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

[Arhra]

"Ah! Phoenix!" Arhra said, after politely waiting for the end of the villanous monologue. She made some mental notes of the pitfalls to avoid, for when she had to do one of her own. "Costume change eh? Very good! We were delayed by recurring enemies."

At Tarrin's interjecture, Arhra replied, "I do not understand what you are saying!" loudly and slowly. Something about the drown spell, although it wasn't like anyone would try and open the door after hearing that. Besides, she could always terrorise the hell out of their ghosts if she got anyone killed and they came back to haunt her.

"Now the mystery of the door has been solved," Arhra paused to glare at the door. She should have known to look behind the waterfall. "We can continue. Let's go fight some defenseless sea animals!"

A sojourn through the damp, cool tunnel behind the waterfall, the NPFers found it opened up into a cavern. Looking to their right, they'd see the other side of the main door also frozen in the mysterious red ice. However, its more likely their attention would be grabbed by the sight in front of them.

The ground was uneven, rising and falling in gentle slopes to create dozens of shallow pools. Fountains were all over the place, some ornately fashioned, others seeming to be ocmpletely natural. In all of them, the water from the highest jets continued to rise upwards, pooling on the ceiling. Water shouldn't do that. It was slightly unnerving to see water flowing upwards on the cavern roof.

More importantly, the chamber was swarming with enemies. Strange floating fish flocked all other the place, avoiding the slow shapes of spiky tortoises, plodding surrounding with some thick, dark smoke. Towards the back, an ancient, massive crab looked up from a meal of what looked suspiciously like sushi.

Arhra noted how the quality of defenseless sea animals seemed to have gone down lately. These creatures looked downright vicious. The fish made strange fishy sounds, the tortoises bellowed and the crab began scuttling towards them in silence.

As Arhra easily dodged a fish that suddenly burst forwards and tried to headbutt her, she said "Well, this doesn't look too - AGH! Jumping murder turtles!" She rolled to the side as a Kill Tortoise, launching itself in an improbable leap with its stubby legs, almost landed crushingly on her head. Other Kill Tortoises were leaping and sliding forwards with disturbing speed for a tortoise, not caring about the fish some of them splattered as they did. Other Kill Toroises chose to plod inot the fray. Behind them, the Giant Enemy Crab lumbered towards the NPFer's, claws clacking menachingly. The fish were scattered all amongst the place, the first wave to attack, ramming with animal ferocity and as far back as the crab.

Battle was joined.

OOC: This fight is Easy As Pie. Monster descriptions are here. I'm wanting a fairly short fight.

[Bailey]

Syttulg cautiously got back up from the ground and retrieved the stack of books and the pokeball he had gotten in the last fight from where he had thrown them. After following the others, he let out Magikarp and threw it at a float fish, then recalled it. Probably because he was bored.

Having had a small amount of "fun", he then set to business.

Really, his types are electric and grass and he's in a water temple. Do I seriously need to describe what he's doing or can all just assume that he's killing things with his major type advantage?

FINE if you really insist.

He's alternating slicing things up with his thorn blades and releasing bursts of electricity from his hands, using the moisture in the air to hit everything around him.

And he's also formed his left arm into a sort of a nutcracker like thingy and is using it to declaw the crabs.

Happy now?

That enough explanation for you?

Can I go now?

Sheesh.

[PhoenixFlame]

"Of course, of course... Recurring enemies, Yet, I may wish to info-" Phoenix began, but was rudely interrupted when she reflexively drew her weapon. Now, Phoenix hadn't ever thought to draw her weapon, but sometimes it just happened automatically. When this happened, it was a good indication that an enemy was nearby.

Several enemies.

No, today was a bad time for a Lightning summon. Unfortunately for Phoenix, Astyrran: Lord Elemental of Thunder only possessed single-target attacks, something he would invariably waste on the errant Float-Fish due to the nature of elementals having poor intellegence.

Speaking of Float Fish, here comes one right now...

"Hyah!" Phoenix yelled in a distinctly un-menacing yell, as she thrust her staff toward the oncoming head of the charging Float-Fish. Now, generally summoners simply don't have the strength to do much damage, but thanks to the Float-Fish's lack of leverage due to it's floatiness, and thanks to it's speed, Phoenix managed to deal a respectable "THWAP!" to it's face, sending it reeling backward. A little "359" popped up over the fish's head, for no apparrent reason.

Quickly racking her memory, Phoenix came up with a plan B. Yes, water had TWO weaknesses. Lightning was obvious, but Ice was not. After all, a frozen fish was as dead as a smoking fish, and Ice tended to expand and make a mess of the battlefield. Something "Aryali: Queen of the North" would excel at. A phantasmal blue panel with white border popped up next to Phoenix, containing the words...

"Attack/Magic/Item/Flee"

Naturally, "Magic" was soon highlighted, followed by "Elemental Circle Summoning".

Even if the fish were of Water/Ice, at least her summon would absorb a good portion of their attacks, Phoenix thought, while extending her arms to begin casting. At first, five lines circled around the floor she was standing upon, aligning themselves in a pentacle-shape, each of the lines corrosponding with one of the five key elements of the terrestial circle. Red for fire, Blue for air, Green for life, Black for water, and White for earth. Inside each of the starpoints was conjured a sphere and sigil, again in an elemental motif. A circle of technicolor glory connected all five starpoints as the sigil whirled to place the "Air" (Which also contained Ice) sigil before Phoenix. The water around her began to congeal and freeze as it sculpted itself into a lithe, feminine form...

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Hawk let the air sphere he had created slowly dissipate as he heard the words "death", and "drown". Before he could say or do anything else however, the scene changed again.

"Hey what happened to the do-".

He looked around at his surroundings.

"Never mind!"

He then went to work, ignoring the floating fish below him and instead began targeting the jumping turtles as they launched themselves at him.

They were easy pickings though, their arc through the air taking them high above Hawk and allowing him plenty of time to target and fire. As each blast struck they were thrown backwards into the cave wall, where their protective shells smashed open and they themselves became dazed from the impact.

[mammothtank]

mammothtank drew his sword from its sheath on his back and gripped it with both hands. Odd that they would all float at the same height, but that gives me an idea. MT ran forward and, with a cry of "Bowling Bash !!", swung the blade like a baseball bat and struck a float fish. The force of the blow sent it flying backward where it collided with another fish. These two kept going and collided with a third fish, then a fourth, then a fifth before finally losing their momentum and falling into a heap on the floor of the cavern.

"Cool, dominoes! Let's do it again!" MT said to no one in particular as his second Bowling Bash connected with another float fish. A Kill Tortoise chose that moment to leap straight at his back, but before it could tackle him, MT swung his blade at the ground, creating a spark that ignited into a small burst of flame. The Magnum Break knocked the tortoise back in the direction it came from.

"Funny... I don't remember them being this easy; those icemen things from the first one were a real pain in the - Bowling Bash !!" He spun around and whacked a fish away, realizing that talking to himself was probably a bad idea at present.

[Tarrin]

Tarrin stood in the centre of the NPF chopsakie goodness, he watched as his team mates hacked, slashed, Fried, Froze and generally smote the mob of enemies that encircled them.

Feeling somewhat safe (well from the fish and turtles anyway) he took on an observer role in this quick scuffle.

[Cyborg Mokey]

'Wow it looks like someone else actually cares about this damned world!! lets get kicking booty!!' As the Mokey jumped into the room all he can see is the NPF owning fishy butt!! While he stands there he waves to Tarrin!

The Mokey pulls down his battle visor and starts to quickly analyse the situation....*bzzzzzz....bzz* ENEMY: Strange multiple-coloured fishy fly things? Objective: Mow them all down!

Once the analysis is done the Mokey finds that the best approach was to start trying to gun some down. With a smile on his face he pulls out the Patriot and starts to gun one of the fish down! 'Ha! these are easy!!' While the Mokey is gunning the fish down a kill tortoise sneaks up behind him. 'Oh no you don't!' and the Mokey pulls extend the wrist blades and jumps on the tourtoises back and starts to slash its head.

[Lumaes]

"We are fishless, born without the glee of the scaled shadows of the deep. We live without the uplifting presence of the haddock and the cod. All seahorses are but mammals, who live brief lives before they drown.
It is a sad life without fish. "
Lumaes croons softly, watching the animals favoured by Cancer, Pisces and Scorpio being irreverently slaughtered.

A deep composing breath illicited a puff of ancient dust from the spectre as he attempted, with masterly poise and grace to sail forth like the grim tidings of death and despair. It was working well until a float fish, not understanding the centuries of symbolism and cultural attachment seething behind his shape rammed him, rather unsettlingly in the side of the head,
"Felonious fishy fool feel fearsome ferocity!"
The fish did not live.

The skeletal apparition had set his sights on Enemy Crab, he was saddened perhaps because he knew, in another time and place he needn't have been Enemy Crab at all. He could have been Friend Crab or even Comrade Crab.
Despite this it was Lumaes his duty, he knew the crab's one, true weakness.
Enemy Crab was old, very old and probably arthritic, he was a crustacean and hence was crabby therefore Enemy Crab was the distilled essence of an Elderly war-pensioner and as such his weakness would be tea and long stories which go nowhere and feature dead people with missing limbs with names like "Bonker" and "Jinky".

Lumaes knew better than to beam at Enemy Crab, instead he made sympathetic grumbling sounds, he removed a thermos from his inky folds and a chipped, bone china teacup and mentally prepared his best war story; "The Horrible Maiming of Mister Toff"

[Tarrin]

Originally Posted by Lumaes

"We are fishless, born without the glee of the scaled shadows of the deep. We live without the uplifting presence of the haddock and the cod. All seahorses are but mammals, who live brief lives before they drown.
It is a sad life without fish. "

Tarrin watched as Lumaes drifted towards the Large crab, during their time in the NPF Tarrin had still not learnt how to make sense of everything the specter had to say.

He was however able to make the gist of what Lumaes was trying to say, This however was not one of those times, Tarrin just shook his head,

Turning his head to scan the other NPF members he was almost caught be a flying shell, as the shell closed on his position it let out a mist that started to envelope Tarrin, figuring that anything misty like from anywhere would either be very bad for one's health or smelly very bad he decided to hold his breath and move.

Once clear of the gas Tarrin took a deep breath and decided sitting on the sidelines was not a good idea, reaching thru the veil of spirits he drew forth his spirit lance, it's spectral form shimmered in and out of reality as he swung it towards one of the highly colored fish that made it's way towards him.

[Arhra]

Arhra was faced with a most perplexing prolem. It was a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, put in a box with 'Mystery' written on the side, eaten by a tortoise. For that was the problem: A tortoise. And it had almost crushed her to death with a mighty leap. Arhra carefully examined this knotty problem from all angles, trying to decide how best to unravel it.

"Arhra Punch!" she yelled as she punched at the tortoise. Everyone knew yelling out the name of your attack made it more powerful. Admittedly, this was just a punch that she'd stuck 'Arhra' on the front of it, but the principle was the same.

However, this meant her arm was engulfed in corrosive vapour up to the elbow. Also, she'd just punched a tortoise in its shell, which as the widely believed fact states, is virtually indestructable.

"Yargh! Burny!" Arhra yelled, as she recoiled, forearm raw and pink. The burns oozed a clear fluid. It wasn't very pretty, especially since her passably fast healing kicked in, the flesh beginning to go puffy and bubble in a mildly disturbing way. At least it distracted her from the pain of hurting her fist on its spiky shell.

She jumped back as, like an iceberg out of the fog, the Kill Tortoise lunged forwards, snapping with a wickedly snarp beak. Tortoises... tortoises... how do you kill tortoises? Arhra's mind raced. A scrap of lore plodded out of her hindbrain. The fastest way to kill a tortoise is to plunge it into a pot of boiling water.

Arhra's backwards movement brought her foot suddenly splashing into a pool of water. "Aha! Prepare to meet your doom! BOIL!"

A bubble rose up and popped. The water felt fractionally warmer. "Uh... your doom will take a while to get going!" Arhra cried again. She lamented her lack of good long ranged attacks. Flailing around for any weapon within reach, Arhra's hand closed on a fish.

"Haddock...en!" Arhra flung it at the tortoise. It didn't accomplish much. She was then forced to jump, folding neatly into one of those midair crouch poses, as a Kill Tortoise spun past, almost running into her. Good ideas were looking hard to find. Then it struck her.

"Owch!" Arhra shouted, punching the float fish that had just headbutted her from behind. It exploded, for reasons unknown. "Wait... Plumbers!"

The Kill Tortoise finally decided to charge her, pulling inside its shell and sliding. It revolved slightly as it streaked at her at high speed, a spiky, armoured shell of death. Acidic gas poured out of vents as it did, leaving a thick, smoky trail of the nasty substance behind it.

CLLLOOOONNNGGG!

Arhra hit it with a length of large pipe. She'd mysteriously procured it and it worked ot great effect, sending the shell sliding backwards. Hefting her now bent and slightly corroded pipe, she watched the Kill Tortoise careen wildly around the room. It bounced off walls and fountains, send sparks up as it did. The reptilian wrecking ball left a swathe of destruction, turning fish into a fine bloody mist and wiping out one or two other tortoises. Its out of control rebounding brought it ramming at her but Arhra hit it again for another volley of destruction. The third time, Arhra broke her pipe, sending it spinning a short distance through the air and landing on its back. It waggled its legs pathetically as it tried to get the right way up again.

"Hah!" Arhra declared triumphantly, "Who's the acid venting, spiky, killer tortoise now?!"

OOC: The battle will be finished when I next post - a day or two. If you have anything you want to do, get in and do it.