of stagnant water created by the gigantic warrior’s motions which threaten to enter her nose and mouth. Entering a fighting stance again, the monk puts her faith in Ary’s magic and begins to pummel the ooze with a quick succession of punches.
"You've got this." Ary calls over the wall, looking back to her other allies to better apprise herself of the situation, before turning back to them once more. The coast seemed to be clear except for that singular remaining ooze... and the trees Ehren was indicating as dangerous.
Knowing that she had protected her allies to the best of her ability, and seeing that they had the oozes as in hand as they previously had, she turns and flies back to where Ehren is, zipping around the outskirts of Isilme's wall, ready to defend the Archdruid should any more oozes escape the trees when these oozes were defeated... or when one of the casters detonated the remaining diseased trees. She knew she could likely bring one down with her hammer, but didn't like the idea of doing so while everyone was so spread out... and so she would wait.
At the request of his allies, Xander lowers the wall of force. Disgusted by the swamp water and without anything further he can contribute to the battle, he also retreats away from the wall of sound and back up onto solid ground.
Ehren is up!
While the slime is dribbling in a long stream from Unafe's forearm to the water below, Hinagiku strikes twice through it. The ooze dribbles into the swamp and doesn't re-emerge.
Round 6!
Isilme, Xanderghul, and Ehren are up!
"We should do what we can to ensure this entire place is cleansed before we leave. The fact the trees are oozing with slime concerns me. This entire area could be a breeding ground for the oozes," Isilme calls out to the others once the second ooze goes down.
"I will keep this wall up," she adds, "We should consider ripping the diseased trees down and burning them. Anything suspect should be thrown into center of the wall."
Having given her appraisal of the situation, Isilme begins scanning the surroundings for anything that might hint at something more being present than just the two oozes they'd killed. As she looks about, she maintains the wall, knowing it might still be useful.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
With the oozes slain, for the time being, Ehren focuses on their apparent source. As far as he could tell, the trees here were all already dead, perhaps as a direct result of the plague. Destroying them might well be the first step towards allowing new life to flourish on the land here. Resorting to a method a tad less explosive than Xanderghul's, Ehren draws on his latent magic, casting a spell often used by druids to burn down vegetation in a controlled manner. The two slime-infected trees abruptly burst into flames, which would hopefully consume them in a matter of seconds.
The Archdruid sets the two oozing trees alight with flame. They burn and smolder and collapse into the swamp. The effect on the bog is almost immediate. The remaining evergreen trees, formerly dead and dying, rejuvenate, the yellowed needles reviving and turning a brilliant green.
Combat Ends!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Xander's unimpressed eyebrow-raise is the same regardless of his form. "Ah, I see. We seem to have magically restored balance," he says, his tone flat and sarcastic. "If the sudden change in the color of the trees is any indication, I would say that the angels are singing in Heaven right now and telling puppethouse tales of our heroism." He looks around at the others. It would seem that the entire group had emerged from the encounter completely unscathed. Xander himself had barely used any of his resources. Not from the lack of danger, of course, but just because of his confidence in his martial allies. Why expend valuable magic on mere violence when he had such mighty companions?
Well, anyway, they had defeated the oozes. Now what? Was the whole situation resolved? Would they return home to find all of their infected citizens suddenly cured? Xander was uncertain at this time, which was an unfortunate feature of relying on folksy wisdom and superstition like they had been on this adventure. While his more perceptive and thorough allies ensure that no traces remain of the corruption, Xander withdraws his Chronicle and begins to take notes about the encounter. He notes that the solid oozes, while they were not as powerful as he had feared, could easily best a dozen Crusader veterans from their army. The ooze-mists, on the other hand, would have been completely impossible for normal people to stop without advance preparation. He truly believes, he writes in his book, that he walks among mighty and destined individuals.
He also writes of the coincidences that had led them here, to this strange diseased hole in a faraway land. Sick citizens, infected by Demetae pilgrims, rescued from their corrupted homeland. The homeland discovered after having met Unafe, who had been frozen in ice for a hundred years. The shaman's apprentice from decades ago, and the ritual to summon the tyrannosaurus.
He thinks of the conflict back home. They had rested on their laurels for a long time now. Perhaps it was time to make a move? But where would be an appropriate place to strike? Certainly not the stone forest, nor the shadowy lake. Flipping back in his notebook, he finds his sketch of the map of the Worldwound. He looks up at his companions. "So, now that we've resolved this adventure, perhaps we can return home? I have a proposal to make regarding trying to visit Pulura's Fall."
Hinagiku wades her way back onto shore and out of the stagnant water of the swamp. Met by the cold air of spring with only wet clothes to protect her, she begins to surreptitiously tense and relax her muscles rhythmically, hoping to keep the heat of her body up. Patiently, she waits as the others discuss and Xanderghul writes in his book.
”I also want to go back to Drezen quickly Mr. Xanderghul. It might be over for us, but there are still people here who are tied to this story without knowing that it has changed into something new.” Hinagiku gently says rather cryptically, casting a quick glance at Unafe. It seemed to the monk as though this was the perfect moment for Unafe to help heal the wounds her displaced people and their guardian had suffered, and perhaps even reunite them. But only she could do it.
Ehren looks around with amazement when the trees are spontaneously rejuvenated, a process he had expected many years to take place occurring in mere seconds. He thinks back to the research he and Markus had uncovered regarding the plagueborn oozes. Namely, that slaying the source would immediately cure the infected, regardless of distance. Evidently, that went for the bog as well. The druid smiles broadly upon this realization, but wanting to be absolutely certain, interrupts the discussion on what they should do next.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Ehren warns despite his elation, unwilling to leave a job half-finished. "Do we have any sendings available? We should contact Markus and see if there has been any change in the infected." He then looks to Unafe and nods. "And if our work here is truly done, then we should also see about speaking to Dolok again, as well as Nelket."
Xander shakes his head. "I have no sending prepared today. Just like every other day, I must know ahead of time that a certain kind of magic is required in order to have it available to me. I would be able to send somebody tomorrow, but I would prefer to simply go back to Drezen. How long do you think it would take for you to return us home, Ehren?"
Ary watches as the grove swiftly returns to the appearance of a normal forest, floating for a moment before zipping upwards above the treeline, hoping to get a larger view of the surroundings. She does a quick once-over of the immediate surroundings to make certain that she doesn't see any other blighted areas, before returning to the others.
"I'm with Ehren on this. Even if we're fairly certain that everything is finished, it's a long way to travel just to have no idea what we had done had worked. Also... we still need to return to Dolok, return the Demetae treasures to Nelket, and bury the dead in the Demetae village before we can return to Drezen. It will take several days of travel no matter what we do, so verifying things is just the better option, I think."
Xander shrugs nonchalantly, eyes half-lidded and mouth slightly upturned in a careless relaxed expression. "Very well," he says. "Be my guest. I will follow."
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
”Should we go back to Pan Skrovlov’s house and the abandoned village then?” Hinagiku asks, beginning to pace from side to side to keep hesrself warm.