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

[Toastburner B]

Toastburner gave a shocked gasped, and looked at the group. He then looked at the carnage, and then the group, the carnage once more, and then the group again. Tears welled up in his eyes. "And you guys didn't save me any cookies?"

[PyrosNine]

"There were no cookies because Darth is full of Lies and evil." Pyros spoke up, standing over the corpses with grief.

"There were no girl scouts, because none should and shall ever come here as long as I have life within me to enforce it. And while I am aware there are evil sects of Girl Scouts with cyanide laced cookies, even they don't deserve the deaths given to these poor confused cultists."

Pyros reached down and picked up a wallet. "They had wives and children too! And this one's wife seems to be possesesed by a deceased family dog used in botched ritual, and he had a litter of 21 pups, 4 kids, and 2 horrible sins against nature!"

Pyros could no longer bear to hold the wallet, and let it drop into the bloodsoaked earth. "Those poor souls! Weep for them, Cry, cry, Mother earth, for they are no more!"

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

"I have cookies!" Rhiya said with a bright, mad grin. Handing them to Toastburner, she absent-mindedly brushed her hands on her pants, leaving bloody red smears in their place.

"They're a little bit dirty though... I found them on one of the cultists, and they taste of pain," she added, a shade bit doubtfully. Then, nibbling on another Cookie of Pain, Rhiya wandered elsewhere.

[GARUD]

The still glowing Garud approached Pyros.

"Those poor souls! Weep for them, Cry, cry, Mother earth, for they are no more!"

"BWAHAHAHAHAHA."

Garud was on the blood-stained floor laughing with glee. He laughed at the death and destruction, and Pyros's comment which was obviously a joke, considering his nature.

"haha...ha... phew... hehe... Pyros, I... the... BWAHAHAHAHAHAHGAHAHAHAHA. Oh that's good, haha, that's rich."

Still reeling from the laughing, he picked up various limbs.

"Hey, Pyros, now that that is out of the way, let's find ripped off limbs, and beat each other with the soggy ends. It'll be fun!"

[Dragonsbane]

Originally Posted by PyrosNine

Pyros turned an irate eye towards Dragonsbane. "In all my life I've only seen such wickedness from hellspawn and Kirakiri's ilk, and to think the likes of which thrive in this world. Should I call thee ing, and forever seperate this world from mine to protect it from filth such as yourself?"

"Aww...thank you." Dragonsbane wiped his bloody hands on Pyros' shirt, a cheerful smile adorning his face as unholy pulses of negative energy spread out from him like an unholy blight upon the land. This energy reached into the corpses and seized their tainted souls before they could escape, corrupting them horribly into a perverse mockery of animating life-force and ramming them back inside their broken shells.

They rose up as a small army of zombies. He could have made them something better, but they didn't have the potential to be ghouls or wights. So...zombies they were.

"Filth, you say? Why, let me take care of that." He absently waved a hand, and the dirt and gore covering him vanished instantly, not even leaving his hair tousled or his boots damp with blood.

"Now, let me get the Girl Scout Vampiresses out here, and we can REALLY liven things up."

[Arhra]

"I really don't see why you're bothering with zombies." Arhra said, "Zombies suck. It is a scientific fact that one moderately heroic individual with guns and/or fu can beat any number of zombies. And these are hardly made from quality components." Arhra prodded one in the arm and watched the entire limb fall off. Trying to look innocent, she nudged the arm out of sight with her foot. The zombie just moaned slightly.

Seizing on Mauve's question about where the temple was as both something important to answer and a conveient distraction, Arhra boldly proclaimed, "This way!" and struck yet another pose. When most of the people did nothing, Arhra was forced to resort to desperate measures.

"This is no time for cookies!" Arhra snarled in leaden tones of doom. And then she took the cookies and she cast them down into the muck, grinding them into the mire with her heel. The cookies were no more.

Into the shocked silence, Arhra dropped four words, "Let's get going then." and set off with a purposeful, confident stride.

Some time later, Arhra's walk still managed to look purposeful and confident, although the erratic, looping route she seemed to be taking raised questions of whether she had any idea of where she was going. It would be a cruel irony to get hopelessly lost before their quest had truely begun.

Any doubts were abruptly quashed when Arhra had them sidle into a canyon and lo and behold, a large, intricately carved stone door awaited them there. The massive stone disc seemed to have living plants inlaid into it by some ingenious artifice, filling the carvings and throughing them into relief.

Arhra headed over to the door, a grim expression on her face. It seemed her old archnemesis was waiting for her. Pacing in front of it menacingly, she said, "Well, door, are you going to go quietly or do I have to get persuasive on convincing you to open?" She'd fought doors before and she was quite confident of her chances.

"If you answer my riddle, the way will open." came the musical reply.

"A challenge is it?" Arhra replied heatedly to the door, "Well I won't be outdone by an inaminate gate!"

A cough came from up above, "Uh, I'm up here." From the overhang, what was unmistakably a sphinx padded into view. The female head, eagle-like wings and body of a lion were a dead giveaway. She sat looking down at them from the mantel above the door and looked at each of the NPF'ers.

"My riddle is this:"

"What may be born from a fiery womb or have a thousand, thousand parents? What may find new form in the burning, crushing depths? What may be the sound of awesome?" The words rolled off the sphinx's tongue as she sat there reciting her puzzle, tawny eyes half closed. Finished, she blinked, yawned and added, "You can discuss your answer amongst yourselves. If you get it wrong, I eat you."

Arhra looked blankly at the sphinx and then turned back to the others, "Ok, I've heard about this kind of thing before. Apparently the answer is always 'teeth'. What do you think?"

[Steel Shadow]

"Do teeth really sound awsome?" Steel asked. "I always thought they had a sort of dull clack sound." He thought about it for a minute. "Sounds like it could be "life", but again, awesome? Maybe it's some kind of shrimp. They're pretty awesome. Especialy with ketchup."

[GARUD]

Garud had one thought come to mind.

"Does a Pheonix sound right guys?"

[Skyshot]

"Usually it's something kinda either surprisingly prosaic given the florid nature of the riddle, like 'a fish,' or something vaguely poetic and meaningful given the prosaic nature of the riddle, like 'life,'" Skyshot said. "'Womb' can mean a number of things, least likely something biological. A thousand times a thousand is a million. 'Burning, crushing depths' could be physical, emotional, or spiritual.

"I'm thinking something like 'coal' or 'diamond.' Since they're made of decomposed carbon, they can come from a million former bodies, and anyone who has played Zork knows coal turns into a diamond in the burning, crushing depths. And a diamond is a girl's best friend, so..." He turned his face to the sphinx. "You up there? You're female, right?" He turned to Arhra and whispered, "Do you have any more poison? We could load someone full of it, have them give the wrong answer, and let the sphinx eat them and die that way."

[Flarecobra]

I lean in close Ahira. "Let me just take it out with a Terraflare.....It'll take care of our sphenix friend and open up the temple...."