Roughdragon1

Endless Quest - A Fantasy Dungeon RP

“Ah! God dammit!” Sylvia looked over to the source of her pain: Ayse, who had used her flames to burn away the poison inside her. Of course, this helped her rid the deadly venom, but there was a side effect: There had been burning flames inside her, at least for an instant, and it felt about as painful as it sounded.

“Thank you, but damn, that hurt!!” Sylvia held her wound, and besides the earlier blood, she felt no new blood flowing out. Most likely, the flames had dried up the wound in a way. Probably not enough to cauterize it, but enough to at least staunch the bleeding. She quietly recited the words to her transparency spell, and she felt the familiar lightness overtake her.

She was see-through now, nearly invisible. All around her, the battle raged on. Dwarves clashed with Skaven, hammers breaking skulls and swords piercing flesh. The sounds and stenches of battle and death filled the air, and occasionally a Skaven or Dwarf would come near her, missing her hunched silhouette.

At this point, she was really regretting getting rid of her armor earlier, but still, not getting rid of it my have gotten her impaled by that halberd, which would have been a fate much, much worse.

I suppose I’ll just consider myself lucky.

She still had her dagger in her hand, in case a Skaven tried to get a stab at her. When -- if she got back, she made a mental note to buy some better armor, something more, well, stab resistant.

She felt the remnants of the rat poison coursing through her body, numbing her limbs and making them go lax. She kept hitting the back of her hand on the ground to regain feeling in them, so much that she had begun to see bruises form on her knuckles. Still, anything was better than losing the ability to fight. Once that was gone, she might as well be dead. The good thing was, however, the poison seemed to be fading. Once it did, she would be able to fight properly again. Well, if the cut on her belly was ignored.

She saw a pair of armored paws shuffle in front of her, stopping in their tracks. She looked up to see another Stormvermin, sniffing at her translucent form, turning its metal-encased head in an inquisitive way.

Well, guess I have no choice, then.

From her crouched form, Sylvia rose up quickly, attempting to stab the skaven through its vulnerable mandible. She saw its eyes widen, and at the last second, it batted away her hand. Sylvia staggered to the side, struggling to keep her form. However, her limbs were reacting slowly, sluggishly, like they were under water.

And I have your bastard halberd friend to thank for that.

The Stormvermin wielded a vicious-looking warpick, the single spike at its end bristling with razor-sharp protrusions and dwarf blood. The weapon looked like it could bring down the most heavily armored warriors in a single, powerful strike. And judging by the dead dwarves around them, it already had.

And what did Sylvia have? Her own bloodied clothes, and an excessively sharp knife.

The Crucible - Winner Take All

The Blood Devil v. Rose Cythla Round 1

“Ah, it seems that our fight has begun, how amusing. To be forthright, I don’t care to expend the energy.” Rose made a motion with her hands, and suddenly, several figures dropped from the ceiling, landing near Saria.

“Go on, my children. Don’t kill her, however. Such a specimen would make a welcome addition to the family.” The shambling monstrosities slowly made their way towards Saria, unintelligible words and phrases spewing from wherever their “mouths” were. She grabbed her sword, preparing to strike.

The first one, a pale tube-shaped monster with two arms, both sprouting several gibbous appendages each, came towards her, flailing. Saria drew her sword, and with no more than a whisper of air, sliced the thing open. Green-black goo sprayed out of the wound, and Saria made another slice, bisecting the creature. Both halves fall to her sides, squirming and jerking.

She barely dodged another attack, this time from a monster that looked a bit too much like a…

Ahem.

Clearing her head from the initial distraction, Saria went to work on the second one, slicing off one of its tube-like arms and finishing it off with a stab to its chest, and dragging her sword across its body, up through its “head”.

Saria saw something out of the corner of her eye, but couldn’t turn to see it in time. It was a fist from the barnacle-covered creature, which slammed into her and sent her flying back several meters, landing in a heap. She stood herself up, quietly thanking her metal-coated self.

Most likely wouldn’t have survived that had I worn anything less…

She stood up, reassessing her situation. There were three more of those… weirdly shaped monsters, including the one covered in barnacles, which she assumed acted as a sort of armor. The second one was a mass of some kind of mix of flesh, protoplasmic matter, forming and unforming eyes, and dozens of sluglike, tentacle limbs which it used to slither and slide its way around. The third was almost humanlike, an emphasis on almost. In reality, it was fr from human. It stood on two hooved, animal-like legs which led up to a reptilian body, complete with horns and spikes protruding from its back. Its arms were spindly, gangly, and its face was flat, having an abnormally large mouth that was lined with crooked, sharp teeth. It had no nose, instead having a ragged, triangular shaped hole. It had no eyes to speak of; Instead, two black holes goggled back at Saria. In short, the sight chilled her.

This is what becomes of the ones she defeats? I would rather kill myself than submit to such a fate.

She readied her blade, and wasted no more time. It also turned out that the three of the beasts wasted no time as well, as they all suddenly charged towards her. It should have been an easy fight, the skilled warrior against these ghastly abominations. But in between the gaps of the monsters, Saria spotted a shining, purple gleam coming from behind the trio. The girl, Rose Cythla. Saria had forgotten about her, and she had just finished charging her attack.

Saria felt the hit before she saw it. A purple beam erupted from Rose’s chest, and hit Saria directly in the torso, once again sending her flying back a few meters and landing on the ground, dazed. The first thing she did was check her armor, which was surprisingly unscathed, besides a large amount of heat emanating off of the impact point.

However physically well she was, she felt different. As she looked up to face her opponents, which were still charging after her, with Rose casually walking behind them, she felt something unusual to her, something which eluded her up until this tournament. For the first time in a long while, she felt… fear.

The monsters now looked even more grotesque, their features seemingly more twisted and evil-looking, and Saria now feared possibly becoming one of them. How a warrior such as herself could be reduced to such a state of mindlessness and inhumanity troubled her to the core. Really, it was not a way she wanted to go, to become cannon fodder to a little girl, or whatever she was.

Dazed, and half-drunk with fear, Saria charged into the fray. The first one to try and stop her was the two-legged animal-like human with the horrid looking face, extending its arms out to try and grab her. Saria threw a wild swing with her sword, slicing upwards through its arms and through its open maw, severing the top of its head and killing it instantly, a black spurt of blood erupting from the lethal wound.

As it collapsed, the barnacle monster charged towards her, both arms raised. Saria examined it, and noted a serious weakness: The eye which rested in the center of its body. As its arms came down towards her, she deftly sidestepped the two pillar-like limbs, which crashed into the spot where she would have been. Without missing a beat, Saria flipped her blade, holding it blade-down, and jammed it into the thing’s eye, twisting it around to make sure she hit something vital. After a couple seconds, the barnacle beast stopped moving, and she removed her blade, now covered in green slime.

She saw the protoplasmic abomination wriggle its way towards her, tentacles squirming and flailing about. At the same time, she saw Rose prepare another laser attack. Like muscle memory, Saria dodged out of the way so that the protoplasm monster was in between them two. She saw a flash of light, and the back of the thing erupted in purple light. However, it wasn’t damaged all that badly. It seemed that the insanity-inducing effects of the laser did not affect something which was most likely already insane. Saria ran towards the beast, dodging its tentacles and severing the ones she couldn’t avoid.

Eventually, she was right up against it, and she thought that she had won, or so it seemed. With its many eyes and limbs, forming and unforming, she didn’t know where to cut. So, she started to swing randomly, cutting the thing in a dozen different places. However, every cut she made reformed with frighteningly fast speed, and soon enough, all of the wounds she made had regenerated, and she felt something wrap around her leg. She looked down and realized too late that it was one of the thing’s tendrils, and she felt herself be flipped over, and lifted into the air.

Saria was violently slammed down into the ground, repeatedly. After the thrashing, her vision was blurry, and she felt a ringing in her head. Still, she had clung to her sword. Upside down, Saria was now face-to-face with Rose, an eerie grin spreading across the purple-garbed girl’s face.

“You do realize, that had I wanted you dead, I would have blasted you into the outer reaches of the cosmos by now. But alas, however “great” of a warrior you seem to be, it’s simply not worth the effort. I know all that you fear, Saria, the Blood Devil. So, I’ll just break you, then take your soul after.”

Rose’s headpiece lit up with a triple glow, and Saria felt like she had been hit with three sledgehammers at the same time, and she was dislodged from the creature’s grasp, getting launched back even farther than before, landing in a very pained heap. Saria slowly stood up, every single inch of her body aching. Her head was ringing, and she couldn’t think properly. All of her senses were confused, blurry, disoriented. Still, she had to carry on.

She let out a yell, and charged towards the monster, swinging wildly as she went. Again, she was there, cutting at it endlessly with renewed vigor, wanting to hit something, anything. And luckily, she did. Her blade struck something solid inside of the monster, and suddenly, it collapsed into a gelatinous heap of mucus-like waste.

Though the five minions were now dead, Saria couldn’t afford to celebrate. There was still one more monster to kill. She looked up at the purple-garbed girl, who still had a cocky grin plastered across her face. Her hair was now moving like snakes, like it had a life of its own. Rose let out a high-pitched, maniacal laugh.

“My, you are quite the fighter, aren’t you, Blood Devil? Maybe I miscalculated your abilities. Still, the time for fun is coming to a close now. It was amusing while it lasted.”

Rose’s hair swelled up into tendrils, and reared up around her, like a dozen serpents ready to strike all at once, their violet tips glowing with eldritch energy. Saria focused on her blade, with only one thought in her mind: Blood. Soon enough, she felt that familiar feeling once again; Her blood forcefully drawn out of her body, and coating the blade, acting as a new, sharper edge for the sword. She knew that this was a risky move, but dangerous situations often called for dangerous solutions. Also, she was just plain annoyed at the purple girl for being so damn condescending.

“Oh just shut up, will you?”

The Crucible - Winner Take All

Thanks, probably going to post today

The Crucible - Winner Take All

This may have been elaborated on at some point, but how does the frenzy system work? Does the character have to take an immense amount of damage before frenzying, or is it when a character is emotionally in a "frenzy"?

The Crucible - Winner Take All

Sorry my post is taking a while, had some family stuff I had to do

The Crucible - Winner Take All

Damn, now I wish I nicknamed my character "Death Seeker"

The Crucible - Winner Take All

For a while, Saria heard nothing but the echoes of her metal boots upon the uneven alien stone, the sound twisting as it passed through the air. The darkness surrounded her, enveloped her, but all she could do was walk forward. The cavern was slightly slanted down, implying that Saria was going deeper and deeper down into the city with every step she took.

Saria was suddenly overcome with a piercing headache, and she inadvertently smacked herself on the helmet as she reflexively tried to caress her aching skull. It took a while for her vision to adjust, and when it did, she was overcome with confusion. She stood inside a large, open room, exactly as tall as the doorway. Dim, greenish light filled the room, and a massive, non-euclidean structure dominated the center.

Saria couldn’t define exactly what the structure was. It seemed to change and reform itself every time she blinked, and even when she didn’t, it was not beholden to a particular shape or color. In fact, she didn’t recognize the color at all. The closer she tried to examine the structure, the more intense her headache became. She closed her eyes, trying to push the image out of her head.

When she opened her eyes once again, she saw something she hadn’t seen earlier. Someone was kneeling down in front of the eldritch structure, praying loudly. Saria came closer, within earshot. Saria recognized the person to be the strange, pale, thin, purple-haired girl she had seen earlier at the college: Rose. She scoffed at the thought of fighting this seemingly frail thing at first, but then she realized that whoever she was, she seemed to be perfectly at home in this strange, alien city. Saria could hear the girl reciting a certain phrase, but its meaning and translation was lost to her.

“Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.” Her voice cut like a knife, and seemed to be both young and ancient at the same time. She slowly stood up, and turned towards Saria, her violet crown and clothes standing out against the room’s dullish olive-green. On her crown rested three gems, and on her chest rested one more.

Every instinct told Saria to draw her sword and attack, but she knew that the college would most likely intervene, and she would never reach her intended goal. Dieing here would not be a satisfactory end, at least for Saria, so she stayed her blade, and waited. She would have to be patient and wait for the college to cue the start of the battle.

Rose spoke first, a pretentious grin widening after every word.

“I see you have arrived. Tell me, how are you enjoying R’lyeh? It’s quite surprising, actually. A mere human such as yourself should have gone hopelessly insane after a short trek through the city.”

“I’m a bit more resilient than other people,” Saria said. Rose gave a little chuckle, like she was witness to a small child’s foolish endeavor.

“Only marginally, if at all. In the end, you humans are to me what a speck of stardust is to an entire galaxy. The only one above me is the great Cthulhu himself, you see.”

“Cth-- What? I would prefer if you spoke English, little girl.”

“And there is but one of almost infinite symptoms of an inferior species, a lack of knowledge. How many disparate means of communication do you employ? One? Two? Maybe three? I know all of them. Single-handedly, I have constructed entire empires, conceived species, and raised civilizations. And after I expunge the rest of the feeble rubbish within this epigram of a ‘competition’, I will wake Cthulhu, and will metamorphose into the harbinger of the Great Old Ones.”

Saria listened to her banter on, barely understanding about a quarter of the words the strange girl had used anyway. She simply stood there, and waited for the drone. When she couldn’t stand the girl’s spiel anymore, she decided to shut her up. With words, of course.

“I don’t care where you came from, and what this… Cthulhu is. Whether you spawned from the depths of Hell, or the cold of the sky, you will die by blood and steel.” Saria put a hand of her sword.

The Crucible - Winner Take All

Oh great, just great. Water.

Saria gazed towards the ocean, its vast expanse of blue reaching across, and perhaps even beyond the horizon. To most, their eyes would catch the dazzling reflections of sunlight upon water, and the beautiful horizon, glowing yellow-orange. For Saria, however, she looked past all that. She instead wondered what was under the water, what things may lurk beneath the seemingly peaceful ripples.

She wasted no more time sightseeing. She climbed into the creaking, rickety rowboat, which she swore was going to sink if she made too sudden a move. Of course, she could just stay at the shoreline, but she had the feeling that, whatever resided within that strange shape in the distance, it was infinitely more patient than she was.

She began to row, the boat separating from the shoreline. The boat groaned with every push from the oars. As she went farther and farther away from the shoreline, the ocean seemed to surround her, choke her with its infinite will. She looked around, and saw how small she was compared to the water, and whatever lurked beneath.

She looked over the rowboat, making sure to keep her balance as to not tip the whole thing over, and peered into the sea, though she couldn’t see more than only about several feet deep. This relieved her for a while, but as she prepared to re-center the boat and continue rowing, she caught something in her periphery, swimming quickly under the water. She immediately turned her head back around, searching the water for whatever she had just seen. Unfortunately, she couldn’t find who, or what caused the strange swimming silhouette. She continued rowing, her mind on edge.

The ocean was always something that troubled her. Humans were made to fight on land, not the sea. She was a good swimmer, but her armor would weigh her down quite a bit, reducing her ability to stay afloat. Also, there was the trouble of fighting while trying not to drown, and with the added risk of her helmet filling with water… she didn’t want to think about it.

She continued rowing for what seemed like an hour, and the strange shape didn’t see any closer. Occasionally, it seemed to oscillate or reinvent its shape before her very eyes. She wasn’t tired at the slightest, but she began to have some troubling thoughts.

Was this all a trick? Are they trying to make me row until I’m tired, then finish me off when I am weak? Maybe the enemy lies under the water, thrashing about? It might be right beneath me at this moment!

Saria yelled, drawing her sword and wildly swinging downwards, towards the water. To her surprise, what she hit wasn’t water, or any creature, but her blade was caught on stone. She looked up, and her heart began to thump like the drums of war.

No, there’s no way. It can't be…

Saria had, just a few moments ago, remembered seeing the strange lump in the sea, how it seemed so far away and never came closer. Now, however, it was right there in front of her, cyclopean architecture crossed over with a sort of gibbous gloom over the entire city, seeming to be the one place in the entire world that the sun had never touched. Saria wasted no more time, and jumped off of the boat, and into the relative safety of the city.

The ground in which she aimed to land at looked nearly flat, but when she landed, she felt herself slip, and lose balance, sliding backwards. She grabbed onto some handholds, preventing herself from slipping into the water. Whatever this place was, it was deceptive to the core. Once she brought herself up and reached “level” ground, she took the time to check her surroundings.

The city was… strange. That was one way of putting it. Others would say “demented”, “unholy”, “demonic”, and other words which carried a religious undertone. Saria couldn’t blame them. If this place wasn’t unholy, or a place of magic and demon worship, then the truth must be unfathomably worse.

To say the least, Saria gained a headache trying to decipher her surroundings. She assumed that her target lay in the massive, open, cavern of a door which lead to stygian nothingness, or so it seemed. The problem was trying to get there without being impaled by some unnoticed spike or tripping over an unseen ridge, falling into more uneven geometry which most likely was lethal; this place didn’t seem to be made for the likes of humans such as herself, after all.

Despite this, however, she pushed on, her stride getting more used to the uneven terrain, despite stumbling over certain architectural anomalies every now and then. Her mind was beginning to clear, to push away the initial panic she had received when she was rowing. Now, she had a direction to go. Now, she had a goal.

Saria now stood in front of the massive, subterranean doorway, which was strangely engraved with undecipherable scrawls and scribbles. There were murals, carvings of what seemed to be creatures not recognizable from any human knowledge. The largest mural, however, was the one at the very top, which depicted a squid-like monster that seemed to dominate above all others.

This is what you asked for, Saria. Don’t turn back now.

Even as this self-assuring thought flew through her head, she couldn’t free herself from an uneasy feeling that hovered over her like a cloud. She didn’t exactly like the idea of being killed by some strange creature within a strange city.

She took a deep breath, and began to walk forwards, into the eldritch abyss. Somewhere deep within, she heard a distant, alien-like roar.

The Crucible - Winner Take All

I'm sorry, it may take me another day to post due to being completely overloaded today.

The Crucible - Winner Take All

@Roughdragon1
I probably should have responded to the rose mobs question. Seeing as your near R'lyeh you could have all the sea horrors come from there, the place is infested with them after all so some of them could escort her when/if she comes out to greet you. Also you should totally ignore​ the commentator, give in to your curiosity​ and embrace the madness within the sunken city.

@DracoLunaris

Bases off the short stories I've read, that's a wonderful idea!