Lord Zee
Kho
Timemaster
Fetzen
Carlyle
Crispy Octopus
Vec
Scarifar
DionDrowned One Boogaloo Fighting
“Well, how-dee-doo!” Tuuni swore with as much poison as he was capable of. He stood on his river floaty, his sunglasses resting on his forehead. Daffotales danced by the riverbanks, repeating his ‘how-dee-doo’ with as much anger as Tuuni himself. In the distance, past the glorious falls of Shengshi-La, the repellant of everything sane and good-hearted in this world, the Drowned One, approached with menace. It was a mountain-sized beast of cadavers and blood, a thick, blubbery blob of flesh, his many minions minioning at his feet… if one could call them feet. Upon closer inspection, they were in fact not feet at all, but even more minions: like a raft of ants, they rolled their disgusting overlord forward along its slimy trail. Its spawn morphed and shifted between an endless array of unspeakable shapes, stunning onlookers with their revolting visage.
With a grand flourish, Tuuni pointed his gnarled staff in the direction of the beast from beyond. “Stop right there!”
A great flash blinked through the sky above, and the world rumbled. Forcing its way through the atmosphere, a river with a dragon’s maw cut through and slammed into the Drowned One. The monstrosity roared with anger as the waves slammed into its side, sending its spawn scrambling to catch it as it tilted away, its flesh cut and bruised by the impact. A great gurgle erupted from it, its pale discs of eyes shooting towards the interloper who had dared attack it. With another gurgle, it gave a nonsense command to its spawn, a section of the grand horde splitting off and charging towards where the river god stood upon his floaty.
”Uh-oh!” Tuuni yelped. With little else, he tossed his floaty at the minions, refusing to elaborate the sudden destructive power of it as it landed with an atmospheric clap of an explosion. Minions were sent in all directions, and not all in one piece.
As the sound of the floaty resounded through the air a streak of fire rushed towards Tunni from the direction of the great tree. It bounded from rock to rock as it followed the river upstream at a speed no mortal could follow. In a flash it came to rest on a rock in the river across from Tunni as the configuration that made up its form settled into that of Anat’aa, sitting down with her head resting on her hand, a foot lazily dangling into the river creating a cloud of steam that circled around her. She smiled in her particular fashion as she looked at Tunni, oblivious to what was behind her. “Tunni! Good to see you! Hope you've been well! Gotta ask, what the heck was with that noise just now? Did I miss one of your parties?”
She would have continued on rambling but the fire Goddess was suddenly distracted by the half blown off form of one of the spawn as it dragged what little of itself across the ground towards the river and the two gods. Her smile disappearing into a look of slight disgust, Anat’aa reached her hand out and snapped her fingers. All at once the ruined form was enveloped in a white hot flame.
“Eww.” was all Anat’aa said as she rose to stand. Turning she saw the great horde spread out across the horizon, and the vast, corpulent form of the Drowned One at its center. The look of slight disgust darkened into one of almost total revolution as once more she only uttered “Eww.”
“Ugh! And now it stinks, too!” Seemingly out of nowhere, a three metre tall minotaur had appeared on the bank next to the two gods. There really was no explanation for how he had ended up there, and none would ever come. He simply turned to the others and said plainly, “Who are you?”
“Anat’aa, at your service, oh surly sirloin.” Anat’aa responded to the suddenly appearing minotaur, looking over to him with a grin. The bull snorted.
“Are you a friend of Galaxor’s?” he asked in, indeed, a quite surly manner.
A look of genuine confusion crossed Anat’aa’s face “No? Would love to meet him! Havent yet, still so much to meet and do!” The bull furrowed his brow, which cast a long shadow over his eyes, but he seemed to not push further.
As she spoke her face lit up as if she was suddenly reminded of something “But I do know someone who would LOVE this!” Rapidly she pointed at the great, probably damp, blob in the distance. Jumping from her rock she landed on the far bank for the river. Allowing herself to act on pure impulse, Anat’aa grabbed random plants and rocks and arranged them into a random, chaotic, jumble.
“I don't know if this is enough..” She quietly thought out loud before simply lighting the whole lot on fire for good measure “Oh sparklingly sweet chaos!” She called into the air, her broad smile only growing “You must see this! It’s… gross!”
A sudden prismatic flash erupted around the three gods, where there was once just a burning assortment of plants and rock, there was now a multicolored being of flame. A smile like watercolor quickly forming on their formless head. “You Called My Dearest Flame?” The god of chaos looked over, noticing the two others. “Oh! Good Evening! If I Knew I Was Meeting Anat’aa’s New Friends I Would’ve Dressed My Best!” They snapped their fingers, the flames merely changing from a multicolored explosion into…a slightly different multicolored explosion. “There!”
The minotaur stoop dumbfounded. “How did I end up here?” he mumbled to himself, but no answer manifested as of yet. He swung his hoe onto his shoulder and pointed a log-like finger at the mess of chaos. “You there! Rainbow carrot! What is your name?!”
“Ah Yes!” The chaos bowed, its flames dancing along as they spoke. “Yumash, God Of Chaos, Dear Friend Of Anat’aa Here.” They gestured towards the flame goddess, before returning focus back to the minotaur. “And What Might Your Name Be Dear Bull?”
“Unimportant,” said the bull and pointed at Tuuni. “And you there! Corn smut! What is YOUR name?!”
Tuuni looked up from his glass, a sparkling liquid sloshing about. “Hah? Oh! The name is Tuuni.” He squinted past his abrosian drink and at the drowned one groaning in the distance. A crescent smile curled under his white whiskers. “A barrel of RALK to whoever deals with our friend here.”
“RALK?! Sounds worse than milk!” spat the bull. “You can keep your barrel, tuna! I will deal with this filth myself!” The bull stomped ahead of the other three and waded into the water. He raised a thick palm over his head and clapped it down on the surface of the water. A tiny shockwave soared outwards in a ring that seemed to go on forever. Then, little by little, croakers began to show up, swimming in tribes and clans by the score. Goblins, snouters, beastfolk, elves, fowlfolk, goatfolk, dwarves, humans–all kinds of farmers of land and water showed up on boatbugs, on rafts or otherwise in the water. The bull raised a piece of the beach into a platform and addressed the mortals: “LISTEN UP, YOU SLUGS!” The mortals quivered. They had been called over by a spell promising free food, and all they saw were two bonfires, a hairy gnome and a minotaur who reeked to high heaven. The bull raised more land and conjured forth plowshares, hoes and baskets. “IN UNDER AN HOUR, THIS LAND WILL BEGIN TO SPAWN CORNDOGS! FARM THEM WELL AND MAKE ME AN ARMY!” The mortals were scared, frightened and utterly confused. The bull conjured forth a whip and started whipping the air. “NOW! PLOW, PLOW, PLOW!” The mortals scrambled, tools flying out of their piles like hot bread. Before long, the first corndogs began to spawn and the farmers picked them out and lined them up in formation. As they came to life, the corndogs barked with bloodthirst and jumped out into the river, heading towards the minions of the Drowned One.
Yumash looked past the gods towards the giant mass, their flames curling together upon their face to contort their watercolor smile further. “My Dear Flame,” They briefly turned to Anat’aa, “Do You Mind Distracting That Beast For Me? I have An Idea.”
“I think I can manage that sweet chaos.” Was all Anat’aa responded, a hint of mischief tinting her voice, as her form dissolved into a bolt of fire that launched itself over the corndogs and into the vast sea of spawn.
As she landed a swirling rush of fire exploded out, a defining roar announcing the coming configuration. As the fire twisted and swirled around the spawn, large tendrils of flame emerged and seized a number of the misbegotten forms. They were dragged further into the inferno, towards the epicenter where Anat’aa stood. Her form was ever shifting in the heat, like a shimmering mirage, her fox form danced around her before once more becoming part of her and vice versa. Both however wore an almost devilish vulpine smile as she looked upon the seized spawn, as she reached out and touched each one, their forms quickly ignited into bright flames.
With a gleeful giggle she threw them into the air, leaving a cloud of sparks behind them. Breathing in deep Anat’aa slowly breathed into the cloud, watching as the sparks grew brighter and began to dance in the air currents made by her breath. As they floated their movements soon began to take on an organized randomness, less like burnt gasses and more like a vast cloud of tiny creatures. Waving her hands in a dance-like motion, Anat’aa shaped the cloud of living sparks and whispered their name Whisps, before sending them into the mass of outer spawn.
Individually they were no threat, but as a concentrated mass the Wisps began to overwhelm some of the spawn, igniting them as those who had been used in their creation had been, bringing more of their number with each sparking fire. As the swarm grew Anat’aa tilted her head towards the bloated form of the Drowned One and willed the growing cloud at the beast. An order the mindless things fulfilled with as much glee as their insect like minds could muster.
To reinforce the whisps, the bull’s fields began to spawn heavier infantry: Monstrous cabbages almost four metres tall crawled out of the ground, knocking down the poor farmings trying to pull them out; eggplants armed to teeth with weapons of stone and metal rose from the ground and waded into the river; pumpkin bruisers with thick rinds for armour rolled into battle; poisonous mushroom troopers followed soon with venomous claws. The bull whipped harder, many of the mortals falling keeling over out of exhaustion. Then came the mental storms from the Drowned One, and the farmers screamed in terror, many running. “HOLD YOUR GROUND, YOU SCUM!” blared the bull and sacked many corndogs on the farmers instead. Lastly came the cucumbers, who snaked their way into the water and ate up spawn like orcas.
Seeing its swarms decimated, the Drowned One stepped up its mental assault. A wave of madness erupting from its blubbery mass. The shockwave invading the mind of mortal and god alike, sending their visions spiraling and wavering, the wisps and plant beings seeing double of every one of its spawn. Using its chance, it willed forth its own horde of spawn to intercept the cloud of wisps, flying beasts with great leathery wings that with every beat sent gusts of wind out in a burst around them, scattering the wisps. But it knew it would need to step itself up as well, with another thunderous gurgle, it began to create more of its spawn. Its great blubbery flesh ripping off from itself, rapidly evolving as it did so into more spawn and beasts, which quickly joined the fight to replenish those who had already fallen.
Yumash looked on from the sidelines with Tuuni, seeing the great wave of madness it had unleashed sparking another twinkle within their watercolor flames. They turned towards the river god next to them, “Tuuni Was It? Would You Kindly Be A Dear And Give Me A Boost? Need To Reach That Big Blubbery Boy While It's Still Distracted.”
Tunni looked up from his new floatie, recently weaved from Reed grass and some fluff shaved from some pissed off chipmunks. “Here you go!” Tuuni tossed the ring at Yumash, and behind the toss was a great pillar of water. “Good luck!” Tuuni said over the road of pressure.
The god of chaos caught the floatie ring in one hand, quickly slotting it on as they let the cascade of water take them away. Launching their form into the sky, though the poor ring floatie did not survive the mixture of the sudden rush and the lapping flames of chaos. With the height, Yumash caught sight of their target, the largest of the three white discs of eyes that covered the front of the great beast.
Extending one hand, they pointed towards the eye, extending out their thumb in a mock finger gun. Firing, they transformed themselves into a torrent of technicolor chaos that shot forward towards the eye. Hitting just above its target as it erupted into a great fury of flame. The beast let out a gurgling cry as Yumash transformed back into their humanoid form, sliding down and grabbing directly onto the eye the best they could.
“Alright! Lets See How You Like It!” They yelled, their form becoming more and more unhinged as they stared into the great white eye. The pulsing madness emitting from the beast now fusing with Yumash’s own pulsing chaos, the two energies clashing for dominance over one another. But with the Drowned One now focused on the mental battle of dominance, its horde was left leaderless, and ripe for the taking.
As the battle progressed, Anat’aa danced through the carnage. She was all at once a trailing fire that bounded from wisp infested husk to wisp infested husk, and a great fox that tore at the void spawn with glee. Even through the mental assault of the Drowned One did she not falter in this task, even as the double sight caused her great jaws to miss several bites and expose her flank to several raking blows from the spawn. In truth the sudden departure of the mental anguish caused her more concern than its presence.
Departing from the vast melee that had opened up between the grown soldiers and the spawn, Anat’aa reappeared in the company of Tunni and the Bull in a flash. Fire swirling around her she looked out upon the battlefield with a sigh “This all seems to be going well.” She said to the other deities, her eyes flitting across the great front before coming to rest on the battle between the Drowned One and Yumash.
She watched the battle of primal chaos closely for only mortal moments, a look of worry crossing her face before she returned her burning gaze to the armies. She watched as the spawn suddenly began to lash out with chaotic confusion. She watched as they threw themselves at the grown soldiers, and worse yet, how some began to abandon the field. “Do you two think you can keep the pressure on these wretches? I can corral them in this place and we can ensure none survive.”
“And you see,” Tuuni said from his reclined position, an otherworldly minion staring at him in wonder, an umbrella drink in each hand. “You want to pour the sweet stuff first, the bubbly after. It mixes nicer.
“Broough?”
Anat’aa’s question hit the pair and Tuuni hit the beast behind him. “Of course!” He waved his staff and the river nearby began to flood over, sopping the field in slowly growing water. At first inches, then feet. The bull unleashed a scolding snort and waved his hoe around menacingly in Tuuni’s direction.
“You are flooding my fields, you bushy gnome!” he yapped and kicked over a tired croaker. He stuck his hand into the quickly wettening soil and pulled out thick tree trunks, one after the other, that had been buried in the silt. He stuck one of them at an odd angle, aimed in the direction of the tide of minions, and tossed some more trunks at the mortals. “LINE THEM UP, SLUGS! SEED THE FLOATATOES!” As the mortals dodged, picked up and frantically assembled the pillars of wood, the cores of the trunks hollowed out by themselves, and branches along their lengths dug into the silt like pairs of legs. The farmers hastily tended to paddies of floatatoes, which popped out of the water with divine speed thanks to the presence of the bull’s ungodly ooze. The bull picked a specimen, shoved it into one of the trunks and stepped around the back before giving it a firm kick in the buried end. “BLAST!”
With a thunderous boom, the trunk exploded at the mouth, shooting out a flaming spud at an arc. A distance away, the boom was followed by a crash, minions flying everywhere covered in steaming hot mash. The air was thick with the smell of baked peel and stink of sulfurous tree sap. “RELOAD!” commanded the bull as crying farmers continued to collect the floatatoes and shoving them into the tree trunks at the pace of his lashes. “Hammer these vermin back into the soil!”
Anat’aa watched the other two gods set to work, her eyes following the arc of a couple of the explosive spuds. With a grin and a nod she set about her own task, once more donning the guise of the fox. Jumping from her place in the river she ran on the far edge of the spawn, leaving a trail of smoldering footprints behind her. As she ran these footprints would begin to glow brighter and brighter, a deep, intense flame burning within each of them. Eventually these footprints came to encircle the spawn in a vast semi circle, leaving only the killing line at the river untouched.
With this act completed Anat’aa once more retraced her steps, only this time as she did she set more of her power to the already smoldering ground. She willed the fire brighter and hotter, and the fire obliged. Soon the very rocks around them began to glow and crack, a deep angry orange apparing with each pass of the fox. Seeing this, Anat’aa poured more of her power into it, watching in her mind's eye as the radiant fire washed through minute fractures in the stone, deeper and deeper. Soon it found roost in deep stone, a hard rocky layer where the pressure was just right.
With a cackle the fox allowed the energy that was already trickling into the fire open into a flood. The deep fire danced and glowed, and for miles around every fire, from the smallest candle to the brightest bonfire dimmed suddenly. Coming to a stop back on her rock in the river, Anat’aa kept feeding the fire. Soon the ground began to groan and crack, deep fissures opening along her path. From the depths came boiling fire, suddenly trapping the spawn between watery, explosive death, and a quickly expanding floodplain of hissing basalt.
Tuuni put his hands on his hips and whistled. “Good thing I was here.”
With its spawn now trapped in a killing field, faced with drowning, burning, or death by various sentient plants. The great beast was rapidly running out of options, its mental assault crashing against the chaos erupting from the god clinging to its eye. The two locked into a growing dominance of primeval power, the great multicolor of chaos clashing against the thick darkness of the outer beast. But with its great horde all but dead, it knew what it had to do.
Locking its eye upon the god of chaos, it began to increase its mental assault. The air around the beast beginning to warp and shift under the weight of the beast’s power. Any mortal unlucky enough to be immediately near the beast and the fight found their mind scattered and fragmented - farmers ran away screaming or simply keeled over as their brains blasted apart. Even those near the presence of the gods felt the strain and pressure from the beast’s power, their vision swimming and blurring with a growing intensity. Even the gods could feel the growing pressure, though thankfully the effects were too focused upon Yumash to affect them as deeply as the mortals.
The god of Chaos kept their focus on the battle, trying their best to shut out the wailing and gnashing that erupted all around them. Their mind and the beast’s beginning to almost fuse as both of them poured more and more power into the fight. Their vision swam, they could no longer focus on the material, instead having to focus purely on the mental fight amongst the stormy mind of the beast, which crackled with immense outer energy. But they couldn’t stop now, they had to keep pushing. Their prismatic flames grew in strength, their form now no longer humanoid, instead becoming a great mass of chaotic flame.
Within that mind, where only few could follow, the two beings clashed once more, their own projected forms taking shape. The beast’s becoming a rolling storm cloud which lashed out with thousands of tendrils of flesh and water. Meanwhile, Yumash fought back as a raging inferno of flames that stained the mindscape like oil paints upon a canvas. They clashed again and again, the tendrils would wrap around the inferno, seeking to drag it into the storm’s confines, only to be burnt by the wrath of chaos. The inferno would lash out against the clouds, driving them back and back, only for them to reform just as quickly. This was not sustainable, Yumash needed to do something, and fast, or they would surely fall in the face of its onslaught.
Within the realspace, they formed an arm once more, raising it towards the heavens. The flames of chaos beginning to flicker and erupt, acting as a lightning rod for something far greater.
Far beyond, amongst the void of the heavens beyond, the every moving vein of chaos heard the call of its progenitor. Without nary a thought it clipped through the cosmos and stars, sending itself towards the direction it was being called towards. To the mortal sight, nothing had changed when Yumash had brought up their arm. But to the gods and outers assembled, they witnessed a great vein of prismatic energy crack down like a bolt of lightning straight through the god of chaos and the great beast.
Within seconds, the area around the god and beast shifted and changed, the air between the blades of grass sparking with electricity that danced between each blade, shocking the poor mortals standing nearby. The air grew thick with static electricity, hairs standing upright, with even minor touches closing circuits and causing intense, but not deadly, shocks.
Meanwhile, within the mindscape, the situation was far different. The sudden surge of chaotic energy from the vein grew Yumash’s power within. The prismatic oil spilling itself throughout its mind, overtaking and consuming the clouds and tendrils wherever it touched. While the vein did not stay long, departing just as quickly as it appeared. It was just what Yumash needed.
The inferno surged forward, breaking through the defenses of the tendrils and striking straight at the heart of the storm. For a moment, the mindscape drew quiet, before the cloud began to emit a piercing screech, with prismatic light beginning to erupt from its core. In reality, the beast shook and spasmed as the light inside its mind grew in intensity. Before the cloud burst into a prismatic explosion. Another screech, this time from the beast itself, erupted, the mental assault rapidly pulling back as its mind was overtaken by chaos. Its eyes, once white, now transformed into an ever shifting rainbow.
Slowly, Yumash returned to their humanoid form, letting go of the eye, and letting themselves fall downward. Hitting the ground with a thud, their energy spent. What little that remained of the spawn scattered in a rout, chased away by a horde of zombie-like vegetables, many of which were partially eaten and crawling their way along the wet ground. The bull surveyed the battlefield with stern eyes, pouring particular focus into the quivering pile of goo that was once their enemy.
“The world is safe again from this wicked evil.” He cracked his whip. “Now we can go back to farming in peace.” The soft whimper of the shattered, maltreated farmers who had worked the fields of the vegetable warriors until their hands bled and their faces dripped, incited another round of lashings. “IN PEACE, I SAID!”
Tuuni gave a nod and hummed to himself. “Certainly a lively crowd.”
“That they were!” Anat’aa agrees, returning to the pair of gods once more, this time with a small spring in her step. Looking out upon the destruction wrought from the trio, she turned her attention to a single spawn that had braved the basalt flows rather than stay and fight. With a thought a hand of fire pulled it beneath the streams of magma. “Truly a job well done all.” She said with a satisfied smile, before looking upon the collapsed form of Yumash, the look of worry from earlier crossing her face again.
“Should we check on them?”
A hand shot out from the chaos god, a thumb stretched out. “Im Fine! Just Drained! Give Me A Moment.” Above them, the beast, now seemingly calmed, gurgled contently. Its shifting rainbow eyes staring off towards the distance. Suddenly, a giant portal opened up beneath it, letting the thing fall into a technicolored void as it let out a gentle exclamation of shock, its new home for now. “There We Go!”
With the Drowned One now locked away, and its spawn scattered, the horde of outer beasts were finally defeated and peace could begin to return to the Shengshi-La. Though the, various, creations of the gods now ran amok. But that was an issue for a later day. For now, life was back to normal. Or well, as normal as it could be.
