NPF Avatars: Because They All Hate Me

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

[OOC: please be a little considerate to me! Posting like mad is not my style, and I *DO* have other things to do other than manage this rp. Maybe lessen your posts a bit? Please?]

The imps and bats were blinded momentarily by Raidens blast of light, but the battle continued around Rhiya, who had hunched down and formed her wings around her in a protective shell everything - from friendly fire to bat droppings - washed over her harmlessly. Right now, she looked much like a big freaking rock.

However, that will all change soon.

~~

The bat that had latched onto Darth's face pulled back a bit before coming down in a hard, toothy bite. Fetid breath and acidic teeth washed over his face, and the two combined in air... combusted.

~~

"Right-ho!" Rhiya commented as she stood up. She blasted away two bats with large iron cushions, exploded a few imps with her Eviscerating claws, before rushing forward.

"Come ON! We need to keep moving. They'll keep us here until next week and that's not GOOD."

Drawing up her sleeves, Rhiya flung her marked hand forward.
Incapacitate!

She'd done this before, to elves that was too much trouble. Now she was doing it to the bats that were in the air and still coming at them.
Super glue erupted from her hands. The sticky mass held enough force to fling back a dozen bats and stick them to walls... But not before two flung their droppings into Raiden's eyes.

However, Pyros' explosive fire brought down a new problem. The power had jarred the stalactites on the ceiling, and gradually, they became loose enough to fall down in spiky, scary death.

The first to fall missed Raiden by a whisker's breadth (sp?). But it triggered more to come down, and soon even the imps and bats had something else to worry about.

"RUN DAMNIT! RUN INTO INTO THE CAVES! ACT LIKE DARTH WITH A BAT ON HIS HEAD IF YOU DON'T GET WHAT I MEAN!"

"...What? Scream like a girl and then get torched?" somebody muttered as they charged deeper into the caves.

~~

"...Right..." Rhiya panted as they came to a stop in a no-stalactite area. The place looked weird, clean even, save for the small trickles of slime that oozed continuously down the side of one wall. The chittering of the cave imps and bats had diminished to near-silence. "Let's... take a rest... right here... before continuing... OMFG WTF WHO LET ONE GO?!" she suddenly squeaked as she clutched at her nose. A few of the NPFers looked confused, before the stench (http://forum.nuklearpower.com/showpost.php?p=352896&postcount=93) hit them like a ten-ton demolition ball flying loose of its chain. A few of the lesser mortals were literally bowled over, and even Raiden had to clutch his nose to prevent his eyes from watering.

The hiss of something filled the air, followed by a strange, oozing noise. There was the clicking of something dangerous lurking in the darkness (http://forum.nuklearpower.com/showpost.php?p=352896&postcount=93)

Dark, spindly creatures upped and scuttled forward, while hulking shapes materialized from the rivulets of slime running down the walls.

[Sithdarth]

Luckly for whoever the comdien was Sith was still recovering from the blast of bat, well bat whatever the hell that thing had breathed on him. Completely oblivous to his surrondings and still unable to smell anything but breath he leaned aagainst a near by rock. Just about then he noticed the slime dragons and about two seconds later the smell. Sith clutched his throat once let out something that sounded a lot like "gack" and passed out.

[Inbred Chocobo]

The smell hit IC hard. Though luckily for IC, smelling isn't what birds are known for, so it was bringing tears to his eyes, but damn was it awful. He hurled his Wind Edge at one of the lime dragons. What happened was that the Wind Edge slammed into one, sticking, but due to the force of the throw causing the dragon to go rolling. IC then opened his hand, using the wand straped to his left arm to manifest a dark bolt. Those who fought the elf back at Christmas could tell what it was, and it was what IC hurled at the dragon. "Fudging, smell." IC said under his breath as he grabbed his nose with his right hand.

[Incendius]

Pyros looked left, then right at the hunched figures of most of the other NPFers and shruged saying "Heh I don't have a sense of smell. I guess it worked out for me this time.". Smiling broadly at his obvious good fortune Pyros suddenly noticed the dark forms creeping outward into the cavern and the clicking noises. Walkin forward Pyros declared for all to here "Stay behind me everyone I think I will be the one to handle all of these creatures". Patting his chest in obvious confidence Pyros stated "Come on come and get me, do your best shot".

This probaly would not end well for him.

[The Wizard Who Did It]

OOC: I meant Boltaga. Thundaga doesn't have the range of Boltaga.;) If I told you it was akin to bolting, would that help?

IC: The rest of the party joined the Wizard, and they ran for their lives. Or their health, but they did indead run. They found themselves in a massive cavern, the likes of which was large, and very slimy.

"OMFG WTF WHO LET ONE GO?!"

When an NPF member used such language, something had to be wrong. It didn't strike what was wrong to the Wizard until a very foul stench hit his nostrils. It reminded him of that one necromancer's birthday party. He never wanted to be reminded of that day again. His knee's brished the ground, before he forced himself up again. It seemed as if the walls were moving and there was an obnoxious clicking sound. A spidery thing jumped up to attack, but he gracefully flipped over the clumsy creature and shot a fireball at it. When he turned around and dashed at the creature to stab it, he noticed that the creature wasn't even affected. Jumping out of the way, and barely grazing the creature with his sword, a metallic sound was heard as he grabbed onto the slimy disgusting walls.

This, is very very sick and very very bad. The Wizard tested to see if it was invulnurable and dashed at it with his sword. The sword pierced through, and the spider dropped dead. So not completely invincible...

[mammothtank]

If I told you it was akin to bolting, would that help?
OOC: Yes. I know of Bolting. Too bad it only gets 5 shots...

IC: "Okay, that one then." mammothtank led Silly Kitty down the tunnel she had indicated. He stepped carefully, climbing over rocks and making sure Kitty was never very far away. Suddenly, up ahead in the tunnel, a bright light flared, causing MT to squint a little in response. "Hey, let's head for that! Maybe someone's up there!"

[Silly Kitty]

Happy to find the rest of her party, Silly Kitty ran towards the light finally stumbling upon her party who were all hunched over.

"Man am I glad to see you guys I-" Finally the smell hit her. With her heightened feline senses the smell was almost unbearable. She was on the floor at once curled up into a ball trying her best to get away from the smell.

Not one of her proudest moments to say the least.

[Lumaes]

Lumaes has been slithering along behind the procession quite unobtrusively, strangley most people hadn't noticed him - or at least hadn't wanted to notice him, eitherway he was pretty unnoticed.
As for the imps and bats they had given up trying to hurt him when posed with the question of which part of Lumaes's rather ludicrous anatomy to remove in order to kill him.

Lumaes didn't seem to be effected by the stench wafting from the massive, shifting creatures who had the audacity to call themselves dragons - after all, isn't it commonly said "love stinks"? One loomed over him menacingly, a hissing droplet sizzling away on his flesh - flopping backwards indignantly a slender tentacle withdraws a pen, another unspeakable orriface producing a sheet of foolscap - squirming back hurriedly from the advancing dragon he scrawls something on the paper. Smiling wickedly, he then presents his picture to the dragon proudly. Through some defiance of physics he'd drawn for the dragon a square - one made entirely with acute angels.

The dragon went rigid, toppling to the ground with a wet splat, gaping mouth frozen in an expression of shock - sure it wasn't dead, but Lumaes doubted it'd be getting better anytime soon.

[Darth SS]

OOC: Wait...I got a bat on my face? When did that happen?

IC: Darth pulled his Colt and shot the thing right off of his face before collapsing to the ground and screaming. Absent-mindedly, he telekinetically threw the napalm off of his face and just lay there screaming for about ten seconds.

Then there was the familiar "bwoop" and he regenerated, and got up. His beard was gone. He was very, very pissed off.

"THAT TOOK A LONG TIME TO GROW, YOU FUCKERS!"

He opened fire on the comatose dragon. Then he ran. While doing so, he gave the critters the finger.

[Toastburner B]

((OOC:[OOC: please be a little considerate to me! Posting like mad is not my style, and I *DO* have other things to do other than manage this rp. Maybe lessen your posts a bit? Please?
Behold the madness that met me everyday when I logged on during the Christmas RP. ;) ))

Toastburner really didn't know why he was rushing back to help.

After all, the other NPFers had found a way to make him exploded like three times before his poor, broken prinny body finally gave up the ghost.

Maybe it was because he wanted to save the world...again.

Maybe it was because he had the darned heroic alignment.

Mostly, it was because he was in one of his stronger forms now. Whatever force chose his forms, be it Fate, chance, of the Creators, Toastburner was flying through the caves in the form of a green dragon (http://www.angelfire.com/ut/benhaun/ToastburnerB/dragon.html). At the very least, it would take considerably more effort to kill him in this form that in his prinny form.

It was the smell the ultimately led him to the others. That and the yelling.

Finally in a truely combat ready form, Toastburner wasn't about to put it to waste. He flew over the heads of the others (fighting off a very tempting urge to peg Pyros as he stood in his pose, daring to be hit). His spiked tail skimmed along the wall, slashing any unlucky enough to be caught in it's path. As he furled his wings and landed, Toastburner exhaled a cloud of flame one of the slime dragons, causing the creature to harden and crack under the hot flame. It wasn't enough to kill it, though.

Man, it really does reek in here.

Growling, Toastburner swiped at the smile dragon he had baked, but in return to knocking a clump of dry smile, his claw came back burned. Great. Acidic. With no other choice, TB breathed fire once more, igniting the slime dragon...which than began to wail about the room.

I wonder how long it takes for these things to die.

[Mesden]

"Why slime dragons? Why not your regular fire breathing super dragon? Them I can handle. Nooooooo, it has to be the raunchy dragon. What am I supposed to do? Gag at it to death? Hold my nose till it gives up? Hitting it with my sword would screw me up in tons of ways. First I would get closer to the smell. Then my nice pretty sword would get gunk on it and the smell would never come out. Why slime dragons?" she thought to herself.
"You guys take this one." I said in a nose holding nasely voice.

[Aerozord]

The kitty walked up in front of them. "All I can really do is punch, they can't hurt me but I can't hurt them either." Within seconds he had transformed. "I can play defence, but if you need a decoy, well I can tick them off pretty bad"

[Mesden]

The kitty walked up in front of them. "All I can really do is punch, they can't hurt me but I can't hurt them either." Within seconds he had transformed. "I can play defence, but if you need a decoy, well I can tick them off pretty bad"
"Yeah. You go for that. We're backing you up all the way."

[Bailey]

Ilgivan pulled a large hardhat out of his bag. Atop the hardhat was a sign saying "all dragons suck ass"

"Catch!" He said, tossing it to Aerozord.

He began rummaging through his bag again, looking for some sort of stomach medice. After all, these things were acid, so...

After three socks, none of which matched, a bag of interesting pebbles, those damnable fusion earrings, a bowling ball, and an empty glass bottle, he found a large quantity of extremely spicy peppers.

"Eh, it's a base, it'll do to take care of the acid"

With that he began lobbing the peppers one by one into the slime dragons.

[mammothtank]

Seeing Kitty fall, MT quickly rushed to her aid... and gagged as the stench hit him as well. Holding his breath as best he could, he figured that dispatching the slime dragons as quickly as possible was the best way to go. As he looked around, he noticed a few others attacking the foul creatures with fire, and decided to follow suit. He drew a Red Fang from his bag and threw it in the general direction of the dragons. Mid-flight, the weapon exploded into lines of flame that traveled the floor and walls, roasting and scorching anything they touched.
In an effort to combat the stench, MT took off his headband, unfolded it, and covered his mouth and nose tightly. It helped only a little, but it was enough that he could breathe without feeling ill.

[GARUD]

Garud had waited at the bathroom, as he was going to be the last to leave. However, he was caught by a mod, and took a scolding for hanging around in a girls bathroom. Luckily, they decided not to touch his rep, and let the demon slayer off with a warning.

Proceeding down the passage, Garud saw the bodies of imps and bats, lying in contorted ositions, obviously dead. Fllowing a trail of destruction, he headed towards his comrades, and the sounds of battle. There was also an overpowering stench.

Stepping out, he saw what looked like colliod dragons. Colloid dragons made entirely out of mucus or something. Whatever the case, he decided to step in and help out his comrades. Swnging his staff like no tomorrow, he bashed through three spiders, and showered a fourth with ice shrapnel. Looking around he yelled "Is everyone alright?"

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

What Toasty had said was utterly incorrect. Slime dragons, were, in effect, not acid-based. In fact, if he were to look carefully, he would notice salt crystalizing upon the body part where he contacted the dustified Slime dragon. They were, in fact, an unholy combination of toxic acid AND base.

A fact that Newb did not catch on. Once the slime dragons realized that they were actually eyeless and any further visual assaults by Lumaes could be ignored deftly, they turned upon the bagged Newb and swallowed the peppers. There was a sickening sizzling noise as they absorbed the peppers into their slimy moulds.

One of them opened a gummy mouth, took a deep breath, and... exhaled.

The dragon's breath glowed like cartoony radiation, except for the fact that the very air molecules died in its advancing path. Parts of the fatal breath gas literally combusted into violet flame. The glowing cloud of fetid, noxious gas blew towards Newb.

~~

Rhiya plugged her nose with a wing and fought with her other, cleaving several Scavengers as they came close to SK.

What made it better, however, was a screaming slime dragon on fire that stumbled about blindly flailing at everything it touched, leaving a trail of hazardous fumes behind it. Some of this fume wafted towards Rhiya's direction.

Rhiya gagged once, stopped in her track of slashing down another Scavenger, and collapsed limply. One wing fwumped gently over SK, protecting her and hiding her from Scavenger eyes. She twitched once, then was still.

~~

Some of the spindly Scavengers approached Lumaes cautiously, before one leapt up to attack, sure that its natural immunity to magic and elements will protect it from the distorted organ's powers.

All of them were completely unaffected by Mammoth's fiery attack, but the Slime dragons milled about in nervousness.

[OOC: 3 Slime Dragons are ganging up on Newb, and there is still 7 bubbling around the place. 20 or so Scavengers are still around, and if you've defeated them all, the Cave imps and giant bats will move in to reclaim lost territory. RUSH RUSH RUSH!!! only not so much in postingness!!]

[Arhra]

Arhra hadn't played much of a part in the battle with the cave imps and bats. Creating and maintaining a dimensional portal for transporting what verged on a small army to a set of coordinates given by someone else was strenuous work. Fortunately no-one had come out the other side inside out or anything like that.

Normally he could only teleport to a place that he had been before, but thankfully Rhiya had sufficient details to allow the magical link between the two locations to form. It was fortunate that the point hadn't really come up, otherwise there might have been questions about how Arhra had teleported straight into the NPF girls' bathroom with such ease. Rhiya's butterflies hadn't come with coordinates after all.

Still, he had tried to regain his strength. Protecting himself from the imps and bats hadn't been too difficult - they'd all gone after the people making themselves large targets. Protecting himself from friendly fire had proven more taxing. Eventually, he'd encased himself in an impermeable sphere and rolled his way out.

Now there were slime beasts. Arhra knew how to deal with these though. Their sludgy, wet surrounds seemed to aid their healing. He summoned mana to him, baking the moisture out of the air and very ground. The slime draogn him front of him began to roar weakly as its surface blistered and cracked. Arhra exulted as he desiscated the area around him. This was power! His will made manifest on the fragile fabric of the -

Arhra jolted back in pain as a long talon-limb speared through him from behind. The large scavenger chittered as it slide another foot or so of it's bladed limb through him. Arhra felt blood welling up into his mouth as he stared dumbly at the blade protruding out of his chest. Everything began to fade to darkness.

The mage slumped lifelessly. The scavenger pried Arhra off its limb and then stabbed him again to make certain he was dead. Arhra very faintly began to glow...

[OmniShadow]

Just as suddenly as the horrid stench had overwhelmed some of the NPFers a hail of shadows in the shape of spears began to rain upon the spiders and slime dragons in front of Newb, the magic in the attack decimating the dragons attacks against Newb. From one of the many shadows in the cave what looked like a dark cloaked man appeared, two red glowing eyes could be seen under his hood, the rest was in complete darkness.

As the shadows that had rained at the monsters dispersed most of the spiders that had been hit seemed completely uninjured and some of the slime dragons had been scattered into piles of... slime. The man walked upp to the other forumites and when he reached the first of them pulled out a long sword from under his cloak and held it in a ready stance. "You seem to be in a little of a pinch, mind if I join in the fun?" OmniShadow said with his dark and echoing voice, although his tone revealed how excited he was about the fight.

OOC: He/I am a dark lord wannabe, if you have'nt figured it out yet :p

[Bailey]

Newb hurriedly pulled out objects from the bag.

essence launcher: laid to the side for later
potatoes: thrown off to the side
gas masks!

Newb began tossing gas masks of varying sizes and shapes to everbody.

When he was done, he picked up the essence launcher and began loading it with the fiery peppers.

[Melfice]

As Melfice woke up from unconciousness, he was just in time to see the demise of several spiders. Quickly realizing they were Scavengers, Melfice rolled aside to make sure he would not be caught in their death throes. "Ugh... nobody could have woken me up for this party? Melfice saw another dragon emerge from the cave, behind Newb. "NEWB! Behind you!" The swordsman cried out. Although he knew that a swordslash would be near to useless in these caves, he still had to delay the beast, before it would devour his ally.

Then it hit him, why only use one sword, if there are sexteen available... Melfice powered up for his Whispering Soul Slash, the newly named Wailing Soul Slash. "This, is my ultimate attack!" Wai... I mean, Whispering Soul Slash!" With that he devided into two, and lunged at the Slime Dragon. It connected, now there were four. Another hit, eight. Once more a hit, sixteen! Sixteen Melfice's attacking the monster from all directions, sent it flying straight up. When it descended once more, there was only one Melfice waiting. Waiting with his sword ready, to impale the beast. "And this is why you guys are no good." He taunted the rest of the beast there in the cave, not sure if they would understand it. However, it seemed the dragon was not cleaved in half by the attack. Instead, it was trying to drag the sword from his hands, with it's body! Besides that, the repugnant smell of it was bringing tears to Melfice's eyes. "Well, this be no good..."

The sword of Mod'ration began to glow, burning it's way out of the body. "Well, that's one worry less..." Melfice grabbed the gasmask tossed at him. "And that's the second worry. So, anybody got a brilliant plan to dispose of these guys quickly?"

[Inbred Chocobo]

"None that come to mind." IC had attracted the attention of a couple of slime dragons himself, and was now dealing with them. He had managed to yank the Wind Edge out of the first dragon he attacked, though he had to take a few seconds to shake the dragon off of it. The first dragon blew its breathe while the other one charged. IC charged the first one, jumping over it. As he was in the air, his landing spot now had a couple of the damn spider thingys there. He hurled the Wind Edge to clear it, cutting right through one and causing the other to roll off the side. Once he landed on the ground, he ran towards the dazed spider and kicked it into the slime dragon, watching it trying to claw its way out as it was sucked it and burned by the acid.

IC saw a gas mask flying towards his direction, in which he grabbed and put on quite fast. The thing was hard to breathe through, but it cut off enough of the smell he would be fine. Of course, this gave the dragons a chance to attack again, this time the first one charged and the second used its breathe attack. IC barely managed to dodge the charge, getting a little slime on the Wind Edge as he used it as a shield against the dragon. He jumped back to keep out of the glowing green gas. Smelling it would probably kill him, but being in it didn't look to healthy either. The other dragon charged him again, and IC leaped over it again. The other dragon now waited in his landing spot, releasing its breathe as IC flew into the gas. IC saw an opening for the dragon, its mouth wasn't dripping with slime, so he hurled his Wind Edge. As the breathe started coming out, the Wind Edge struck right up through the upper jaw, coming out on the top of the things head. IC landed, but the breathe he went through, while not the complete thing, seemed to have ripped the gas mask a new one, as IC could smell everything again. He yanked his Wind Edge out of the beast, and got into a defensive stance. He ripped his mask off as the smells that it seemed to have trapped were now leaking. That is one terrible stench. The thought running through IC's mind as he pulled it off.

The other dragon made its move then, and IC didn't dodge it quite fast enough this time. While the creature's attack missed, IC's left arm now covered in slime. "Ah fuck!" IC yelled out as he shook his arm, trying to shake off the slime. The wand IC had strapped to his arm activated and his left arm started to be covered in a black flame. What the flame was doing was what is normally the opposite of a regular one, it was starting to freeze the slime. His arm suddenly felt very cold, along with the burning sensation. As he shook his arm to get it off, pieces of slime ice started to go flying off, until it was all gone.

While all this was going on, IC had to worry about the damn dragon. It looked like it really didn't care what was happening to IC's arm, as it sent another breathe. IC jumped back, still shaking his arm, but now sending pieces of ice off. When the dragon charged, IC used his Wind Edge as a shield. It looked like IC was staying defensive until he could use his left arm properly.

[The Wizard Who Did It]

A new fighter had joined the NPF. He seemed to be that of a shadow, a figment, there and not there (Omnishadow). Usually such things were deadly and powerful in such places as caves. It probably wouldn't hurt to help him have a bit more power. The Wizard charged his magic, with black light shining off of him. He shot the spell at the shadow, and expected that it would know what to do with it. Of course, a giant glob of globness attacked him, but this was right after he had already jumped on the ceiling. Shooting an ice attack at it, the creature didn't seem to be affected.

Interesting, a slime dragon! And what about these fiends? Stink to high heaven, and in a moist habitat next to invincible.You know that's bullcrap, they just regenerate quickly.So I want to take some poetic-You guys were doing so well earlier today, want to break that streak?

So, if they operated well in a moist environment, one just had to make the area not so moist. Readying another spell, the Wizard shot a fireball at the slime dragon, it seemed to splatter a bit, and it's recovery wasn't as great a before. The Wizard instead started charging a big fire attack.

[Darth SS]

Darth had an idea that was most likely doomed to fail. He looked at the slime creatures circling around Newb and pulled a pair of grenades off of his load vest, and whipped them at one of the slime creatures. He sprinted after them, and tackled Newb, carrying him out of the way.

The grenades exploded. Unlike conventional frag grenades, one was a sonic resonator. It would determine the natural frequency of anything it was in, and then it would transmit at that frequency. The end result was that the slime dragon exploded, with the slime narrowly missing Darth and Newb. The second grenade was your standard smoke grenade. With an outflux of gas, the toxic mist was pushed aside.

Darth leapt off of Newb, and sprinted over to Rhiya, his Thompson spitting metallic death long enough to clear a space for himself to jump into the air, then come down and slap the ground. Warping like water, a wave flowed out of the point of impact and knocked aside all the enemies, though mostly just pissing them off. This gave him enough time to grab Rhiya.

"Rhiya's down! Run!"

He sprinted.

As soon as he was done, h

[Krylo]

Krylo, remembering what had happened the last time he had been called to fight to save the world, had actually not bothered even pulling his guns out yet, concentrating fully on defense, and, so far, he had been doing well. Bat shit, rocks, and spiders WERE easier to dodge and avoid--especially when you didn't seem threatening enough to attack in comparison to the others--than bullets, after all. And so he had just been walking along behind, weaving between attacks.

The stench, WAS about to make him vomit, however, and, when SS grabbed Rhiya and ran past the creatures, he decided it was the best idea he had heard all day. He still wasn't going to bother running, however. Especially seeming as he wasn't all that strong, and Silly Kitty and DarthSith were still passed out.

He slung the, thankfully, lightweight Silly Kitty over his shoulder and then grabbed DarthSith's hair, dragging the unconcious man (and hopefully causing him enough pain to wake him up), along the wall of the cave, attempting to maintain his low profile.

[OmniShadow]

Sensing the dark magic that shot at him OmniShadow turned to it and held out his hand with a open palm, absorbing it. "Ah... Just what I needed" OmniShadow said with a appreciating tone and for a moment he seemed to glow in a blackish light, then he unleashed the spells force into a dark chain lightning storm out from his very being, the black and crackling magic reduced a few of the slime dragons to nothing, but the lightning grew weaker the more they scattered. Strangely enough they did not seem to be even close at hitting any of the forumites.

[Mesden]

Nods in approval towards Newb for the masks and places mask on. Then infuses dragon with sword.
Suddenly the sword catches ablaze. But not a regular fire. It was white fire and the way the heat felt wasn't natural, but still damn hot.
"Out of the way!" she yelled as she charged and slashed at the closest dragon's neckish area. The sword was stuck at first, but incinerated the slime and pulled out easily. And she continued to hack at the dragon.

[Lumaes]

Lumaes grinned toothilly, then he frowned - the blind dragon's amorphous body already surging up, unnaffected by the spectacular use of pen and paper. Apparently, he would discover lately, his dramatic scene was an especially convenient coincidence, the dragon had tripped... How? probably best not to ask aye? Before Lumaes could wrap his brain around the particulars of the event the dragon disintergrates, falling into a pile not unlike jelly crystals at his tendrils.
Grinning Lumaes begins to squirm away, only to frown again as a sharp spike impales one of his tentacles, sticking it to the floor. Releasing a keening yell he dissapears under flailing chitenous limbs as he is rushed by Scavengers!

[mauve]

Mauve couldn't breathe. She had buried her nose and mouth in the crook of her elbow to try and block out the stench, but it still got through. It was literally sickening.

Her eyes were watering, too. Her vision was so blurred that she almost didn’t see the gas mask that Newb threw at her. She tripped over it, wiped her eyes, recognized it, lunged for it, pressed it to her mouth. For a moment she just stood there, gulping down air.

Melfice had asked her for help, earlier, but Mauve was hit by the foul stench before she could do anything. Now she pointed at him and let out a raspy cry of “Cure!” He probably didn’t NEED it now, but at least it was something.

She coughed. Sheez, the odor was even permeating the filter of the mask. She couldn’t stay here; there wasn’t much she could do if she couldn’t breathe. Securing the mask on her face, she ran off after Krylo.

A second later, she skidded to a halt. An arachnid-looking creature stepped into her path, apparently on its way to join the Lumaes attack. Mauve thought she had gotten past her fear of spiders many years ago. Well... Spiders, yes. Whatever the heck these leggy, toothy, creepy things were… no. Acting upon reflexes, she extended a hand.

“Thundaga!” she yelled. A bolt of lightning struck the creature on its head.

“Ha-HA!” Mauve said triumphantly. “Time to fry!” The creature blinked, unharmed. Oh, lovely. She had to run into something that was invulnerable to magic.

“Ha-HELL!” she corrected herself. “Time to run for my pathetic life!”

The creature lunged. Mauve dodged and picked up a small rock. She threw it. A second before it reached the scavenger, Mauve pointed a finger at it and yelled “FIRA!” The rock burst into flames before the creature’s eyes. Hoping this would blind the monster if only for a second, Mauve took off running down the tunnel.

[Toastburner B]

Yeah...Toast didn't really have time to care about the science behind how his claw got burned, he was too busy trying to make sure the rest of his body didn't end up in the same shape. The current slime dragon was putting up a better fight, which had a lot to do with the face that Toastburner couldn't see because of his watering eyes and couldn't breath fire in fear that he would vomit. Man! I thought the fast-food dumpster reeked! Toastburner thought to himself.

Finally, with the slime dragon slowly forcing him back into a corner, TB had no choice. Taking a deep breath (which also caused him to pass out right then and there), Toastburner hit the slimely beast with a stream of flame. The slime once more proved to be rather flamable. The creature crackled and hissed as the slime dried and burned in matter of seconds, and smoke, which was quite possibly even worst smelling than unburnt slime dragon, filled TB's lungs. Still, in his current form of a dragon, he could handle it, but he still hopped out of the cloud as fast as he could, coughing and gagging all the way.

Of course, his eyes were still watering which caused him to trip over the pile that was Lumeas being swarmed by Scavengers. TB howled as he landed on one of the spiked covered little beasties. With swat of his tail, he knocked a few of the Scavengers off of the clthulu...cthlu...the Lovecraftian NPFer.

"Hey, Lumeas, you alright?" TB asked.

[Krylo]

Krylo heard a scream from behind him and dropped DarthSith's head, allowing it to land, rather heavily, onto the stone. The gunman's hand slid into his coat and he rotated, firing off three low caliber rounds into the spider creature, which was blinking painfully from the flaming light.

It's carapace erupted open, splattering Mauve with sickly green and yellow entrails, as well as sending the creature's corpse into its death throes.

His deed done, Krylo slipped his gun back into his duster, grabbed DarthSith's hair, and started moving again, saying nothing as that he was still trying to avoid attracting too much attention.

[Truce]

Ecurt had done a lot of things off screen in the RP already, and they were only the second chapter into the story. However, it would have been better if this was one of those things.

First off, those Hamtaros he had made multiply? Well, apparently they joined together to form one super Hamtaro-just like the slimes in Dragon Quest 8. However, it had one hell of an appetite. The next thing he knew, it was chasing him around, saying that he looked like a one of those food pellets you'd find in hamster cages, in his panic forgetting that he could control beasts.

How he ended up in a cave though, he had no clue. He supposed that Asheth had probably created a portal in front of him into this place, which both he and the Hamtaro giant had run through, but he had no idea why she would send him here.

And then he saw why. Or rather, he smelled it.

Gagging, Ecurt actually tripped onto the ground. However, he managed to crawl to the side just in time as the giant hamster behind him did the same. A great big ball of fur rolled passed him, down the tunnel, and into where one of the slime dragons would be.

Now breathing through his mouth, he got up and looked around. First he saw Mauve. Then Darthsith. Then Krylo, who looked like he was trying to get away. Finally, he saw the giant spider right next to him which, while dead, began to hit him repeatedly for no apparent reason.

Somehow, I know Krylo's to blame for this.

[Bailey]

Ilgivan looked around. The mages were handling the slime dragons, but they were having trouble with the scavengers. Seeing that they were spidery, he assumed that their skeletons were external, and took appropriate measures. Out of his bag he pulled a large heavy clab, and began thwacking nearby scavengers with it.

[mammothtank]

"Okay, those stupid things are really bugging me." Coughing a little, MT drew both Silver weapons and started going a little nuts. He ran at the scavengers, lunging and slashing at as many as he could reach, not always checking to make sure they were dead.
One injured scavenger, in an attempt at revenge, leaped on MT's back and pulled off the headband that was tied around his head to cover his face. As it leaped off, MT shouted, "Hey, that's mine! I - eugh...." Having gotten used to the somewhat softened smell of the air through the headband, the full force of the stench was a little overwhelming. It was all he could do to sheathe his weapons and make a hasty retreat.
He fell to his knees a ways away, coughing. Looking up, he watched as one creature sprayed... "Yech. That's disgusting." ...all over Mauve. Reaching into his bag, he pulled out a Protect Cloak, and looked at it. "Well, I guess I don't really need it..." Doing his best not to gag, he approached Mauve and offered it to her to use either as a towel or to replace her own cloak, which no longer seemed sanitary enough to wear.

[Inbred Chocobo]

IC finally managed to shake off the slime, but his left arm felt burnt. He would have to be careful and not physically strain it. But the slime dragon he was dealing with was still a problem. It started to head in his direction again, and IC charged the dragon, only to leap over it the last second. While in Mid-air, he hurled the Wind Edge, slamming into the head region of the dragon. Once IC landed, he turned to see the damage, and started channeling a dark bolt again. The dragon had a hard time turning around, with that weapon sticking out out of its face, and when it looked towards IC, that dark bolt ripped through its face, finishing it off.

IC grabbed the Wind Edge, holding his breathe as he approached it, for the beast had left a very bad smell as its parting gift. Once he had the Wind Edge, he took a look around, to figure out all what was left in the cave, after of course getting the hell away from the dragon. He saw quite a few spiders going to where everyone came from. So IC assumed they were after some guys that needed to retreat. IC hurled the Wind Edge taking out one, and ran towards the spiders, trying to avoid being hit by whatever was left in the cave.

The prolonged exposure to the stench must have started to finally get to him. His nose started to feel like it was burning, and his vision almost seemed blurry. He focused and tried to shake it off, but to no avail. So he started taking care of spiders now, before things got worse for him. He yanked his Wind Edge, and went into melee, normally cutting the damned things in half with a single swing. Though on the last one his missed. When the spider tried to counterattack, IC knocked the thing aside with his free hand, causing a sharp pain to go down it. He hurled the Wind Edge and finished the thing off, then took a seat to see if he could overcome this.

[Arhra]

The glow about Arhra's corpse had been steadily building over the past minute or so. It suddenly flared, a glow form within seeming to how up his bones and the blood vessels as deeper shadows before an explosion erupted from him. It was a blinding white-blue ball of light, narrow beams randomly strobing out of it and scorching whatever they touched. A slime dragon was badly scorched by the rays and the lighter scavengers nearby knocked back but not very injured due to the blast's mainly magical nature.

They rolled to their feet as it began to subside, clicking to each other as they advanced cautiously at this new attack.

Out of the heart of the blast, something leapt out, a dark blot that eclipsed the dying sphere of light behind it. A flash of light off a blade sparked for a second in the gloom as the dark shadow flitted past a scavenger. It was the one and same that had killed Arhra. The creature screeched as it collapsed, severed limbs twitched and leaking the thing's weird blood.

The light from the blast flickered out. The blot of deeper darkness leapt back as the other scavengers knocked back by the blast advanced at it. Cloaked and cowled, it spoke, "I am not finished so easily. In the instant of my destruction, I am reborn." Though the pitch had shifted, the tone was Arhra's. The scavengers attacked.

[OmniShadow]

Laughing rather insanely at the power outburst he had just experienced from Twiddy's spell OmniShadow did not notice as one of the scavengers walked up to him on its thin spidery legs. His laughter was silenced the moment the scavanger pierced his cloak with its sharp leg. However he did not seem to actualy have been hurt by it, although his cloak had gotten a bit torn. He turned at the creature and swung his large blade at it, the moment the dark edge pierced the shell of the scavanger it seemed to implode upon itself and dark rays shot out from under its shell before it collapsed in a unrecognizable heap.

"Damn critters, now I have to get it repaired again." he muttered to himself. All of a sudden a bright light seemed to emit from an area to the left of him, he turned and to his horror a blast of light was about to be released from Arhra's corpse. A moment later when the light exploded a scream of pain could be heard echoing through the cave and when the light faded the only thing that was left of OmniShadow was the black blade that had stuck with its point down into the twisted heap of the scavanger. However it glowed with a strange black light and any scavanger or slime dragon that came close to it was incinerated.

OOC: Well there was the first time I got scattered... Time to start building a pussle :P EDIT: Oh yeh, I would advice not touching the blade at the moment, it would burn terribly ;)

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

OOC: Omnishadow. Second warning. You can kill Scavengers with physical force, but the elemental/magical forces are useless against them. Stop doing it.

IC:

Rhiya's head lolled limply over Darth SS's shoulder. He was concentrating more on getting out rather than noticing the things around him.

Above him, circular, golden hoops materialized. They slid down consequtively (sp?) and dropped a disoriented, New Rhiya right on top of Darth.

Rhiya wondered briefly why the heck she was holding a Plasma rifle and a Halo rifle, before realizing she was squashing somebody beneath her.

"Ohmigosh! Sorry Darth!" she squeaked as she clambered off him. Then she gagged again, the smell hitting her like a physical wave. "Now I remember why I died..."

She turned around, and held the trigger down on the plasma rifle. The green glow attracted the attention of a few scavengers, and they rapidly scuttled forward, clicking madly. At the last moment, Rhiya released the trigger and a green, plasma bolt streaked away from her and knocked back two scavengers. She threw the plasma rifle away then, because it burned after being overloaded, and sprayed two more of the scavengers down with bullets, before tossing that gun also to one side as well.

Reorienting on her position she yelled at the top of her voice, "GUYS! LET'S GET MOVING! THIS WAY! Darth, keep moving. You're going in the right direction. Get them to follow you until the tunnels split. I'll hold my position until the last of you run past me."

[Aerozord]

He walks up to Rhiya. Then stands next to her. "I suggest I help you defend, and that you go first. I am indestructable, your not"

[GARUD]

"You heard the woman... move it!"

Garud ran to the tunnel, and noticed a Scavenger jump down in-front of him. Garud decided to put his shadow magic to good use and fired a dark ball of energy. The ball made contact...and fizzled. The sorceror fired more and more but they didn't faze it at all.

"Magic doesen't affect this thing at all... unless..."

Garud materialised a sharp piece of ice, and pierced it's hard carpace. The thing flailed, trying to remove the foreign object from it's body. It finally collapsed in a heap.

The sorceror stood next to the exit, trying to get everyone to go through. Hurry up dammit!

[mammothtank]

Hearing Rhiya's call, MT sprang into action. "Hate to do this to you again, Mauve, but we really have to get moving, and I can run faster!" He wrapped the Protect Cloak around her, lifted her up, and bolted toward the tunnel Rhiya had just indicated, his stomach churning uncomfortably. "The sooner we get away from this smell, the better," he groaned.

[Bailey]

Ilgivan looked around at the fleeing people and dropped the club.

There was no way he would be able to run fast enough in these heavy boots, but...

He reached into the bag and pulled out a pair of roller blade covers that clipped onto the bottom of his ski boots, and began skating to catch up. As he skated, he reached into the bag and pulled out a pair of reinforced ski poles with enchanted tips and zipped the bag back up.

He was at the intersection in no time, and waited for the others to arrive.

[The Wizard Who Did It]

The Wizard did not like this fight. As he released a Pheonix Flame on the Slime Dragon, he realized the futility in continuing. The dragons were fighting in their element, adn such were very dangerous. The spider type things were immune to spells. The only thing that kept him going was the fact that, really, if you get enough NPF together, you can't lose. Their skills are just too varied and too complementary. However, things were still going bad. Mestizio vanished, Omnishadow kept failing at attacking the spiders, and many of the other NPF were scattering. Noticing a spider running away from the fight, the Wizard came down and stabbed the poor bugger. Afterwords, he looked where it was going, and stopped dead.

The Pink-Clad Monster. The Beast. She was still here. Back pedaling, he ran into a spider. His arms were flailing, so he still cut off the thing's claws. As he continued to back pedal, a scream from Rhiya yelled out, "GUYS. LET'S GET MOVING! THIS WAY!"

Looking around for her, he turned around and noticed a slime monster sneaking up from behind. He reached for his gun which he just couldn't find. Then he remembered that he never had a gun in the first place, as the monster breathed putrid breath. But by that time the Wizard was already clinging to the ceiling. Noticing Rhiya running toward a tunnel, the Wizard quickly catched up to her.

"I'll explore ahead."

With that, the Wizard ran down the cave almost as fast as he could.

[mauve]

“AGAIN WITH THIS CRUEL JOKE?!” Mauve yelled angrily to the fates. In their last adventure, Mauve always seemed to be right in the way of Krylo’s flying carnage. It would appear that this running joke was set to continue in rescue mission number two. If it wasn’t for the fact that Krylo was one of the few individuals who could tear her limb from limb and THEN ban her, without batting an eye, she would have burned the back of his head off. (What? It would’ve grown back!) But, seeing as how he saved her life, and seeing as how she was definitely mortal and he was not, she refrained.

Instead, she squirmed out of Mammothtank’s grasp.

“Thanks, Mammoth,” she said. “But you don’t have to get this stuff all over you, too.” She started running alongside him.

“Elemental Absorb!” she said, casting a spell upon herself. As soon as she was certain the spell had taken effect, she raised a hand and pointed at herself. “Firaga!” It was a stupid way to get the job done, but she didn’t feel like stopping to change clothes or keep running covered in spider goo. The fire burned away the mess without harming Mauve. Grumbling to herself, (something along the lines of “I can’t believe I actually wasted magic on that…” only with a few more obscenities) she brushed the ashes off of her robe.

“Hey!” she called, coughing as the ash blew into her face. “Where are we headed?”

[Truce]

When the scavenger above his head finally died, Ecurt managed to pull himself up. However, after having his skull knocked around by a dozen different leg spikes, it wasn't surprising that he was a little off balance.

Trying to walk, he found himself having a hard time to keep from falling again, though he couldn't help but think "At least that Hamtaro Giant is further down the cave, away from me". And then he remembered that was exactly where he was supposed to be, and the fact that there were still the monsters here in his way.

"Aww...honey nuggets."

Taking a deep breath, he thought about what he should do. Then he decided to screw it and make a run to everybody else. Surprisingly, he didn't meet any obstacles, and decided that maybe his luck was changing.

Not a chance.

When he finally thought he was in the clear, Ecurt turned around the corner and ran into none other than Garud. "You know, I shouldn't be rude since you saved me way back when in the stables...but what the hell are you just standing around for?!"

[GARUD]

I'm getting everyone inside, and also providing cover fire for the people still out here... and aiming for Melfice secretly.

Garud shot shrapnel at scavengers that were appraoching the cave. They got impaled and were sent flailing madly.

"Look, Ecurt. Don't just stand there, do something. Either get in there or help me support Aerozord and Rhyia."

The demon slayer sniffed the air around him.

"What smells fishy?"

[Arhra]

Newly rejuvenated, Arhra swiftly through the melee and into the tunnel Rhiya stood at the head of. This new incarnation of Arhra was quite agile, vaulting over one of the lumbering slime dragons with ease.

While waiting with the others who had already moved ahead while Rhiya guarded the rear, Arhra took off the cowled black cloak - despite the short period of time it had been worn for, it already had blood and slime all over it - and then suddenly was on the receiving end of a number of odd looks. "What is it?" Arhra asked with exasperation.

It wasn't that this new incarnation was hideous. Quite the opposite in fact. Blank stares were exchanged for a few moments and then the penny dropped. Arhra sighed, "Yes, the reincarnation process can revive me as either gender." Her shoulders slumped a little, "Why is it no-one even blinks an eye when a penguin reincarnates into a dragon but they're stunned over something like this?"

It certainly wasn't that much of a change compared to something like penguin to dragon. Arhra had simply revived as a shapely female warrior, with definite ninja overtones. She looked at the others blandly, "Anyway, shouldn't we be getting ready to move on?"

[Bailey]

Ilgivan glanced over at Arhra.

"What's that? Oh, well, not too surprising. When you're dealing with a being you know to be chaotic not much is too much of a shock. So, which direction is everybody going?"

((I suggest we group up based on times we generally frequent the forum))

[Melfice]

Melfice, barely dodging the bullets fired by Garud "That bastard, next moment we meet, he's getting some can of whoop-ass...", catched up on the group. "So, how many enemies have we exactly beaten yet, and how many have we run from... I'm tired of running from monsters which should be below me on the foodchain. DAMN IT! If only Valmar was powering my body, we wouldn't have this problem." Melfice exclaimed frustrated. Then he glanced over to Arhra's direction. "So, who's the beauty standing next to you guys?" Melfice said after a moment of thinking, unaware of the woman being Arhra.

Melfice looked at the predicament they were now in. An intersection. Replying to Ilgivan's question, Melfice said "I don't care where we're going, as long as we go with a plan. Seriously, guys, I'm not a teamplayer, so it's bad if I have to suggest we follow a strategy..." Melfice looked around, trying to figure out how to best carry on, however it did not seem likely having the entire group join up would be a good plan. "People, I suggest we split up. This group is way too big. Although there could be a plan made for the entire group, it would become too chaotic to maintain. However, as I do not have the full capabilities of everybody, and especially not who would supplement eachother's powers, I suggest also that somebody else does the splitting up of the group."

With that, Melfice retreated to a quiet corner of the cave to tend to his armour and eventual wounds he may or may not have received. As far as there are any corners in a round cave, that is.

[Inbred Chocobo]

IC, still trying to recover, saw Omnishadow's blade just sitting there. He thought it was nothing important, but the wand next to his left hand didn't. He looked down and saw his arm just incased with dark flames. Not only that, but he could feel the urge to weild that blade. So IC ran and hurled his Wind Edge at surrounding spiders, tearing them to peices. He grabbed the blade with his left hand, and felt like a connection had been made. He yanked the blade out and ran past Rhiya, focused on the blade in hand.

[Arhra]

It came out of nowhere, the large hammer slamming into Melfice. Arhra stood there, grasping its long haft firmly in both hands and glaring at Melfice. "I'm Arhra you fool." she said, anger, frustration and a touch of embarrassment colouring her voice.

Heading off the obvious question about where the hammer had come from, she hefted the hammer and continued, "I'm female now remember. I don't quite understand the details myself, although involves something called Hammerspace I think." She lowered the hammer and gave Melfice another glance.

The moment over, Arhra turned away and sauntered over to one of the few non-slimy patches of wall. She propped the hammer against it and then leaned back on the cave wall, considering her current situation. She grabbed a handful of her auburn hair and watched it slide through her grasp, musing to herself, "Its been quite a while since I was last a redhead..."

[OmniShadow]

Darkness... All was dark, there was no light, not even a shadow. In this non-existant place OmniShadows mind had retreated the moment his materialized body had been scattered by the sudden blast of light, if he had been prepared he could have protected himself. But he simply had not had the time, as well as the place had been dark alredy which gave the sudden light a stronger effect on his body. Even though he had no trouble of seeing in the dark as if it was day he could never grasp the surroundings of the place which he, or atleast part of him, escaped to when he was scattered.

His only guess as to what it was would be the void, of which he was both the master and the slave. Knowing that returning imidately would just result in being dragged back again he waited to regain some of his power before he started re-building his broken body. Taking the sword would be the first thing he would do once he had "escaped" the place. 'Damn its lonely in here...' He thought shortly after thinking through what he should do. He started gathering the darkness from the empty space onto himself, and slowly his new manifestation became complete.

[Toastburner B]

At the word of retreat, Toastburner once more took to the air. Toxic smoke stung his eyes and made him wish he hadn't had eggs for breakfast, but he managed to hold it in.

He made it over the mass of baddies before he couldn't take it anymore. He hit the ground hard, taking a breath of (purely relatively) clean air. He looked up, and saw GARUD and Ecurt.

"Shouldn't you be, well, you know...running?" Toastburner asked as he climbed to his feet. Following his own advice, he hoofed it down the cave, following the others.

[mauve]

"Splitting up might be a good idea," Mauve agreed with Melfice, "As long as Rhiya thinks it's okay. I mean, she knows this place better than any of us. But if we're truly lost here, I think we've got better chances of finding something if we're not all lumped together on one lost group."

She slowed from running to a jog, pausing to regain her breath. She wasn't a sprinter, after all.

"I mean," she said, breathing heavily. "Do any of us really know where we're going, or are we just randomly running away from danger?"

[Sithdarth]

Just then Sith, or Darthsith as people seem intent on calling him now, awoke. A lesser man would haver cried out in pain. A lesser man may have perhapse cried silently to himself. Sith was not a man of such low caliber; instead he let out the most earsplitting girlish shriek anyone had ever heard. It was so high pitched and girlish that his first scream during the bat encounter sounded down right manly in comparison. He also happened to jump to his feet ripping out a small clump of hair in the process leaving it in Krylo's hand.

"What in the hell happened to me," he continued in a very harsh, and definetly not manly screach.

[Darth SS]

Darth, now complete with a minor concussion, continued to run his ass off.

[Krylo]

Krylo looked down at the tuft of hair in his hand and quickly shook it away before responding to DarthSith's question while wiping the grease off on his pant leg. "You passed out like a little girl at the scent of slime dragon, so I dragged you along out of there... then you screamed like a little girl again. The others are further along that way, I suggest running," Krylo finished, as he pointed with his de-hair-grease-ified hand before firing a few rounds into a couple of nearby scavengers and then taking off as well. With the weight of SK and Darth weighing him down, he had just barely reached the edge of the chamber with the scavengers when the others had decided to flee, and, now that there was no one but those three in the room, the dragons and scavengers were moving to attack the new tasties.

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

The first of the large team arrived at a split in the tunnel.

Three splits to be exact.

As the clicking and the gut-wrenching smell faded away, the NPFers were posed with another problem: all three tunnels led down. All looked the same. All smelled of the sea.

There was running, staggering footsteps behind those that arrived first, and the Rhiya, Aerozord and Newb came into sight.
"...I... Think.... We... Lost.... Them..." Rhiya panted as they skidded to a stop, before looking up.

"... oh... dear... Ummm... Umm... splitupintothreegroupsquick... we'vewastedenoughtimealready..." Rhiya leaned against the wall, catching her breath. There was definitely some crystalized salt caking part of her wing, and her hair looked mussed up. Even some feathers were sticking the wrong way around. Aerozord and Newb didn't look better either, but they didn't pant as much.

"I swear... I need to exercise more," Rhiya said weakly before pushing off the wall, "Alright, I think... that after this split... only one of us'll get the right place to help Poseidon. I can't remember where the other tunnels lead about, so umm..."

Rhiya raised her finger and looked like she was counting the tunnels. Under her breath, she muttered 'eeny meeny miney moe...."

After a little bit of this, she staggered down the middle tunnel, leaving the others to organise into groups, or follow her.

[Bailey]

Newb Ilgivan looked at the three corridors, and pulled an oddly shaped rubber object out of his bag. He stood at a distance near the middle and tossed it into the air, then stepped back. The odd piece of rubber hit the ground and bounced towards the left tunnel, ending up bouncing off the walls following the slope downwards.

"I'll be taking the left path I guess." (EST)

Ilgivan strode forwards and stood at the mouth of the left tunnel, ready to follow down whoever else was going.

[Aerozord]

Aero transformed back to his kitty form and jumped on Rhiya. On her shoulder to be exact. For a moment his head looked around them. "Well someone needs to protect you while you recover. Can't very well let you get hurt now."

[Raiden]

Raiden looked up. While during a lull in the battle a bit back, he had decided to pull out a book and catch up on his reading. He had gotten so enthralled in the story that he completely missed the group moving on. Which meant he was still in the bat cave with no one around.

"Well...damn."

Raiden nodded, and Raiju jumped off his shoulder. In a quick flash, the creature turned into a badger. With it's keen nose, it began to sniff out the location of the others. The thunder god managed to catch up with them right when they reached the split in the tunnels. Rhiya was going center, Newb went left, so that left...

"I'll go right, then. After all, Right usually means correct, so it's a good guess."

Raiden began to head down the right tunnel, his left fist filling with electricity in case he was ambushed.

[mauve]

Mauve's gaze flicked between the three tunnels.

"For the love of all that is sacred," she muttered to herself. "It's like Moria all over again, sans Legolas. I swear, if we run into ONE balrog or ONE Smeagol-wannabe I'm going to scream."

All three tunnels looked the same to her. There was a one-in-three chance that she'd pick the right way. Crappy odds, as per usual. With her luck, it might be better to let someone else choose the road.

"Y'know, I think you're on to something there, Raiden," she said. "Right is right as far as I'm concerned." She shoved her hands in her pockets and followed the thunder god.

[Inbred Chocobo]

"I'll make sure Newb doesn't get killed down there." IC said, holding the blade to his side. He made one last glance at the toher tunnels, then went down the left one in a swift walk.

[Toastburner B]

TB automatically decided not to go down the middle tunnel. After all...Rhiya had already proven willing to inflect death upon his person, and he didn't want to see if once had gotten it out of her system.

So...left and right remained. Inbred and Newb had already gone left, and Raiden had gone right. Again, he was torn. While two people had already gone right, Raiden was much more capable of killing TB just for laughs and misunderstandings about lawsuits and such.

So, Toastburner got out his decision making coin, and flipped it. He looked at the result, and slightly grimanced.

"I'll go to the right with Raiden...make sure he doesn't step in a puddle or something like that." TB muttered in his draconic voice, as he trotted down the cave to catch up with Raiden.

[Truce]

After ignoring Garud's fishy comment, Ecurt had arrived at the paths just as people were taking them. Without a word, he shrugged and walked into the left one, knowing that trouble and chaos would only be found in the other two paths. Some would call it a sixth sense, while Ecurt called it "Knowing your Teammates".

And frankly, Newb and IC were much less likely to kill him than the other two groups.

[Darth SS]

Darth reloaded his Thompson and followed after Raiden. When venturing into hostile unknown territories, it is best to stick with the god.

[Melfice]

After tending to his armour, the scratches on his body, and the large bump the hammer made, Melfice was in doubt over where he would go. On one hand he could follow Raiden, and be protected by a god. On the other hand he could follow Rhiya, who sort of knows the way. Then again, he could also follow Newb, but he couldn't think of an advantage of that. Luckily he carried a d6 on him, and decided to let fate decide.

1 and 2: He'd go with Newb.
3 and 4: He'd go with Rhiya.
5 and 6: He'd go with Raiden.

Melfice rolled a 4. "Hey! Rhiya, wait up. I'm going with you guys." And the swordsman walked off with that. Into the dark tunnel. Into... destiny! Dun dun dun...

[GARUD]

Garud was riddled with indecision.All the paths would be secure, because of the NPFer's that were going down it. They were all capable fighters. He didn't have any idea of where to go, and where he would be needed most until...

Holding his staff above his head in two hands he charged down the middle and yelled,

"I got him now!"

[Arhra]

Arhra sighed again. She seemed to be doing that a lot lately. Decisions, decisons. There wasn't really much to differentiate the tunnels. From appearances, one way was really as good as any. On the other hand, Rhiya's hunches were generally pretty good and some of the others had caused serious amounts of friendly fire so far...

Arhra looked at the middle tunnel. There was something that made her think of red and she had red hair right now. It was the last half-way decent reason she needed. She ran in.

[OmniShadow]

OmniShadow made a sounless sigh as he was done gathering the remaining pieces of his old body togheter and fusing them with the voids darkness. 'Finally done, although I have a feeling I will get rather good at this after all this is over with...' He sighed again as he thought this. If someone had been with him in the darkness of the void the only thing they could have seen as him was a spot of even darker darkness, then it seemed to be engulfed by an even darker shadow and disappear. He opened his eyes, he was inside the cave where his body had disipated, not far from the actual spot where it had happened. While striding over the ground soundlessly he gathered the shreds of dark energy that he had left behind and was able to make his body more manifest.

Although even though he searched for quite a logn time he could not find his sword. 'Damn it, where did it disappear to... Its not like it would walk away by itself...' He thought before he turned around and noticed the horde of scavangers and slime dragons heading back through the tunnels. "Well I did think it was to empty" He said with a invisible grin as he started firing off blasts of dark energy at the closest ones. When they started hitting the scavangers they were just pushed back a few inches, but otherwise unscathed. "What the? Its not working? Well how about this then!" He yelled as he shot a powerfull blast straight up into the cave cieling, causing a large part of it to fall down and crush the scavangers and slime dragons under it, of course there were still to many left for him to handle. 'Time to retreat' He thought as he changed into a less physicaly manifest form, and dashed like crazy through the horde of spiders and dragons.

After finally comming through he had lost his right arm, he had a large burning wound in his side from one of the slime dragons and a large portion of his neck was missing. "Ouch..." Was all he could say as he stumbled down the path, finally ending up in a three path crossroad. Thats when he felt the swords energy, as well as another item of dark power, resonating with it. 'I just wonder who took it, normaly no one but the one the sword accepted would be able to wield it.' He thought as he headed down the left tunel, regaining strength as he moved and gathering the darkness to him.

[Toastburner B]

Toastburner heard steps behind him, and noticed that Darth SS had followed Raiden as well.

Oh dear Creator! TB muttered to himself. I was probably safer following Rhiya.

Still...it was far too late to change tunnels now. Raiden and Darth were good fighters, and as long as they decided to kill baddies, Toastburner figured he would be relatively safe.

(OOC: For those of you wondering why some people are posting in color, you may want to check you the Discussion Thread (http://forum.nuklearpower.com/showpost.php?p=354901&postcount=46))

[mauve]

Mauve looked her party over critically. A dragon. A thunder god. A sith lord. Herself.

She was the most pathetic-looking member of the group, she noted with a wry smile. She was the Barbie doll among GI Joes. But at least she'd be pretty safe in this party.

Well, unless Raiden went into a God's Rage and killed them all. Or unless Toastburner sneezed. Or unless Darth got pissed off and shot her. Or unless Raiden got wet. Or unless Mauve did something incredibly stupid and killed herself. But y'know, other than that...

[Bailey]

"So what do you guys do again? I pull stuff out of my bag. It's usually useful, but there are a few annoying things that pop up. And if I'm going to be in the front, I think I'll need a shield of some sort."

Ilgivan began rummaging through his bag, pulling items out and leaving them by the side.

A ribbon.

A knife that would not cut anything except wood, which it would slice right through as though the wood were butter.

An odd beeping device which rolled down the tunnel and out of sight.

A large shield was pulled out, and Newb slung it to his back where he could swing it around to the front again quickly.

[mammothtank]

Having spent the past few minutes re-sorting his inventory, mammothtank had no clue who had taken which path. "Crap. Guess I'll have to just pick one." He looked down one tunnel, then another, then the last, each as dark and forbidding as the other two. Scratching his head, he made his decision on a whim. "Umm... left it is! Okay then," he announced to no one in particular before charging down the left path.

MT skidded to a stop after finally catching up with the team, which appeared to consist of Newb, Inbred, Ecurt, and OmniShadow. As he looked around at them, he noticed something on the ground next to Newb. "Hey, is that a Ribbon? As in, the kind of Ribbon that prevents status ailments?" He picked it up. "Can I have it?"

[Bailey]

"Go ahead, I'm not using it. Take the knife too if you want."

[Inbred Chocobo]

Inbred noticed Omnishadow coming down. He remembered that the sword he held happened to be Omnishadow's, and decided to toss him his blade. "Here, catch." He shouted at Omnishadow and tossed the blade. As he tossed it, he felt the black fire on his hand try to keep his hand shut, though it was easily broken. IC glanced at his arm for a second, then decided not to worry about it. "So guys, are we going to keep talking, or head down?"

[The Wizard Who Did It]

The Wizard waited by the tunnel entrances to see what would go in each pathway. Mauve and Riaden went in the same way. This caused a conflict.

Obviously, you should follow them. Why, the Pink Killer is down that way? But Raiden is also dwon that way. A God. What is up with you guys and Goddom? Didn't you listen to Mammothtank and Raiden, it's more trouble than it's worth. True, but it also the answer to our problem. Being a God doesn't solve everything. It will solve this. Your problem isn't invincibility, but self-control. H- Guys, can you stop arguing? Just follow the God. And the Mauve Sorceress is down that way. Why would I want to go to probable doom? You don't even know if she's stil holding a grudge! I would like to ensure my survival. Being hurt by her can't be worse than the Punishment, can it? No... it can't.

Funny how sometimes when one asks a question that implies the answer, giving that answer can sometimes be more devastating than any other. He was expecting me to think... to be speechless. Now he will shut up for a while. The Wizard decided that he might as well follow the guide, and he took the center path.

[mammothtank]

"Thanks! I needed a replacement for my headband..." He quickly tied the Ribbon around his head. Though he looked patently ridiculous wearing a big red bow in his hair, MT didn't mind; its magical protection was all that mattered. He also pocketed the odd knife Newb handed to him.
"Yeah, moving on sounds like a good idea; the sooner we know whether or not this is the right path, the sooner we know how to advance. Some better light would help, though. Hey!" Struck by a sudden thought, MT rummaged through his item bag and pulled out a strange-looking axe. In the dim light, it seemed to cast a bright glow over a radius of about ten feet. "Whoever decides to take the lead can have this Light Axe," he offered.

[OmniShadow]

When he caught up with the group h noted the void blade in Inbreds hand, and while he wanted it back right away he kept his desire for the blade down for a while while he tried to figure out the black flame around Inbreds hand and why he could hold it at all. But when Inbred noticed him he tossed him the blade, although something about the fire emveloped his hand felt like it did not want it. 'Weird... Never heard about anything like this' He thought as he grabed the blades hilt as it came at him, the moment the sword was in his hands he seemed to fully come back into existance as his body took a fully humanoid shape. "Thank you for carrying it for me while I was gone, and if I happen to disappear again you are of course free to use it until I need it again." He said as he bowed for Inbred. Then he put the sword back within his mantle/coat (Something of both I think) and looked at MT with his ribbon on. "You know, people can assume things if you wear something like that. And keep that axe away from me..." He added as he gestured towards the axe in MT's hands.

[Bailey]

Newb began rummaging through his bag again, and pulled out a shard of reverse wood. He reached into the bag trying to pull out matches and ended up with a water bottle.

"Good. It's working. Here, take this. See if it lets you handle being near the axe."

Newb handed the shard of reverse wood to OmniShadow.

Reverse wood would reverse things, but the exact results were difficult to predict. Hopefully this would change OmniShadow's element from dark to light, allowing him to handle the presence of the light axe, or perhaps even causing him to shine brilliantly himself.

[Truce]

Ecurt snatched the light axe from MT since nobody else was doing anything. "Pansies," he said, before beginning to make his way down the tunnel, leading the way. "I'm going to leave you guys behind if you just stay there, you know."

And, honestly, that was he completely intended to do. However, he didn't go far until he found an odd little beeping device, and looked down at it. However, he then shrugged after a moment and began running down the tunnel, the guitar held high above his head to provide him light.

Hey...MT didn't say what kind of axe it was.

[mammothtank]

"Huh? He-hey, wait up!" MT ran and stumbled to catch up with Ecurt, who seemed to be trying to take off on his own. Besides the fact that he hated being left behind, he couldn't let Ecurt get away - the guy had his guitar. "I still don't remember where I found that glowing guitar..." MT said to himself as he finally reached the aura of light surrounding the axe. "Slow down, willya?! The others are still behind us!"

[Truce]

Ecurt slowed down little by little until MT finally caught up to him. Stopping, he turned around, resting the axe on his shoulder. "Well, it's your fault for not bringing a big drill vehicle instead of an admittedly cool guitar. I know tanks are your thing, but why couldn't we have just done it done it like the book and drilled to the center of the Earth? AND WHERE'S MY HAMSTER?!"

[Bailey]

Not stopping to see if the reverse wood had had the desired effect, Newb tilted his feet so that he rolled down the incline to where MT and Ecurt were. He swerved to a stop just below them in the hallway. "So are we continuing?"

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

[OOC: sorry, i'm getting a bit slack.]

[TEAM 1, LEFT TUNNEL]

While the NPFers got bored and even more bored travelling in this tunnel, the hours ticked by. And everybody knows what would happen when NPFers get bored: things start happening. Bad things.

And didn't they pass that same rock formation three times already? Oh dear.

When the NPFers search for the way back, they cannot find it! What was worse, the smell has started to come back again. The Slime Dragons are BACK.

[only 3 this time. Eliminate them, and you'll break the trap enchantment and end up with Team Yellow]

~~~~~~~~~~~~

[TEAM 2, MIDDLE TUNNEL]

"...I know I've forgotten something," Rhiya said after her sanity came back again. She looked around, confused then said to nobody in particular, "... I've taken the booby-trapped middle tunnel out of confusion, didn't I-- ARGHOH@@%@#&!"

The origin of the loud and abusive cry was apparently the newly-collapsed tunnel behind them that smashed down on one of Rhiya's wings. Extracting it carefully, she smoothed out her feathers and sighed. The way back was completely blocked.

"Righto... from what I remember, this will take us about two hours to navigate... Or maybe more if I get it wrong... In fact, the map that Raiden burnt had all the traps marked out should I ever stumble into this tunnel! Well guys," she turned to the few that had followed her, "at the end of this tunnel (riddled with any kind of traps you can think of and more) we'll be able to join up with the right tunnel... Jeeze, I hope nobody went down the left tunnel. That place ends up somewhere smelly..."

~~~~~~~

[TEAM 3, RIGHT TUNNEL]

The only team on the right track, the NPFers that went down this tunnel soon came to a place where the tunnel widened into a massive underground cavern. At the far end, there was a shimmering blue pool that seemed to glow faintly.

However, before they could advance any further, 15 pale, tall, lithe creatres appeared, eyes glowing golden. (http://forum.nuklearpower.com/showpost.php?p=355698&postcount=55)
"What do we have here, eh?" one of them said, eyeing the motley group over with a lazy grin.

"Intrudersssss," another hissed menacingly.

"You all know what to do then. Attack! FOR LORD WILLIAM!"
Thus, started from the lamest battlecry ever, was a vicious battle against the strange-looking men.

[OOC: once you've gotten them down to 3, they will summon the Leviathan. (http://forum.nuklearpower.com/showpost.php?p=355698&postcount=55)

Then they will withdraw into the water.]

[Bailey]

"Look, I'm just saying," Ilgivan was explaining to the group at large, for the fifth time, "that something weird is going on here with spacetime. If you'll look to the left, you will see a half-eaten tub of ice cream that I passed around a while back. To your right, you will see the large bladed whirling object of doom that I used to shave with. Up ahead a little, you will see the monopoly game that I beat Ecurt over the head with to illustrate the fact that I was bored. I don't know how it's possible when we're going downhill and we haven't gone up at all, but we're going in circles. And what is that SMELL!?" Newb began handing out more gas masks as the slimes arrived.

[OmniShadow]

OmniShadow accepted the piece of wood and started inspecting it. "Now what is this? A ordinary piece of wood? Weird, why would he hand me something like this..." He muttered silently to himself as he stood and tried to figure out if there was something special about it. A short while after Newb had left to catch up with the rest he was about to throw it away, thinking it a normal peice of wood, when suddenly he was emveloped in a huge flash of light. 'Shit, now Im screwed again...' He thought, but when he opened his eyes again it was still the cave. Although it seemed a lot brighter, to bright, he would normaly feel pain from being in such a bright place while surrounded by such darkness.

Then he looked at his hand, which gave him a shock. His hand was shining white, and the spiked black armour was now a elegant silver plate armour, something a paladin could wear. His cloak had also changed, while having the same shape it was shining brightly and was now white, the darkness that covered his face, if he had one, was now light. And there was no visible eyes. "This is really fucked up..." He said to himself as he began walking down the path, giving out way more light than the light axe MT had pulled out.

[Darth SS]

One of them thought it was being smart by rushing straight at Darth SS, working on the assumption that he wouldn't be able to block it in time. In some peculiar fashion, it was right. Darth didn't block, he just punched the damn thing in the mouth.

Due to how fast it was moving, though, the thing impaled itself on his metal arm. Then two gunshots were heard, and the thing fell off of his arm, revealing his revolver. He holstered it, and tossed his Thompson onto his back. Raiden was staring at the sticky mess on Darth's arm.

"Look! Look at all the water! Nicely conductive for electricity! If one were to put a lightning bolt into the water, why everything would be electrocuted. Were a lightning god to do it we could very well choose individual areas to electrocute, and spare our side!"

Raiden was still staring at the sticky.

"Dude, how are you not getting this?"

The blank stare remained.

"Mr. Rogers."

Raiden screamed, and got back to attention.

[Truce]

After glaring at Newb when he remembered the monopoly game, he too noticed the smell and gagged. Grudgingly accepting the gas mask, he reverted back to human (meaning that all his armor and his sword was gone; but at least the guitar stayed) to put it back on. Then, when he was finally able to breathe again, he grabbed the guitar by the handle and whacked Newb with it across the face, FLCL style.

Or, he would've anyway, if the guitar hadn't illuminated something behind Newb. Pausing, Ecurt looked and saw, well, you know, and began to point at it dramatically. "What the hell is that disgusting thing anyway?!"

[OmniShadow]

"What? Do I look so bad in white? Of course I do not like it really but I did not think it looked so bad as to call it disgusting..." OmniShadow said as he came walking up to them, he obviously had not noticed the smell, most likely because he did not have a sense of smell to begin with. Then he turned around and noticed the slime dragons heading at them. 'They again? I guess I will just have to... Oh wait, how do I manipulate light?' He thought, now fully confussed as to how he would handle his change. "Alright, you guys do this, I have a minor issue with handling my opposing element."

[Raiden]

"Mr. Rogers is the devil."

Raiden was suspended above the water, using his natural electromagnetism to push against the iron ores deep under the ground. His fists became filled with electricity.

"Jumping would be recommended."

He let the ball of lightning drop, and it touched the water. The screams of pain from the weird creatures echoed through the tunnels.

[mammothtank]

"Huh? What again?" MT turned around and noticed that three of the slime dragons had somehow caught up with them. "Oh no, not again! I think I'm gonna - ...hey, wait..." He suddenly realized that he hadn't noticed the dragons until he'd seen them, meaning he hadn't smelled them. Somehow, the Ribbon he was now wearing protected him from the dragons' stench. He donned a sly grin as he drew both Silver weapons. "Okay, you drooling blobs of crap, bring it on!"

[Bailey]

As Ilgivan watched, a blinking, rolling object hit the top slime, and was absorbed into it.

"Duck and cover!"

Newb threw himself to the ground as the explosive detonated

[Truce]

Ecurt, while being the farthest away from the Slime Dragons, also had the advantage of being behind MT. "IT'S MEATSHIELD TIME!" He yelled, ducking behind the ribbon wearing hero.

[GARUD]

Garud had his staff held over an unsuspecting Melfice's head when the path behind them collapsed. The sorceror made a regretful sigh, and withdrew to Rhyia's side.

"Is your wing alright? Are you hurt?"

Garud paused for a moment.

"Would you like me to re-open the path for us?"

[Darth SS]

Darth leapt into the air and slammed his dagger into the cave wall, and literally just dangled off of the wall. But his dagger was starting to slide back out, and there was a lot of deadly charge below.

"Oh, if only I could fly!"

Darth stopped.

"Wait. I can fly."

He let his dagger slide back out and just floated there.

[The Wizard Who Did It]

So, Rhiya, the friggin' guide, had led them down a path of doom for a little while. It was going to take them hours to escape, with who knows how many traps of doom.

"Garud, Rhiya's wings are magical extensions of her mind. They can't be hurt unless the attack causes mental problems. Alhough rock slides can have that effect on some people, I doubt Rhiya had a problem before. We got a couple hours ahead of us, let's continue on."

With that, The Wizard raised his hand and blasted the rocls with an explosive spell. He heard a sudden shaking sound. Oh crap. As quick as he could, The Wizard used telekinesis to push his companions to safety. In the blink of an eye, he jumped out of the way of the rumbling. The entire act took some 1second, the trap took 4.

Hundreds of spikes shot out from around the walls. They not only made metallic sounds that displayed their power, they even shattered eachother. Ramming through one another, whoever would have been caught in the middle of that would not be well off. The spikes continued their relentless attack against eachother until hammers came out of nowhere and smashed the cavern walls and spines. Thundering was heard as the hammers continued their show. Laser guns came out and rapidly unloaded around the area of effect, before massive beams came out of the walls. The guns were burned and the melted into boiling lava across the tunnel floor. Bombs exploded, and arrows made flaming by the explosives screamed around the area. The bangs continued and glass-like sheets covered off the area where the trap affected. Acid quickly was placed into the area, as the glass walls closed in. Needles swimed in the acid as the glass made an ominous route to crush whatever should have been in there. When the glass walls touched, the acid reacted with itself (?) and created an explosion. The explosion engulfed into itself and seemed to create a vacuum. Dust and rocks were sucked into the void, when suddenly nothing happened. The trap was over.

This, again, took 4 seconds. And it all only affected a relatively small area. The middle of which was where the NPFs had been seconds before. The Wizard turned to Rhiya and said in a amused voice,

"Rhiya, does your friend Poseidon know the meaning of 'overkill'?"

OOC: Sorry to ruin your side of the post, Garud, but Rhiya did say anything one could think of. Trust me, I had fun.

[mauve]

"EEP!" yipped Mauve as she watched Raiden drop the massive ball of electricity. She didn't want to be around when that baby hit the water. And therein lay the problem. Unlike Darth, she was somewhat grounded.

"Elemental Absorb!" she yelped, casting the spell on herself an instant before the electicity touched the water. Grimacing, she closed her eyes and pointed her open palms at the creatures. She braced herself.

Magic, although above some laws of science, is still bound by others. The Law of Energy Conservation, for example, still fully applies. If someone under the effects of Elemental Absorb was wounded and then was hit by a fireball, then the energy of the attack would be converted to healing energy. Excess magic would be absorbed by the body's cells. However, if somene, say Mauve, was at full health and was hit by a mega-doomy blast of electrical death, say a combination of Thunder God fury and standing water, there could be problems. Any excess electricity that she couldn't take in would be forced out of her body. If she couldn't get rid of it quickly enough, it could do some major damage.

A multitude of electric arcs hit her all at once. She let out an involuntary yell as raw electric power coursed through her. Almost instantly, lightning flared from her palms and raced towards the closest guard. The blast from her hands grew steadily stronger as her magic energy was recharged, requiring less and less electricity. Her palms began to tingle uncomfortably.

Finally, the lightning stopped. Mauve stumbled backwards and shook her hands; sparks dropped from her fingertips. She coughed and cleared her throat.

"Well, at least I've got enough magic energy to last me a while," she said. She looked down at her hands. "Aw, hell." Her palms were red and burned in the centers. They were starting to sting. "My luck." Quickly she cast a healing spell. It wasn't like she needed to conserve MP now.

[Raiden]

"Hehe."

Raiden floated down closer to the ground, but still kept his hovering stance. There was still water here, and just touching it would likely set him off again.

"Mauve, you could have just hung on to Darth when he jumped."

Raiden took a look at Mauve's hands. They were slightly singed. It was a new sight for him. His body was specifically built to produce high amounts of electricity in fast velocities. After all, he was a god. However, mortals had normal cells, and cells could only take so much electric disturbance before deteriorating. Mortals weren't supposed to fire the amount of power Raiden did on a daily basis.

She was lucky. If it weren't for the fact that she used magic a lot, Mauve's central nervous system could have fried. He didn't know about the rest, but he certainly didn't want to carry a Mauve-vegetable around.

Raiden took Mauve's arm, and his strange glowing eyes scanned it. He placed his thumb on the inside of her elbow. His vision began to change from normal to electric view. In this view, he saw nothing but electric courses. Mauve's electric synapsis system was easily seen. He could see that the courses in her arms were frayed at some points.

"Yep. Your muscle tissue has been damaged."

He placed his other hand over her arms, and very thin crackles of electricity flowed through them. The electricity from Raiden ran through the damaged connections in Mauve's arms and hands, and directed the course to their correct paths.

"I'll repair your nerve connections. If left alone you could be crippled. Even with a magic healing spell, you'll still have spazms for hours. And with the amount of magic you use, muscle spazms aren't something you need."

[mauve]

Mauve was still staring at her palms when Raiden hovered down next to her. Her arms were begginning to throb for some reason. She was so absorbed in this new pain that she didn't notice the thunder god until he spoke.

"Mauve, you could have just hung on to Darth when he jumped." Mauve looked up, startled.

"Yeah," she said. "But then I might've thrown his balance off, and we both could've ended up getting fried."

Rather than reply, the thunder god took her arm and stared at it. His eyes glowed, and her arm began to throb again, more painfully this time.

A moment later, Raiden made his diagnosis. Mauve's eyes widened. She knew it had been a pretty nasty blast, but she didn't know it had done so much damage.

"Thank you," she said as Raiden went to work, healing the fried nerves. "I owe you one." That was a minor understatement. Being paralyzed held no appeal to Mauve whatsoever. She just hoped that Raiden knew enough about how a mortal's nervous system worked to get the job done. It was just electrical impulses, she reasoned, but even so they were HER electical impulses, and she was quite attached to them.

She cast a look over his shoulder.

"Um, don't stop with the healing," she said. "but did we kill those things? I didn't see."