"Oops." Reacting as quickly as they can, Alrinkiri dashes forward and tries to put the hood on the beasts head.
"Damn, hold still!" Missing badly, they quickly turn their head away from the basilisk.
Chimwemwe averts his gaze from the basilisk as he raises the mirror shield and advances to block the exit of the cage. "Be careful!" he calls to Alrinkiri. "Does anyone have a spell to hold it in place?"
The basilisk turns and looks at Chimwemwe; it hisses at its own reflection so it stares at Alrinkiri instead — they feel their bones begin to calcify!
The creature skitters back and forth on its eight legs, uncomfortable with so many other creatures in its home, and slips past Chimwemwe!
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
➤ Chimwemwe
➤ Alrinkiri
Basilisk
➤ Soomdevi
➤ Wisps
➤ Akoril
Alrinkiri's joints creak as they begin to stiffen. They rush forward, but their slow muscles stop them from being able to place the hood. "Try to keep them in place for a second!" They shout, as they avert their gaze again.
Chimwemwe keeps the reflective shield raised as he tries to pull the legs out from under the basilisk as it passes. He then tries to grab the tail and keep the frightening beast in place.
Chimwemwe trips the creature, but can't seem to grapple it. All those legs…
Alrinkiri is slowed.
Wisps tries to distract the basilisk with a spell.
She then averts her own gaze.
|
Soomdevi twists a finger in the basilisk's direction, and attempts to give it the stumbling curse!
"Mariama's Calamity upon you!"
He then averts his gaze.
The creature huffs and puffs a bit, breathing hard.
When Soomdevi crooks his finger, the eight legs wriggle about and get tangled up!
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
Chimwemwe
Alrinkiri
Basilisk
Soomdevi
Wisps
➤ Akoril
Akoril backs up a few paces and not wanting to get turned to stone more than he wants to safely rescue the critter unleashes a magical arrow, swarming with other bits of sharp debris.
The Basilisk hisses at Akoril. It runs away, squeezing between the wall and cage and intoi the bushes.
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
➤ Chimwemwe
➤ Alrinkiri
Basilisk
➤ Soomdevi
➤ Wisps
➤ Akoril
"I don't particularly want Oba to keep it, but it can't run amok!" Chimwemwe raises the reflective shield and follows the basilisk around the cage. He grabs for the tail and tries to yank the heavy beast off of its many feet.
Wisps gets closer. "Don't worry, everyone. We'll get it!"
She focuses on stopping the creature from reacting.
Chimwemwe trips the ungainly creature again! Those eight legs seem to get in the way of each other more than anything.
Everyone else is up!
Akoril follows up and fires a shooting star at the creature's tail.
Akoril lights the basilisk up!
Wisps inspires with the song of crosspost!
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
Chimwemwe
➤ Alrinkiri
Basilisk
➤ Soomdevi
Wisps
Akoril
Alrinkiri creakily follows around to the far side of the basilisk, hoping someone can keep it still for long enough for them to put the hood on.
The basilisk succumbs to the omens of ill!
It hisses as it stands and, cornered, stares at Alrinkiri!
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
➤ Chimwemwe
➤ Alrinkiri
Basilisk
➤ Soomdevi
➤ Wisps
➤ Akoril
The pale light in Alrinkiri's strange eyes fade as their body turns to stone.
"Alrinkiri!" Chimwemwe shouts as the basilisk's stare petrifies his friend. He tries to grab hold of the basilisk tail once more, calling over his shoulder, "Soomdevi, can you grab the--!"
Not paying enough attention, he trips over the beast's tail and falls on his own hind end. "Nevermind!"
He raises the shining shield and pushes himself to his feet.
Akoril continues his KO the basilisk backup plan, firing another debris spiraling arrow.
Akoril focuses and recharges his spellstrike.
Basilisk hide is nonlethally bruised! The creature hisses in frustration.
Soomdevi and Wisps are up!
Wisps's jaw drops in horror as Alrinkiri turns to stone, but she takes a deep breath.
"We can help Alrinkiri afterward, but only if we don't succomb ourselves!"
She focuses on the creature and fires one arrow, trying to hit it somewhere that won't kill it.
The arrow plunks into a bar of the cage.
The basilisk gazes at Wisps, then runs away! Thanks to Soomdevi's Ill Omen it trips on a log, revealing its position. It hisses in the bushes, watching you carefully.
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
➤ Chimwemwe
➤ Alrinkiri
Basilisk
➤ Soomdevi
➤ Wisps
➤ Akoril
Akoril then works to follow up.
Once more the magus's arrow flies true; the basilisk falls unconscious with a final hiss.
Alrinkiri stands there, still as atone near the cage. Their clothing flutters in the breeze, the jar of blood gleams in their belt pouch
Soomdevi and Chimwemwe vaguely remember Koride's class on petrification monsters, but they both paid attention to Ot's magical beasts class, which mentioned basilisk blood being useful in turning stone back to flesh.
Likely, the jar of blood has enough in it to cover 3 medium creatures, or one medium and one large creature. If that is, indeed, what it is…
Chimwemwe stumbles over the unconscious basilisk in order to free the hood from Alrinkiri's stone fingers. "Help me!" he struggles to hastily pull the hood over the creature's head before it wakes and then manhandles the many-legged monster back into its cage.
Once the basilisk is locked away, he rushes back to help paint Alrinkiri with the blood from the jar.
You put the hood on the basilisk and drag it back to its cage. It's surprisingly heavy.
Alrinkiri wakes up from their moment in time, and lunges with empty hands at the area where the basilisk was minutes before.
There's blood in the jar for a large creature still.
"We should set the rest by the tiger while we finish exploring, I think," Chimwemwe says. "If there are no more beasts waiting to eat us, then we can, hmm, figure out how to deal with it."
Alrinkiri falls to the ground as their swipe finds no purchase, where they sit, disoriented and blinking up at their companions. "I guess that didn't go quite as well as I'd hoped."
[spooiler=gm screen]
[/spoiler]
You regroup, and look at the cage. Soomdevi realizes someone picked the lock here, too. The surly creature was just too lazy to leave. Maybe it LIKES the cage!?
There are three cages to your left, and another large cage a bit further in Which way?
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"Welcome back, Alrinkiri," Chimwemwe says, the worry in his voice barely hidden. "I was not sure if that would work the same with your automaton physiology." He glances at Soomdevi. "You missed out on Soomdevi's hilarious jokes. So funny." He adds in a drily.
"Should we refocus?" he asks more seriously. "We know this tiger, at least, is not eating any of the other animals."
"Let's check the big cage and hope it hasn't been sabotaged," he suggests.
The last cage is empty, and its door is also open.
You head crackling in the trees nearby. A large monstrous goat with the foreclaws, hindquarters, and tail of a crocodile sits in the crook of a tree, looking up at the sky. Its goat-horns crackle with electricity, and leaves nearby shover and crackle in its electric aura.
It tries to jump to a higher branch and fails to do so, catching itself on the branch. It tries again and fails.
It's so engrossed in this activity that it fails to see you… for the moment.
"Amazing," Chimwemwe says as he stares at the rare beast. He holds out his hand where an open book materializes. He looks at the creature and quickly flips through several pages, trying to find a reference to the creature before the book vanishes back to the library.
A tome magically appears in Chimwemwe's hand, open to a certain page. But that page is blank. He cannot place this creature, even with his magic.
Soomdevi remembers talking with Mariama about amphibious demon spies at Frog Pond. This must be one such demon. In fact, he remembers drifting off in class one day while Koride talked about electric demon-goat-crocs, which are famous as the loyal steeds of Vrocks. As everyone knows, vrocks are amazing dancers who (literally) electrify their audience with their moves. Noxolo also talked about wanting to have a dance-off against a vrock one day.
Anyway, this is an evil demon-goat-croc. Maybe one of Oba's clients is a vrock. Or…
"Do you think it can speak with us," Chimwemwe wonders.
Wisps looks at the creature.
Wisps cannot place the creature either. The creature is getting more agitated as you speak.
Akoril looks to his allies nervously "That's uhh some kinda crocagoa... aligoa... Ya, Aligoat."
"That thing's got to eat meat, anybody got something tasty to throw in its cage to lure it back in?" Akoril follows up with.
"Not that is fit for consumption," Chimwemwe answers Akoril. "It looks like it wants to hide in the tree. Maybe we should leave it be."
"I....don't think we should leave that thing at large. It looks like it might hurt someone."
With that, they try to sneak ahead, hoping to stay out of sight and get a little closer to the creature undetected.
Once again, Alrinkiri step on a twig. The creature turns and bleats at them!
The goat-croc launches out of the tree and falls horns-first onto the ground, slamming into the ground with a thundering crash and then flipping onto its feet! .
The impact rattles Alrinkiri's automaton bones…
The creature then tries to slam Alrinkiri with its goat horns, which buzz with arcs of electricity like a Jacob's Ladder. The hairs on Alrinkiri's hide stand up, gaining a static charge.
Luckily it misses. Then it swings its tail…
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
Goat-Croc
➤ Wisps
➤ Akoril
➤ Chimwemwe
➤ Alrinkiri
➤ Soomdevi
Wisps sends a soothing spell at Alrinkiri.
"Don't worry, everyone. We'll get this thing!"
Alrinkiri looks around incredulously at the hundreds of dried twigs lining every inch of this stupid zoo.
Rattled, Alrinkiri retreats next to the nearest cage, and casts a protective shield.
"This is serious," Chimwemwe murmurs as the lightning ram crashes to the ground. He draws the activation sigil on the inside of his shield arm and the runes on his armor bloom with white light in synchronicity with his invisible tattoos and eyes. He draws the whip from his belt and raises his shield. "Stand behind me, and I'll try to hold it back if it charges."