NPF Avatars IV, Chapter II: The Doom That Came to Earth Temple

[Arhra]

OOC: DB, I won't go so far as to give a full warning, but what you have done so far is above the acceptable level of power. Incidently, its more the demons than the undead that's the problem. Be more careful in the future.

Arhra almost sighed as she saw the cultists approach. She'd had enough of hordes of crappy enemies. While variety was good in that she might learn a new ability, the only power she might learn from these wretches was the power to suck. And not in some sort of fun black hole style way.

As Arhra pondered the various upsides and downsides of being a singularity, the cultists attacked and she found herself being clumsily swiped at with what appeared to be a heavy thurible by a cultist who loomed over her.

Of course, it was quite easy to loom over Arhra. Bringing much attention to this fact wasn't very wise though. Obviously this cultist had picked her out as she was the smallest in the group seeing how much looming he seemed to be trying to do.

Rather than strike fear into her though, it had quite the opposite effect. His very height was an insult to her! But she'd be the last one laughing, mainly because the other guy would be dead. Petite frame galvanised into motion, Arhra summoned up her chaotic magic.

Now, Arhra's magical strength varied with with her incarnations and was weaker in this physically powerful form than her more magically inclined ones. Still, while not the best magic in the world for killing a great many foes at once, Arhra found it more than sufficient to add that touch of extra spice to her attacks. She formed her intent around a single word and cried it as she released her power, "Kasplode!"

Technically that wasn't a word, but it worked for her purposes. Indeed, the virulence of the effect surprised her a little as snakes of chaotic energy bored into him, seeming to feast themsleves on his blood before exploding. A few tiny ones cast off by the explosion even latched onto to other cultists and began the process anew.

A flickering corona of energy dancing around her head, Arhra turned to regard the next closest cultist who had stopped at this display of power, "Hail Endbringer!" they cried, prostrating themselves. Arhra looked at them quite blankly. It really was the last thing she expected to hear in this kind of situation. It wasn't like she'd done anything particularly impressive either. Somewhat confused, Arhra defaulted to violence.

The problem, she mused as she clubbed a different cultist to death with a fistful of vertebrae, was that the clueless could really surprise you at times. Probably because they were so stupid.

Take for instance that cultist over there who'd someone managed to get a summoning rite so wrong that the spidery horror that presumably was what he'd been trying to summon was crawling out of his brain. Arhra realised that perhaps she should do something to stop it and headed over there. Spindly legs supported it and strange liquid sacs making up most of its body slowly inflacted as it freed itself. A set of mixed eyes opened in its shifting mass turned to fix on Arhra and an air bladder inflated to wheeze the word, "Arhra?"

Arhra's eyes widened in recognition, "Xrx'crgth'lk!" she said, somehow pronouncing the name, "Still as indescrible as ever I see! How have you been?" And then Arhra went on to talk about old times with the chaos spawn in a conversation punctuated with violence towards cultists.

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

OOC: sorry, a little pressed for time right now. I'll work up a suitably violent and bloody meal later on.

IC:
All throught this while, Rhiya was still in dragon form.

And enjoying it immensely as she stomped and waded around.

"Eewwww, they're blood is clingy," she rumbled at one moment when a particularly nasty squelch caused Rhiya to pause in her rampages to scrape off a bloody pulp from the back of her toe. Shaking the paw slightly, she caused the corpse to go flying into the midst of some more cultists, bowling the more unfortunate over with its fleshy, bloody mass.

After a while, Rhiya sat down on her haunches (invariably, a dozen cultists didn't get out of the way quick enough, and their screams were cut off as their windpipes were crushed and their body reduced to sticky, red smears on the ground) and yawned. Her tail lashed, sweeping a few tryhards off their feet and impaling dozens more on their deadly spikes.

"Mmm... Cultist Kebab," she said as she picked the flailing figures off her tail with lazy luxury and popped them into her mouth. The everwidening circle that was surrounding Rhiya widened a little faster when the crunch of bones and the messy spurt of still-living blood was heard.

[PyrosNine]

Pyros continued "saving" the cultists, despite the insanity and the murderous impulses of the others. Using the ditches he had made with his sweeping, he rolled the still living cultists into them and covered it with loose dirt. Hopefully they'd figure out how to breathe through it quickly, and that none of the others was so bloodthirsty as to seek out cultists to kill.

PYros personally found the efforts of the Forumites sickening, and if it weren't for the fact his own vomiting would have made the entire situation worse, he'd have done so twice.

He continued his crusade.

---------------------------------
Sub-Pyros was there, in the shadowy abyss where the body is as nothing, and only the mind holds any presence. Those strong of body yet weak of mind fall into nothingness when they venture here, and those frail of body yet powerful of mind gain something more.

Here, some minds lashed out at others, some controlled and even devoured other's thoughts, but beyond these, there were those whom the lessers could not touch, and used their mental energies for greater things, and only used their mental energies against each other for sport.

Like Poker.

Sub looked around the table. His opponents had changed their way of perception to appear as a motley of dogs, to both make a laugh of art and to intimidate the feline newcomer. But Sub was not worried. He'd show them.

In this poker, it was difficult. Because it did not matter what cards you have, but rather, what cards you didn't have. Cards could be easily manifested here, a king, an ace, a full Royal Flush, when needed, and those who were unaware would find themselves always losing. The real strategy was ensuring that what cards you had, the others didn't.

You had to make sure that no matter what happened, the total number of cards in play was the same as a normal deck. That there were no duplicates, and still have the winning cards. Making this work entailed using logic to prove that your own duplicates cards were more original than other duplicates, and beyond that more original than the originals.

While poker could be considered a game of liars, this poker was a game of Mind reading Liars.

Sub had a royal flush by draw, but he knew that 2 of the cards were duplicates put into his draw by the rottweiler across the table, and that the doberman had the exact same draw, with 3 duplicates, and he had seven originals under his hind paw. The Retriever was using a second deck, and the others had some odd mixture of original and duplicates and were doing their best to hide their cards, by switching their hands when the others weren't looking.

The poodle however, was the most tricky by having an almost anthropromophic figure, and hiding her hand in her cleavage, which by far gave her the greatest edge over all the other card players. But Sub had been behind Asheth's mind so long he figured he could be able to trump her...

Sub played 4 "2's".

[Dragonsbane]

Dragonsbane watched Pyros, and began shooting bolts of black fire through the dirt into the cultists, calling out the names of the body parts he was aiming at.

"Heart! Right lung! Liver! Brain! Uvula! Spleen! Removed appendix!" he cheerfully cried out, his words punctuated by the sweet sounds of anguished screams or gurgles. He noticed Rhiya was having fun too, and the sight of the trampling dragon enjoying herself only increased his destructive glee.

[Flarecobra]

"...You do relize that last shot's going to a hospitol, or that guys home, right?" I said, before knocking out another one with my spear. I'm not even bothering trying to kill them, as they wern't even worth it. "Fuck it, let's call in some airship support, have them blast these cockbites into the next universe or something, as well as pick up those prisioners."

[Skyshot]

Skyshot held his ground patiently. Quite a few cultists headed his way, and each one that came close enough received a hearty crack on the head.

At this point, he wasn't going to exhaust himself using spells (aside from the Refresh spell he used to ward off the fatigue), but he did occasionally kick dirt into their eyes and thoroughly incapacitate them that way. Most people he'd fought would have kept on despite the temporary blindness. He occasionally considered putting Nightstorm back and using one of his daggers, but it didn't seem right. These people were too helpless to kill in such a gory fashion. With solid hits on their heads, he could convince himself they were simply unconscious and let his conscience rest.

Fuck it, let's call in some airship support, have them blast these cockbites into the next universe or something, as well as pick up those prisoners.

"I could cast Earthquake," he yelled. "I'm not sure what would happen here at the Earth Temple of all places, but it'd be quicker than getting someone else in here. OY!" While he was distracted, a cultist had moved in and poked him very hard with a plastic sacrificial knife. Skyshot answered him with a quick stroke across the temple from the lower tip of his staff. The cultist staggered from the impact, leaving his already negligible defenses open for a lethal beating on the back of his head with the knobby end. When he finished, he asked, "What do y'all say?"

[Arhra]

"There's one slight problem with that plan." Arhra interjected, having had her conversation with Xrx'crgth'lk abruptly cut off when the summoning spell that had called him/her/it up ran out of power.

"Oh?"

"They're all dead." Arhra said, indicating the corpse strewn battlefield with a sweep of half a broken staff that she'd taken off one cultist, clubbed some others to death with and then finally snapped on someone's head. Realising she was still holding it, she dropped it.

Dusting her hands off she said, "I wonder how these would-be cultists found out about this place. Its not that widely known." Arhra thought about it for a moment before deciding that it probably wasn't worth it. "And now we just have to walk another mile or so and we should be there." Arhra turned to face the dome of strangely misty, unfocused looking air in the distance that she'd said was the sealed Gate and started picking her way fastidiously across the ground, grumbling about the mess that everyone had made.

Brutally slaughtering enemies wasn't quite as glorious when you had to walk through their corpses and various splatters afterwards. Not to mention the various messes one tended to get on oneself. Arhra felt glad about having decided to wear black. A pity it didn't do anything about the smell.

[Flarecobra]

I used a low-level fire spell on myself, turning any gore and blood on me into ash, which I then started to wipe off. "Anyone know any water attacks to wash off anyone else?"

[Fenris]

"Sorry, Flare, I can't help anybody. I'm used to being dirty, so I'm fine, although I wouldn't object to being cleaned."

Fenris went over to a dead cultist, tore part of the robe off of him, and used it to wipe off the knife, the hammer, and his face.

[Skyshot]

"Huh. That was quick." Skyshot took out the alchemy jug he always kept handy. "Anyways, I generally keep this full of drinking water. Anyone who wants it can use it. Rest assured, there's more than enough for everybody. Just keep the rest clean. Levitate." He felt himself rise a foot or so above the ground. That would keep the gore off his boots. "Anyways, Fenris, keep near me. Your hobo-smell should mask this bloody mess."

Great, he was getting rude. A clear sign his mana had had the top skimmed off, so to speak. Oh well, he still had plenty to go. He started off after Arhra, occasionally stopping to strip the corpses of any real-looking amulet or finery. A man had to support himself, after all.