^{Music for your mood...}




For whatever reason, the last door opened from above this position-- the top of a LARGE and wide boulder. The adventurers find themselves now, atop the only rock to be seen for quite some distance, in a field of flowers. To say "the distance" means the way directly SOUTH, for EAST and WEST of this rock extends only 2mi (3.2km) in distance before sharply cutting off into the lilac nothingness, which mirrors the color of the sky-- NORTH being an obvious sharp cutoff a mere 8ft (2.4m) behind the rock.

So yes, before them, the land stretches far into the distance before curving upward, at the edge of eyesight-- as if the land were a giant ramp, which went up into the dancing clouds, out of sight. And those clouds, how they dance, for some of them are quite actually dancing. Large serpents, hooded like cobras, float and slither overhead, looking as if they were made of the clouds themselves, and more clearly being held afloat by the pulsating white air sacs on their bellies. They seem oblivious to the presence of the adventurers-- or maybe they simply don't care.



Above them, the sky is bright purple and beautiful, as a white sun blazes overhead. A comfortable breeze blows gently, causing the flowers to sway, revealing white sand underneath--

Light catches off of several gleaming objects under the tall flowers and, as one looks closer, they can see blades-- swords, spears, shields, armor-- the field seems littered with weaponry of various age and state of decay. Some of these blades are even being held by the hands of their former owners.

Indeed, there are the skeletal remains of all sort here.

Alien, beast-- even the rusted ruins of machinations and automatons lurk beneath the tall carpet of flowers. These flowers stand nearly 4ft (1.2m) at their tallest with various height flowers in-between. Here and there, the flowers seem to shift on their own but the appearance of a glittering GREEN FIN above the tops of the petals, can be the assumed source of the disturbance. There are multiple fins-- sprouting up here and there before sinking again. Things are not so quiet here either-- insects and chittering creatures accompany the noise of the breeze.

Very distantly, there appears to be a few more MYSTERIOUS LUMPS here and there on the land, but there isn't obviously the Large Imposing Fortress of Finality as there should have been.

So, adventurers, what do you do?

Well, this certainly wasn't what I was expecting... usually, evil bosses put their fortresses in volcanoes, or other fiery places. Ampere thought as the door took him to what at first appeared to be a springtime wonderland. Tulips covered the place like a carpet, and it was bright, and the sun was shining. It was warm, sure, but it was far from a lava-filled castle. Of course, looks can be very deceiving, as the tulips seemed to hide what gave them their soil in the first place, an absolute load of corpses, some of them skeletal at this point, but all of them near some sort of weapon. Ampere didn't have time to think about whether or not the tulip-ridden faux paradise was once a battleground as something seemed to be moving in this place, fins. Landsharks, here? don't they usually live in the desert, or something? Ampere thought as he focused his lightning powers into a singular lightning bolt, and used that on the nearest one, assured that they'd be hostile in some way. Of course, he didn't leave his teammates out of this, and he noticed the corpses around... he turned towards Clara after his attack was done, and he informed her with "Hey, there's a lot of dead people around, and there might be some enemies, so... I'm sure you know what to do," Ampere then wondered if Angela would have been quite this cool with Clara just... raising the dead to help out the party... then again, she probably would be, though, she also probably wouldn't let the necromancer go without a strict talking-to... at least, that's what Ampere told himself just to make him feel better about replacing her on accident.

^{Consequences for: @Lugia}
As soon as the bolt of lightning struck the fin, it halted its movement-- electric current circulating around the fins surfece-- then it quickly disappeared beneath the surface of the flower field, with the sound of A LOT of rustling. Other flowers danced as the whatever-it-was seemed to distance itself from where it had been attacked.

Gone.

Uncaring, the other fins continued their movement, as if on patrol.

^{Collaboration with @Bork Lazer}
"Oh, so now it's alright to summon the dead?" Clara said with a raised eyebrow at the rather large electric rodent. Her adventures with the party had been an exercise in mixed messages. Accidentally destroying a sizable village doubtlessly had not helped.

" Oh, oh!" Fred's flippered mouth opened and closed in a mock caricature of childish excitement. "Are you really, are you gonna perform that magic trick again, Miss Clara? Oh my god, I'm soooooo exci-" He then morphed back into the ruffled body of Nick Nacks, his woolen sock face twisted in annoyance. " Quiet, Fred!" He barked out to no one before looking at the necromancer. " Just do it. The sooner we get to this accursed fortress, the better."

_{A Collaboration with @Rapid Reader}

"Well, since you ask so nicely, Mr. Socks," Clara said with a broad smile.

The air crackled with arcane energy as Clara moved her hands and chanted low words in a language dead long before death had really managed to make the jump from theoretical idea to applied destroyer of all that ever was. A jumble of broken bones levitated in the air near the edge of the boulder. Mended with magic, the bones began to snap together, forming a grim puzzle of that soon towered some nine feet over three wizards. Despite being a motley collection of bones, the creature moved with a strange grace and held the massive halberd it had picked up off the ground with clear purpose.

The bone golem nodded towards Val respectfully before turning to face the closet fins that swam through the flowers. No eye sockets were needed for it to cast a judgmentful glance at Nick Nacks as it turned.

Nick Nack's didn't take the jest well, appearing to do a harrumph before hissing back, his sock visage reared back like a cobra. " I am not Mr SOCKS. Mind your tongue, necromancer, for you are speaking to Nick Nacks, the wonderful fantabulous mage, the third of the New Sockomancer Order ,whose preminence defies - " In the middle of his talking, he morphed back into Fred. The literal hand puppet began bouncing his thumb and pinky back in a mock clap. " Oh, oh, oh, that was super amazing!" He bounced up and down with joy before pointing a finger towards the bone golem. " I'm gonna call you Mr Snuggles!"

Fred then ripped out a lone tulip gently from its roots, waving over to Mr Snuggles. " Here, Mr Snuggles. I got a flower to put on your - BLOODS AND GUTS!" Tyroden the Terrible was now present, roaring to the peaceful winds with all the force a maniacal pixie dictator could muster. " This tulip will be the first victim which I offer to my masters!"

The pixie overlord then began tearing into the tulip savagely with gusto, ripping the petals from the base and generally committing all sorts of crimes against flowerkind. After he was done, he tossed its corpse to the ground and then, looked over towards the field of flowers. Ignoring the pleadings of the unworthy in his head, he roared into the winds before charging in a beeline towards the sharks without abandon.

" Huge fins. Huge sharks....." He growled. " That means you have huge guts! Huge guts to rip and tear!"

^Behold!

One after the other, fins retreated beneath the flowers, as the bone golem went to work yet...
Yet...
There never once appeared the corpse of a shark or, if Clara could sense it, death to the things attached to the fins. Simply their retreat, the tulips dancing furiously, and then the ground shook-- Once and HEAVILY the ground shook, upon the retreat of the last fin.

Several feet away from the Bone Golem, the ground split open, as a several pointed fins emerged from the ground all at once.

Claws.

Each of these jade colored fins turned out to be the large hooked claw at the end of an even larger tentacle. As the ground crumbled, a pointed and scaled bulbous form emerged after the tentacles-- the iridescent surface of a scaled squid-like creature. Large eyes, which shifted color in the light in a headache inducing manner, glowed brightly, as the SKYSQUID's tentacles thrashed about-- sand, earth, and flowers whirl-winding about with it's every move.

If one could see into the hole the creature left, there was nothing down there, but access to the lavender void-- seems the ground was but 20ft (6m)deep.


SKYSQUID emerges about 7ft out of the ground with each tentacle being nearly 15ft in length, and she seems rather pissed, seeing as one of her tentacle-claws was electrocuted-- bearing scorch marks and looking somewhat brittle compared to the others. The other eight claws are certainly damaged too-- the bone golem even having damaged the flesh of one of them, which is leaking a pungent yellow blood, that smells strongly rotten.

While she's certainly displeased, SKYSQUID seems rather more confused, as to what exactly was happening up there and why she didn't manage to snag a SINGLE snack. For now, she's just waving her arms in an angry manner, and threatening to split a LARGE HOLE into the ground, which could potentially make moving past her a required leap or even impossible, if she widens the hole too much, which could cause one to wonder-- did she kill everyone here or did they starve hopelessly, having been cut off from the rest of the land?

At first, Ampere thought about just running up to the claw that was made brittle, though, somehow, for some reason, something stopped him. He then took a look at the giant tentacles, and figured that if he were to do that, it would surely snatch him up and try to eat him... he won't make THAT mistake twice, especially not after what happened last time. With that thought in mind, and the mental scarring almost coming to surface, again, Ampere tried to call on the black blood before doing something ELSE reckless, trying to use his thundering rage on the creature, hoping to hit it, and maybe some its claws more than it hits any allies, except for, of course, himself. While he was still charging up his electricity, energy building up inside of him, Ampere decided to inform Carla "Hey... maybe you could use your bone monster to break a claw or two... lightning seems to make those more brittle," before finally unleashing his most powerful spell... on who? Who knows... he could only hope that it calls many lightning bolts, and that most, if not all of them hit the enemy. As scary as this thing is, at least we have a REAL boss, in here! Heh... and here I thought it might just be a rest area before the actual boss. he thought as the thing revealed itself to be more than a few dozen landsharks... and certainly more powerful than all of them combined, as bad as THOSE can be.

What a beautiful day. A blessed day for Tyroden. The pixie warlord shed a single tear of happiness at what was in front of him. He hadn’t had this much fun since the Impaling of Bobbington in the Year of the Hrunning. Tyroden’s mouth watered at the thought of slaying such a humongous beast. It would be a tale to tell for the ages.

“ YES!” Tyroden bobbed his tiny hands towards the squid. “ YOU HAVE HUGE TENTACLES. HUGE MEAT. HUGE GUTS TO HARVEST!”

Lifting up his small tiny tinfoil appendages, Tyroden flailed his arms in a circular manner, apparently trying to invoke some sort of spell. Whilst the rat spat out a paltry storm of lightning towards the squid, Tyroden was making a storm of his own. The clouds parted from above, the sky cracking in two. Parting past the white was a warhammer that was falling down towards the skysquid at breakneck speeds.

In the middle of his encantation, Tyroden shifted back into Fred who gaped up at the sight of the cephlapod abomination.

“ Oh...oh….oh! I can help too!” Fred’s fingers flexed together, bunching up as arcane power coruscated through his entire being. “ I cast…….Miracle of Meadows!”

A golden ray spurted out from Fred’s hands and struck the skysquid dead-center. A second later, the skysquid’s entire body began to turn a brilliant shade of neon pink, changing color from the point of contact.

Staring at the now neon pink Skysquid with a look of wonder, Clara stifled an impolite laugh with the back of a hand.

Safe on the rock and uninterested in swinging her staff at sharp claws bigger than her person, Clara instead focused her mind on her recently created golem, mentally commanding it to follow the insane sock puppet and electric rat creature in their attempts to damage the claws of the giant cephalopod.

With a wave of her wizardly hands and staff she summoned a collection of smaller bone creatures that appeared in a tasteful flash of dark green haze. No bigger than kobolds, the creatures chattered and danced, barreling after the sock puppet wizard as the necromancer chuckled. Armed with small hammers wrought of the spines and skulls of some of the unfortunate creatures which had littered the sea of flowers they were adorable as far as reanimated skeletons go.

"Charge, my new friends, charge," Clara shouted, laughing.

@Lugia@Rapid Reader@Bork Lazer
Lightning bolt after lightnign bolt struck the SKYSQUID and it thrashed about, having what was very much the Cephalopod approximation of a seizure. This movement, of course, caused the tentacles to dance about erractically-- smashing into the land with heavy blows or flailing about in an uncoordinated mess.

Then came the Warhammer.

In the middle of the seizure, the Warhammer descended from the sky, and landed with a HEAVY blow to the SKYSQUID's body-- to say what happened next was anything other than gruesome would be a disservice. Like a stomped on cockroach, the body of the SKYSQUID brust open, squirting its innards about in a brilliantly colored pink MESS as Fred's spell did it's work. Perhaps this spell was properly timed, for who could imagine how much worse the accurately colored SKYSQUID insides would be? Tyroden probably could.

Almost simultaneously, the parted pieces of SKYSQUID rather rapidly reshaped themselves, a the hole in the ground widened considerably under the forces of conflict.

The party now witnessed the birth of baby SKYSQUIDs without their consent.

These Warhammer divided and electrocuted sections of SKYSQUID tore away from each other, up until they were fully divided. SKYSQUID scales danced and moved about rapidly on these sections, taking tentacles with them, and flopping about on the ground as a horde of angry little bonemen approached. Now, the SKYSQUID was two-- each section took only one eye with it-- and it was very much trying to escape now.

Of course, now there was yet another problem.

From the sky there rained down three massive harpoon-like "arrows"-- six feet long from tip to end. Each was tipped with glowing "metal" that looked molten, these arrows impacted the battleground with thunderous force, and stood in the sandy ground only feet away from the party members-- clearly having been intended for them. Upon the passing of ten seconds, these arrows exploded, with a burst of magically fueled heat and force-- the force clearly meant to push our heroes off of the strip of "land" if they stood too close to the edge or hole.

Approximately forty seconds would pass before another "volley" of three arrows were shot toward each party member, so there was some time to think about what exactly was happening, at least. Right?

SKYSQUIDs really seemed intent on escape at the moment, still, but that didn't mean it wasn't just trying to get back into a position to ambush them.

Tyroden sighed disappointedly, like a child who had his toy taken away, when his spell burst apart the squid like overripe fruit. His mournful frown was replaced by a grin of exhilaration when he saw that the skysquid had reformed into smaller versions of itself. Yes. More to rip and tear. More to destroy. More flesh to savor.

“ You!” Tyroden pointed a finger towards one tiny sky squid. “ You think you can escape the wrath of - “

That was when the explosion hit him. It felt as though the ground had crumbled beneath his feet, the wind knocked out of his sails as he landed on the grass. Instead of one singular pixie dictator puppet, it was five different finger puppets that stood up. The Penta Posse had seized control of Nick Nack's platypus thrall who was now limping along.

“ Enough grandstanding from the warlord.” One of the fingers proudly announced. “ It’s now my time to shine.”

The clouds darkened as the platypus raised both of his hands in a T-pose. The five fingers began contorting and twisting into odd shapes and symbols, an eldritch language erupting forth from the platypus bard's maw.

“ I cast Ritual of the King! Arise from the pits of the Potato Planes! Arise the Bane, The Hamburglar of the Infernal Fryer!”

There was a crackle of aetheric energy surrounding the pentagram. The smell of corn syrup and artery clogging death suffused the air, the walls of reality began to crumble around them deliciously. An enormously large hand the size of a Arobrean mountain giant pushed through the crack, widening it open. Mailed in hamburger meat, the hand clawed its way through and stepped into the material realm, a head that suspiciously looked like a large chicken nugget poking through. Whatever the Penta Posse had casted, it was something nightmarish indeed, something to spook the minds of elvish vegans and dietary professionals alike.

Well, it was horrifying for five seconds. The opening quavered in place for a moment, the energy emanating from it carving trenches into the pastoral landscape. Like a blooper reel, it then collasped on itself, just as the torso of the Hamburglar was beginning to emerge. A brackish spray of jaundiced blood soaked the soil, the Hamburglar crying out in sheer agony. Its guts were strewn about, distended from its bisected torso. Instead of a monument to the sins of fast food, it was an abortion of high cholesterol proportions. It looked towards Clara and raised a meaty hand towards her in a begging motion, pleading with her.

“ K-kkiilll…...me……...please…….” it warbled, coughing out globs of fry oil. Meanwhile, the Penta Posse stood in silence before one of them spoke out.

“ Bob, did you forget to charge your mana this morning?!”

"YOU IDIOT!" The index finger glared at the thumb. " LOOK AT HIM! LOOK! How is this supposed to inspire fear into our opponents."

“Ah, never mind that.” The Penta Posse strode over to the twitching and wracking body of the dying Hamburglar, taking cover underneath his body, the stench of ketchup and soggy french fries suffusing the air. They then shouted towards both the ratfolk and the necromancer. " we'll be taking cover under him if you don't mind! If you want to get hit by the next volley, be our guest!"

It seemed like Nick Nacks, or, rather the Penta Posse had the right idea... hide behind something you don't care to lose as these red hot harpoons seemed to explode one after the other... but, what was unlikely going to be unfortunate for him, Ampere had... a different idea. An idea that could end one of two ways, with him getting exploded, or him throwing something that explodes right in one of the squids' eyes. He ran up to the nearest harpoon, used the extra strength from his gloves to pull it out of the ground, and then tossed it right towards the left skysquid, hoping to hit it, and hoping that he was quick enough that it didn't just explode in his hand. The burger monster that Ampere was standing next to seemed to be pleading for someone to kill it... but unfortunately, Ampere couldn't take that request, since it was being used as cover by one of his allies, and killing it would leave that ally vulnerable. "Kill... m... e..." it tried to plead, but, of course, said plea would fall on deaf ears, this time... maybe once everyone was out of battle, he'd be more willing to listen, but... its continued existence was still necessary... as painful as it clearly was at this point.

Clara sighed loudly. The Penta Posse should have known better. A true wizard always made sure they had some extra juice. Mana or arcane energy as the academics called it was fundamental to casting everything from the simplest to the most reality shattering spells. Only an amateur forgot to prepare themselves before battle. It pained Clara to be faced with such a poor lack of foresight. She had told herself she would be less judgmental though. Shad promised. She would give the sock-puppet at pass, just this once.

The necromancer joined her compatriots beneath the meat abomination. Clara felt bad for the poor summoned creature, but she couldn't do much to help it before they had dealt with whatever it was that was shooting exploding arrows at them.

"Mr. Socks and Mr. Shocks," Clara began seriously. "Permit me to suggest a plan. Mr. Socks, you will drink this potion. It will restore some of your energy. After this next volley hits, we will mercifully kill this abomination and then Mr. Socks and I will use the parts and the bones scattered here to assemble a more calcified version of your hamburger monster. Mr. Shocks, it falls upon you to occupy our cephalopod foe until our eldritch ritual is complete. Our new improved meat puppet monster and my minions will then destroy this squid, while we resolve our conflict with this unknown archer."

^{@Bork Lazer@Lugia@Rapid Reader}

The massive harpoon SOARED toward the left SKYSQUID!
It didn't quite make it all the way to the beast before it exploded into a burning mess of heat and force-- this sent the fleeing SKYSQUID straight into the GROUND. It impacted the ground heavily enough that the ground shook. And then it began flailing about helplessly. As it continued flailing, the other SKYSQUID simply continued on its escape path-- a straight line across the massive field of flowers, clearly not worrying about stealth.

The massive hole in the ground, left behind by the previously large SKYSQUID, stretched 14ft (4.2m) in length toward the right and left edges of the "world", and 16ft (4.8m) in width. It could be either walked around or lept over-- for the massive pile of dissected LARGE SKYSQUID pieces somewhat make a rather squishy and sketchy bridge over them. The risk of crossing said Meat Bridge is the fact that the hole opens up into the lavender hued void beneath the ground-- the bridge looks sketchy at best.

All remains calm for now. Very subtly, as Cara speaks, the noise of something very high above winding up-- like the crank on a machine of some sort-- can be heard. The next Volly was a mere ten seconds away.

"Do you hear that?" Clara shouted over the welcome sound of an exploding bolt almost ending the baneful existence of one of the now two SKYSQUID. The flailing of the SKYSQUID was a good sign. The necromancer felt a surge of optimism. Fleeing foes were for the moment not interesting foes. The real problem was the source of the exploding arrows. Explosions were most bothersome even to a wizard. "It sounds like some sort of machine."

Peaking out carefully from beneath the tragic mass of hamburgers, Clara tried to spot the source of the strange, mechanical noise. Before her eyes peaked over the horizon, she noted the large bridge of cephalopod flesh that had been left spanning the whole in the deadly field of flowers.

@Rapid Reader
Clara cannot see the harpoon shooting contraption, however she can see that very high above them, there appears to be another landmass. Given the ramp like curvature of the land, it could be inferred that the strip of land they're on does somehow loop upward, resulting in there being land above them.

There also appear to be several outlines on the land which indicate either large boulders, mountains, structures, or creatures, but it's too far away to tell clearly.

Ampere seemed to take notice that Carla was looking around for something. "Did you find anything yet?" He asked her as he decided to try to look for himself, taking the angle at which the harpoons were stuck in the world into account as he also decided to run behind the malformed burger before it was too late. The remaining skysquid was no longer a threat, as it was very clearly running away, but whoever was shooting these exploding harpoons at the party, THAT was the threat, now... even if they provided Ampere with exactly the right kind of ammunition to destroy one of them, earlier, he highly doubted that was intentional. Maybe they wanted to kill the skysquid as well and harvest it for... whatever usable, marketable parts it might have had, or maybe they were always aiming at the party, wanting them dead for having the gall to disturb the original skysquid's slumber. Whatever the case, it was pretty clear that they weren't actually on the party's side, despite accidentally helping said party not too long ago.

@Lugia
As Ampere takes his look around, he can see a small silver dot in the sky growing slightly larger-- oh.
Those are just more harpoons.
Very obviously, the next volly has been fired, and it is indeed headed right for the large hamburger monster. Each harpoon lodges itself into the malformed monstrosity with the THUNK THUNK THUNK of heavy impact. Luckily, this creature had indeed provided adequate cover.
Whoever is shooting from above appears to be aiming for the party indeed but they are well out of eyesight.

He could also see that the remaining SKYSQUID has retreated beneath the world-- escaping the party.

In the same direction that it went, there are three outlines-- stone towers that are quite a dash away.

Meanwhile, the Penta Posse continued arguing behind the twitching corpse of sentient burger meat, still moaning and crying out for the sweet release of death. They were less concerned about dodging the next volley of explosive arrows and more concerned with winning the blame game.

“ Are you telling me we wasted all of our mana, just on that?”

" Jeremiah, you idiot. We're now sitting ducks because of you."

" Yeah, Jeremiah."

" You stupid idiot."

" You useless waste of a finger."

" Why don't we just light him on fire?"

" Everybody, shut up!" In the midst of their arguing, Fred had taken over, the platypus's fingers crooked in a scowl as he raised his head up and down, panting. He then took the mana potion from Clara's hands, whispering a small thank you, before sipping it slowly as if it was a delicate cup of tea. Actually, it was more awkward giving that his host body gurgled it down unnaturally rather than swallowing.

With magic newly renewed in his veins, Fred began to relinquish control to the Penta Posse. Unfortunately, he was interrupted by the pleading noises of the Hamburglar moaning in agony.

" Please, KILL ME." It cried out. " My existence is unbearable. Kill me and let entropy rot my body away into nothingness."

" Don't worry, Mr Hamburglar! I'll volunteer to kill you!" Fred skipped over towards the rolling head of the Hamburglar and stopped at the middle of his eye. Pressing one of his hands against the head, concentrating energy that could bend the will of the fabrics of the universe, only an incantation was needed to focus it into an conduit.

" I cast Summon Twinkie!"

For a moment, nothing appeared to happen. No twinkie was seen nor was there any magical effect. Well, for five seconds until the Hamburglar began twitching, his arms spastically shaking in violent spasms. The twinkie had materialized within the skull of the Hamburglar and displaced what substitute it had for grey matter into mush. There was a whisper of thank you before the Hamburglar became 20 tonnes of decomposing hamburger meat in a grassy field.

The Penta Posse took over, one of the fingers speaking directly towards Clara. " Tell you what, corpse-slinger. We can reconstitute the meat as well as the bones into something bigger and badder. Just tell us when you're ready."