Edra grabs a hunk of water in the air, freezing it on impact with his hand then slamming it into the face of Jeraya. He follows this up with him reaching behind his back, grabbing swirls of flame and as it turns into the shape of a spear hurling it straight into and through the Oaksteward, the colliding with the fox. Melee Blast ◈
Flame spear: ◈◈
[ooc]Melee Blast, Flying flame
”Yowch!”
Osiris invokes the same skill he used on the gremlins as he tampers with the enemy’s weapon. In the same instance he brandishes his sword and stabs at the druid.
Leiko, Rolling Thunder, and Enyo each take their turns, launching into what they hope will be decisive actions. However, their attempts—whether they be aimed shots, strategic shoves, or well-intended spells—fall short. Each move fails to connect with their intended targets, resulting in a series of frustratingly ineffective efforts that contribute little to the party's advantage in the skirmish.
Osiris, attempting to replicate his earlier success with the gremlins, tries another bold maneuver. Unfortunately, luck is not on his side this time, and his initial attempt doesn't produce the desired effect. Undeterred, he manages to land a single jab with his sword against Jeraya, the Oaksteward, though his follow-up attack misses its mark, slicing through the air without finding its target.
Edra, meanwhile, proves to be a beacon of efficacy amidst the chaos. His mastery over elemental forces shines through as he launches another icy blast at Jeraya. The attack hits true, burying into her chest with chilling precision. Not content with just one successful strike, he quickly follows up with a blast of flame, the dual assault overwhelming Jeraya and sending her to the ground. The fox, caught in the periphery of the flame attack, is barely grazed but is incensed by the aggression towards its companion.
Fueled by fury at the sight of Jeraya's downfall, the fox turns its attention towards Edra. It moves with a blend of grace and ferocity, delivering two swift bites. The second bite finds a critical spot, striking an artery.
3
"Just die already!"
Rolling Thunder did not pause in his assault on the fox familiar, trying to take it down before there was any more noise or wasted time.
Still racked with pain from the fox’s bite, Osiris attempts to end the battle with his remaining strength. After a series of jabs, he glares at the fox- hoping he can stop the fight before he takes any more damage.
"Nice hit Eddie!" Leiko shouts, just before Edra is pummeled by return agitation courtesy of the fox.
"Ahh shit, here we go" Leiko steps back to give her some space, takes aim again and fires, before quickly reloading once more.
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Onyinyo tilts his mirror and ◈ appears next to the fox, flanking with Leiko, He swings his earthbreaker at it's back.
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Edra, shaken by the multitude of misses on the fox, decides to throw a flurry of elementals enhanced punches in its direction. Hit 1 ◈ Hit 2 ◈ Hit 3 ◈
Despite a decent round of attacks against the fox, it remains quite elusive. Only Enyo's second strike finds purchase, and even then, the fox remains standing after taking a solid blow from the heartbreaker. Osiris's words do seem to have an effect on it however, temporarily affecting its morale.
It bites Edra again and then steps back.
Now that he's closer, Onyinyo starts wailing away with his weapon.
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Championing the forces of natural order was difficult when you were fighting an animal like this fox. But there seemed to be nothing about this fox that was natural. It was too tenacious, for one thing. Foxes were shy creatures who would only fight against larger creatures if their young were endangered. And it was quick! He had never seen a fox this agile and aggressive. As it attacked Edra, Thunder growled at it, giving it the chance to regret that mistake, before swinging his leiomano out, once more missing the fox.
"This would go a lot easier if you just stood still1"
Wasting no more time, nor positioning, Leiko takes aim point blank at the fox, trying to land a successful blow. With practiced rhythm, she attempts to then shove the fox back, reloading with ease, and stepping up into the open position.
Everything works in theory, yet again this fox elusiveness is far too great.
Edra, bitten again and now bleeding profusely takes a moment to step back and focus on a stronger attack. [bold] [/bold] Edra then slams an attack into the creature with his icy fist, hoping to finally kill it. ◈◈
Edra follows the attack up with another one, but switching elements in hope for anything to could give him an edge. ◈
”We need you to die right now.”
The group struggles to damage the elusive fox, which seems to fade in and out of sight just enough that the party's strikes always come up short. The fox grows weary of Edra's attempted ice attacks and sinks its teeth into his thighs, sending the kineticist to the ground.
Thunder glared at the fox, and spoke a word that struck to the core of the creature's being, giving it the chance to not injure the one it was fighting.
Then, he lunged forward with a massive swing, trying to finish off the fox for the sake of all his new companions.
Onyinyo is beyond talk and just swings.
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Edra, soaked in his own blood barely standing raises his hand and screams WON'T YOU JUST DIE ALREADY he blasts the fox 2 times with water.
Atk 1 ◈◈ Atk 2 ◈◈
The fox finally dies, just as Edra requests. With his cold blast, the furry, adorable creature is frozen and destroyed.
The forest weeps.
With the ferocious foe out of the way, the party finds two doors leading out of this room. Each door has a rope bridge leading to a different section of the structure.
Deciding to go north, the group moves towards the water tower.
Droplets of condensation bead along the exterior of the large catchment vessel in the center of this room, occasionally dripping onto the floor. The vessel is shaped like a funnel, so that its top balloons outward to encompass the whole ceiling, connecting to a much larger catchment atop the building. Pipes covered in gauges and spigots snake out from the tank in all directions along the floor and walls.
Ropes and pulleys connect to a basket that can be raised or lowered through a five-foot-wide hole in the floor. Just out the window to the southwest, a well-oiled hempen rope stretches up to the window of an adjacent building.
Leiko explores the room a bit while her allies tend to their wounds. "Hrm, anything more than water here?". She inspects the pulleys, and the big hole in the floor.
"Why would someone have a rope tied here soaked in oil? An escape route, perhaps? You jump out the window and slide down here. The oiled rope is slick so that you don't get hung up or burn your hands, and it looks like you could easily make the trip and cut the rope behind you before your pursuers could catch up. Think this is Bolan's?"
Rolling Thunder pulled a dagger from a belt sheath and severed the rope at this end.
"When we find this murderer, we aren't going to let him just run out on our conversation."
As Leiko moves about the room to explore, she discovers that the large water tank is connected to a pressure plate on the floor. As the wooden beam sinks slightly, as a seals on the water pipe nearby bursts, issuing forth high-pressure water
Luckily, she drops to the floor just in time to avoid the high-pressure burst. The pressure eventually subsides enough to allow further exploration of the room.
Thunder Rolling severs the rope and disables the possible escape route.
With the room disabled, the group moves back to the southern bridge and makes their way across. Once Leiko, Thunder and Enyo are on the bridge, trouble strikes again. The ropes on both sides of the bridge snap simultaneously, causing the bridge to collapse and the trio to fall.
Onyinyo watches the wall suddenly start moving and somehow manages to reach out and grab the ledge. He looks toward Leiko and Thunder to see if they were able to react fast enough.
Leiko's eagerness to push forward in pursuit of Bolan lends disaster to herself and her friends. Apart from the bombardment of the 'water trap', the bridge in the next room suddenly collapses beneath her and her allies.
It was only her quick eye that saved her this time as she grabs a wall before falling. She pulls herself back up attempting to catch her breath before quickly turning to assure her allies made it safe too.
As the bridge fell out from under him, Thunder Rolling grabbed the support rope next to him and hung on as the bridge swung crazily in the air.
Edra following silently behind to make sure no invincible foxes attack while they aren’t looking quickly reacts to the dropping bridge and grabs a ledge. In said ledge grab he does a double backflip and bounces between ledges to show off.
The trap seems to be no match for the aware and now very searchful party! Even Edra, who wasn't in danger of falling, successfully jumped out of the way with a double backflip to demonstrate his acrobatic abilities.
Once the party makes it across the gap, they find a cozy library that has been repurposed as a laboratory. Easy chairs are shoved against brimming bookshelves to make room for glass vessels, burners, and other distilling equipment. Stairs ascend five feet to a door to the north. Another door leads east. To the west, a wooden railing surrounds a hole in the floor, which can be descended via a wooden ladder.
As you enter the room, you are greeted with a flying flask that is thrown in your general direction by a dwarven Oaksteward. Accompanying him is a spider-like creature with mystical symbols in hues of deep purple and gold. Its eight long, slender legs are jointed with hints of the same golden color, lending it an otherworldly, elegant look.
"Intruders! Lay down your arms and surrender!"
"We aren't here to fight anyone! We just need to convince some person named Bolan to stop poisoning the forest and her creatures! Now, please put down your own weapons so we can talk."
The dwarf laughs at Thunder's diplomatic opening, "Welcome to the poison lab! Take a good look around, it will be the last sight you ever see!"
"Don't say that we didn't try the peaceful option. Kill him!"
Edra, in response to be asked to lay down his arms looks at his hands in confusion then is more captivated by the giant spider. And after hearing Thunders affirmative words that it is indeed blasting time, he does exactly that, running up to the spider slamming his foot into the ground and activating his kinetic aura. As Edra activates his aura a glob of ice surrounds his fist and he slams it into the spider. He draws his hand back again and as his fist draws all the way back it becomes engulfed in ice and he again slams it into the spider. Atk 1 ◈ Atk 2 ◈
Onyinyo eyes the Oaksteward, confident he can figure out what makes him tick. ◈ He ◈ moves over to put the table between him and the man before taking a better look at the spider.
Osiris looks around the laboratory, trying to get an idea of the dangers in this room.
After observing the surroundings Osiris looks towards the opponents. ”You will regret declining our diplomacy.”
”I’m getting plenty of use with this today.”
Edra lands his first attack on the spider, but misses his second.
The dwarf throws a vial of acid at Enyo, dousing him with a burning fluid
The spider attacks Edra three times but only sinks its poisonous fangs into him once.
Osiris doesn't spot any traps, but he does take note of a 5' hole in the floor with a ladder sticking up that leads to a lower level below. His demoralize attempts fall flat, his voice barely reaching the intended target.
Enyo recognizes this spider is a dream spider and it doesn't have any weaknesses. Dream spider's webs have an iridescent hue and are infused with the same hallucinogenic compound as the creature's toxin. Usually found where shady alchemists use their venom to produce the drug known as shiver.
8
Thunder Rolling growled at the dwarf that so disdainfully rejected their offer of peaceful discourse and stepped lightly around the spider. His leiomano glinted int eh lamplight as he swung it two-handed at the dwarf's head.
Edra takes a deep breath and focuses on overcoming the poison.
He then, as mad as ever, lets out a roar as he sends a flaming spear straight through the spider. As it passes through the arachnid it Edra re-shapes its path with the flick of his wrist, sending the flaming spear in the oakstewards direction and into his chest. ◈◈
”Be cautious of that pit!”, Osiris shouts. As he jumps into the battle, he thrusts his sword at the spider.
Leiko blasts the the oaksteward and attempts to shove him up against the wall. Unfortunately for her, she trips, slips and falls down to the floor instead.
Thunder comes up with his own powerful blow to the Oaksteward, nearly taking him out.
Enyo's heartbreaker can't seem to land on the Oaksteward, but Edra's flaming spear finishes off the Oaksteward, leaving only the spider. Osiris's sword swings through the air twice, missing both times.
The spider pivots to target Thunder, sinking his poisonous fangs into the large man's left calf.
Thunder feels the poison seeping into his body and does his best to ignore the effects as he spun to swing at the spider.
Thunder pummels the spider repeatedly, smashing it into the ground and ending the skirmish.
Scattered about the shelves of the makeshift poison lab are two doses of shiver, three vials of lesser antidote, and one dose of cytillesh oil.
”Potions?” Edra says with a disappointed face. ”Ashame our alchemist friend isn’t here to hold them for us.” Edra grabs one of the antidotes and holds it up to the light,wat hung the colorful liquid swirl and shimmer. ”Mr Darby, Enyo, you seem to both be intelligent, have any idea who would get the most use out of carrying these potions?” ”Damned spider, that sting still hurts”
”Enyo can have them for now; I’m more of an engineer, not that I couldn’t make good use of them though.”
“Bolan sure has quite a lot of goons at his disposal- I hope we find him soon.”
"Here, let me see those wounds. They don't look too bad."
A glow infused Edra's wounds as Thunder Rolling sent a bit of life energy into him, then sat down to meditate for a few minutes.
Onyinyo gathers the vials and stashes them away, "I can certainly hold on to them until we need them. We might want to dispose of the shiver and cytillesh oil, though, both are pretty nasty."
Leiko leads the way, taking the party north. As she places her hand on the door to open it, she notices a trigger-thread attached to it that likely would set off yet another trap.