NPF Avatars IV, Chapter VIII: At the Fountains of Madness

[Arhra]

Inbred's furious onslaught ended with him managing to grab a hold and hurl her into the air, breaking her contact with the ground. Skyshot seized the opportunity and cast a float spell upon her.

It could not overcome the Imposition of Law that the Caryatid's elemental power imposed, but it was far from useless. The Caryatid drifted downards slowly, leaving her vulnerable.

Summoning up some of the last of his mana, he took out his jar of dirt. "Hey, look here! I've got a jar of dirt! I've got a jar of dirt! And guess what's inside it!" Its uncertain what was going through the Caryatid's head at this moment. Possibly she thought he was the worst pirate she'd ever seen. Assuming, of course, that she thought he was a pirate for some reason.

Casting his earthquake spell, Skyshot hurled the jar. Still suspended in midair, the Caryatid could hardly dodge. She raised an arm to block it, the jar shattering on her arm. The earthquake spell rippled through her, fine cracks running through her stony facade. Green fire ran over her as she called up her power, stones pulling out of the ground and the ceiling.

As Skyshot charged towards where she would land, Steel also attacked, clubbing the Caryatid with his blunted blade. Mauve's redirected shot struck her full in the ribs, seeding instability throughout her damaged frame.

She contacted the ground again, a great flare of mana racing over her. The Seal was visible on her chest - a tracery of green light. Her vine hair writhed like a snake's nest, the veins of magic that threaded through her form were visible, engorged from the power that coursed through them. Whatever passed for her bones shone through her skin, lit with the overload of energy. The same power leaked out of the hair-thin cracks in her body. Jerkily rasing arms up into a summoning gesture, her gimlet eyes glared at them with the same relentless determination.

"Get back!" Arhra yelled, running into the fray, "She's going to -"

BOOM

* * *

In a place of darkness, lights blinked on, revealing a number of figures garbed in bulky, identical white robes. They sat at desks, slabs of marble, a seemingly anachronistic array of papers and holographic glyphs neatly arranged on top of them.

"We have lost contact with the Caryatid of Earth. We believe it has been destroyed."

One of the figures neatly signed a Declaration of Intent to Verbalise Profanities and immediately did so.

"Instability in the Temples has been rising." another said, "Is it possible this is just a communication breakdown? I suggest we commence feasibility studies at once."

The first speaker continued, "Also, the Portents Advisory Comitee has submitted their preliminary report. The Invisible Moon has been sighted by several reliable sources. Barrier monitoring displays a significant power spike in the last 24 hours, indicating possible penetration by the Chaos prime mover. They do not believe this is another false alarm. Further investigations are proceeding."

"Risk factor to universal integrity is above acceptable levels." The man at the largest and presumably most important desk said. "We will default to emergency protocols as defined in Sodality operating procedures. Dispatch a strike team immediately." The lights blinked out, leaving nothing but shadows.

* * *

Beyond a barrier that transcended time itself, the wind blew mournfully over the ancient landscape contained within. The eye draws inwards to its center, where a great pit descends to endless darkness. Things of twisted shape mill about its edges. A finger of rock stabs out into the abyss. At its end, alone, a single figure kneels, garbed in heavy cloak and palpable menace. One armoured arm emerges from the cloak, gauntleted hand grasping a metal staff of the same make as the armour and holding it vertical, butt resting on the ground. Even the Seal of Time had not been enough to stop them from coming here, to this place.

As they knelt there, contemplating the end, there was a stir of activity amongst the ragged masses gathered about the pit. They pushed one of their number forwards, to bring tidings. At the moment the Caryatid of Earth was destroyed, a portion of the barrier had flickered, originating from one of the five points that anchored it.

The creature edged warily outwards along the stone span to where the figure waited. Cautiously it spoke, "Great One, it appears the Seal of Earth has been destroyed... What should we do?"

The Herald of the End Times just laughed.

* * *

Arhra lay unmoving on the soft sand, the dissipating tendrils of her spell net partially wrapped about her, waving gently as they throbbed, slowly subsiding into nothingness. She'd hurled her spell-net just in time to contain the explosion.

After a dramatically appropriate period of lying like one dead, Arhra stirred, rising onto hands and knees. She took a moment to cough, hacking up what looked like gemstones. Looking at them critically, she put them in a pocket and then unsteadily stood up, running a hand through hair that had leaves in it.

"Sorry, my mind was elsewhere." Arhra paused for a moment. "Elemental backlash," she added by way of explaination for her appearance, plucking one of the leaves out of her hair and looking at it critically, "Should wear off in a few hours. Now, I suppose we should get out of here before the place -"

Something much like an alarm klaxon went off. You could almost heard suddenly dramatic music.

"Decides to explode on us." Arhra finished lamely, "Quick! Get everyone together and we'll go out through the emergency escape tunnel!" Getting blank looks at this, she sighed, "Of course there will be an emegency escape tunnel. It should be on the opposite side of the room to the way we came in." Surprisingly enough, she was right - a long, spiralling tunnel leading back up to the surface was located there.

OOC: I believe this is the end of my current titling trend. I just felt this one was good enough to try and maintain it through to the end of the Earth Temple. For ease of timing, I'm assuming Flare's last post happened just after the Caryatid was destroyed.

[Bailey]

Mauve's electricity restored Syttulg's power. Too much power. If something wasn't done with it, it could damage the batteries.

The combination of power boost and the massive amount of earth energy in the area from the Caryatid's destruction enabled Syttulg to remove the last of the toxins from his system, and also served to change him further. His torso bulged out oddly, carrying his head forwards and flattening it across itself while his arms stayed aproximately where they were, and an opening appeared where his head had been before it moved, widening into a platform like area. His legs became bulkier, and the blades on his arms twisted to become more like claws. He rose to his feet and strode over to the mage, kneeling down and angling his arm so it could be used as a ramp.

"Need a lift?"

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

"Oh dont anybody try and save ME!", came a voice from amongst the sand and dust cloud that yet another explosion had errr blown up. "I only had a BOULDER about to crush me!"

Nobody had noticed how he had survived being squished, and nobody ever did ask him how he had done it. This deleted scene can be found on the NPF Special Edition DVD boxset, as well as an extended version of Hawk and Steels mad dash through the sands which included yet more swearing and even some ultra cool slow-mo time travel performed by Steel himself!

An alternate version of the boulder squishing event can also be found.

Hawk stopped a moment and looked over at the remains of the Caryatid. "Wow, what a hardcase!"

...

A tumbleweed rolled past across the indoor desert of the chamber at this remark.

"Anyway can I now please get some healing over here, before we get to the imminent prequesite running scene?! I'm exhausted!

[mauve]

Mauve got up from where Flare had knocked her over.

"Well, that was exciting." she said, brushing sand and caryatid dust off her skirt. She looked over at the Newb, who had for some reason turned into a humanoid moving platform. Behind them, something was yelling for help.

"Hold on," Mauve said, looking over her shoulder. "Looks like we've angered the bird." Mauve stood up straight and the SPCA themesong started playing in the background, coming out of nowhere in particular.

"Check it out, I'm healing an endangered species," she said. "I'm expecting a medal or something from PETA."

The mage pointed a hand at the Hawk of Battle and cast a healing spell.

"Grab the near-dead folks, Syttulg," Mauve called over her shoulder. "I didn't do much during this fight, so I've got enough MP left to heal folks while we're running for our collective lives."

[Tarrin]

The last of the torn and chared flesh that was Tarrens chest finnished knitting together thanks to Mauves regen spell, standing up Tarrin looked around at the team and also at the encroching destruction.
"Well our job here is done....Rite?" Tarrin scanned the group for Arhra to find what the next course of action was going to be.

[POS Industries]

"Oh yeah? Who has fury now, you little lima bean looking... Hm?"

Rei, who had gone back to sitting cross-legged on the floor of the chamber after throwing Skyshot, safely encapsulated within her electromagnetic shield bubble, looked up from her game of "Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga" to see that the Caryatid had been successfully done away with.

"Oh good," she stated cheerily as the forcefield around her deactivated, "We win! Now, let's see.... save point... save point.... ah, there we go!"

[Flarecobra]

"OWWW..." I said, shaking my head. "Man...wish I didn't forget that when I'm in this form, that it's max MP and magic power that goes up...not the amount..." I said as my head was pounding. "Anyone got some elixors?"

[Steel Shadow]

Steel leant heavily on his staff, contemplating. There were alarms. The temple was going to colapse. Of course it was. That was how things were done. He'd get going as soon as he had his breath back. No flying though, he had no power left. Then the world turned orange. And hot. Uncomfortably so.

"Akk!!! Get it off!" Steel tugged at the still smouldering fabric of his mostly decimated cape. It came lose and hung still in the dead air. Half of it was gone, turned to ash. He frowned. Then sighed.

"I really, really hate this place." He muttered, clasping it back around his neck. "So it's good thing it's gunna explode, right?" He retied his bandana back on his forhead and hobbled over to the exit, using his staff as a cane. Plain flashed through his left arm.

"Oh yeah, forgot. Hey, can any healers fix my arm? A certain bird who shall remain nameles cut it up pretty bad." He called as he began to hurry through the tunnel, holding his wound steady.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

"Thank you Muave, much appreciated", Hawk said as the healing spell did its thing, his various bruises and afflictions finally leaving him in a matter of moments.

"Now, TO THE EXIT my friends, post-haste!"

Hawk flapped his wings and got himself airborne at long last. God it felt good to be flying again!

"Oh yeah, forgot. Hey, can any healers fix my arm? A certain bird who shall remain nameles cut it up pretty bad."

"Ah, yeah, I do apologise for that Steel. Mind control's a bitch!"

And with that, Hawk sped of in a blur of brown feathers as he procceeded to make good his escape from the temple.

[Arhra]

Arhra wished she had some sort of timer to see how long they had, but alas, no countdown magically appeared. Whipping her beaten body into action, she went to find Hydra.

"That was fast." Arhra commented on seeing the hydra-girl. She seemed to have mostly digested her enemy already. Hydra rose up, Arhra noting she was even taller, possibly as much as twice Arhra's (short) height. She had grown more heads - a total of nine and then those heads had snake hair, a writhing mass of them. Another set of arms seemed to have sprouted, brigning the total to six. "Well, good thing I don't think there's any of those hydra left," Arhra said, neglecting the fact there'd been several and she'd only actually seen one die. "Things could have gotten a bit absurd otherwise."

"I wouldn't mind eating some more." Hydra said wistfully, heads speaking at once giving her voice a choral tone. "That big hydra was scary" - it had almost eaten her after all - "but very tasty."

"No!" Arhra said forcefully, "We've got to get out of here. Besides, if you get any taller, you'll have trouble moving around indoors." Arhra patted her on the lower back, the shoulder being out of her reach. "Come on, we've spent far too much time talking and not nearly enough time panicking about explosions!"

The escape wasn't anything particularly out of the ordinary - the NPFers doing their best approximation of a run after the beating they'd taken, charging through the escape tunnel, doors irising open ahead of them.

What was surprising was the lack of an explosion. After they'd gotten what they thought was a safe distance away, they were disspointed to find no fireworks whatsoever. Evidentally the Caryatid's death did not set off some manner of self destruct sequence for the entire Temple. This was highly irregular.

As Arhra puzzled this over, there seemed to be an awful lot of talk of taking some time off. Arhra knew she had to take charge. "You're a bunch of pansies!" she declared, "All 'Oh! I can't go on!', 'I almost died!', 'I'm don't have much blood left!' and 'Its suicidal to go on without resting.'! I'm telling you, I - urk -" Arhra fell over.

"...Let's find a good place to rest for a bit." Arhra after a long pause. "You all brought food, right? We might have to get creative otherwise." She sat up, looking at Hawk speculatively.

* * *

As the NPFers rested, a different shadowy meeting was going on. There were large figures clustered in the darkness, the only light illuminating a rough sketch of the NPFers up on the walls. A winged shadow shifted, closest to this drawing turned to address the others. "These are our mutual enemies." she purred.

"Plant-man make fruit bad." A hulking shape said sadly.

"Yes, yes." The first speaker said impatiently. She was beginning to wonder about recruiting him. At least he was speaking now. And he could actually speak, unlike the others. "We all have our reasons for wanting revenge on them." She glanced around where the two others sat, a weirdly shifting shape of stone and a coiled, many headed shadow. "We've all been wronged or assaulted by them. We just have to wait for the right moment and then we can strike. Vengeance will be ours!" With a vicious gesture, she slashed a claw across the drawing, raking Skyshot's face.

OOC: Well, its the exciting time of doing stuff - basically whatever you've done up to this point and anything in particular while you're resting. I've also decided to make the first reference to the League of Enemies, as I've decided to call them.

[Flarecobra]

"Well...if you want, I can call in an Airship to take us around in. It'd be fully stocked with food and beds, and even a shower. It'd take a little while to get here though, and all I got is a couple of MREs. I've got dibs on the enchalata meal and the spiced apples. The other 4 are all yours." I said, digging through my bag and pulling out the MREs. I then toss Mauve a pack of M&Ms. "Since I heard you can use these for Magic Power regeneration, I think you can use these." I told her.

[phil_]

Phil was grappling with that most powerful of foes: boredom. He'd finished Eureka Seven, school only took up a little of his time, and he didn't really care about the black comet hanging in the sky. "I mean, once you've seen it one day, it's the same the next day." Phil had been thinking of a way to use summoning to Ref, but he couldn't think of any way to get both a board and trapar that wasn't wildly unweildy.

"Well, there's always reverse-summoning myself somewhere to see what happens," Phil mused aloud as he walked between campus and his apartment. For some reason, this didn't strike Phil as the insanely bad idea it was, and he decided to summon himself to Raiden. For those who weren't around to read about Skyshot and phil_mike's little spat that ended in phil_mike dying, a reverse-summon is what happens when Phil attempts to summon a god. Instead of tugging them to him, Phil is snatched to the deity, like trying to lasso a speedboat. Anyway, Phil raised his arms and shouted, "●Summon: Raiden!"

Phil felt a tug behind his gut as he was ripped through the aether to whatever plane Raiden resided on. When the colors stopped swirling (it was all very Full Metal Alchemist), Phil found himself in a rocky, mountainous region. He heard explosions on the shelf a hundred feet above him, and then realised that his current position on a tiny outcrop hanging over a cliff-face was more precarious than he'd hoped. As he whined, "I could've summoned myself off a cliff!" the ledge broke beneath his feet. Shoddy workmanship in mountains these days.

Surprisingly, Phil didn't panic and black out, possibly because he hadn't played Twilight Princess yet, and tried to think of a summon-y solution to his problem. Rubbing his chin as the wind swept his hair over his face, Phil decided on a summon and said, "●Summon: Sky Dragon." Below Phil, a puff of smoke revealed a cute little green dragon ("little" for a dragon; it was about the size of a horse). Phil landed with a thump on the square of the creature's back and it made no noise or protest. Satisfied that he wouldn't die, Phil asked the creature to ascend the rock face. Unfortunately, Sky Dragons don't speak English and possibly don't speak at all, and it started drifting randomly along the cliff. Phil dared not protest too much, as a flip from the beast could land him in another round of "Summon or Die!" Eventually, the Sky Dragon floated near a long, thin path winding through the air, and Phil hopped off the creature and onto the shelf.

Dismissing the dragon, Phil looked down the path and saw that it lead back to the mountain on which he'd heard explosions earlier. After a brief stroll through the clouds, Phil came upon a field of corpses. Teenagers in white face paint lie cold and defiled in puddles of blood. Mounds of dirt seemed to make long graves at the far end of the field. Half-drawn summoning circles were scuffed in the dirt. Scorch marks and craters were scattered about the scene. All-in-all, it looked like the work of several highly-accomplished magic-users and warriors faced with kids who should've been at the mall complaining about how conformist everyone is. "The NPF has been here. Explains why Raiden wasn't in some heavenly realm or something."

After a colorful stroll through the field of slaughter (mostly red and brown), Phil arrived at another winding path that left the rock he was standing on to twist through the wind and those little mountain tops that look like stalagmites that you only see in fantasy realms. Since he was feeling lucky and wanted to get away from the corpses before one of'em got up, Phil continued along this path, admiring the view and the odd mountain topography only possible in a fantasy realm shaped by cataclysm. Eventually, he came upon a large stone door and a sphinx. The sphinx stated that if he could not answer her riddle, she'd kill him. Phil responded, "No thanks, I'll just leave," and continued along the rock face. Something told him that he'd left the bounds of the game, but Phil didn't care. Maybe he could find an invisible wall!

However, no such thing presented itself and Phil wandered about the mountain for some time. Eventually, his activities disolved into sitting on the edge of a cliff, summoning a grenade, and chucking it into the sky to watch the fireball. Thinking outloud some more, Phil moaned, "If the college would let me download torrents, I could be watching Eureka Seven again."

On the shelf far below him, an intrepid band of adventurers emerged from the depths of the Earth Temple. If they decided to pay attention, they could probably spot the mid-air explosions of Phil's hand grenades.

OOC: This explains where I've been since the first thread.

[mauve]

"Ah, sweet! No pun intended," said Mauve as Flare tossed her a bag of M&Ms. "Well, I guess this first temple wasn't so bad. Sure, I almost got turned into stone and then squashed by a troll and a jelly guy, but at least I got some free M&Ms out of the deal. Not a total loss."

She poured some M&Ms into her palm, tilted back her head, and popped the handful of chocolate into her mouth. Her eyebrows knit as she noticed something in the sky.

"Heh, Hwahdah?" Mauve said through a mouthful of M&Ms. It probably meant "Hey, what's that?" but it's anyone's guess, really. I'm guessing she's referring to the explosions in the air, because that's where she was looking.

[Flarecobra]

I squinted and then saw something come up and explode. "Looks like M9 frag grenades. About the size of a golf ball, 15 meter blast radius, 5 meter lethal radius." I said, recalling on my military training. "Seems someone's using them AS golf balls from the looks of it. Or they ran out of rocks to chuck."

(Hope you don't mind me showing off some... :P )

[Bailey]

Syttulg tilted backwards, dumping everybody who had been piled onto him off onto the ground before reshifting to a more human shape. "I ran out of food, but I can manage." He said, forming a giant sunshade atop his head out of what appeared to be a leafy substance. "And anyone who loves golf so much that they'd stoop to using grenades once they ran out of golfballs has something seriously wrong with their head. They should fit right in. Anybody up for climbing up there and welcoming them to the team?"

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

At this point, a fast moving blur of brown whizzed past.

"What the?!", said Flare as she looked at her now empty hand which had, until a moment ago, been holding a MRE.

"Cheers, I'm starving!"

Hawk retreated to a nerby tree and used his talons to rip open the MRE and began eating ravenously. He hadn't eaten since they had met The Capatalist, whose food had turned out to be poison and was consequently puked up shortly after. The healing had done him wonders, but it wasn't quite as substantial as good old army food!

As another explosion erupted above them, Hawk decided to take a closer look at whoever was throwing M9 frag grenades, (about the size of a golf ball, with a 15 meter blast radius, 5 meter lethal radius and 5 second fuse which would promptly burn down in 3 seconds in accordance with rule 18 (http://www.military-quotes.com/murphy.htm) of Murphys law) around.

He could easily make out the hairy feet of the summoner with his hawk eyes.

"It appears our new friend is a hobbit", Hawk looked closer as a grenade appeared from nowhere in the mans hand, "and a summoner, unless my eyes decieve me."

"Hey you, get down here!", went the telepathic message to Phil_.

[phil_]

Phil lazily tossed another grenade into the air watching its marvelous 15 meter blast radius bloom in the sky. Suddenly, his back straightened and his hair stood on end. From nowhere he'd heard, "Hey you, get down here!" probably in red text from the sound of it. I knew this day would come. The voices are telling me to jump, Phil thought. "Well screw you, voices!" Phil shouted. "You can't tell me what to do!"

However, Phil feared it was the height that was making him hear things, so he started to move along the cliff-face again. Stepping back toward the face, Phil stepped on a loose dirt-clod. Apparently, it was a load-bearing dirt-clod, as stepping on it caused the shelf below his feet to shift and collapse, again.

"Fine, voices, have it your way," Phil pouted before remembering that he'd die if he didn't summon something to save him. Too short a fall for dragons and parachutes, ...um "●Summon: Stuntbag!" On the ground below, a large cloud of smoke revealed an inflated stuntbag, which Phil hit seconds later. As he rolled out of the canvas lifesaver, he saw an odd group of people. Dazed and weary, Phil recognized a familiar grey cloak with red triangles. "No, it couldn't be," he groaned as he stumbled towards them. Snake woman? "Oh crud." Phil stopped moving. Who're these other circus performers? Where's Raiden? What's a little girl doing collapsed on the ground? Did they beat her up for her lunch money?

Then Phil saw a familiar shade of pink that should've been mauve. As he sprinted toward the NPFers, he yelled, "Hi guys! Did you see me fall? How's it going!" and grinned as he waved to the crowd of psychopaths.

[Bailey]

"Oh hey, it's Phil_!" Syttulg said, somehow managing to pronounce the underscore. "You got here just in time to not have to take on the earth dungeon. We're having a picnic now. Why don't you join us?"

[Flarecobra]

I shrugged, and said "Don't come blaming me when you get constapted there birdie!" I smiled and began to heat up my enchalada. "Plus these things have over 1800 calories per mealbag...I don't think eating them all at once would be the best thing.." I said, more to myself then anything. "Hey Phil!" I said as soon as I saw him, smiling in a friendly way to him.

[Tarrin]

The small red hatchback pulled up infront of the NPFers, the youth driving stepped out and opend the hatch, pulling out a large box it's logo clear for all to see, "Pizza hutt Order for Tarrin" the young man called out.

Waving his hand "Here" yelled Tarrin, followed by "Aww i can't believe you made it in 15 Min" handing over the cash Tarrin gave a $5 tip,
The smell of the super sepreame wafted upto his noise and he chewed into the large pizza with vigor.

[phil_]

As soon as Flarecobra smiled, Phil realised the folly of letting the band of NPFers spot him. His blood chilled like he'd seen a gang of zombies with One Piece DVDs and a portable DVD player. Too afraid to back down and run, Phil did the only thing he could think of.

He asked questions and delayed the thread.

"Who's the green guy in the loin cloth? And the tall N.A. guy and the guy with the orange cape? And who's the little girl with the other horrifying snake person? And who's that?" With the last question, he jabbed a finger at Rei. "Man, I thought I knew this forum. Why can't we all just have names over our heads like in RO?"

[Bailey]

Syttulg looked thoughtful for a moment, and then shrugged. The sunshade attached to his head rippled a little as lettering appeared along the edges.

|\ | Plantfolk
| \| Syttulg

A successful Knowledge: Insanity or Knowledge: Forumites check (why are those two different categories anyway?) would reveal that the N was the guild symbol for The Eternal Newb.

[mauve]

"Don't worry about it, Phil," Mauve said, having polished off the rest of the M&Ms and healing Steel Shadow's arm (because he asked for help like three pages ago and he was probably near-death from blood loss by now). "You know what they say: 'Every time you try to make sense out of an Avatar RP, an angel loses its wings.' Or was it, 'a planet gets devoured by a giant space goat?' I dunno. But the point is, don't bother trying."

She shrugged.

"Because then we have to explain that the robot lady is a virtual subconcious placed into a PhoenixCorp android body by POS Industries for reasons unknown, and that the short girl is our very own Ahrha, who started out as a guy about two rescue missions ago but died and came back as a woman, and the other snake is a hydra that got reconceptualized via chaos magic in some giant snake-bashing, Caryatid-trouncing super underground melee. Oh, and the cape guy is Steel Shadow. Nothin' freaky 'bout that, though."

She tilted her head up, as though hearing something.

"Oh, see, I just heard another angel fall to their doom," Mauve said. "Or a planet being eaten; I dunno which. See what you've done?"

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

"Don't come blaming me when you get constapted there birdie!"

"My dear, I have been eating this shit and worse since before you were born, I'm quite accustomed to it", He continued eating, then stopped again and continued, "it still tastes better than hospital food though!"

"Who's the green guy in the loin cloth? And the tall N.A. guy and the guy with the orange cape? And who's the little girl with the other horrifying snake person? And who's that?" With the last question, he jabbed a finger at Rei. "Man, I thought I knew this forum. Why can't we all just have names over our heads like in RO?"

"What, am I not important enough to even be recognised now?!" He turned to Phil_, also managing to pronounce the underscore and said, "greetings friend. Welcome to Hell. It's either that, or Nightmare Central. You should fit in just fine."

[POS Industries]

Having a body is weird, Rei thought to herself as she exited the cave with the group, before realizing that even having an internal monologue was something of a new experience. She'd been noticing a lot of changes in her overall functionality since the start of this adventure. Granted, she had been using the android body for the past few months since the battle with Raiden, but mostly just kicking around the POS Industries head office, and more or less as just a supplement to her position as the company's main computer operating system.

However, actually being out in the field, using her combat abilities, interacting with the others, everything that had happened since she joined in this adventure had been causing her to make adaptations in her programming. This ability to develop and adapt was nothing new, of course. In fact, it was the central foundation of her code. However, the amount of different kinds of stimulation and the level of independence required of her due to the current situation had unlocked attributes of her personality subroutines that had never been fully explored, emotions that she had never quite had cause to experience. Fear, anger, pain, and....

...Worry. Rei realized that it had been quite a while since Pedro's ship had entered the energy field of the comet. There had been no communication since, and with no way to effectively scan within the field due to overwhelming interference, there was no way to tell if the Riyal was even still in one piece. Pedro had quite a number of extra lives, but if the ship was destroyed he could very well respawn in space and would burn through all of those lives in a most gruesome fashion.

As the android started having what was her first panic attack, she looked up to see Phil pointing at her and asking, "And who's that? Man, I thought I knew this forum. Why can't we all just have names over our heads like in RO?"

Before she could respond, Mauve jumped in and did her best to introduce some of the newer faces to the latest arrival. As the mage wrapped up her explanation, Rei greeted the man in the current nervous, half-distracted tone she couldn't seem to shake at the moment.

"Uh, hi.... Mike, right?"

[Flarecobra]

I slithered over to Phil and said How are you? What'cha doing around here?" I asked, as I coiled up in a comfertable way near him.

[Arhra]

Arhra neatly snagged one of Hydra's arms in case she tried anything violent because of that 'horrifying snake person' comment. The petite girl managed to be surprisingly immovable as Hydra tugged at the grip. In reply to Phil's last comment she said, "Why because having name tags would look silly. See." Arhra pointed at Syttulg.

"And technically I happened to help in that fight against that penguin... uh... thing as a male mage. Then I died and came back as a girl ninja." She chuckled, "That was fun, what with the flipping out and all. Unfortunately I died, not much later because Rhiya was charmed by a sexy merman. At least I took her out with me. I was charmed too, but I broke free."

"Then I came back as a summoner. That was fun too." Arhra had attempted to summon diverse things, such as the Ark, the Arc and abstract concepts, with mixed results. "Then, when Raiden was crazy, I was accidentally killed by Rhiya," Arhra frowned, she was beginning to notice a pattern here, "and came back as me!" She neglected to mention the important fact of how she'd managed to die several times.

"Anyway, now we're all feeling a bit refreshed -"

A lump of rock the size of a cabbage suddenly landed in their midsts, shattering on the hard ground and sending rock shards flying. Arhra cursed how she always seemed to get interrupted.

Looking to where the rock had come from, Arhra gasped. A great boulder had trundled its way up the hill, pausing and extruding some thin members to stop it rolling away. A shapechanging boulder?! Arhra had the strangest sense of deja vu. Alongside it, a snake-like creature of gigantic proportions slithered, twelve heads weaving on the end of long, twisting necks. Some kind of serpentine hydra?! Arhra had the strangest sense of deja vu. On the other side was a brutish, overly muscular troll. It waved then remembered to look angry. Arhra didn't bother with deja vu - the troll was obviously Thod. Finally, padding daintly along behind was a very familiar sphinx, one they'd last seen guarding the Temple gates.

"Uh, what's all this about?" Arhra asked in confusion.

"Revenge." the sphinx said languidly. Thod, the hydra and the boulder made various noises of agreement.

"Revenge?" Arhra asked, "Have you decided to make up some sort of league of enemies to get revenge on us? I can understand the troll and the boulder, although the hydra's a bit of a stretch, but why are you here?"

"I think you know why." the sphinx snarled, wings ruffling in agitation.

Arhra decided to drop that line of enquiry. "But there's..." she looked around, "...Lots of us and only four of you. You don't even have the element of surprise to double your numbers any more." Perhaps they'd all mysteriously accquired super powers. Arhra hoped not.

"Silence!" the sphinx proclaimed, "We have just anger on our side!" She wondered if, perhaps, she should have waited for those dryads to come to their decision on whether to join up or not. Too late for might have beens now.

"Charge!" she cried. The flowstone boulder began rolling downhill, massive and crushing, while Thod and the hydra pounded after it. At a more sedate pace, the sphinx followed. It seemed trouble had come to find the NPFers.

OOC: The relevent encounter information is in the discussion thread (http://forum.nuklearpower.com/showpost.php?p=462364&postcount=40).

[phil_]

Phil summoned the first thing that came to mind. "●Summon: Tristan Taylor!" A tall kid in a beige trenchcoat with a goofy haircut appeared in a flash of light. Phil had summoned the wanna-be duelist/tough guy directly in the path of the charging flowstone boulder, hoping that survival instinct would be enough to make him fight. Raising his fist, the boy yelled in a voice reminiscent of Barney, "My voice gives me super strength! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMnoud0-gLo)" and he punched the boulder. He was then immediately crushed to death.

"Ha ha ha, oh, that's a good one. Hoo... but seriously, ●Dismiss: Tristan, ●Summon: Train!" The totally-not-funny wrecked corpse of Tristan faded away (with crippling effects to whatever continuity he came from. Probably fan-fic) and a three-car train crashed down between the NPFers and their assailants. "There, that should slow'em down (except the sphynx). Enjoy your extra seconds to plan while I go find a hiding spot." And Phil ran through the group to do so.

[Bailey]

Syttulg dug his feet into the ground, forming them into roots, and lengthened the thorns on his arms. "Oh goody. Mineral deposits." He said, drawing iron out of the ground and adding it to the thorn blades.

[POS Industries]

A split second before the boulder crashed into the traincars that stood between it and the NPFers, a massive, bright, white beam of energy slammed into it from above, blasting the stone to pieces and driving much of it down quite a few feet into the ground. As the light faded, anyone who hadn't previously been looking in the right direction would have seen Rei hovering above the train, levitating herself via gravity control, staring down at the boulder debris with a rather bemused expression on her face.

"Same ol' boulder, same ol' Doom Cannon, same ol' result," the android sighed as she dropped to the ground where the boulder had already begun reassembling itself. Glancing from Thod, to the Hydra, and then finally setting her gaze on the Sphinx, Rei shrugged activated her energy shield. "Well, if we're going to do this, let's get on with it."

It would seem that, for the first time in her short little cybernetic life, Rei was not in a very good mood.

[Flarecobra]

I looked at the boulder, and then started to charge up my Mega-Flare. "Hey Rei! We hit that thing at the same time when it tried to attack again!" I said, then glanced over to the Hydra-snake, who seemed to be eyeing me. "Someone distract that thing!" I said, not wanting to waist a shot at the boulder, but if I had to, I could use it agenst the Hydra if it came at me.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Hawk was in the air in an instant and turned to meet the new "threat".

"Hey Sphinx, do you REALLY think you can win against us? I mean, we just took down the Earth Caryatid, do you really think you guys will give us any trouble?"

The Sphinx merely ignored him.

"Someone distract that thing!"

"On it!"

He targeted the hydra and sent a concussive blast at it, stunning the creature temporarily before following up immediately by charging the monstrosity. As he came close his talons flashed out as he stabbed them into one of its many heads, the razor sharp weapons penetrating its brain and killing it instantly. But it still had plenty more where that came from.

Hawk wheeled around and came back for another pass.

[POS Industries]

"Hey Rei! We hit that thing at the same time when it tried to attack again!"

"Okeedokee," Rei shot a quick glance back at Flare and leaped backward, landing beside her and began charging up another Doom Cannon attack in unison with her pyromaniacal associate's own Mega-Flare.

"Now we're playing with power...."

DOUBLE TECH. - HOT FUSION!

[Lumaes]

The world suddenly seemed very dark, the rugged, rocky plateau seemed to be transfused by wickedness – every stone under foot seemed sharp and blood-thirsty and the air hung pregnant with malice. A strange howl began; the icy winding of wind through the rocks… it rose and dropped in pitch full of unbridled anger,

“……baaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhhsttttttttttt ttaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhdddddssssssssssss …..”

The train shrieked shrilly, its whistle screaming as its lights sparked and flickered; sending shades rushing back and forth in the carriages as they acted out some ethereal crash – it sent the silhouetted figures tumbling and crashing sickeningly into the chairs and poles.

The door was wrenched open with a squeal of metal pouring out a tidal wave of darkness and hate. The dark blot surged together into an implacable pillar – looming, full of dread expectation as a tiny porcelain white skull, like a milky eye, stared from its core.

With a FOom the darkness collapsed in on its self, condensing down into the morbid, shadowy shape of Lumaes,
“Leave me to die will you?” he raises his hands, a frightening puppet of stitched-together snakeskins on each one, they bob enthusiastically as they squawk in there high-pitched voices, which, curiously were British,
“Shall we gather up our dear old friend Mister Lumaes as he’s been paralysed by snakes?” said Mister One
“Oh- no I shouldn’t think so, that would take too much time. Just leave his paralysed body behind to be transformed into a corpse instead...” replied Mister Two.
“Oh yes, I agree – we could use that time to...” Mister One began, “SLEEP ON THE BLOODY DIRT!” they both shrieked as one.

Both the puppets drooped as “Mister Lumaes” turned his dreadful, worrisome eyes on his so called allies as they darted about the monsters.
“I had to bloody hitch a lift with the Villain Squadron” “League of Enemies!” Arhra interrupted. The spectre hesitated, “Hey! That’s better. Good name” he smiles for a moment… trying to seize his anger by its thrashing tail again.

***

Lumaes lay in the softly blowing sands, reflecting on the events that brought him here. For an hour he entertained the notion of taming some local giant ants by humming at different frequencies and convincing them to carry him after his friends or at least wreak bloody, ant death upon them – he abandoned this plan when he realised he hated ants… in fact he hated ants to such an extent that he would leave dishes of honey by ant-hills until the entire hive of his new ant-friends was dependent on his charity. Then he’d stop the honey and cackle as the inept, lazy ants starved to death from their own uselessness… This thought was interrupted by a large paw swatting him,
“Little thing? Are you alright?”
“Yes…” the lie had set him free, movement flowed back into his ephemeral body and he stood, shaking dust and sand out of his shadowy substance, he pulled a disgusted face, “Ick”

“You’ve seen the intruders no doubt? We, ourselves, are on our way to… deal with the little menaces. Perhaps you would like to come along as well?”
Lumaes hesitated… speaking slowly and making no sudden movements, “…Sure… I’d… love… to join your cult.”
***

[mauve]

"Oh yeah...." Mauve said. "I had a feeling we were forgetting something. Sorry about that. Nice puppets, though."

She pushed up her sleeves and glared at the semi-threatening League of Enemies behind Lumaes.

"Should probably take care of these guys," she said. "But first, before I forget..." Her eyes darted over to Skyshot. "Hey Skyshot, as nice as that color looks on you, I'd really like my hat back. When you're done with it, I mean. I'm rather attached to it."

Having made this oh-so-important speech, the hatless mage turned to address the sphinx.

"Right. Now we can get down to business." The mismatched knives appeared in Mauve's hands. "I don't suppose you'd consider leaving if we asked you really nicely, huh?" There was a silent pause between the mage and the sphinx. "Yeah, didn't think so."

Mauve threw one of her knives into the air.

"Divide and conquer!" she commanded, pointing at the sphinx. The blade shimmered, hovering in the air. Then, it shattered into six identical knives which flew towards the sphinx like little guided missiles.

[Arhra]

Arhra considered her options as a large train appeared between her and her enemies. Well, they weren't specifically her enemies, except in the way you could say the whole universe was her enemy, but something did need to be done about them. She needed some strategy, some ingenious use of the powers available to her to eliminate the opposition in a blaze of stylish glory, each motion a step in her elaborate dance of death.

Rei had leapt over the summoned train to attack, Flare had gotten over there somehow, the bird Arhra considered a possible emergency food supply was running off on his own and Hydra was charging there too, towards that hydra, seemingly having forgotten that a weaker hydra had been kicking her ass before. Arhra sighed. Run screaming at the enemy it was.

Arhra charged forwards, catching up with Hydra before she got to the train. "Judo chop!" she yelled, leaping and chopping at the base of Hydra's necks with the edge of her hand. Do not be alarmed gentle reader, Arhra did not confuse Hydra with the hydra, despite how easy this could be. Rather, she wanted to get something approaching cohesion in the NPFer's attacks.

About to give a diatribe about not underestimating the foe, Arhra saw a swirl of a shadowy robe and spun to face it, shifting into a Kickass Fighting Stance. It was Lumaes.

Arhra hesitated. She had heard his angry speech before but then he'd trailed off into some sort of flashback. "Uh, are you on our side or not?" she asked the enraged spectre puzzledly.

Meanwhile, the other NPFers were engaged in battle. Rei had blasted the flowstone boulder with her Doom Cannon attack, teaming up wiht Flare to follow up with their HOT FUSION! combined attack. It was not as delicious a pun as using some sort of icy spell in the place of fire, but it was passable.

The reforming boulder, stubby, tentacular appendages swaying as it pulled itself together, seemed to pull in on itself, shrinking down as the fiery energy beam pummeled the air between it and its target out of the way.

As is of the way of such things, the explosion was impressive. There seemed to be a small crater left behind where the boulder had been. Small pools of the rock were flowing back towards it, most it apparently having been vapourised. This seemed awfully easy.

Unsurprisingly, two long, attenuated spikes of rock erupted out of the ground with lightning speed, jabbing out to try and run Flare and Rei where they stood and withdrawing again in the same eyeblink. It would appear most of the living rock was hiding underground.

As Hawk came for a second attack, the slain head flopped lifelessly and then spasmed in a rather disturbing way. It began to divde, splitting down its center and then with a sudden wet SPLUCH!, two heads regarded Hawk balefully. They did so while biting at him, poisonous miasma leaking from their open mouths. With nothing else close to deal with at the moment, the other dozen or so heads did the same thing. It was rather like finding the air suddenly replaced with a mass of scales, teeth and poisonous gas.

No-one having paid any attention to him yet, Thod had continued his charge. Slamming into the side of a train carriage, he grunted and simply kept running with the same simple-minded determination, pushing the carriage in front of him, other carriages dragging along to either side. The NPFers who hadn't crossed the barrier the train created were treated to the unique sight of a train rushing at them side on. Presumably getting hit by a such a unique sight would be uniquely painful.

As Muave attacked, the sphinx insultingly yawned, raising one limb to slash the air with a claw, leaving three azure vertical slices of light behind. They bulged as they spaced out, turning into flat disks of blue light that they circled the sphinx. One flashed forwards, catching a dagger and flaring to a bright red. The second swept around and blocked the next one, turning red while the first one pulsed back to blue at the same instant. The three shields continued to cycle through, neatly stopping each dagger.

The sphinx seemed hellbent on making it clear she thought the NPFers were beneath her. Admittedly, being on a rise as she was, they were below her. As if seeking to emphasis the point, she leapt, wings beating to send her gliding downwards. Between her front claws, another spell was taking shape, four points of light marking the corners, a fine tracery of light threading through it. It darkened, hiding its innards as the sphinx released it, sending it tumbling end over end at Mauve, growing in size as it did.

OOC: The pyramid is a mazing spell, get hit by it and you'll get pulled into a dimensional maze, trapped until you find the way out or until it dissipates in a few minutes. The pyramid is about the height of a person.

I'm sure people can guess the shield flaw. If you want to check your guess about it was right, it's written here in mysterious spoiler text:
*To destroy a shield, hit it twice without hitting a different one*

[Bailey]

Seeing the train tumbling towards him, Syttulg curled and tried to flatten himself against the ground, transferring the iron from his blades to his back to serve as added protection. Once the threat of the train had passed, he rose slightly, staying crouched in preparation of Thod's charge. Reshaping his body slightly, he caught hold of Thod and attempted to fuction as a catapult, hopefully hurling Thod further down the mountainside.

[Flarecobra]

I had quickly slithered around the Train, intent on using it for cover if need be, and fired my Mega-Flare at the same time Rei fired again. Seeing Thud heading right at the train I yelled out "Phil! Dismiss that Train!" just as the rock spike shot up and nearly got me, but left a good cut in my scales. "Damn!" I said, as I darted quickly to avoid the spike. I quickly used a Fire spell on myself, sealing the cut. Thinking quickly, I said "Mauve, Rei, Skyshot! I'm a sitting snake right here! We need something that'll either reveal it's movement or slow it's attacks!"

[Tarrin]

Still sitting by the boulder Tarrin watched the battle begin, He intently watched Thod and Syttulg play Hugs.

Deciding that taking the troll out of the fight an easer way for a while atleast might help the group.

"Oi" Tarrin waved a piece of his pizza towards Thod, The large troll was the bounty offered to him and ripped free from Newb's grasp and wandered over from their little tiff and settltd down beside Tarrin.

Tarrin passed the piece of Pizza to the green giant and sat back and ate with it, "You know you could be sitting back eating this stuff instead of fighting" Tarrin started the conversation.

"But fight good, u all bad breake fruit trees" Thod returned
"True but pizza and other foods are better and dont make you as slow as those nasty fruits" Tarrin was trying to keep Thod distracted long enough for the Npfer's to finnish their friends his only hope was that he had enough pizza to do it.

[POS Industries]

"Mauve, Rei, Skyshot! I'm a sitting snake right here! We need something that'll either reveal it's movement or slow it's attacks!"

Rei, who had been following close behind Flare, took that cue to envelope both herself and the lamia within her artificial gravity field and set it into reverse, quickly lifting both of them about fifteen feet into the air before adjusting the gravity level around them to zero. The pair hung up there, slowly drifting in the breeze, as Rei began softly singing as she took aim at the Sphinx.

"Come with me and you'll be in a wooooorld of pure imagination...."

[mauve]

“That’s not good,” Mauve remarked intelligently as the sphinx took flight and lazily tossed some sort of dark spell her way.

The mage quickly backpedaled, trying to judge where it was going to land. This was okay, this was okay: As long as she didn’t get distracted, she could cast a spell to deflect the pyramid and shoot it back at the sph--

"Mauve, Rei, Skyshot! I'm a sitting snake right here! We need something that'll either reveal it's movement or slow it's attacks!"

Mauve was startled and instinctively looked towards the spot where her name was being called. She corrected herself almost instantly, but the briefest distraction was all that the sphinx needed. When Mauve’s attention returned to her opponent, the base of the great dark pyramid was already mere inches from her nose. Her eyes widened in something resembling horror.

“Aw, bloody he--” And Mauve was gone.



Meanwhile, in some parallel dimension comprised entirely of mazes, a portal opened in the sky. A magenta-clad figure plummeted through the glowing disk of light and landed in an undignified heap in some odd corner of the gigantic stone labyrinth.

Mauve coughed once or twice and picked herself up off the floor. She looked around, feeling quite annoyed and more than a little humiliated. That pyramid must have been some sort of prison spell or dimensional gateway, she thought to herself as she looked around. There wasn’t much to look at from this angle: just some long, twisting hallways and lots of stone walls lined with moss and who-knows-what-else. It certainly wasn’t the Earth Temple, or any part of the NPF.

She needed a different perspective, she decided. The view was always better from above. Grumbling to herself, she found a climbable portion of the wall and hefted herself upwards. A wave of icy coldness washed over her as she saw where she was.

There was nothing but jagged walls and winding passageways as far as the eye could see in every direction, looking more like a Salvador Dali painting than a physical landscape. She couldn’t see a beginning or an end, or anything, really. She slid back down to the ground, sitting on the cold stone floor and feeling slightly dazed. So that was it, then. The Sphinx had trapped her in a gigantic maze.

Mauve wondered if this was going to be the kind of maze adventure that involved Muppets and David Bowie, or the kind that involved Minotaurs.

Suddenly, Mauve was mad. Really mad. The Sphinx had just dumped her here as though she wasn't anything to concern herself with. She was probably up there right now, gloating over her victory. Stupid sphinx, thinking she's so damn high and mighty. Oooh, lookit me! I'm part cat and party lady and I'm oh-so-smart at riddles! Woo, so bloody special! And that little pink kid fell right into my trap! Oh-ho-ho, I is so smarts! She has to wander around blindly for the next SEVEN BLOODY HOURS whilst I sit here and laugh at her!

"Sphinx must die!" snarled Mauve. She knew what she had to do.



Back at the remnants of the earth temple, something strange was happening. If anyone had bothered to pay attention, they may have noticed that an oval patch of air seemed to be warping, like a funhouse mirror. And.. there was a sound. Faint at first, but growing louder. The sound... of machinery.

The warped splodge of reality jerked suddenly, and with a shredding sound a white and silver spinning blade appeared out of nowhere, hovering above the ground. The mechanical roar grew louder and the blade slashed a horizontal wound into the fabric of reality itself. A figure all but threw itself out of the gaping tear and landed on the ground with an angry grunt.

Mauve tossed the heavy weapon to the ground, it's machinery all but worn out from the task. The loud roar sputtered and faded away.

"Betcha didn't know chainsaws could slice through the fabric of reality, huh?" she asked the sphinx. "Yeah. Neither did the chainsaw." So much for the chainsaw she found. But oh well; it served her well while it could.

She stretched a hand towards the airborne creature.

"Come down here," she said angrily. She called forth another spell, and a boulder-sized chunk of ice appeared above and behind the sphinx. It fell quickly, intending to collide with her and knock her to the earth. Or at least show the Sphinx that Mauve was not a particularly happy camper at the moment. Whichever.

[Bailey]

After Thod had been lured away by a bit of bread with some cheese on it, Syttulg seemed to be talking to himself. In reality he was being fed 'helpful' hints, but none of the other NPFers had a way of knowing that. Well, they probably didn't. You never could tell with forumites. "That takes too much battery." "Yes, I know that with the sun shining my battery charges itself. It just doesn't do it fast enough for what you're suggesting." "NO I AM NOT GOING TO SPEND MY ENTIRE TURN TRANSFORMING MY BODY INTO FLOWERS! What would that even accomplish?" "Okay, fine, that's the first piece of usable advice all day."

Syttulg retracted his roots and thudded up the slope as fast as he could to reach the 'portal' mauve had opened, which he then grabbed. He moved it slightly, and the view shifted, changing the scene to piles of towering books rather than some sort of hellmaze. Syttulg walked in, grabbed a stack of tomes, the top of which was labeled NPF ADDventures: Core Rulebook I of XVI. The subtitle read More rules than you can shake a stick at!

Trudging back out of the dimension full of books, Syttulg found an outoftheway place to sit down and read. As he read, he began muttering to himself. "Huh, I guess I shouldn't have been able to do that." He said, the iron dissapearing from his back and clattering to the ground. "Oooh, I forgot to factor that in." A small wound closed itself up. "Oh here's an interesting rule. I'll have to remember that one." "Huh, I'm short one feat. Lessee... I guess I'll just take speed reading." After that he was able to make short work of the book, minor changes occuring across his body as he did so, some wounds closing, others opening.

He put the book down and picked up Core Rulebook II: Even more obnoxious rules and charts!

In no time at all, he was on the tenth book. Everything you never wanted to know about monsters and were afraid to even ask. He thumbed to the correct page, marked his place, and looked through the remaining books to find The book of riddles that are too damn hard. After thumbing through it, his eyes opened wide in surprise.

"Hey Skyshot! Her answer to your riddle is listed above yours in the NPF ADDventures Core Rulebook XIII: The Book of Riddles That Are Too Damn Hard! Yours is there too, but it's one space down." He glanced again. "And according to the book, 42 is a better answer than either."

[phil_]

"Yeah, train's served it's purpose. ●Dismiss."

Now, what to summon, Phil thought from behind a rock a short jog from the battle. The troll could be taken out by a Fire Elemental, but I think the plant guy and the shaman have him. I think we'll need to focus on the sphinx last; it seems to be the strongest. That leaves the rock and the snake. So, inexplicable drill tank or giant mongoose? I'm feeling mongoose-y.

"●Summon: Hungry Giant Mongoose!" The air in front of Phil's rock shimmered, and there appeared a 20 foot tall mongoose. The critter squealed, then ran toward the battle.

Phil proudly watched his monstrosity tramp onward. Then, his look of pride turned to one of worry. "Oh wait, we have two snake-people on our side...

Let's just see how it works out, at least until I think of something better."

OOC: Arhra, everybody else, the mongoose has general mongoose powers (biting and squirming), it's just really big. Treat it as an NPC.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

"Oh crap!"

Hawk was suddenly surrounded on all sides by giant thrashing, writhing, biting, poison miasma spewing serpents. And they were pissed!

The only good bit of furtune here was that he was airborne and his foe was stuck to slithering along on the ground. Hawk did the only thing logical the present situation allowed for: He accelerated straight up. He fired the gale downwards, towards his enemy and rode the updraft. This also came with the added benefit of dispersing the miasma somewhat, before it could fully envelope him.

"So, tough little bugger are we?!"

From this height, Hawk could see everything. The whole battle was laid out before him. So he couldn't miss the twenty foot tall mongoose that suddenly appeared.

"I knew this guy would come in handy", he thought to himself. "Ok, back to the old standby."

"ARTILLERY BARRAGE!"

Hawk began firing concussive blast after concussive blast, one after another in rapid succesion and all of them aimed at the multiple heads of the hydra.

This was gona hurt!

[Flarecobra]

I grinned and closed my eyes for a quick breath. "Well, methinks the Boulder's out of the picture for a while....Now for that Hydra...." I said, as I saw the hostile snake-being and used Flare on it, a group of six red orbs formed and rushed at it, detonating upon contact with the monster.

[Tarrin]

"see now isn't this more productive than fighting" Tarrin asked the large form of the Troll beside him.
"Thod like this p..Pizza" spat the large green trog,
"You know i think we just found a new position for you, I'm sure Pos industrys has a Pizza department and needs a Quality tester" Tarrin smiled his beaming smile at his new found eating partner, he hoped that this would keep the troll happy and out of the battle.
Atleast untill he could find out if Pos indeed had a Pizza devlopment section, then he'd have to convice him that a troll would make a good tester...meah couldn't be harder than this damned first temple.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Above the battle, Hawk continued to pummel his enemy. Some might think he had gone into a slight berserker rage but that was not so. He could still see everything that was happening below him, his eyes picking out every minute detail. The mongoose reinforcments he had been expecting continued to stand there, apparently unsure of what to do. He watched as the double team of REI and Flare blasted the boulder again and then saw Flare turning to face the hydra.

Reinforcements had arrived. And they had brought fire! And that gave Hawk a new idea.

Air contains large amounts of oxygen. Fire needs oxygen to burn. Hence oxygen + fire = INCIENDIARY BLAST!

The bombardment ended as Hawk began crushing and condensing the air around him. Small vacumns appeared about the area as the air was ripped out and pulled towards a spot about a metre in front of Hawk. Space seemed to warp and bend as the light passing through the growing sphere was refracted in bizzare ways. The oxygen level within the ball increased by several million molecules per cubic inch.

And then it was ready. About half a metre wide, but containing the full concentrated pressure of a seventy cubic metre area. Hawk launched it forwards at almost supersonic speeds and nerly fell out of the sky from the blast. He tumbled through the air slightly before catching an updraft and righting himself.

The Superball connected half a second after Flares' flare.

[Steel Shadow]

Steel had found a nice, secluded spot a few meters away from the rest of the group and sat down, vaguely disappointed at the lack of explosions. It was time to get some rest before moving on to the next temple. He sighed, lay his staff down beside him and closed his eyes...


Meanwhile, in another plane of reality...


See, if you add on the experience from the dryad and the boulder-
You didn't do anything to the boulder!
It was a group thing. I'm part of the group. Hence experience.
Fine, fine. That's still not enough.
Then you add the capitalist and all those little trolls which no one really bothered with on.
Close, but still not enough, even with the caryatid's bonus.
Don't forget the cultists.
Please, those experience numbers are nearly negative.
And the snakes to?
And the snakes to. Put it all together, even with what you already had before the temple, your still one point off.
One point you say?
Yup
Hold on a sec.


Back in the dimensions reserved for the NPF'ers...


Steel frowned. He could hear something. A small buzzing sound filled his ears, making it impossible to concentrate. He opened one eye and looked around. The buzzing grew louder. He opened the other eye and tensed his arms, ready for an attack. He saw movement. There! He struck quickly, giving his would be attacker no chance for escape. The flattened mosquito fell to the ground and Steel returned to his meditation. Or he would have had there not been an explosion behind him. He didn't even bother turning around.

"Will you guys keep it down? I'm trying to rest here!" With that out of his system he ignored the subsequent explosions and war cries. It was like they all had an extremely violent version of ADD. Putting them from his mind, Steel returned to his meditative state.


In a place where beings of infinite power play with the fates of men and gods alike...


No.
Come on!
No! I'm not letting you level up by killing a mosquito! A mosquito!!
It was a hostile being that I defeated. You know how hard it is to hit those things?
But...
Just gimme the damn level.
Fine.
Yes! And with a level up comes-
-The complete hp/sp/mp/status regeneration, yeah yeah.


...You know the drill...


Steel opened his eyes. Suddenly he felt completely refreshed. He stood up.

"Alright! I'm defiantly using meditation more often." His cheer was cut short by another blast wave from behind him. "I TOLD YOU GUYS TO-" He turned around. "Oh riiight, your fighting another hectic battle against what could easily be forces of evil. Why didn't you say?" He pulled free his sword, ready to charge into the fray.

He paused, then bent down and retrieved his staff. Didn't want to forget that he thought as he retied it to his back. Now, what to attack? He looked around, thinking before he acted. It wasn't fun. There was Thog, who Tarrin seemed to be dealing with. There was the boulder, which Steel hadn't been any good against in the first place. There was the sphinx... what was she doing here again? Did it matter? Anyway, remembering the treatment she gave Syttulg last time, she was best avoided until sufficiently distracted.

That left the hydra. He'd dealt with hydra before. How hard could it be?

[Lumaes]

"Uh, are you on our side or not?"
The spectre hesitated, tenebrous body coiling contemplatively.
"Oh... well... I do rather loathe you people but..." he chomps his jaw for want of a lip, before turning to the embattled League.
"Err - I say, Do you have a plan to stop the end of the world?"
"They blew it up..." came the Sphinx's reply.
You maniacs! You blew it up! God damn you all! buzzed Lumaes's frenzied thoughts.
"Oh... well then..."
The spectre hitched up his shadowy hem and dashed, coils of shadow in each hand past the battle line dodging around the flinging fire, spells and strangely enough a giant mongoose, to take up his rightful place on what could be laughably called the 'heroes' side of the battle.
With a hop and a skip he slid into place beside Arhra, gloved hands raised in preparation to deal with the villianous, wretched and morally unsound League,
he hisses over his shoulder to her,
"You know - you used to be cool. A towering monstrosity, bedecked with the spoils of a thousand bloody conquests and swimmming in the gifts of a thousand virign sacrifices, fire wreathed your fearsome fangs and the Storms themselves fled from your advance! Now you're a useless midget surrounded by equally useless halfwits"
"Well... you know, I can drain energy" came the useless midget's defensive reply.
"Well... I suppose that is kinda... No! Flying jellyfish can do that! I refuse to accept such spineless creatures as our equals! PC crap be damned! Anything without a skeleton is not worth knowing!"
The boulder, seemingly offended by this tirade burst from the ground beneath the critique spewing specter, its huge freakish mouth (well suited to devouring ghosts and what was presumably a ghost's egg) snapped at his inky body, carrying him high as the munching jaws attempted to devour him,
"Damn you invertebrate scum! Just wait till your power pellet runs out!" Lumaes shouted, spreadeagled in the maw in a painful attempt to hold the jaws apart and save him from a horrible, pointless doom.

[Arhra]

Arhra was faced with a complex moral dilemma. Lumaes was in trouble, in danger of being devoured before her very eyes. However, he'd just insulted her.

"Used to be cool?" she muttered, "I take exception to that. So what if I haven't had a thousand bloody conquests recently? I've just been resting up, biding my time. I'll show him! We'll see who's laughing when the time comes to face the Herald!"

Her tone turned introspective, "I don't remember many sacrifices though... Its all pretty hazy... Then again, I was pretty drunk - on power - at the time..."

But Arhra recognised this reverie as an underhanded attempt by half of her brain to make her delay in deciding on whether to help Lumaes. This, obviously enough, would mean a default of 'No'. On the other hand, he'd also insulted the boulder, and it was now trying to kill him. Therefore, she was reasonably sure this meant she should try to save him. Overruling a thought that it was predictable for a creature of Chaos to do the unexpected thing, Arhra sprung into action like an overwound clock.

"Alright, Hydra - " Arhra looked around. The wretched reptile was nowhere to be found. "Le sigh." she said as she brushed her fingertips against her forehead in a pained gesture, "It looks like I'll have to deal with it myself..." Rolling up her tattered sleeves, Arhra advanced on the amorphous beast.

While Arhra had hoped for an immediate transition to the aftermath of everyone congratulating her on how she'd amazingly defeated the flowstone monster, that failed to materialise. Instead, she charged in, seeking to get up to some good, old fashioned energy draining. With a dramatic cry, she punched it, and was distressed to find liquid stone crawling up her arm. Trying to tug herself free, she found herself swatted away by a stubby tentacle of stone the boulder extruded. It did the equivalent of a casual backhand, tearing the engulfing lump of rock off with her. As she flew, she saw it also seemed to be chucking rocks at Hawk and Rei.

"Damn you, you multi-tasking bastard!" Arhra yelled as she somehow managed to flip in midair to land in a crouch, dramatically skidding backwards as was customary. "See, this form has some nice tricks!" Arhra cried out to Lumaes, still stung by his previous comments. She quite enjoyed the crazy athleticism of her current shape or 'high physical attribute scores' as certain strange and pallid creatures would call it. Arhra wouldn't. There was a time and place for such terms and this wasn't it.

Feeling like her arm had been dislocated, Arhra glared at the heavy cocoon of rock encasing her forearm, and firmly placed her other hand on it. It sizzled as she drained its energy, turning dull and brittle. It dropped off, oozing back to the flowstone boulder's main mass, chips of rock cracking off.

Arhra smiled slightly. The boulder wasn't invulnerable and now she had something of a plan. She charged again, climbing up its side, swift as a squirrel panicking about its nut cache. It sought to knock her off again, but she was too quick for it to catch her.

Reaching the top, Arhra jumped in its jaws, Lumaes right in front of her. She saw it also seemed to have some manner of long tongue wrapping around his lower body and seeking to drag him down. Arhra put her arm out to contact the straining jaws on either side and leveraged them slightly further outwards with a surge of strength, taking the load off Lumaes. Using her two arms as a pivot to swing on, she jack-knifed her body and kicked Lumaes with both feet, tearing him out of the tongue's grasp and sending him flying safely out of the monster's mouth.

"Wait..." Arhra said, realising her position now, stuck in between the beast's jaws. "...Damnit!"

* * *

"Mirror, mirror on the wall. What is it you do for all?" It was hardly her best work, the sphinx decided as she put a hefty amount of power behind the riddle, but it was more than sufficient. She let herself chuckle as a pane of silvered air glinted in front of the hydra, Flare's flare bouncing off it and hitting Hawk's Superball, meaning a large, expanding incendiary blast was headed for the airbourne trio of Hawk, Flare and Rei.

Considering these three, the sphinx began, "Well, I think that - Mraowww!" The sphinx gave a rather cat-like cry of surprise as an icy boulder hit her from behind. While her shield spell might be quite effective against smaller projectiles, it couldn't do much against massive blunt impact. As the sphinx tried to break form her stall, she spotted Mauve. What?! I mazed her! were the sphinx's thoughts before she made a clumsy landing.

Hissing with feline fury, the sphinx rose up, awkwardly folding her wings on her back. "I'm going to start mauling you now." she told the mage of mauveness, running at her to pounce, well manicured but extremely sharp claws extended.

Meanwhile, the hydra was still beleagured, even with the assistance the sphinx had given. It, a giant mongoose and Hydra were facing off against one another in a sort of Mexican stand-off. The mongoose felt a little out of its league. While it was giant, these snakes seemed to be composed of several snakes! The small one also had hands and legs, making the mongoose wonder if it really was a snake. It didn't know if it was qualified to take on some kind of lizard person.

The two of serpentine nature were keeping several eyes on their opposition, knowing both their enemies would gladly eat them. and have a good time doing so. Having so many eyes also meant they could see Steel also about to enter the fray. They both acted at once, exhaling poison and leaping forwards, the gigantic mongoose also choosing to act. They disappeared in purplish fog, an occaisional glimpse of the battle gong on showing through. It resembled a classic swirling dust-cloud battle, except the dust was made largely of poison.

As all this went on, Thod looked at the box the delicious new food had come from. There was now no delicious food in it. He picked it up and sniffed it carefully. It smelt like the pizza. He crammed it in his mouth, spitting it out a moment later. "What this?!" Thod said angrily, rising to his feet, "Taste like cardboard!" This wasn't a good sign.

OOC: Oh, I might as well be open with this one, that mirror can't block a solid projectile - it'll probably shatter it. Also, Thod is fun to write for.

[Bailey]

Syttulg hastily flipped through The Book of Riddles That Are Too Damn Hard and looked up the answer. "Reflect!" He answered as he threw a pebble through the barrier. He thumbed through the book again, rather quickly this time. According to page three, if he got this off quickly enough he could subvert the energy of the answered riddle to form his own.

"The cuter they are, the tougher they fall. Encase them in a little ball."

Sure enough, the reflect barrier twisted slightly and a pokeball dropped to the ground. It popped open to reveal... a magikarp. He glanced at the chart. Apparently, although the riddle reversal had succeeded, he had then rolled a one on the selection chart.

Syttulg sighed. This was going to be a long battle.

[POS Industries]

"...We'll begin with a spin, traveling in the world of my creation..."

Rei had been floating up there with Flare, singing for quite a bit of time as she assessed the most effective manner of attacking the Sphinx. At first, a simple energy shot attack seemed like a good start, but then the Spinx threw up that little prismic rainbow shield, so the android had to spend a minute analyzing that in order to form a plan off attack, and just as she was about to hit the red side, the Sphinx created a new. shinier shield that was now reflecting Flare's attack back at...

...Wait, wasn't Flare attacking the Hydra? How did...

...Rei interrupted her confused musings as she activated her energy shield and enveloped herself, Flare, and Hawk (who had apparently been flying near the two of them at just the right moment). After the orbs collided with the forcefield and exploded in such a manner that might lead the more idiotic observer to believe that it was the fourth of July, Rei looked back down at the battlefield below, ignoring the little bits of stone that were ineffectually bouncing off her shield, and noticed Newb's successful bypass of the mirror riddle spell by throwing something solid at it.

Okay, a pebble is a start, she thought to herself, but we need something that will do more more damage. Something bigger... and angrier....

Rei adjusted her gravity field and moved the airborne trio a bit higher, getting just out of the range of the more annoying rocks that were still being sent her way before deactivating her shield. "Everybody ready now?"

Flare looked over her shoulder inquisitively, "Ready for wha--hey!"

With a quick motion, Rei grabbed Flare by the tail and whipped her around before letting go, sending the lamia careening down toward the Sphinx. Leaving Hawk to his own devices, the android then proceeded to float up to a point directly above the Sphinx's position before deactivating her gravity field, once again leaving her at the mercy of the planet's normal gravity, and she too began hurdling toward her target.

"Prepare for some doom..." Rei grinned, charging up another energy attack as she plummeted to earth.

[Flarecobra]

(Please don't control my character please....it's a petpeeve of mine. I'll let it go, but ask next time.)

I crashed headlong into the Sphinx, and winced. "Owwww....." then looking over and seeing what I had crashed into, instient stuck, and I bit into the Sphinx's backside, injecting my own hemotoxic venom into her, and just held onto her.

[mauve]

"I'm going to start mauling you now." snarled the Sphinx, showing off the curved claws that suddenly extended from her velvety paws. Mauve's eyes narrowed into bluish slits.

"You can try," she countered. The deadly competition had begun.

The sphinx sprang towards the mage with all the grace and ferocity of leopard, extending her ivory claws to tear the human to shreds. Mauve spun the knives deftly in her hands, building up a spell in her mind's eye and preparing to strike. This would be the ultimate battle between magic-using woman and magic-using beast. This would--

WHAP! In an unexpected turn of events, a flying snake-woman fell from the sky and impacted with the Sphinx's back. The Sphinx was knocked over by the force of the blow and hit the ground. Flarecobra didn't let go, but sunk her fangs into the Sphinx's flesh.

"And now it's raining lamia?!" Mauve yelped, dumbstruck. "The Apocalypse truly IS upon us! Although the lamia attack from above was incredibly helpful..." She looked up, possibly expecting to see the giant comet hovering a few feet above their heads. Instead, she saw Rei. "Oh. I get it. Rei pulled a Hannibal." Mauve's favorite story about Hannibal was the one where he catapulted clay pots full of live snakes at enemy warships. It left disturbing yet hilarious mental images. Mauve found herself snickering at the thought, but remembered that a sphinx who wanted to maul her was standing only a few feet away.

Mauve held out a hand. The sphinx was sufficiently distracted now, I'd say.

"Combust!" she yelled, and both sphinx and lamia were engulfed in flames that appeared to originate from the sphinx herself. Flarecobra would be okay, since she was fire-aligned. Rallied by the sphinx's expression, Mauve started throwing spell after spell at the creature.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Just as Hawk had been about to perform a series of awesome aerial evasive maneouvers involving barrel-rolls, loop-the-loops, freefalls and side to side strafing, he realised that the boulders that had been about to smash him to a pulp suddenly connected with nothing at all and shattered against some sort of invisible barrier around him. The oncoming inferno was similarly diverted.

He looked to his right and quickly realised that REI was the cause of this sudden and miraculous protection. He was about to thank her when she unneccesarily decided to throw Flare at the Sphinx! Before he could completely comprehend the reasoning behind this blatant and unprovoked form of attack, he heard Muave saying "Oh. I get it. Rei pulled a Hannibal."

"Yeah, I taught him that one, except we used snakes, not our own bloody allies!"

It was now that he returned his attention to the battle at hand. While the hyrda had avoided the fireball, he/she/it was now tied up with Hydra (whom Hawk had until now simply ignored (it was just easier to not ask questions)), and the giant mongoose who had finally entered the fray. They all seemed to be having a rather comical scuffle, so Hawk decided to let them be.

Thod was apparently getting angry at Tarrin over the lack of pizza. He decided to let them be.

The flowstone boulder was eating Arhra. Hawk decided to let them be.

So that left everyone to team up on the Sphinx and brutally murderise her!

At this point she seemed to be on fire, while a certain lamia was biting her ass.

"Death from above, whoo-hoooo!!!!"

Hawk began giving her something else to worry about by raining down airblasts, aiming to contact with the fire engulfing her and help spread the burnination.

[Tarrin]

"What this?!" Thod said angrily, rising to his feet, "Taste like cardboard!" This wasn't a good sign.

Tarrin looked up at the unhappy Troll "Well that's the box for the pizza bud" Tarrin had to come up with some plan quick or he'd have a very angry and very dumb, two attributes that made for a dangerous Thod.

Scanning the area quickly a smile grew on his face,
"I know what you need THod my friend" Tarrin rose to his feet slowly and kept his hands where that could be seen "See those tyre tracks over there?" Tarrin pointed towards the Pizzahut delivery cars trail that lead back towards who knows where.

Thod followed Tarrins finger then looked back at the spirit walker, "You see i figured that you'd need to work up a really good apitite" The smile on Tarrins face grew a little more
"What you mean?" Thod looked a bit puzzled and decidedly more upset.
"If you follow those tracks it'll lead you to a place where they'll make Pizza fresh for you, All you could eat and more my fine green friend" Standing before the Troll Tarrin hoped he'd take the bait and race off after the poor delivery driver.

The world seamed to stand still as Tarrin awaited Thods answer, Noise faded from his ears light grew dimmer untill it seamed to be just the two standing in a small spotlight looking at each other waiting for a move of some sort to be made.

[mammothtank]

The enormous blast caused by the colliding Flare spell and concentrated oxygen orb had an odd effect no one seemed to notice - when the resulting concussion wave hit the rip in space-time or whatever it was that Mauve had left behind, it managed to move said rip about a meter to one side. Apparently this also moved the far end of the rip, though considerably more drastically. Just how drastically was demonstrated by the young man that came tumbling through. He was clad in old green clothes that were fairly well stained with black grease, and one hand gripped a large adjustable wrench. His entry was accompanied by a series of sounds that went something like this:

"-uck?" WHUMPF. "Ow."

Squinting, mammothtank climbed to his feet. Only then did he notice that a huge battle was well underway all around him, so heated that he couldn't tell who was on whose side or what was fighting when and why. Luckily though, between the multi-headed hydra, the flying lamia, the blond mage, the troll, the sphinx, and the convoy of pizza delivery trucks, somehow he had remained unnoticed so far. This was fortunate; considering how distracted he had become looking from one combatant to the next and that his weapons and armor were put away for the time being, he was ill equipped to defend himself should any of them throw an attack in his direction...

[Steel Shadow]

Steel stepped back as the purplish gas clouded around the hydra and the giant... actually, Steel had no idea what that thing was, having never seen a mongoose before. He just assumed it was another one of these weird past enemies. True, he hadn't seen it in the temple, but the NPF'ers were responsible for a number of atrocities across the years. It could be after any one of them. And then there was the humo-hydra thing. That was just plain creepy. Probably a good thing for everyone if it got wiped off the face of the planet. Unfortunately he'd seen Arhra going around with it earlier and the chaos being had already poisoned him. Getting on her bad side was probably a bad idea.

Steel shook his head. He was getting sidetracked. Back to business. That gas was certainly poison. Everyone knew purple things were poisonous. Snakes, drinks, hula-hoops... Which meant Steel would have to be careful. Muttering about how he'd just gotten it back how he liked it, he retied his bandana over his face, making a crude cowboy mask. It probably wouldn't help to much, but any added protection was a plus.

He took a deep breath. Having his whole defense mechanism rely on how long he could go without air could really make holding his breath allot easier. He was no Guybrush Threepwood, but he could manage for a while. He'd have to be fast though.

The thought sparked something in his brain. Fast. He could be fast. He could control time for gods sakes, fast should be no problem. Now how to do that...? The answer came quickly and simply. The universe seemed to slow around him, though not quite standing still. "That’s better" he muttered, sounding weird to anyone who could hear him. Taking another breath, he ran forward into the fight.

It was... weird. They fight was chaotic, but all in slow motion. Steel didn't wait to enjoy the view though, this would be burning through his power all to quickly. He locked his sights on his first target, the hydra. It was mostly busy trying to entangle the giant whatsit, but a few of its heads were looking his way. They began moving towards him, probably far to fast for the human eye to track. Normally.

Steel dodged to the side of the first head, using his sword to block the next one, then jumping on top of the last one. The snake recovered quickly, launching new assaults. He didn't have time to let them reach him though. He ran along the long stretching neck of the head he'd landed on, relying on his speed to keep him balanced, dodging any obstacles that came along long before they had time to notice him. Luckily most of the heads were distracted by other opponents.

Then he reached his goal, the base of the neck, where the main body split apart. He struck quickly, severing the heads that had been after him. Then he set about doing the same to the rest of them. hopefully it wouldn't notice until it was to late.

[Arhra]

The sphinx had been surprised to have something fall upon her, more so to find it attmepting to entangle her and biting her from behind. Being set on fire only made things worse.

"Flame fuel my fury!" the sphinx cried in pain, calling upon magic of affinities. She felt it take hold, a bright flame burning within her, the pain of the flames being pushed from her mind. She raked at Flare's coils enraged, wriggling bonelessly out of them. Her shielding spell was still effective, saving her from the worst of the spells Mauve pelted at her. She glowered, eyes red with bloodlust.

Nearby was the swirling chaos of where the hydra fought. From glimpses through the mist, it seemed to have lost several heads, although someone had clearly forgotten an important part of hydra lore. Two were sprouting in the place of each one lost, the stumps not having been sealed. Even so, it looked sorely pressed. The boulder she could not see immediately and Thod had been lured off by the low cunning of the NPFers.

They were in danger of being overwhelmed. And could she not see the hated one. "Retreat!" the sphinx cried, snarling in rage. The hydra exhaled again, thickening the miasma that hung about it.

"Cloudburst!" the sphinx yelled, the cloud of poisonous miasma ripping open into a blinding, pinkish haze. It flowed outwards, a thick, almost solid mass of vapour, thankfully not nearly as dangerous as the purple mist.

The NPFers' attackers seemed to simply vanish.

* * *

Arhra panted for breath after her exertions, choking slightly on the cloying vapour. Fighting off the rock beast had been hard. She could the bony clacking of applause behind her before feeling a cold, skeletal hand on her shoulder.

"That was most impressive the way you fought that murderous rock, my dear." came Lumaes' merry voice, "It put up quite a fight for a lowly invertebrate! Quite amazing the way you sent it packing. I've entirely revised my opinion of you!"

"I was a bit worried when it swallowed me, but, well, you know the rest..." Arhra said modestly. She trailed off. "Why didn't you help me?" she added accusingly.

"I am a coward." Lumaes said pleasantly, flashing a bony grin. Skulls are very good at grinning. "Besides, we both know if you had been a useless midget that could be done in by a mere rock, you'd have come back as something presumably less useless."

Arhra looked slightly embarrassed at this, "Actually, I'd prefer not to have to do that. I had to subdivide my essence to make something possible for the plan... and that isn't easily done. I don't know what exact effect only part of me dying would have..."

Lumaes turned his most powerful inquisitive expression on her at this admission. "Talking about the scheme endangers the scheme!" Arhra shouted in answer.

Abruptly turning away, she flailed her arms to help try and clear the air a little. "Is everyone alright?! Yell out if you're dead!"

OOC: This is more just to give everyone a brief break in fighting and to let me finalise some monster profiles. Might be a little hectic jumping straight into a new fight.

[mammothtank]

MT was the first to step out of the fading haze, and he appeared to have taken the time to re-equip; he now wore a shining mail of armor that didn't appear to fit him perfectly, and on his back sat a very large blade. There was still a black smear on the side of his face however.

"Now that I'm not a sitting target, could someone explain what's going on here?" he asked of whoever could hear. As he looked around and realized the faces he saw were familiar, old memories began returning to him. Naturally, this caused him to start muttering to himself. "Wait... elf... merman... slime dragons... Santa... message..." As the possible reasoning behind his contrived entrance dawned on him, MT was left with but one thing to say:

"Oh no, not again."

[phil_]

Phil poked his head around the rock he was hiding behind. Seeing their enemies disappear, Phil dismissed the mongoose before it could try to chomp on Hydra and Flare. Convinced that he was safe from direct attacks for now, Phil stepped around his rock and started back toward the group. Hearing Mammoth's question, Phil responded, "I have no clue what's going on here. I assume that there's some kind of world/holiday saving afoot, and I'd hazard a guess that it has something to do with the comet."

Standing beside Mammoth and facing the rest of the group (or, atleast those in front of MT and him), Phil asked, "Anyone want to explain exactly who those guys were and what you all are doing out here in one hundred words or less?"

[Bailey]

Syttulg changed the structure of his arms into some sorts of instruments and music began to pour forth from him.

"There does approach an evil.
An evil is afoot.
This evil takes shape in chaos.
Best way for it to be put.

Gather round now Crisis Squad.
There's trouble to be averted.
With all the awkward rhymes I use,
Let's hope this doesn't get perverted.

Five temples there are.
One for each element.
Don't go saying there's only four.
I know just what I meant.

We set about our task.
Earth Temple now has falliens.
Those villains you just did see.
Were none other than the guardians!"

The music ceased, and he bowed.

"Oh, also Arhra poisoned us and is withholding the antidote unless we help."

[POS Industries]

And so the battle ended somehow.

And Pedro and the Riyal emerged from the tail of the comet with all sorts of interesting findings.

And now, with Pedro able to communicate, he ordered Rei to return while they analyzed the samples and readings from the comet.

And then Rei opened up a hyperlink portal and vanished into it.

And that's about it.

[Flarecobra]

"Well, If you want, I can call in a couple of Airships to take us to our next port of call, and get MT some gear...I've got a couple of spears you can barrow if you want." I said, looking at him. I had already taken out my phone and was ready to call in the airships to come in. "They've also got some of my troops, so that we don't have to deal with any pesky wannabies that hang outside of temples and whatnot."

[Arhra]

Hearing MT's exclaimation of despair, Arhra sauntered over, patting him on the back gently. "There, there." she said soothingly, "It's not all bad. I mean, you get to spend time with me!"

Syttulg launched into his explanation and Arhra politely waited for Phil's applause to stop afterwards. "Well, that's one way to put it." Arhra said, "But I might add in a few other details."

"What brings us here, is an apocalypse. Ushered in by the chosen instrument of the Ruinous Powers' will. Order's Bane, the Knight of the Many Rayed Star, Favoured Champion of Chaos Ascendant, Endbringer, Slayer of Worlds... The Herald of the End Times!" Arhra ended with a dramatic flourish.

"Basically, because of Raiden's recent screwing around with the universe, the dark powers of Chaos woke up and decided to bestow the Heart of Chaos on a champion to unmake the ordered universe. Along with the Heart and all those fancy titles, other gifts have been bestowed upon the Herald - various blessings, magical powers and artifacts of Chaos. Fortunately, their power will not be fully awakened until the Chaos Gate opens at the conjunction of the Invisible Moon." Arhra pointed at the infinitestimal speck of darkness in the sky, somehow visible despite the vast distance the comet was from them.

"The Seals were built around the Gate and meant to stop the Moon even turning up, but..." Arhra pointed at the comet again, "Chaos has entered them. The Herald got through the temporal barrier and waits before the Gate as we speak. Basically we're going to destroy the corrupted Seals so we can get at the Herald."

"Still, we will have to be careful. Even without the final blessing, the Herald is very powerful and very intelligent, possibly more intelligent than any of us. Myself excluded of course. That would be ridiculous." Clearly, Arhra had a high opinion of herself.

Flare chose this point to offer her suggestion.

"No no no no!" Arhra said, bustling over, "You can't do that! Don't you remember?"
"We'll just ride Rhiya as that is the closest and thus safest way to get to the Earth Temple. Unfortunately, flight near the Gate is... risky... so we'll still have to travel a little overland.""...How did you do that?" Flare asked.

Arhra ignored the question, "Things get screwy near the Gate and the barrier plays havoc with the atmosphere. We'd be in serious danger of crashing, or being attacked by space goats. Almost as dangeorus as trying to teleport into the place... I'm amazed Rei hasn't had some sort of teleport mishap with those portals."

"Anyway, more practically, we have to travel on foot to find where they hid the temple - its not like you can land there straight from the world map! I have a good idea of where they should be, but can't find them from the air."

Thinking about Flare's statement a little more, Arhra looked puzzled. "Wait a moment... you're a general?" A perceptive one she was.

* * *

Some time later, they'd found the entrance to the Water Temple. The trip had been uneventful. The most dangerous thing they'd seen was more of those pathetic cultists, who'd run away at the sight of them. Aside from that, there'd simply been a lot of sweeping views of them travelling and the occaisional argument about whether Arhra really knew where she was going.

The door was in a shallow cave that opened out into a lake. A waterfall was at the door's left, feeding a cool, deep pool that filled the cave center and flowed out into the lake. Fortunately, the pool didn't seem to contain any tentacle monsters. Equally fortunate was that this door did not seem to have a sphinx guarding it. Unfortunately, the ornate, metal door seemed to be encased in a solid block of crimson ice, harder than diamond.

"Hmmm," Arhra said, over the noise of the waterfall after the obvious fallback of fire was attempted, to no effect. "Chaos is definately at work here. Ice shouldn't do that." She stood in front of the door, looking at it curiously and getting slowly wetter from the spray of the waterfall next to it.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

"Damn instantaneous scene changes! Not even enough time for the Lord of the Rings' "traveling" music to play out."

Then he saw the frozen barrier, preventing their entry into the temple.

"Oh and look what we have here, he said with a slight sarcastic tone, "we've faced trolls, semi-liquid boulders, armies of snakes and hydras and the Caryatid of the earth herself, and the best they can come up with is a door?! Pur-lease!

He raised up into the air, and powered up a concussive blast.

"Everyone hit it on 3".

1.

2.

3!!

[Bailey]

On three, Syttulg dropped to the ground to dodge whatever retaliatory blast the door was no doubt about to come up with.

[PhoenixFlame]

((At Arhra's request... Huzzah!))

"Took you long enough." Phoenix remarked to Arhra as the group finally reached the entrance to the water temple. While she could have simply waited for the shock-and-awe effect of the inevitable "Wait, how'd you get here?!" Phoenix simply didn't give anyone time to get a word in edgewise. After all, villanous monotoning was a side-effect of her Series VII God-Plot Machine, known to many as the Deus-Ex Machina. It's also possible she'd simply stepped out of a hidden tunnel behind a dramatically positioned waterfall that no-one had noticed since they skipped the area's opening FMV, but that's far less mysterious and doesn't involve reality-manipulating mechanics.

"I've been waiting for about... Thirteen hours. I'd calculated it'd take you 23% less time than it actually did to finish the last seal, yet..."

Phoenix wouldn't have been bothered to note that no-one really cared about her speech. After all, it's a well known fact that nobody ever pays attention to a villanous monologue, especially when the character giving it isn't obviously villanous, or simply isn't doing it right. In retrospect, she should have cackled more.

The perceptive among the group (and how woefully few there were), might have noticed that PhoenixFlame was no longer wearing her PhoenixCorp jumpsuit, or Hand!Device(TM), and that her trademark Plasma Weapons were simply not present. No, Phoenix instead was adorned with a flowing silver robe, and a similarly elegant golden-tipped sapphire-inlaid staff.

Yes, the perceptive among them might have identified Summoner Phoenix instead of embarassing themselves by asking "Whoa, what happened to your clothes!"

"By the way, Hi Arhra!" Phoenix finally remarked with a peppy tone after finishing her boring monologe, and waved at Arhra with a wide smile. "I hope everyone brought lightning spells!" she giggles cheerily. A little... too cheerily. "And the door is warded with death-magic, dear. It's a drown spell, believe me, I've already tried it." she chuckles at Hawk.

[Flarecobra]

"Yeah. I've got my own company of troops waiting for my call, if the occation calls for it." I said, before we headed out.

As we got in close, I started to get a little ancy. "Water....guess I'll be playing healer for most of it....this kinda nullifies my Fire attacks." I said, having shifted to human and back in my usual midnight-blue armor. "Thankfully my weakness is to Earth, and not water, but it does have that habit of putting out fire...." I said, mostly to myself as I shifted my slung spear across my back.

[Tarrin]

Tarrin looked from the block of ice that encased the door to Phenix and back again, "Well drowning isn't a problem for me but i'm not sure how having gills would be against a spell?" Tarrin had encountered much in his travels with the NPF so far and stoped taking much for granted but he'd have a go if Arhra thought it could be done.

"Besides" He tought "i can always come back and haunt the hell aout of Arhra if she gets me killed" a smile grew on Tarrins face as he thought of the haunting goodness he could impart.

[Arhra]

"Ah! Phoenix!" Arhra said, after politely waiting for the end of the villanous monologue. She made some mental notes of the pitfalls to avoid, for when she had to do one of her own. "Costume change eh? Very good! We were delayed by recurring enemies."

At Tarrin's interjecture, Arhra replied, "I do not understand what you are saying!" loudly and slowly. Something about the drown spell, although it wasn't like anyone would try and open the door after hearing that. Besides, she could always terrorise the hell out of their ghosts if she got anyone killed and they came back to haunt her.

"Now the mystery of the door has been solved," Arhra paused to glare at the door. She should have known to look behind the waterfall. "We can continue. Let's go fight some defenseless sea animals!"

A sojourn through the damp, cool tunnel behind the waterfall, the NPFers found it opened up into a cavern. Looking to their right, they'd see the other side of the main door also frozen in the mysterious red ice. However, its more likely their attention would be grabbed by the sight in front of them.

The ground was uneven, rising and falling in gentle slopes to create dozens of shallow pools. Fountains were all over the place, some ornately fashioned, others seeming to be ocmpletely natural. In all of them, the water from the highest jets continued to rise upwards, pooling on the ceiling. Water shouldn't do that. It was slightly unnerving to see water flowing upwards on the cavern roof.

More importantly, the chamber was swarming with enemies. Strange floating fish flocked all other the place, avoiding the slow shapes of spiky tortoises, plodding surrounding with some thick, dark smoke. Towards the back, an ancient, massive crab looked up from a meal of what looked suspiciously like sushi.

Arhra noted how the quality of defenseless sea animals seemed to have gone down lately. These creatures looked downright vicious. The fish made strange fishy sounds, the tortoises bellowed and the crab began scuttling towards them in silence.

As Arhra easily dodged a fish that suddenly burst forwards and tried to headbutt her, she said "Well, this doesn't look too - AGH! Jumping murder turtles!" She rolled to the side as a Kill Tortoise, launching itself in an improbable leap with its stubby legs, almost landed crushingly on her head. Other Kill Tortoises were leaping and sliding forwards with disturbing speed for a tortoise, not caring about the fish some of them splattered as they did. Other Kill Toroises chose to plod inot the fray. Behind them, the Giant Enemy Crab lumbered towards the NPFer's, claws clacking menachingly. The fish were scattered all amongst the place, the first wave to attack, ramming with animal ferocity and as far back as the crab.

Battle was joined.

OOC: This fight is Easy As Pie. Monster descriptions are here (http://forum.nuklearpower.com/showpost.php?p=466225&postcount=1). I'm wanting a fairly short fight.

[Bailey]

Syttulg cautiously got back up from the ground and retrieved the stack of books and the pokeball he had gotten in the last fight from where he had thrown them. After following the others, he let out Magikarp and threw it at a float fish, then recalled it. Probably because he was bored.

Having had a small amount of "fun", he then set to business.

Really, his types are electric and grass and he's in a water temple. Do I seriously need to describe what he's doing or can all just assume that he's killing things with his major type advantage?

FINE if you really insist.

He's alternating slicing things up with his thorn blades and releasing bursts of electricity from his hands, using the moisture in the air to hit everything around him.

And he's also formed his left arm into a sort of a nutcracker like thingy and is using it to declaw the crabs.

Happy now?

That enough explanation for you?

Can I go now?

Sheesh.

[PhoenixFlame]

"Of course, of course... Recurring enemies, Yet, I may wish to info-" Phoenix began, but was rudely interrupted when she reflexively drew her weapon. Now, Phoenix hadn't ever thought to draw her weapon, but sometimes it just happened automatically. When this happened, it was a good indication that an enemy was nearby.

Several enemies.

No, today was a bad time for a Lightning summon. Unfortunately for Phoenix, Astyrran: Lord Elemental of Thunder only possessed single-target attacks, something he would invariably waste on the errant Float-Fish due to the nature of elementals having poor intellegence.

Speaking of Float Fish, here comes one right now...

"Hyah!" Phoenix yelled in a distinctly un-menacing yell, as she thrust her staff toward the oncoming head of the charging Float-Fish. Now, generally summoners simply don't have the strength to do much damage, but thanks to the Float-Fish's lack of leverage due to it's floatiness, and thanks to it's speed, Phoenix managed to deal a respectable "THWAP!" to it's face, sending it reeling backward. A little "359" popped up over the fish's head, for no apparrent reason.

Quickly racking her memory, Phoenix came up with a plan B. Yes, water had TWO weaknesses. Lightning was obvious, but Ice was not. After all, a frozen fish was as dead as a smoking fish, and Ice tended to expand and make a mess of the battlefield. Something "Aryali: Queen of the North" would excel at. A phantasmal blue panel with white border popped up next to Phoenix, containing the words...

"Attack/Magic/Item/Flee"

Naturally, "Magic" was soon highlighted, followed by "Elemental Circle Summoning".

Even if the fish were of Water/Ice, at least her summon would absorb a good portion of their attacks, Phoenix thought, while extending her arms to begin casting. At first, five lines circled around the floor she was standing upon, aligning themselves in a pentacle-shape, each of the lines corrosponding with one of the five key elements of the terrestial circle. Red for fire, Blue for air, Green for life, Black for water, and White for earth. Inside each of the starpoints was conjured a sphere and sigil, again in an elemental motif. A circle of technicolor glory connected all five starpoints as the sigil whirled to place the "Air" (Which also contained Ice) sigil before Phoenix. The water around her began to congeal and freeze as it sculpted itself into a lithe, feminine form...

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Hawk let the air sphere he had created slowly dissipate as he heard the words "death", and "drown". Before he could say or do anything else however, the scene changed again.

"Hey what happened to the do-".

He looked around at his surroundings.

"Never mind!"

He then went to work, ignoring the floating fish below him and instead began targeting the jumping turtles as they launched themselves at him.

They were easy pickings though, their arc through the air taking them high above Hawk and allowing him plenty of time to target and fire. As each blast struck they were thrown backwards into the cave wall, where their protective shells smashed open and they themselves became dazed from the impact.

[mammothtank]

mammothtank drew his sword from its sheath on his back and gripped it with both hands. Odd that they would all float at the same height, but that gives me an idea. MT ran forward and, with a cry of "Bowling Bash !!", swung the blade like a baseball bat and struck a float fish. The force of the blow sent it flying backward where it collided with another fish. These two kept going and collided with a third fish, then a fourth, then a fifth before finally losing their momentum and falling into a heap on the floor of the cavern.

"Cool, dominoes! Let's do it again!" MT said to no one in particular as his second Bowling Bash connected with another float fish. A Kill Tortoise chose that moment to leap straight at his back, but before it could tackle him, MT swung his blade at the ground, creating a spark that ignited into a small burst of flame. The Magnum Break knocked the tortoise back in the direction it came from.

"Funny... I don't remember them being this easy; those icemen things from the first one were a real pain in the - Bowling Bash !!" He spun around and whacked a fish away, realizing that talking to himself was probably a bad idea at present.

[Tarrin]

Tarrin stood in the centre of the NPF chopsakie goodness, he watched as his team mates hacked, slashed, Fried, Froze and generally smote the mob of enemies that encircled them.

Feeling somewhat safe (well from the fish and turtles anyway) he took on an observer role in this quick scuffle.

[Cyborg Mokey]

'Wow it looks like someone else actually cares about this damned world!! lets get kicking booty!!' As the Mokey jumped into the room all he can see is the NPF owning fishy butt!! While he stands there he waves to Tarrin!

The Mokey pulls down his battle visor and starts to quickly analyse the situation....*bzzzzzz....bzz* ENEMY: Strange multiple-coloured fishy fly things? Objective: Mow them all down!

Once the analysis is done the Mokey finds that the best approach was to start trying to gun some down. With a smile on his face he pulls out the Patriot and starts to gun one of the fish down! 'Ha! these are easy!!' While the Mokey is gunning the fish down a kill tortoise sneaks up behind him. 'Oh no you don't!' and the Mokey pulls extend the wrist blades and jumps on the tourtoises back and starts to slash its head.

[Lumaes]

"We are fishless, born without the glee of the scaled shadows of the deep. We live without the uplifting presence of the haddock and the cod. All seahorses are but mammals, who live brief lives before they drown.
It is a sad life without fish. "
Lumaes croons softly, watching the animals favoured by Cancer, Pisces and Scorpio being irreverently slaughtered.

A deep composing breath illicited a puff of ancient dust from the spectre as he attempted, with masterly poise and grace to sail forth like the grim tidings of death and despair. It was working well until a float fish, not understanding the centuries of symbolism and cultural attachment seething behind his shape rammed him, rather unsettlingly in the side of the head,
"Felonious fishy fool feel fearsome ferocity!"
The fish did not live.

The skeletal apparition had set his sights on Enemy Crab, he was saddened perhaps because he knew, in another time and place he needn't have been Enemy Crab at all. He could have been Friend Crab or even Comrade Crab.
Despite this it was Lumaes his duty, he knew the crab's one, true weakness.
Enemy Crab was old, very old and probably arthritic, he was a crustacean and hence was crabby therefore Enemy Crab was the distilled essence of an Elderly war-pensioner and as such his weakness would be tea and long stories which go nowhere and feature dead people with missing limbs with names like "Bonker" and "Jinky".

Lumaes knew better than to beam at Enemy Crab, instead he made sympathetic grumbling sounds, he removed a thermos from his inky folds and a chipped, bone china teacup and mentally prepared his best war story; "The Horrible Maiming of Mister Toff"

[Tarrin]

"We are fishless, born without the glee of the scaled shadows of the deep. We live without the uplifting presence of the haddock and the cod. All seahorses are but mammals, who live brief lives before they drown.
It is a sad life without fish. "

Tarrin watched as Lumaes drifted towards the Large crab, during their time in the NPF Tarrin had still not learnt how to make sense of everything the specter had to say.

He was however able to make the gist of what Lumaes was trying to say, This however was not one of those times, Tarrin just shook his head,

Turning his head to scan the other NPF members he was almost caught be a flying shell, as the shell closed on his position it let out a mist that started to envelope Tarrin, figuring that anything misty like from anywhere would either be very bad for one's health or smelly very bad he decided to hold his breath and move.

Once clear of the gas Tarrin took a deep breath and decided sitting on the sidelines was not a good idea, reaching thru the veil of spirits he drew forth his spirit lance, it's spectral form shimmered in and out of reality as he swung it towards one of the highly colored fish that made it's way towards him.

[Arhra]

Arhra was faced with a most perplexing prolem. It was a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, put in a box with 'Mystery' written on the side, eaten by a tortoise. For that was the problem: A tortoise. And it had almost crushed her to death with a mighty leap. Arhra carefully examined this knotty problem from all angles, trying to decide how best to unravel it.

"Arhra Punch!" she yelled as she punched at the tortoise. Everyone knew yelling out the name of your attack made it more powerful. Admittedly, this was just a punch that she'd stuck 'Arhra' on the front of it, but the principle was the same.

However, this meant her arm was engulfed in corrosive vapour up to the elbow. Also, she'd just punched a tortoise in its shell, which as the widely believed fact states, is virtually indestructable.

"Yargh! Burny!" Arhra yelled, as she recoiled, forearm raw and pink. The burns oozed a clear fluid. It wasn't very pretty, especially since her passably fast healing kicked in, the flesh beginning to go puffy and bubble in a mildly disturbing way. At least it distracted her from the pain of hurting her fist on its spiky shell.

She jumped back as, like an iceberg out of the fog, the Kill Tortoise lunged forwards, snapping with a wickedly snarp beak. Tortoises... tortoises... how do you kill tortoises? Arhra's mind raced. A scrap of lore plodded out of her hindbrain. The fastest way to kill a tortoise is to plunge it into a pot of boiling water.

Arhra's backwards movement brought her foot suddenly splashing into a pool of water. "Aha! Prepare to meet your doom! BOIL!"

A bubble rose up and popped. The water felt fractionally warmer. "Uh... your doom will take a while to get going!" Arhra cried again. She lamented her lack of good long ranged attacks. Flailing around for any weapon within reach, Arhra's hand closed on a fish.

"Haddock...en!" Arhra flung it at the tortoise. It didn't accomplish much. She was then forced to jump, folding neatly into one of those midair crouch poses, as a Kill Tortoise spun past, almost running into her. Good ideas were looking hard to find. Then it struck her.

"Owch!" Arhra shouted, punching the float fish that had just headbutted her from behind. It exploded, for reasons unknown. "Wait... Plumbers!"

The Kill Tortoise finally decided to charge her, pulling inside its shell and sliding. It revolved slightly as it streaked at her at high speed, a spiky, armoured shell of death. Acidic gas poured out of vents as it did, leaving a thick, smoky trail of the nasty substance behind it.

CLLLOOOONNNGGG!

Arhra hit it with a length of large pipe. She'd mysteriously procured it and it worked ot great effect, sending the shell sliding backwards. Hefting her now bent and slightly corroded pipe, she watched the Kill Tortoise careen wildly around the room. It bounced off walls and fountains, send sparks up as it did. The reptilian wrecking ball left a swathe of destruction, turning fish into a fine bloody mist and wiping out one or two other tortoises. Its out of control rebounding brought it ramming at her but Arhra hit it again for another volley of destruction. The third time, Arhra broke her pipe, sending it spinning a short distance through the air and landing on its back. It waggled its legs pathetically as it tried to get the right way up again.

"Hah!" Arhra declared triumphantly, "Who's the acid venting, spiky, killer tortoise now?!"

OOC: The battle will be finished when I next post - a day or two. If you have anything you want to do, get in and do it.

[Bailey]

As the ice elemental appeared, Syttulg took the effects particularly badly. "I'm'm n'not'n an'n ev'vergr'reen'n!" He shouted. His movements now slightly sluggish, he moved towards Pheonix. "C'could'd y'you perh'haps's t'turn th'the heat't back'ck up'p?"

[PhoenixFlame]

"Hm?" Phoenix asked Syttulg as Aryali finally formed fully. The elemental had already raised her left hand and given a ladylike fingersnap, causing the area around her in a 30 foot radius to suddenly be devoid of all heat energy. The flash of azure-white light between the Ice Queen's fingers signaled that yes, the heat had been converted to MP. Somehow. Summons were strange like that.

"Could you... Oh, I get it." Phoenix chuckles, looking at the stuttering Syttulg. "You're dying. How cute." The summoner smiled invitingly at the plant-being with a very... unsettling facial expression.

"Bastion of the Forbidding Demense!" She yelled, much like Arhra's own attack. Yet, this spell was hardly an attack. No, it extended Phoenix's immunity to her own summon's abilities (Doesn't everyone wonder why Yuna never gets hit with Mega-Flare?) to Syttulg and anyone else within 10 yards that she considered friendly. This basically meant Arhra.

"Aryali! Destroy them!" She commanded her summon, in a rather roundabout fashion. She could have been more specific, but at least Aryali was intellegent, and she tended to make rather good decisions based on what to do in any given situation.

The Ice-Elemental flourished her sword and raised her shield arm, and a chill feeling fell across the already very cold area around her Azure light trailed up her left arm to the slender fingertips of her icy hand, and her eyes closed peacefully... Several Float Fish and Kill Tortises were closing in for an easy attack, and Phoenix simply smiled as she wrote them off as moths being drawn to a fire. Yes, the trap was set, and now only to spring the trap.

Aryali's eyes suddenly snapped back open, and with a sudden gesture, her left arm flicked outward with predatory grace. The ice surrounding her feet cracked, and for a moment... Nothing. Then with the suddenness of a greased thunderbolt, several stalagmites of chill fury burst from the ground, impaling, scattering, or otherwise freezing to the bone the sundry water-fodder that bothered to crowd around her. Float fish were destroyed instantly, and a handful of Kill Tortoises shared their fate, albeit with less efficacy. Several of them however, were merely knocked backward, though severely stunned.

Phoenix grinned as she noticed the toxic gas surrounding the Tortoises. Luckily for her, summons didn't suffer from paltry status effects like poison or venom. Of course, that's not to say that she didn't...

[Bailey]

"Thanks. Now I just have to hope that the boss in this temple isn't dual-type water/ice and I should be set. Don't know what I'm going to end up doing in the fire temple though." Syttulg reshaped himself to become mostly humanoid once again, and began slicing anything that entered the ten yard safe zone, taking advantage of the occasional lull to check whether the mysterious float fish were edible.

[Tarrin]

The shelled enemy charged Tarrin once again, the mist expelling from it's vents.
Placing the spirit lance in the creatures direct line of attack Tarrin used his weapon like a polevolt to excape the tortise' trajectory.
The creature passed thru the lance and as it did so the corosive vapour stopped ad it's small soul was rended from it's mortal form.

Tarrin stood up and grabed for the spear once again looking for his next target, a shiver ran up his back, turning he saw the summons Phoenix had called forth start it's attack, knowing that the tempreture was dropping more and more tarrin begain to sprout fur all over his body, the fur protecting him from the attacks to come.

[phil_]

Phil stood at the entrance to the cave. Rubbing his chin, he mused, "Fishies, seafood, what kills fishies? Uh, cats! But I already did the whole giant animal thing..." He glanced at a nearby turtle. "And normal cats won't stand much of a chance." He then considered Phoenix's summon. "A Final Fantasy style attack summon could get me lots of cats. That'd work."

Phil got in his fighting stance. "Right! ●Summon: Sakaki san!" A 174cm girl with long, black hair and a disinterested but serene expression appeared in front of him. "Now, use your special attack: Super Feline Rush!" Sakaki san raised her right hand over her head and spread her fingers. She then lowered it and put her index finger's second knuckle to her lips pensively. "Um," she started, "I don't have any special attacks."

Phil was taken aback. "Really? I thought you could make a fountain of cats spring from the ground."

"No, I can't do that. Why would you think I could?" There was a short pause. "And who are you, anyway?"

"Well, you've got that whole cat thing and... you know what, never mind." And, ignoring her second question, Phil dismissed her. Kicking a fish out of the way, Phil plopped down in the portal and asked himself, "Now what?"

[Flarecobra]

I saw Arhra use knock one tortice like a bat, which gave me an idea. I waited for one to get within range, and at the right angle, then when it leaped, I batted it away with my spear like a baseball, sending it at the crab at a high speed.

[Lumaes]

The tortoise came fast across the floor, trailing a vesperous stream of poison as it sped towards the Giant Enemy Crab. The crab seemed unaware, engaged in sharing its own tale of battlefield woe, which, from what Lumaes could glean of the strange crab language, was called, "Skrrtch, skrrtch, bubble, froth, skrrtch".

Flare's deadly projectile drew closer, tearing fiercly along the ground full of menace, its wicked looking spines threatening to tear through carapace and white, expensive crab flesh.
This did not happen.
What did happen was this; The thick, barnacled claw clamped on the spiney shell, holding it tightly in a boneshattering grip, the acidic cloud wreathing around the frightening apendage. Its black, beady eyes turned to Flare.
With a fearsome crack the tortoise burst open, scattering spines and moist, fleshy chunks - still trailing the deadly gasses.

Lumaes' jaw dropped, his monocle fell from his glowing eye-socket in shock.
"You stupid, upstart bastard!" he squalled at the Lamia.
Beside him Enemy Crab shuddered into motion, its heavy legs skittering into position as it hefted its massive claw, intent on wreaking horrible, crabby pain.
It dropped its teacup, the fine chipped china shattering spectacularly on the ground.

[Arhra]

With her attack, Flare brought the crustacean ire of the Giant Enemy Crab down upon herself. Even as everyone recovered from their shocked, jaw dropped poses from seeing it crack that Kill Tortoise open as if it was no more than a slightly troublesome nut, the crab lumbered towards Flare in a zig zagging crab charge.

Unfortunately for Flare, the crab's armour seemed to be virtually impervious to fire, be it a strike, shield, twister, blast, storm, or even some sort of flare spell, no matter what the prefix. The thick shell was also remarkably spear-proof. As for whips, ha! The crab's armour seemed to made of an alloy of adamantium and tortoise shell.

Though bravely dodging its lunging strikes and snipping pincers with leaping and rolling and such, that was not enough. A backhanded sweep of one of its massive claws caught her, no way to parry such a powerful stroke. It knocked her down, making the armoured woman fall in one of the innumerable puddles about the place. Arhra gasped as she saw the crab step forwards to dispatch its prone foe.

She had to do something!

Arhra speculated on the feasibility of rendering the dead fish down into some sort of crude lubricant, which could have a variety of uses.

Something practical!

Arhra summoned to her mind visions of the most terrifying, mind haemorrhaging, fear inducing things she could imagine and then hesitated. What exactly would terrify a crab? Pulling up power, Arhra let the magic do as it willed.

The air wavered and warped, as if some nightmarish tentacle beast was about to materialise. Instead, there was a quiet but emphatic WOP! and a gigantic seagull appeared. Arhra could see its lack of substance, but to anything else it would appear all too real. Its head threatened to bump on the cavern roof as its mad, red ringed eyes locked on the crab. With a horrible, ear-splitting volume, it screeched, hopping towards the crab.

The crab paused in the middle of menacing Flare to regard this fearsome apparation. It scuttled to the left and then, with a sudden flurry of motion, buried itself in the soft sand there.

"I should have known," Arhra muttered, "What could possibly be more terrifying to the beast than the natural enemy of the crab?" Much more effective than trying to make the crab slip on fish oil.

With the crab in hiding, it looked like the NPFers had won. Whatever creatures left alive were either playing dead or running looking for a hiding place. Arhra tallied the results, taking the number of NPF casualties away from the number of enemy casualties. The number was positive and so it was a glorious victory! "Are you all right?" she asked, walking to Flare and offering her a hand.

OOC: Battle over!

[Flarecobra]

I shook my head, and looked around and saw my helmet about 50 feet away. "Note to self....never eat crabs again..." I said, slowly getting up and grabbing my helmet. "Lucky my armor's made of Adamantium as well...though that stull hurt like hell..." I said, using Fire-3 on myself and feeling the pain go away. "Much better...."

[phil_]

Phil stood up. Talking to no one in particular, he said, "A seagull, huh? See, that's why I don't usually come along on these trips. I'm, like, the worst summoner around, and I can't even kung-fu fight. I can't even do my rudimentary black magic since I forgot to put it in my profile..." Phil slouched and sighed. "I'll try to be less ineffectual next encounter."

"Right. So, anybody hurt?" Phil had entered the chamber now. "Let's form a nice little marching order and continue on, shall we? Meat shields in front, casters behind, hobbits safely in the middle. Sound good?"

[Bailey]

Syttulg picked up Phil and stuck him on his shoulder.

"How about hobbits on lookout with their heads higher than everybody else because everyone knows they have good eyesight?"

[Arhra]

Hobbits in the middle? Arhra pondered. That didn't sound very typical. She could have been sure they were meant to be sent off on their own, preferably in pairs, and possibly with something critical to the success of the quest. Shrugging it off, she went to find Hydra.

Hydra, it appeared, had mainly fought the fish. Arhra's keen, deductive mind deduced this by the subtle clue that she was sitting with a large pile of fish in fron of her, eating them. The clue of her actually asked Hydra what she'd been doing also helped. Arhra didn't care for the taste of raw fish herself, but to each their own.

"You're a real glutton you know." Arhra said jokingly, sauntering over.

Some of Hydra's heads looked up from her meal. "Well, I do have a lot of mouths to feed." she quipped.

Arhra gave her a long, quiet look. Hydra shivered from the inexplicable menace there. "...Never use that joke again!" Arhra shouted at the cowering girl.

"I'm sorry!"

* * *

Moving deeper into the Temple, the NPFers came across what looked like a dried up pool. Craning their necks, they could see the pond covered what would have been an underwater tunnel that extended under the wall of the room, deeper into the temple complex.

"Hmmm, looks like you were meant to swim through here to get further in. Well, that makes this a lot easier." Arhra jumped down onto the sandy bottom of the pond. The traces of water were definately there, including dried clumps of seaweed carpeting the place and the occaisional, pathetic pile of fish bones. It was as dry as a bone.

"I wonder where the water went?" Hydra said, voicing her thoughts as she walked down stone steps carved into the pool's edge to join Arhra on the lake bottom.

"Probably a giant toad drank it or something. Wouldn't be the first time that kind of thing has happened." Arhra said offhandedly. "The important thing is it not here and probably will not come rushing through while we're down here, drowning us all."

And so it was the NPFers headed into this water starved labyrinth. Twelve steps in, they ran into trouble. The ambient light seemed to dim, flickering lights ahead like a swarm of fireflies, moving at them purposefully. It was a school of little fish, pale and spectral, a flickering light like a candle's glow in their bellies.

"Look out! Ghost fish! Defend yourselves everyone!" Arhra cried.

The fish didn't do anything.

Arhra untensed slightly and cautiously approached them. Simply flitting around aimlessly, the shoals split up to avoid her when she came too near, just like regular fish. It was quite anticlimatic. The NPFers walked through the spectral schools with nothing worse happening than an disturbing burst of coldness when ghostly fish accidentally darted though them.

After a little more wandering, only running into one dead end (although there had been a treasure chest there), they reached the end of this should-be-underwater maze.

"Ah, so that's where the water went." Arhra said thoughtfully, looking up. "I don't suppose anyone knows some sort of spell that lets you breathe water?"

Above them, at what should have been this dried-up pool's surface, began a mirror-smooth expanse of water, ignoring gravity with calm dignity. The halls ahead were flooded.

[mammothtank]

Staring upward at the hovering water, MT pondered what best to say about the situation. Presently, it came to him:

"Oh no, not again."

He then began thinking out loud. "I remember water was a problem in the last one I was in, but what did we do about it? It wasn't my tank, it wasn't a sub, it wasn't a giant air bubble... Oh yeah, it was that weird slimy stuff that exuded oxygen gas!" He looked around hopefully, but didn't find anything that might have been the miracle slime from before. "Damn."

A somewhat more practical solution came to him. "Hmm... my tank might actually work, if we could somehow fit everyone inside, and make it transparent so I could drive with the hatch closed..." He waited for the others to either agree with the plan or offer alternatives.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

"Hmm, giant air bubble you say? Now that gives me an idea!"

Micro-vacumns formed around Hawk again as the air began to condense into a sphere, only this time the sphere didn't form in front of him, but all around him instead. Those closest to him could feel the air being ripped away from them as Hawk attempted to compact as much air as was physically possible to fit into so small a space without compromising the integrity of the orb that he would soon be depending on to survive.

When he figured it was enough he turned to the others and said, "See you on the surface".

And with that, he ascended throught the gravity defying barrier and headed off as fast as he could (his wings somehow controlling the bubble and allowing it to move miraculously forwards), lest he run out of air before finding the surface.

[PhoenixFlame]

"Well, I assume we shou*ack! choke*" Phoenix began to ponder, shortly before Hawk sucked the air out from around her. Soon however, the ambient pressure equalised, and she was able to continue talking without being overtly choked. Two pairs of red eyes glared up at Hawk in response to this, however.

"As I was saying..." She continued in a slightly more flustered voice, "We should simply drain the water with a gravity spell. Much like opening the hatch on a submarine in port to escape, if we drain the water into this hallway, we can ride the ascending air much like Hawk is doing now." and gently took a moment to poke the water-ceiling with the tip of her staff.

"Anyone got a gravity spell?"

[phil_]

"Don't you have some super gravity element monster-beast summon, Phoenix?" Phil asked from Syttulg's shoulder. "I mean, I could summon a black hole, but that'd probably be too much. Oh! I could summon one of those hovering robots from Dynamite Heady that flip the level upside down! That might work, if I could remember their name." Phil wondered for a moment if he could get a wireless signal down in the cave so he could check gamefaqs.

"Or," he eventually said, "I could summon a small sub to get us through, or at least those of us who don't want to ride in Mammoth's tank. I could even tether the tank to the back of the sub so he wouldn't have to somehow make its armor transparent. Seems easier than tampering with space time and sub atomic particles." Quickly, he added, "Not that it wasn't a good idea, Phoenix. Great even!"

Maybe she won't kill me now.

[Tarrin]

Gills formed just under Tarrins ears, thile underwater these gills would extract the needed oxygen from the liquid suroundings.

Grabing paart of the wall Tarrin lifted himself part way into the water floating above the NPF heads, after a few seconds he lowered himself again.
"I can't see how far it goes, it's fairly dark up there" then with a quick flick of his head a small stick like protrusion with a glowing bulb on the end grew from his forehead, "Got this idea from an Angler fish" Smiling Tarrin popped his head back into the watery nether.

[mauve]

"Well that's... interesting," Mauve said for lack of a better adjective. She scratched her head as she regarded the hovering water. "Don't see that every day, now do you?"

If Pyros was here, he probably would've summoned the Hellspawn Yellow Submarine again. The thought was highly amusing, if still incredibly disturbing. Phil's proposed NON-DEMONIC submarine idea was less funny, but much more appealing to ride in. So was Mammothtank's non-demonic-non-submarine scuba-tank.

"I might be able to cast float on a submarine or tank in order to get it from down here to up there," Mauve supplied, trying to be helpful. "Status effects don't always work though, and I'm not sure if it'll be useful on a non-living thing. But still, if we end up going that route, it might help."

She stared back up at the tranquil surface of the water, and at her own reflection staring down at her.

"Of course, there's always the chance that we'll do what we ALWAYS do to solve our problems and find some violent and/or psychotic way to reach our goals, which works for me too."

[Bailey]

"Does spamming lightning spells count as violent and/or psychotic? If so, I may just have the solution."

[Lumaes]

"Of course, there's always the chance that we'll do what we ALWAYS do to solve our problems and find some violent and/or psychotic way to reach our goals, which works for me too."
A skeletal hand clattered slightly as it settled itself down on Mauve's shoulders. Lumaes' grimacing skull loomed into view behind Mauve in the reflection, at least he wasn't a vampire as well.
Cold breath washes over her neck as the spectre speaks,
"That would be, my dear, because you are violent, psychotic idiots" he smiles benevolently, explaining in very precise, indulgent tones.
He casts a disparaging glance at Newb, he indicates the plant-thing with his free hand, "Exhibit I"
He leans in close, his voice whispering playfully into Mauve's ear,
"The I stands for idiot"
He chuckles, shaking his head as he slinks into the shadows quietly.

[Flarecobra]

"Well, make with the sub summoning!" I said, though I still didn't look to comfertable in this place....especally whenever a ghostfish flits through me, my phoenix soul kills it...again.

[phil_]

"So, I'm assuming that most folks are behind the sub idea. Let's get this nut cracking, or something."

Phil thought of the best way of going about this. The water was right there; he could easily summon the sub directly into the water with neutral buoyancy, but that would leave the trouble of getting into the sub. But he couldn't just summon the sub in this hall; subs can't fly. So he needed a sub that could somehow get up into the water and a way of succinctly expressing such.

"●Summon: Frog Sub!" A large, metal frog suddenly took up most of the hallway. A reflective visor took up the space where the eyes should've been, and a silly-looking dome-shaped hatch with an orange, metal wheel was situated half-way down the frog's back.

"Ok, I think maybe six of us could get in there comfortably, so we can maybe cram eleven or so in there. Lesse, don't need to bring the bird or Tarrin, MT may have himself covered. That leaves Arhra, horrible snake beast, Flare, the skeleton, the guy with the orange cape, plant man, Mauve, Phoenix, Skyshot (if he's around here someplace), myself, and that robot monkey if I'm not imagining it. Hey, cool, eleven. Did I miss anyone? Would someone ride in the tank when Mammoth somehow gets it here and tethers it to the frog's butt?" Phil climbed up the ladder to the frog's hatch and turned the wheel. "I call pilot!"

[Bailey]

Syttulg climbed up and in, looking around. "Oh hey, one of those bigger inside than outside dealies." He walked around and laid one of his hands on a console looking device, resting the gold contact points on his fingertips on the data ports.

"It appears that you need three people to man this thing. A pilot and two gunners. I call the secondary weapons system." With that, he walked into a corner, climbed up a ladder, and got comfortable in the control seat.

[Flarecobra]

"It's name is Hydra." I told Phil, as I slimed in, and scrunched up as much as I can.

[mammothtank]

Raising an eyebrow at the gigantic frog-shaped submarine, MT shook his head. "Whatever. I can fit at most two additional passengers so long as they don't mind the lack of elbow room." As he spoke, he pulled out a round disc that looked like a large reflector and placed it on the ground where there was much open space. He then pulled out a remote and pushed the single button on it. A second later, light gathered in the air above the reflector, and the famous Mammoth Tank materialized.

Retrieving the telebeacon from beneath the tank, MT turned to the group with slightly narrowed eyes. "Again warning about the tight fit, who wants to ride back here? And come to think of it, anyone got a tether strong enough? I doubt bungee cord will cut it..."

[PhoenixFlame]

"I'll take Primary!" Phoenix gleefully shouts, leaping into the Frog-Machine behind Syttulg. Aryali, naturally, could not fit, and so Phoenix dismissed her. After all, a stately ice-summon like herself was not fit to swim around in water in such undignified manners.

"Alright, let's go!"