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

[Arhra]

OOC: Hmm, well I think we've delayed here long enough. Thus, in the interests of moving along, let the mauling commence.

It was rather like watching a cat play with some small animal in had cornered. In fact it almost exactly like that, seeing how the sphinx was predominately feline, larger than Syttulg and predisposed to play with her 'prey' while Syttulg was (probably) a mammal.

Sparing the details - we've all seen cats toying with something, batting it with their paws and such - a short time later Syttulg had been mauled. The sphinx left him where he lay, in need of medical attention. A thought seemed to occur to her, "You're the first people I've seen here since I took over the job. Why are you here?" she said to Arhra.

"The Invisible Moon is coming."

"Ah, but why would you...?" The sphinx trailed off, "Bah, I don't care any more."

It was, as she had said, unusually impressive for a door opening. Pieces of it withdrew, twisted, shifted in and out and then entire thing irised open as a complex jigsaw of parts.

Her duty discharged, the sphinx decided to attend to more personal matters. As the others began to enter the temple, she sauntered towards Skyshot something about it unsettling. "I know the answer to your riddle." she said breathily, "What's lightest touch brings agony, even the strong can't bear and exists because of an absence? Desire." The last word was openly suggestive as she smiled at him.

"As for cold water burning it, well, it really kills the mood." she purred. Sphinxes love someone who can make a good riddle.

[PyrosNine]

"Actually, I heard somewhere that cold water only made desire burn all the more, but that's just my word." Pyros pointed out as he stood over the mauled body of Syttulg.

As he stood over Syttulg, and inspected his many, many wounds, he decided that since the others were quite unlikely to do anything helpful for their foolish party member, he might as well.

"Forgive me for not aiding you earlier, but this was a valuable lesson for you to have learned. Now, if I may, I shall tend to your wounds. For, as Kings would say, 'You got mauled the F*(k out.' "

Pyros pulled out a gourd of fresh water and mixed it with some mud laced with herbs Pyros had in his possesion, and laid them on Syttulg's scratched and bleeding body. Then, using some spare cloth and Pyros's own hair needles, he erected a crude sling for Syttulg's broken right arm, sewn the more open wounds shut, including reattaching his left leg and a few fingers.

Then Pyros made a small prayer for him, and stood up. "There. Now you should be fine, aside from the excruciating pain you must be going through. I'm afraid I'm all out of pain relief powders and have never had normal money in my possesion to buy modern pills."

Pyros thought about this. He supposed he could fly back down and obtain both money and some tylenol, but he was pretty sure that if Syttulg was left in his current state, the others would do something even more horrible to him. He would just have to keep watch and Syttulg would just have to bear it.

"If you want, maybe I could knock you senseless. That would ease things a bit for you. Or just press on your wounds a bit until you naturally pass out from the pain."

[Flarecobra]

"Come on." I said, walking into the temple, and getting ready to light up my arm just in case it was dark and a light was needed.

[Bailey]

Syttulg tore off the random accoutrements and threw them at Pyros.

"If you wanted to help you would have made the sun brighter!"

Sure enough, Syttulg's body was completely healed after a few minutes in the sunlight.

[Skyshot]

Skyshot shook his head at the sphinx.

"Nope," he said. "The answer is 'mouth ulcer.' Infravision." Skyshot's eyes glowed red for a moment. "Well, I guess yours was sort of valid. See ya, sphinxy." He hover-walked into the temple. "So, I'm thinking my earthquake spell would be great here. Since it makes earth quake, it should do weird things with their constitution..."

[Tarrin]

Tarrin stood watching the mauling, and then the regeneration of Syttulg form,
Then looking around he saw the others prepairing to enter the seal's resting place.

"You know when i was alive a sphinx wouldn't have let you off with a mauling, Oh you'd be dead and eaten" the spirit was back.
Tarrin caught up with the rest of the group ignoring his mentors comments.

[PyrosNine]

Pyros took a bloody stitching out of his hair. "You know, I may very well knock you senseless just for your rudeness. I was only trying to help."

To emphasise the point, he punched a wall as he entered the temple, making a deep gaping hole in the rock.

"Besides. Increasing the sun's brightness would both kill you and everyone else on this planet."

[Bailey]

"Nuhuh, Me, Flare, and a coupla other people would have been just fine."

[PyrosNine]

"Fire powers do not block Solar Radiation, the resulting solar-flare would kill any electric or electronic based being, and you would die of cancer."

Pyros called out from inside the Dungeon.

[Fenris]

Fenris was suddenly glad he was inside the temple with the rest of the group.

'I'm bored, when will something interesting happen?'

'Will you shut up?'

'Hey, it's as much my brain as it is yours!'

'Wha-buh-it's-guh...' Fenris stammered inside his own brain. He weakly thought 'Is not...' and went back to thinking only to himself.

'Now look what you did!'

Fenris suddenly longed for silence, despite the lack of sound around him.