If it had been just yesterday, Ari’s disappearance would have been inevitable, her min-maxed build allowing her to outstrip anyone else in terms of sheer speed. But while she had died, others had leveled up, and now, compared to the three men who pursued her, she was undoubtedly the slowest of them all. Her solitude, granted to her by both the party’s confusion about what they were going to do, lasted all of three seconds before Lugh, followed by Raime and Amulak, emerged from the fog after her. A solo adventure this time, at least, seemed unlikely.
As the three approached, however, Ari could hear something else. The rattling of dry branches within the obscuring mists. Was that the wind? No, there was no wind. So what…
A woman’s face, pale and warped in eternal wrath, shot out from behind Ari, her split-tongue slipping out from a painted red mouth that was lined with thirty-eight razor sharp teeth. Her hair, jet black and glossy, ran three meters long, tangled as it was with branches and bones, while her body was a sinuous twenty meters, sectioned off onto half-meter long portions armored with a dark brown carapace. One hundred spindly legs, human legs, extended out from the sides of the centipede woman’s body, and in that instant, everyone’s perception of time slowed down.
Slowed down enough that a thought could form in all their heads.
If neither Lugh, Raime, nor Amulak acted, Ari, as fragile as she was, was certainly dead. And they only had a split second to do so.
@Psyker Landshark@Cu Chulainn@Searat@GreenGoat
While the boys chased after the catgirl, the real girls had better things to do. The A-team may no longer be around, but both Magpie and Ames had plenty of chances to improve, both in terms of equipment and in terms of attributes. Each of the brawler’s punches now struck with the force of twelve men, while the warrior wielded a real weapon, the sword of a fallen adventurer having claimed many lives in retribution. Ignoring Ari’s suicidal nature, the duo strode off on their own, until the footfalls of their allies were lost within the fog.
Between the two of them, there was only one Purification Amulet that Raime had given them, one tool that would enable them to actually harm the incorporeal monsters that were rumored to linger within these parts, but, well, what of it? Surely the game wasn’t so cruel as to completely neuter players who took martial classes? Surely, there were enemies within the Thunderstruck Grove that could be slain with a strong punch and a sharp sword.
After some wandering, their belief was rewarded with the sound of snapping bone, slurping meat, and raucous, bone-rattling laughter. Taking to the shadows of the skeleton trees, Ames and Magpie spied three humanoids of impressive proportions. Two were red-skinned and one was blue, but they were all mountains of muscles, three meter tall monsters with two horns stretching up from their bald heads. Their mouths were open, a mess of yellowed teeth jutting out in a way that was impossible for their lips to close over, and they tore chunks of flesh out of a boulder-sized bear that still sparked faintly with electricity. Wounds, lacerations and burn marks, covered their bodies, but the oni all seemed to be in a good mood. The blue one took a swig of some bottle before passing it around to his brothers.
Their weapons, a blackstone bonesaw and two iron clubs the length of themselves, laid propped up against the bear that had been slain.
Though Magpie and Ames were outnumbered, their quarry had already been injured and looked to be unaware of their presence. Was this an opportunity for an ambush? Or was this a trap? It didn’t look like the two had long to deliberate though. With every second that passed, the wounds on the monsters’ bodies began to dissipate.
@Yankee@OwO
Really, whose idea was it to go through the haunted hellscape alone?
Right, it was his own idea.
Adventuring solo through the blasted woods, the silence amplified every small sound around Klein. The skittering of some vermin. The cawing of a far-off crow. The scream of a dying creature. The splintering of broken wood. It all surrounded him, and the air, humid and cold, became suffocating, water catching into his lungs. His imagination, infected by stories and childhood terrors, made monsters out of the shadows behind the trees, made gravesoil out of any patch of dirt that felt oddly soft. The Brutal Cleaver offered only meager comfort, while the Goblin Warpaint made the man feel more goblin-like than war-like. Really, why was he even here? Even during day, the Thunderstruck Grove looked like the setting for a horror movie; what would he do if he got himself lost, and got stuck here all the way into the night? Not like Cacophony Concord had teleport waypoints that he could just access willy-nilly.
As those thoughts all pounded into Klein’s skull, his foot caught on a root, and he fell face-flat into the dirt, the shock of imbalance briefly pulling him out of his mind. Pushing up, the mountain man tried to stand up, only that same foot to be stuck again. Stuck on a dark, writhing root that had wrapped all the way around his ankle.
Behind him, the tree, once inanimate, began to shudder, pink blossoms sprouting from its bare branches as more roots burst out from the ground, showering Klein with dirt that smelled of blood. The tree didn’t roar, nor did it speak, but if Klein didn’t fight back, he was going to be
buried alive.
@Shovel
