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

[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?"

Originally Posted by Arhra

"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.