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

[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?"