Member
Yankee
Weird Tales
Damycles
Lildear18
Half Pint
Zapdos
Mixtape Ghost NGrimm Fandango
Level 12 Sectonia (holding 4 level up) (76/120) and Lvl 3 Grimm (27/30)
Word Count:2384
High above the ash-covered battlefield that the Seekers had hurriedly left behind, the open air gave way to layers upon layers of hellish, meat-red plant matter, assembled in masses the size of skyscrapers that formed the solid core of the demon tree. Even before the Qliphoth’s parasitization, though, the termite-esque Empusa that dwelled in this place had meticulously carved out many winding tunnels and cavernous hollows in its trunk. One such cave opened directly into the lower atrium itself, a promising cavity in the vaulted ceiling, but when Sectonia fluttered inside she found little in the way of relief from the infestation’s grossly biological ugliness.
Instead she discovered what appeared to be a breeding ground, where leeches swollen to the size of crocodiles clung to the walls in droves, slowly siphoning off the Qliphoth’s stolen blood for themselves. Worse still were the malignant wretches that might have at some point been humans, each both gaunt and bloated in hideous fashion, pieced and adorned by metal instruments in a state of perennial torture, and festooned with the living bloodbags of vampiric elixir that made them into these malformed things in the first place. Some darted or crawled around in manic frenzy, licking ichor from mutilated leeches in the hopes that more blood would kickstart their failed transformations, while others simple stewed in the muck. But worst of all was the horror that floated weightlessly above it all, an ovoid mass of pinkish tissues, limp arms, dangling intestines, and writhing tentacles, with a dozen fleshless skulls that stared blankly in all directions. The Gaster oversaw its foulblood brood with the aid of four very long, sinuous cephalopod tentacles, each tipped with a scimitar hook, and Sectonia’s arrival did not go unanswered.
At her intrusion, the sanguisuges stirred. As the thralls quickly formed into a mob, the Gaster stretched out its elastic tentacles, hooked onto a section of wall, and yanked itself over to try and stay out of sight, though the rapid yellow flashes of its mucal sacks betrayed its presence. Before the assault began, however, one of the Qliphoth veins bulged outward. A black claw slashed through both the tunica and a leech attached to it, and in a spray of foul fluids Grimm launched into the arena. He landed in a low stance just shy of one of the massive holes in the floor, his six limbs splayed out beneath his cloak. The sight of another hollow full of undead vermin did not please him, but it seemed that this time he’d have an ally.
”Good to see that I’m not the only one that is going to take out this horrid threat and its ugly spawn.” Sectonia said, a bit annoyed that due to the limited battlefield her minions would do much here. Perhaps later she’d summon them once she saw what this giant creature did.
With that, the Gaster unleashed its beam, a ray of condensed ichor sweeping across the sordid battlefield toward the intruders.
Sectonia, not wanting to see this horrid creature for longer than she had to, blasted it with her holy rays, flying away from the ichor beam as she blasted. She’d also try to keep in range of her auras to do some extra damage to this thing, but once she started to get close, it’d run off with scary speed and attempt to redo its ichor blasts. So it would be one of these huh? Well, her rays of holy light could blast it from afar until it fell to the ground, seemingly stunned from the damage.
As radiant lights flashed overhead, Grimm attended to the wretches on the ground. They staggered toward him without any form of cohesion, driven by raw, bestial hunger. When they attacked, they flailed their limbs in clumsy, unpredictable strikes, but Grimm could see the rabid strength behind them. A dance would be wasted on Philistines like these, and yet it seemed the Troupe Master had no recourse. After bowing, he darted among the vampiric thralls, each blur of pitch-black claws a deft stroke that painted the hollow’s floor in fetid foulblood. He whirled, pivoted, leaped, and swooped in rhythm with some unseen orchestra, accepted partner after partner, and was left wanting. As he threw open his cape to cremate a small mob of vessels with firebats, he noticed an especially deformed sanguisuge as it crept up behind him. He spun and let fly his Grimmchild, which pierced through the wretch’s gut, unfurled its wings, and redeemed the vile thing through scarlet flame.
At that point the Gaster fell from the sky, dazed from Sectonia’s magical bombardment. Grimm turned to accept the kind offering, only for a rogue thrall -missing an arm and presumed slain- to gouge at his head. Viscous hemolymph seeped from the wound, and the sanguisage lapped at it eagerly, only to be repelled by a substance so unlike the fresh blood it craved. Grimm spared it further disappointment with two slices, the first through its odious face -more out of spite than anything- and the second through its thigh to topple it. Then Grimm made his way over to the Gaster, leaping over the holes in the hollow’s floor. His delay meant he arrived just too late, however, and before he could dig in the Gaster unleashed an immense flash of painfully bright light. Blinded and stunned, Grimm staggered backward and into the hole behind him, barely managing to snag his claws on the edge in time to stop his fall. When his sight returned, his scarlet eyes blinked down at the flood-infested battleground hundreds of feet below, then up at Sectonia in a silent entreaty for help.
Sectonia herself using the fact this thing had fallen to the ground to summon her Antlers without chance of retaliation from its beam, Grimm dealing with and having some trouble with the minions below. With her own minions out helping to suppress them with Sectonia summoning a gold and 2 red Antlers to add areas of safety or to cleanse the area with fire, she was ready to start to deal something to this downed creature. Although that would wait as it didn’t remained stunned for long and flashbanged Grimm, causing him to stumble and almost fall through the gaps in the floor. A bit annoyed about the situation, Sectonia swooped down and hoisted Grimm back onto solid surface behind a red Antler who was using its flamethrower upon a thrall which flailed wildly as it was burned by magical fire.
Once hauled to safety, Grimm quickly rubbed the stars from his vision, offered Sectonia a wordless bow of gratitude, and then peered around for any sign of the Gaster. Thanks to its nasty surprise, the brood-watcher had gotten off relatively scott-free and floated back up into the hollow’s dark reaches, but it wouldn't be safe for long. With Antlers on deck to finish the fight Grimm started, the number of lesser sanguisuges continued to dwindle rapidly. The Troupe Master stood ready to repay the favor he owed Floralian queen.
While Sectonia tended to light up the darkness, Grimm was content to work with it. He darted around the battlefield for a few seconds before his scarlet eyes spotted a bulbous shape in the fetid gloom, anchored to the hollow walls by its hooked tentacles. The realization came just in time, as well, and as the Gaster’s high-pressure laser burst forth, Grimm teleported to safety. Three firebats screamed forth from beneath his cloak, followed by the Grimmchild, and the scarlet blaze cut the horror’s laser short.
Sectonia meanwhile was a bit more occupied summoning more minions to deal with the rabble, summoning another gold, another red, and two green to help clear things out. This lead to her paying a bit less attention with the main boss as Grimm was dealing with him, meaning she got blasted with its laser for the short while it was up before Grimm dealt with it. A disgusting, horrid thing that wasn’t very pleasant to get hit by and something that got her attention. Attention she’d pay in kind with it being on the ground again by teleporting next to it and conjuring a large ring of light and using it as a hula hoop, cutting into the creature as it stood there over and over.
Facing with a lustrous circle saw of punishment, the Gaster quickly attempted to reposition. It did not float away slowly, but stretched out two of its tentacles to a farther section of wall, and once they latched on it let go with the other two to snap away like a stretched rubber band. Now that it had invited Sectonia’s wrath, though, the grotesque sanguisuge found her nigh impossible to get rid of. She stuck to it like glue, unrelenting, and the damage quickly added up. And as if that wasn't enough, Grimm teleported up to join her, and with no qualms about physical contact he happily jumped on top of the Gaster itself. He awakened his cloak and plunged its tips into the horror beneath him, which burrowed in and then erupted outward as spikes. That vicious attack was more than enough to knock the Gaster down a second time, with Grimm along for the ride.
As the Seekers prepared to capitalize, however, the foulbloods reared their ugly heads once more. Several bloated thralls appeared covered in enormous, swollen ticks, which they plucked off and then threw at a rate of two per second to bounced toward their foes and explode. Worse were the two Jenu Giants, much tougher and bigger than their deformed cousins, with railroad spikes through their heads and enormous polearms in hand. They went after the Seekers, one for each bug, to stagger them and let the Gaster recover.
Seeing this, Sectonia commanded her currently summoned Antlers to intercept and deal with these things, or at least provide them a shield. Being the giants they were, this was a good order for the slow Gold antlers as they could impose themselves in between the Jenu Giants and the seekers to eat some of the exploding ticks to give them more time to deal damage to the Gaster. Their bulk let them take a good amount of hits until they finally exploded in a puff of magical smoke. Meanwhile Sectonia seeing that the Gaster was trying something new, decided to see exactly how damaged it was from their attacks by hitting it with lightning, before using her Reaper’s Scythe on it to inflict a fair amount of damage, only gauging how injured it was after the attack to get an idea of how close to death it was.
She’d need to eventually turn her attention to the Jenu Giants once her Gold Antlers went down, using her pipe of insight to give herself and Grimm a barrier that absorbed some of the explosion damage as she rained Swords across the battlefield to deal with these creatures.
Though clearly confident in her power and more than capable, Sectonia was wise enough to not get cocky. She gave the metal-studded newcomers their due diligence, but with her array of powers she did not spare the Gaster its punishment, either. Grimm joined in her efforts, making the most of the distraction provided by the Antlers to whale on the Gaster with his claws and spells. Unable to get away, the nightmarish thing could only try to endure, but its efforts were not enough. Together, the magic and might of the two bugs proved sufficient–perhaps even superfluous. Well before the Jenu Giants could overcome the Antler barricade, Grimm’s claws and Sectonia’s swords reduced the wretched Gaster to ichorous chunks, and after that the handful of sanguisuges that remained were of little consequence.
After scraping fluid from his claws, Grimm allowed his cloak to fall back into place over his body. His scarlet eyes peered around the hollow, taking stock of the destruction that he and Sectonia caused. He found many spirits, but as far as he could tell, nothing yet lived, save for the Qliphoth itself. Given just how far its cancerous infestation had spread, though, he couldn’t say how much longer for the world it was. One thing was clear: that he and his comrade would not find its overlord here. He cast his gaze to Sectonia. She had certainly demonstrated her abilities. ”Bravo. A splendid dance. Your fervor burns bright in the darkness.”
Before he could take another step though, the shadows closed in once more, but instead of bloodsuckers the insects found themselves presented with a selection of rewards. In front of Grimm loomed three choices: Dazzling Display, Auspicious Star, Volcano Spear. These things reminded him of badges, the trinkets worn by certain warriors to grant new powers in battle. He cared not for such baubles himself, but given his weakened abilities, perhaps certain concessions must be made. Grimm reached out to take hold of the Volcano Spear card. His talons close on nothing, and all three cards vanished, but when the hollow faded back in he found smoldering scarlet embers on his claws. ”I can feel it. The warmth of the flame. This searing fire…it carries well the Ritual’s promise.” After a moment he averted his gaze in order to begin the hunt for a path forward. ”Shall we press on?”
Sectonia was deciding on a choice of her own, between Wave of Despair, Catalyst, and Darkmagic Blade. She was taking a longer time than Grimm deciding on hers as she tried to figure out the general idea of each item. One would do something if she was attacked, one would buff her allies, and the last one would passively debuff her enemies. A tough choice all around… Although the middle one could lead to some scary Antlers perhaps. After thinking about it for a little bit, Sectonia decided to choose Catalyst. While it didn’t buff her directly, it offered a much stronger amount of power than the other two and an empowered gold Antler could be quite devastating.
”Yes. We still have to find the core of this abomination and snuff it out.” Sectonia said, giving Grimm a nod. The question was… where to go now? If nothing presented itself in a timely fashion, making their own way through the tree might be required.