NPF Avatars IV, Chapter III: The Sphinx on the Doorstep

[mauve]

(Hope you don't mind how much I took over your character, Garud.)

Another chunk of ice hit the dryad in the side, throwing her off balance ever-so-slightly and distracting her from another leap at the demon slayer.

"Don't be silly, Garud," Mauve said curtly. "It was no big deal. The whole point of the arena match was to try and beat the living daylights out of each other, and neither of us really even managed that." She turned her attention back to the dryad.

"Now, here's what we do..."


By now the dryad was more than a little annoyed at the constant interruptions. She had been enjoying herself up until the point where her prey had taken on this annoying sidekick. It wasn't like the little mage could actually harm her, but the dryad preferred to have her prey alone and defenseless. It was far more amusing that way.

Of course, there was a very simple way to fix this problem. The dryad bent her hand into a rake-like claw and leaped at the problem in question. The mage stumbled backwards in surprise and extended a hand, but the dryad wasn't worried about any spells she could cast.

The dryad was actually airborne and just feet away from the mage when she felt something wrap around her ankle. With a shriek, the dryad stopped mid-flight and jerked backwards before impacting heavily with the ground. She looked back-- Garud was tugging on one end of his sword-chucks with all his might while the other was wrapped around her foot. A series of cracks ran up the dryad's front and across her arms as a result of the impact.

"Watera!" commanded the mage, and the dryad was instantly drenched. Water seeped into the cracks. "Now!!"

Garud's magic swirled around the dryad, and her face instantly contorted in shock as the water expanded with the cold, breaking the cracks open even further. Something that could be likened to horror spread over the dryad's features as the lower half of her right arm split with a sickening crack.

The creature tried to stand, but the ice slowed her movements. Some of the water even acted as an adhesive, freezing the dryad to the porous ground like cement. She was trapped, and was slowy falling apart. A bone-chilling scream left her mouth and was slowly stifled as ice formed all the way down her throat. Then, there was silence.


"Dunno if she's dead," panted the mage, leaning heavily against a tree trunk. "But that'll at least... hold her for a while..."

Her eyes went from the dryadcicle to Garud, who was slowly becoming a living statue.

"Dammit," she cursed. "Still gotta find... a way to stop this. Ideas?"

[PyrosNine]

The tree proved harder to burn/melt than thought, but there was some screaming from the Dryad, who suddenly found it a bit harder to get out. Pyros kept up the heat, and concentrated it to a smaller, hotter flame that was still large enough to cover the entire tree. This did entail getting closer, which Pyros found just as perilous if he had attempted to wrestle the thing to death like certain other people.

The Dryad could still lash out a free arm, and hack away at PYros, who did his best to remain in his position without letting go of the stream of heat. Pyros had to duck and swerve, and when none of that could aid him, he pulled out his sword with his free hand and parried. However, the flame weakened and Pyros had to get closer to keep up the heat neccesary.

The problem was is it was similar to performing open heart surgery while using one's other free hand to shoot six bullets in a bullseye 30 yards off.

"Dammit," she cursed. "Still gotta find... a way to stop this. Ideas?"

"I am not fully free with my hands, but-dodge- may I ask, do any of you know Earth Magic? I'm fairly -CLANG- sure there's a magic spell that gives animation to lifeless rock..."

[Tarrin]

Tarrin curled up into a ball on the ground, The preasure of his stone affliction becoming too much to bear.
Pain was shooting through Tarrins body, The stone was squeesing around his heart now, Making it hard to pump blood around his body, It wouldn't be long before either his heart was itself was stone or crushed by his other organs as they turned to stone as well.

[Darth SS]

Darth skidded back into the room.

"Sorry. I left the water running. At my house. Where I live. Had to go turn it off, cause I don't want to run up the bill...'cuz I'm not...rich...oh bother."

When his voice dropped off, he'd taken stock of the situation. Well, the tattered remains of it. Basically, as farm as he could see, they were screwed. His mind was actively searching for a way to unscrew the situation when it was, unfortunately, interuppted by one of the beasties that had screwed up the situation first. Damn dryads, couldn't they see he was busy?

Rapidly, he returned to reality as a stone claw arced towards his face. His arm snapped up, intercepted it, then he jumped and booted the dryad away. Unfortunately, his arm...felt funny. He looked. Stone. With a wince, he grabbed his knife and flayed the stony part off before it could spread.

Fucking ow.

After a bit, the skin regrew. After a bit, the dryad was coming back. She threw another claw at Darth, who was at an impasse on how to stop her. He blocked the strike again and prepared himself to hurt himself again. His arm wasn't turning to stone. Why would it? It wasn't actually there. It was his ghost arm that had taken the strike. Darth moved her hand aside and punched the dryad right in the nose. Since his arm was a product of his mind, he could make it as hard as he had to. Verilly he did just that. However, since he now had a way to defend against the dryad, he had to think of a way to kill it.

After another quick sock to the enemy nose, he set about doing just that.

[Bailey]

Syttulg felt his knees soften, and then his hands as well. The statue head slid off of his claws, and he dashed forwards. Slicing at the frozen Dryad, he slashed off half of its head.

"It helps if the culprit is dead." He panted, before collapsing to the ground.

"I need..." gasp "... a recharge." Gasp "Lightning, anybody?"

And with that, he fell unconscious.

[GARUD]

"The arena... that's it! This gives me an idea. Remember when you burnt that tree, and the light created both light and darker shadows. Well, if you have a fire or light spell, you can create more shadow, enough for me to make more potions."


Garud looked down at his legs. They were completely made of stone. So was one of his arms. He still had one arm free, but it didn't really help much. His neck was starting to grey.

"Umm... I don't mind a bit of chatter here or there, but would it be too much to ask for a little spell to generate some shadow? I don't really want to put you out or anything. No hurry though."

Garud always made sure to be polite when asking for things. Even for a cure for petrification.

[mauve]

"You got it," Mauve said. She took off her cape and threw it up into the branches of a tree, then extended a hand and engulfed it in flames with a single word. The fabric caught fire and burned, casting long, flickering shadows dancing around the room.

"All yours."

[GARUD]

Garud raised his one good arm, and the darkness swirled around him, culminating in one point. A vial appeared followed by it filling with a putrid smelling pitch black liquid. Success. The cape continued to burn, despite having no shadow now.

"We make a pretty good team, don't we?"

Garud prepared to douse himself with the acid, but it seems his arm would not respond. It seemed during his shadow creation, his arm had turned to stone. He felt really bad about it.

"Eh, I never thought I would be this dependant on someone until I got into a nursing home. Would you mind tipping the bottle. Pretty please?"

[Inbred Chocobo]

IC had taken on a dryad of his own. Every time it came at him, a block happened to stop the attack, but then when IC counterattacked, the damn thing always got away.

Then IC had a crazy idea. When the dryad went to hit him, IC reached out with his left hand. The claws sank into his palm, and IC squeezed his hand around the claws. The dryad ran away, but was suddenly jerked back. IC still had ahold of the claws, but not his hand was stone, so the dryad wasn't getting away. IC yanked the dryad in, and with his free hand swung the Wind Edge, smashing off the head of the dryad.

He would have to give his hand a minute to unstone itself, so he went off to help someone else.

[Arhra]

Arhra watched as Inbred leapt into the fray and pursued the dryad that had been attacking her. "Uh, little help?" she called at his retreating back. Sunk up to her waist in the mouth the rubble beast had opened on it's back was not a good place to be. She secretly suspected the dryad had deliberately run off to distract Inbred.

As the stony jaws closed on her, Arhra discovered there was one advantage to being half petrified at least. It had numbed and hardened her flesh. What would have been very painful was merely painful as she felt rock shards press into her flesh. One arm flailed and grabbed at the vine-like cords of magic threading the thing together.

Tugging at it experimentally and feeling the energy being to flow out of it, Arhra's expression turned devillish, "Well Mr Rock, it seems I have found your weakness!" Grabbing at a conduit that seemed to be articulating the jaw, Arhra pulled energy through it into herself and forced the mouth back open. Merrily tearing the magical vines animating the thing out by the roots and withering them as she balanced precariously on its back, Arhra quickly had the upper hand. When too damaged to sustain itself, the remainder of the spell disispated and Arhra fell in an undignified fashion as the monster collapsed back into a pile of rubble.

Arhra dusted herself off and took the moment to triumphantly pose on top of the heap. She kicked a rock and watched it tumble down the pile, "Not so tough now you can't move, are you Mr Rock?"

Arhra then found herself stabbed from behind. She gasped and arched back, losing her balance and tumbling down the mound, sprawling in an ungianly heap at the bottom. With the alarming sensation of blood in her throat and numbness where she'd been stabbed, Arhra coughed and looked at her attacker.

It was the same dryad as before. Walking daintly down the pile of rubble towards Arhra, the dryad smiled. It was almost flesh now, a picture of long legged grace as it stepped lightly from rock to rock, the sun shining on its lovely form. Bark garments snugly hugged its green skin, still paler and greyer in areas not quite flesh. It combed back it's deep green, leafy hair with its flinty, blood stained claws, one of the few parts of it that were still completely stone, and traced along one of the branches woven into its hair like ornaments. Deep green eyes were lit with evil joy.

Arhra felt quite certain this should be going the other way. She was also of the opinion that she didn't get enough long eloquent descriptions of how kickass and beautiful she looked.

"I am beginning to not like you!" Arhra decided to inform the dryad. She had briefly considered seduction, but seeing how she had used it before in a remarkably similiar situation, she doubted lightning would strike twice. Instead she ran through a mental inventory of her abilities and considered her options. Her best bet was probably a Cunning Plan. She inhaled.

When the dryad reached Arhra's supine form, it found its intended prey more than it had bargained for. Arhra sprang into action, breathing a gout of fire at its face, and lunging, stabbing one hardened hand through it's torso. Arhra was mentally congratulating herself on how smart she'd been to hunt down a dragon and steal its fiery breath when she felt unexpected pain. The dryad's two claws stabbed into her chest, burying right up to the digits.

In emergency panic mode, Arhra did not stop to consider why the dryad was still alive after having a hole punched through it. Instead she focused on making it more dead, free hand lunging for it's throat. She slumped as she felt the leaden weight of stone flow into her, along with the life force of the dryad. Almost completely stone, she felt the dryad collapse, Arhra's drain being just enough to kill it along with the injuries inflicted upon it. With the dryad dead, Arhra tried to move and found she couldn't. Her thoughts moved sluggishly as she realised just how close she'd come.

A mental inventory revealed that she had accquired some new abilities from the dryad, including the ability to transfer petrification. How typical of Blue Magic-esque abilities to be learned the moment after they become useful.

Feeling the petrification slowly beginning to abate, Arhra wished it would hurry up. It was embarassing being frozen in this tableau with the dead dryad.

OOC: Well, let's finish the mopping up and then we can continue.