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Post by Noa on Jul 29, 2019 21:15:57 GMT -6
Maybe this was an old nest, recently abandoned; or maybe it was hunting for food elsewhere in the tower---
[Above you!]
The cry echoed in his head just as a rumbling roar broke the silence behind him. Aster startled, but his body reacted almost before his mind could catch up, and he ducked to one side, rolling into the fall. He heard a sharp hiss and looked up. There, he saw it--- the thing.
His breath caught in his throat, a pulse of terror pulsing through him at the sheer alien shock of its form. Above him, clinging to a truly copious amount of webbing, was some sort of horrible chimera: a body covered in a mix of chitin and scales; three different heads all recoiling in pain at the noise; and legs upon legs upon legs. But already, the effects of Avanderโs battle cry were wearing off, lucidity returning to the eyes of the thing.
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Post by Noa on Jul 29, 2019 21:16:14 GMT -6
As it did, all three heads quickly refocused their attention on him.
Shit.
Aster tried to scramble to his feet, but the webbing made it hard to move. Rolling into it had been a bad decision; with more surface area to work with, its hold on him was stronger, and struggling in it just seemed to make it worse. Above him, the creature hissed again, drawn in by his struggling.
Avander snarled, charging in to throw himself over Asterโs prone form, wings half slayed in a defensive gesture. The creature shrank back at his advance, and seemed to be weighing its options. The heads snapped at the drake in turn, but didnโt quite advance. It scuttled back along the webbing on the ceiling, changing positions, trying to find a different angle from which they might get a better shot at Aster. Avander, in turn, was forced to keep moving along with them.
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Post by Noa on Jul 29, 2019 21:16:31 GMT -6
[Get clear,] Aster said.
[What?]
[Get clear. Take a lunge at that thing, whatever, just get away from me. Trust me.] The momentโs reprieve had helped Aster regain some of his bearings. He had an idea, at least, as to how to get himself free. But Avander was liable to get hit if he stayed too close, and shooting your own ally, so to speak, was hardly what he wanted to do in these conditions.
Avander didnโt like it, but he did trust Aster, accusations of death wishes or no. With another rumbling growl, he gathered his haunches beneath him and leaped for the creature, claws outstretched.
As soon as enough distance opened up between them, Aster muttered a short incantation and let the spell fly. Tiny blades of wind erupted around him, cutting away the strands of webbing. Aster leaped to his feet and began running for the bend in the hall.
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Post by Noa on Jul 29, 2019 21:19:40 GMT -6
โCome on!โ he shouted at Avander, not even bothering to look behind him to see if the drakeโs attack had connected. They had come to kill this thing, but they couldnโt do it here. Aster had found out the hard way that the webs impeded movement, and he didnโt want to find out what else, if anything, they could do. It was absolutely home field advantage, and theyโd be fools to fight it on its own terms. This wasnโt the Pit, and if Aster could engineer an advantage for them, then he was of a mind to do it.
He could half hear and half sense Avander following behind him. The drake had managed to disentangle himself from the creature then. Good. But as Avander drew close, an unpleasant smell filled his nose. Burnt flesh--- Aster's head snapped around to stare at the drake.
[At least one of the heads breathes fire,] the drake informed him.
[Avander: +6]
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Post by Noa on Jul 30, 2019 9:28:30 GMT -6
Aster had felt the shock of pain coming through their link, but it wasn't specific enough to tell him what had been the cause. He had thought--- hoped maybe--- that it was just a more mundane, physical attack. The fire wasn't a complete, utter surprise; there had been that odd scent that Avander had told him about before. But that did make things more complicated and more unpleasant. The fact that Avander was still standing was a good sign. Aster had seen creatures felled in one stroke by a big gout of flame before.
If it had elements at its disposal, then fighting the creature at range might have been a bad idea. Avander was mostly a physical fighter, and they were trapped in a relatively enclosed space. There was no room for the drake to fly, and his options for dodging were limited by the press of the walls surrounding them all.
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Post by Noa on Jul 30, 2019 16:20:43 GMT -6
The creature let out another shriek. It was definitely closer than it had been before. Aster cursed under his breath. "Glass, glass. Put up the wall!"
It was a testament to how well trained Avander was that he still recognized the word, almost instantly, after such a long period of disuse. The air went cold around them, and there was a crackling noise that lasted for just a moment before icicles burst out from nothing, adhering themselves to the walls of the hall.
Looking back and seeing the wall of ice, made up of dozens of massive and sharp icicles, Aster breathed a sigh of relief. It was a temporary measure, but at least for the moment the creature would be held at bay. In such an enclosed space, the ice had anchored itself to its surroundings, and the effect was not entirely dissimilar to the webbing that they had seen earlier.
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Post by Renathan on Jul 30, 2019 16:28:14 GMT -6
Temporary measure indeed; how long would it take for it to possibly be breached? Or perhaps the assailant would hurl themselves at it and harm itself? Only time would tell...
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Post by Noa on Jul 30, 2019 19:19:11 GMT -6
The ice was solid though, meant to obstruct rather than to impede, and soon Aster could hear something making contact with it. Another shrill cry went up from the other side, though it was hard to tell whether in frustration or pain. It was probably too much to hope that the creature would gore itself on the points of the ice wall, but it made for a nice bit of wistful thinking.
There was only so much time for that though. Avander had mentioned that the creature had at least some use of fire, so sooner or later, it was probably going to burn its way through the ice. They had to make use of the time theyโd bought themselves, and be ready for it when it came.
โWe need to hide,โ Aster said. โNot far away, just somewhere close. As soon as it breaks through, try to ambush it, and then pounce on it with everything youโve got.โ
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Post by Noa on Jul 30, 2019 19:19:52 GMT -6
With something this unpredictable, unknown to them and sporting three heads to boot, closing in on it was dangerous too, but it was still their best bet of felling the creature.
[Got it,] said Avander. All traces of his usual easy, laid-back manner were gone, replaced by a grim sense of focus. He wasnโt enjoying this, but he understood the danger they were in, and he knew what needed to be done. That was as much as Aster could hope for out of him.
The ice wasnโt clear enough for them to see what was happening on the other side, but nevertheless, they kept an eye on it for signs that the creature was about to break through. Aster stepped just inside the door to another room, taking a cursory look inside. Seeing nothing that moved or that posed an immediate threat, he hid himself behind it and peered back out.
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Post by Noa on Jul 30, 2019 19:20:04 GMT -6
Avander hid himself very nearly under the ice wall, as close as he could get without injuring himself on its spines.
On the other side, they could hear the sound of movement. A burst of orange illuminated one portion of the wall for a moment, and there was the hiss of steam as some of the ice melted away. A frustrated snarl, and then a different sound--- crackling, not unlike something being fried.
[Ozone,] Avander said, suddenly tasting the air.
โLightning,โ Aster replied grimly. This just got better and better. What in the nine hells were they trying to make down here?
The ice creaked, groaning under the force being leveraged against it. It wouldnโt be long now, Aster thought. [Ready?]
[Ready,] Avander echoed.
That turned out to be all that they had time to do. A second later, there was another burst of flame, and this time the ice melted clean through.
(Avander: +7)
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Post by Noa on Jul 30, 2019 19:20:51 GMT -6
Before the flames had even fully dissipated, one head was shoving itself through the opening, seeking its quarry, only to findโฆ nothing, at least not that it could see from its angle. Aster had ducked behind the door as soon as he saw the first lick of flame past the wall. Avander hadnโt sprung yet, waiting for the right moment; there was only so much he could do with one head.
The head disappeared, jerked back across the other side, before the entire creature threw itself against the remaining ice and broke through in one final smash. As it did, Avander finally pounced, roaring another challenge as he latched his claws into the long, contorted body of the beast. The thing beneath him shrieked, and two of its heads twisted around, snapping at him with their jaws. Avander held fast, though his claws scraped unpleasantly against the harder parts of the creatureโs anatomy.
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Post by Noa on Jul 30, 2019 19:21:29 GMT -6
As the heads tried to snap at him, he latched his jaws around the throat of one, whose shriek promptly cut off in a strangled gurgle.
But the third head had managed to orient itself now, and was joining its fellow in harassing Avander. The drake had to jerk his neck from side to side to avoid their blows. The body, too, began thrashing in earnest, throwing itself and Avander against the walls. Aster could feel jolt after jolt of pain reverberating through Avanderโs body.
He wasnโt going to last like this. Aster had to do something. He saw energy building in the jaws of the left-most head and cursed under his breath.
Magic--- Magic--- Shackles. Aster quelled the curses that came to his lips and muttered a hurried invocation instead, then felt the power of it travel through him as he cast out his hand and arc toward the beast. Bind it.
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Post by Noa on Jul 30, 2019 19:41:21 GMT -6
It was almost more a prayer than a command. He hadnโt been using nearly long enough or often enough to feel any kind of real reliance on it, and the shadows of the priests he had glimpsed as a child still held fast to him somewhere in his subconscious. But he had memorized the spell, learned the incantation, and he watched with a mix of relief, satisfaction, and a little surprise after all as the creatureโs limbs were pulled taut by an invisible force.
This wasnโt to say that the beast was still. The spell had been made for something with much fewer limbs, but fortunately the spell had taken hold at the main trunk of the body. The limbs closest to the chest were held fast, and one of the necks was out of commission too. Avander quickly released the throat he had clamped onto and went for the other free head.
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Post by Noa on Jul 30, 2019 19:42:10 GMT -6
He managed to latch onto the back of the neck this time. There was a decisive, sickening crunch before that one, too, was tossed aside, its head dangling from a gruesome angle from its neck.
The first head was still gurgling weakly, but the final head, being held in place by the force of Asterโs spell, could put up no resistance. Avander snapped the neck of that one too, then tore out the throat of the first head fully to put it out of its misery. With all three heads accounted for, he gave the thingโs body another few rakes with his claws for good measure. Only then did he shake himself free of it and returned to Asterโs side.
โBy all rights, we should be burning the corpse,โ Aster said, staring at it. He had room now to get a good look at the thing in all its strange glory, and it unsettled him more the longer he looked.
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Post by Noa on Jul 30, 2019 19:45:25 GMT -6
The spell was releasing it from the hold it had been under, and Aster tensed for a moment, half afraid that all of Avanderโs efforts had still not been enough. But though the lower body twitched and thrashed, there was no longer a direction to its movements. They were merely the last throes of a dying creature.
He couldn't have counted how many legs were on the thing. No, that was a lie; he could have, and he had the time now to do it if he wished, but he felt that he was better off not knowing. The body itself was long, resembling some sort of serpent or arthropod, though its proportions were still thick-bodied rather than the extremely long coils of a Pliathor. Not all the limbs matched, even within pairs. Some ended in claws, others in the barbed feet of some sort of insect, and still more were utterly unrecognizable.
(Avander: +8)
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