[quote]Rahna turned back to Gaius, "Gaius, you think y--" Her question was interrupted by a loud crash noise and a flash of light... like a fire, accompanied with some human voices. 'East shall burn the darkness..?' The 'poem' ran through her head as she noticed the sounds were coming from the East. "Are you able to keep going Gaius? I think we should go see what's happening over there."

"It isn't a question of can, I must! Come, Rahna!" Gaius ordered, overtaken by a sense of duty. Was the flash caused by their allies? Just what the hell was going on over there? "There's no time to waste!"[/quote]

The going was not easy; the curtainlike leaves, thick bramble, and alternately muddy and rocky ground did not make running an easily accomplishable thing. Meanwhile, shouting rang out among the rumble and slam of falling rocks. They passed by a recently moved boulder, its mud-wet end turned upside, laying among crushed saplings. At least the boulders had cleared a semi-traversable path.

Something small and bright red went stumbling past their feet, running in the opposite direction. It looked like a wide-capped mushroom with legs, wearing a loincloth and tribal paint. It scurried into the hollow of a dead log and hid there from the noise and violence of the clearing.

From over Rahna's shoulder, a furry creature leaned forward and sniffed at the air. Its ethereal form was finishing its final shape, ears flicking and tail swishing. Familiar herbs grew on the creature's back, and its eyes seemed to notice things where there was nothing to be seen.

[quote]"Now!" Blank shouted aimlessly, and not a second later a furry white shape launched itself out of a patch of brush, landing on the back of one of the birds and sinking it's teeth into the joint where the wing merged with its back. The Ice Wolf's magic lent it's bite the chill of winter, and the beast hung on with its jaw, refusing to let go. Meanwhile, Blank was moving in for his own attack, depending on the bite to cripple the wing and keep the beast grounded so he could finish it off.[/quote]

The monster's hollow eyes tracked Blank, completely unaware of the wolf's presence until it was too late.

Fangy jaws clamped down on the beast's wing; immediately, the bone and feathers crackled and smoked with an icy chill. With a crack and a shatter, part of the frozen wing fell in broken splinters from the ice-wolf's grip.

The beast did not feel pain. Just as Blank rushed in with his own attack, the monster spun like a whirlwind; its sharp bony claws caught the ice-wolf in the muzzle, dragged long deep gashes into the newly born flesh. Its back was now to Blank, and its fate was sealed.

With one crack of the blade into the monster's spine, the bones lost their will to animate. Its head rolled and dropped to the ground; its remaining wing dissolved into feathers; its body collapsed into a heap of splintered and mismatched bones. Spotted feathers lifted on the breeze and rolled away along the ground.

At the center of the bones, something shimmered. It was a silvery key, as big as Blank's palm, in the style of the locks in the old ruins on the island.

[quote]With a swift motion a smallish stone left Sera's hand and with this initial inertia already moving the stone forward, Tomo only had to whck it hard enough to pepper the creature with incoming stony ammo. "Take that! And that! And this!"

Blin thrust the broken ended staff up into the membrane and attempted to rip skin asunder. If he could, he would make sure it couldn't fly away. He just hoped Blank could provide backup if and when it turned on him.

Nikki dashed towards a likely-looking trunk, jamming her folded glider in the ground and using it to vault upwards so she could grab one of the lower branches.  Once off the ground it was a trivial matter to climb higher, and then all she had to do was quietly venture out along one that hung above the bird Blank wasn’t fighting.  The feathered lizard on her shoulder dropped first, going for the beast’s eyes, and the young lady followed, aiming to tackle the thing and drag it to the ground.[/quote]

[i]smack smack smack crack clatter smack[/i]

The monster flinched every time one of Sera's pebbles bounced on its bony head. It raised itself up tall and raised its wings, but just as it was about to raise a boulder, another cascade of pebbles sent it staggering backward. It chimed and clattered, annoyed and growing impatient -- and so completely distracted that it didn't notice Blin running at it from behind with a broken staff.

A boulder was just beginning to shudder when Blin's staff struck through the monster's wing in a shatter of bones and feathers. The monster retaliated by spinning around toward Blin; its good wing caught his neck and flung him forcefully to the ground with a flurry of small cuts left along the side of his throat. It raised its sharp foot to stamp down upon him -- but the monster was suddenly crushed under Nikki's velocity.

Nikki's knee cracked something in the monster's chest just as it slammed into the ground beneath her -- she had hit something vital, an instant death for her opponent. The monster collapsed into an inanimate shape made of mismatched bones and piles of flurrying feathers, and the smooth bony skull lying ominously among the scattered bones.

Among the bones, at the center of what had once been the monster, a sword shimmered in the dappled sunlight.

"Woohoo! Weehee! Yee-haa!" a small squeal of delight rose up out of the bag on the ground. A little mushroom man crawled out of the bag on the ground where he had been hiding, and he raised his little fists in victory. "Death to the chimes! We did it! Wahoo!"