Jump to content

[CHQ] Unseasonal Bloom


Alaina

Recommended Posts

As the fight had begun, the creature had lashed out its tendrils towards the fighters of the group. The first one had proven to be nimble, having managed to evade his attacks, and launch himself towards the orb at the base of the plant. The girl girl with the sword had not been so graceful, though, as the tendril aimed at her managed to strike her hard in the torso. While it would've followed up on that, its attention was directed as the horned boy had slammed against the sphere at his base. 

 

While it looked to be made of water, the boy would find that the sphere was much more dense then its appearance gave it. While the sphere some give behind it from the impact, ripple forming across the surface, it held firm. If the boy stuck his hand into the orb, he would find it pushing against his hand, though, it would eventually be able to pass with more resistance to push through beyond that. While it was clearly denser than average water, it would feel almost identical to it. While the boy was occupied with this though, the plant would feel both an irritation flowing through it and an instinct to immediately track after the presence near the orb. As such, with one hand it launched its tendrils at the boy in an attempt to grapple and toss him with them. 

 

Meanwhile, with it started to feel a different a strange sensation take it. It was one of fatigue, and though the mana pumping through it had managed to mitigate the effect, the creature was certainly feeling it. As such, it looked towards what it believed to be the source, the stone girl, and with the opposite hand lashed out with its tendrils, attempting to beat it down. 

 

All the while, those on the petals would start to feel a creeping sense of fatigue cross them. Rumian, who was still fine, remained in the boat in a slightly panicked state yelling, "you got this! Show that plant what for and all!" But was mentally preparing for what he would tell the guild what happened if the guildmates got killed and how he would escape from here on his own. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...


qZmlPrX.png

As Lily continued trying to wilt the big lotus monster, she saw out the corner of her eye, something moving in her direction. She looked, and saw the beast's arm moving straight for her. Although she was confident in being made of stone, that didn't mean she could just take hits like an idiot. As such, Lily promptly moved out of the way, the attack doing little more than grazing a few chips off the back of her head. She could feel a sense of fatigue, which wasn't really something golems were supposed to feel. It had to be the petals at work.

 

"Rumian!" Lily called out, hearing his words of encouragement. "If it is not too much trouble, please check under the lotus for roots or anything similar!" A direct confrontation with this thing wasn't going to work out in Lily's favor. She simply lacked the combat prowess needed. Although, if I had some seeds from this, it may be helpful in future fights. Not that I am all that eager to fight.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Serena was shocked to see Lily moving in front of her, allowing herself to be used as a human shield... Or golem shield, in this case. Regardless, she pressed her back up against the rocky creature, and with he sword, occasionally slashed out to the left and right as necessary, cutting attacking tentacles in the process. "This reminds me from way back in the... This reminds me from a couple of months ago. We were pushing to... I mean... I was training to become a soldier back in my hometown, and one of the missions... Nope, drills that we had to do was like this. We quickly learned to take cover when we can, and I suppose it's paying off now. I won't ever forget that valuable lesson, especially after what happened to Phil... Those archers were more precise than an eagle on a cloudless day."

 

It was impossible for Serena not to notice a large group of tendrils take aim at either her or Lily, and the moment one bumped the back of Lily's head, Serena jumped in front of the golem and swung wildly at the weapons coming for the two of them. Serena really didn't want to lose a member of her new troop, and especially against a plant.

 

[spoiler=OOC]

Haaaay. Sorry about the whole not posting thing. Several oral presentations and a media video to film+edit makes for a busy life. But they're done now, so here this is! I still don't have Skype, because this stupid school laptop doesn't allow me admin rights, so I probably won't be downloading it anytime soon either.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Slamming headfirst into the watery orb wasn’t as good of an idea as Ro had initially thought. While it wasn’t hard, it was a lot firmer than he expected, and his speed certainly didn’t help the matter. ”Ah, that’s definitely gonna bruise later.” Ro peered at the ripples that had spread across the surface. At a closer look, the consistency seemed to be closer to a firm gel. Pulling his sleeves back, Ro bared his teeth, which upon closer look, had an unusual sharpened appearance.

 

”Time to dine in~!”

 

However, just as he was about to rip a chunk out of the orb, he was forced to dive into the water to avoid a collision as the monster swung one of its large, tendriled hands at him. Once the arm passed, it would be a while before it could swing again due to the momentum of such a massive creature. Lunging at the orb, he began to rip chunks out of the aqueous sphere with both his hands and teeth, gobbling down whatever he could grab a hold of, absolutely wild with excitement,.

 

”Tastes just like water, but chewier. Blech. If I’m gonna eat you, you could at least do me the FAVOR of making it a bit tastier!”

 

As expected, the plant-monster-creature-thing went ballistic. Ro clapped his hands in glee.

 

”Chase me if you can! I love to dance!”

 

Pushing himself against the gel as hard as he could, he began to force himself inside of the core itself. There was definitely a repelling push, almost as if Ro was standing in the tides of the ocean. Wading and shoving aside the gel as he slid deeper inside, there was an unsual glowing light radiating from what appeared to be the center. His curiosity peaking, Ro worked even faster to make his way through the thick, gel-like material as he went towards the light.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While the creature had managed to strike the golem, it's attacks had been altogether ineffective. To make matters worse, with the tendrils it had sent out, the female human had managed to cut through them. Reeling the one had back, its tendrils thoroughly sheered, it let out a shriek of pain. This was only added on top of the frustration brought about by the boy at its base trying to devour it. While its attention was being split between the three of them, it was suddenly instinctually brought back as it felt the boy trying to push itself through the sphere. In a sort of fury it tried to use its tendrils to immediately pull the boy out, due to the damage they had continuously sustained from the short girl's sword, it couldn't. So instead, it had to physically bend its body over so as to allow the tendrils to reach the boy. While it was doing this, its attention was fully focused on the boy, trying to pull him out. 

 

Upon hearing the request of the golem, Rumian looked shocked and said, "uh, right! Right, I can do that!" While he seemed to be confident in his ability to contribute, he wasn't quite positive that he wanted to dive into the water this thing was inhabiting. Nevertheless, the beastkin steeled himself, sitting on the edge of the boat, his back to the water. Bending back, the beastkin had fully submerged his upper half in the water, opening his eyes once he had passed the surface. What he saw the bottom half of the aqueous sphere at the center of the creature. It had blue, translucent veins going outward from it. These veins seemed to connect to the other larger lotuses, with thinner ones going to the smaller ones, pulsing and carrying energy along with them to these other flowers. Pulling himself back up, Rumian called out to the Lily, "there seems to be roots coming from the center of the creature. I think it's important!" 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ro could hear muffled rumblings and vibrations as the monster shook from side to side. It seemed trying to eat his way through had sent it into a mindless rage. Adjusting his footing, he peered backwards. Tentacles were still trying to reach for him, but due to what appeared to be makeshift amputations - courtesy of the swordbearing girl on the boat presumably - it was a futile struggle. He shrugged. Not like the sufferings of some disgusting creature like this mattered to him. What interested more lay in front, not behind.

 

Continuing to claw his way through the gelatinous mess of the watery orb, the internals were starting to thrash about, liquefying slightly as the tug grew slightly more forceful. What he couldn’t push to the side, he ate, and what he couldn’t eat, he ripped away.

 

”What a pretty little stone you are! I think I shall snatch you away for myself, eh?”

 

At last, he had reached the center, and before him lay a floating, translucent, azure stone. It beamed brightly with brilliance, spreading the light throughout the entire orb. Walking up to it slowly, he lay a tentative hand onto the surface, wincing slightly from the harsh light. It was cold and durable, closer to a rock, yet resonated strangely. Trying to tug on it, he met a bit of resistance, but with one brutal spin, he ripped the stone from its invisible grasp. In that same instant, the internals of the sphere reached a whole new level of ballistic insanity. The insides sputtered and erupted, splattering him with the same slimy water.

 

”Sorry, but this is my toy now! Toodaloo!”

 

\Turning to run, Ro giggled to himself. Toodaloo, eh? What an old little human phrase. How quaint they must have been! The sound of it rolls off the tongue ever so nicely. Making his way back through the path he came, he kicked himself out of the orb and back into the large lake. Now was a good time to wipe off all the weird slime and gel he had accrued from his brief thievery adventure. Spinning himself at absurdly fast speeds with powerful leg and arm movements, the excess was flung into the vast deep.

 

”That is so much nicer, yes, yes.”

 

Poking his head out of the water, he located the Rumian fellow calling out to what seemed the golem. Waving excitedly, Ro shouted out in kind.

 

”Oiii! Antler child! I snatched something!”

 

Swimming over to the boat quickly, he clambered onboard before shaking himself to throw off the water, inadvertently splashing Rumian with a fair bit of it. Pulling the stone out of his pocket, Ro wiped it dry and displayed it proudly in front of the beastkin in front of him, before pausing uncertainly.

 

”Uhhh, the light’s gone…?”

 

He shook it a few times curiously, held it up to his ear, tapped it against the side of the boat, and thrust it up towards the sky, as well as a variety of other bizarre motions to see if it would help. No luck. Ro frowned, his face contorted in an unsettling, jarring appearance.

 

”The light’s gone, but here it is! I found this pretty… well, used to be prettier, thing in the center of that orb that was beneath the monster? Whatcha reckon it might be?”

Link to comment
Share on other sites


qZmlPrX.png

"There seems to be roots coming from the center of the creature. I think it's important!"

 

"Acknowledged!" Lily glanced around to get an assessment of where her teammates were. The sword girl was still here, fighting the beast. The horned boy...was bringing something to Rumian. Some kind of sphere. Lily didn't have time to think about it. The golem turned her attention to the sword girl, and said "I am sorry, but I must leave you to fight this monster on your own for a short while. Please stall for time, and be careful." With that, Lily turned around, and started toward the edge of the plants. And then, once at the edge, she nonchalantly stepped off the flowers, into the lake below. Once under, she immediately turned her attention to the plants now above her, fading quickly as she sunk like...well, a stone.

 

Come, she commanded, specifically to the roots beneath and around the plant. It would have likely been more effective if she were able to touch the roots directly, but for now, she had to bring the roots down to where she could reach them. The rest would be easy, she figured.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Serena managed to sever many parts of the tentacles, turning them into nothing less than stubs of their former selves. After Rumian spoke out loud about some roots, Lily spoke directly at Serena.

"I am sorry, but I must leave you to fight this monster on your own for a short while. Please stall for time, and be careful."

"Roger that, Rocky." Being a military servant for many years meant Serena would follow orders easily. And luckily, Lily ordered Serena to do what she was best at. Being cannon fodder. "How I survived that many front-line attacks I'll never know..." The tentacles attacked once more, but this time it was much easier for Serena to time her attacks and dodge incoming strikes. No golems to protect, shorter tentacles, this fight was getting easier as time went on.

 

When Serena had a moment to spare, she held out her sword in front of her, and spoke to it. "You know, I hope one day you actually do something other than curse me to be a girl."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As the stone was removed from the center orb, the plant beast seemed to be in a confused frenzy, unsure of how to react. As the orb started to become unstable, the beast started to become more sporadic in its movements and seemed to be frantically looking for something. Seeing the nearest large magic source, that being the sword that Serena was carrying, it tried to strike at the girl and steal the blade. However, as its range was drastically reduced from its earlier injuries and the girl was already on the defensive, its attacks proved to be nothing short of ineffective. While it did this, the roots that were connected to the other lotuses started to pulse energy towards the center of it, rather than away. As it did, the other large lotuses started to shrivel and become a much duller gray color, as opposed to the vibrant blue they had just been. 

 

This issue was only made worse as underneath the water a golem had beckoned to the strange root like entities that were coming from the creature. As the main creature was practically losing its already loose mind, the roots mindlessly found their way to the golem. Once in contact with them, the magic to command the flowers to wilt from the golem was in full force. The roots seemed to start to decay, traveling all the way up to the creature itself. Soon enough, the large plant like creature's movements slowed, as it too started to wither and lose all luster, until finally, it stopped and collapsed. As the creature had been slain, a strange current of water pushed downward from underneath it, forcing anything underneath it deeper down. 

 

As Ro had brought the stone over to Rumian, the antlered boy flinched a bit as the water splashed onto him. When the horned boy brought out the stone though, Rumian's eyes went wide in curiosity. "What is it, a rock?" The deer man tried to examine it, though his efforts were cut short as the boy attempted to shake and move the stone in a few different ways, the man looked a bit horrified as he said, "careful careful." When Ro had said that it used to glow, Rumian tried to think about it more. He eventually said, "I have no idea what this is, but I believe I have deduced that, as it was glowing, it was probably somewhat vital to the creature." After making his expert deduction, Rumian started to ponder on this more only to see that the creature seemed to be bested. "Oh wow, wonderful," he mused to himself. "Well it uh, looks like a jo-" before he could finish a large explosion of water forced its way from underneath the main flower, forcing everything on and around it away, including the boat. 

 

From deep underneath, as Lily was being pulled towards the bottom of the lake by this sudden rip current, they would be able to notice underneath them was a strange soft blue glow. Before hitting the bottom and being able to inspect it further, though, the current suddenly seemed to reverse its direction, with a far more explosive force then when it was pulling downward. With that, Lily would be forced up and out of the water, being launched into the air and either free falling into the water, the boat, or one of the larger dead lotuses. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites


qZmlPrX.png

Lily was sinking. Deep, deeper...she hadn't really expected the lake to go this deep. Near the end of her descent, she saw a soft blue glow coming from even deeper under the surface. However, she didn't get time to investigate it, as even faster than she'd gone down, Lily was shot upward by a blast of water. She rocketed up through the water, out from the surface, and through the air. And then, as with all things after going up, she started falling back down. Like a large rock, she fell from above, crashing down back-first onto one of the larger lotuses that had died, with a resounding CRACK. The flower briefly went back underwater with the sheer weight and force of Lily's landing, but came back to the surface before long.

 

Lily looked to her left, to see her arm had snapped at the elbow. Well, that was unfortunate. She'd have to see about getting that fixed. For now, though, she had a quest to deal with. Getting up to a sitting position, she turned her head to face Rumian. "There is something near the bottom of the lake. I do not know what it is, but it is glowing. Shall I investigate?" With that, she put her still-attached right hand on the surface of the lotus beneath her. Live again. And take me to that boat.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

As the explosion of water gushed out, the boat was pushed backward, causing the two people on board it to have to hold on to whatever they could to make sure they weren't flung off. After the boat skipped a bit across the water, there was a loud noise of impact as something struck it. Serena, who had been on the center lotus when the explosion hit, had been flung off of it and had by sheer luck flew onto the boat. While it was bound to be painful, it was likely better than being forced under. As the rock golem had landed on the flower, she had asked the deer man, who was collecting himself from the shock of what had just happened, about what to do about what she saw. Shaking himself a bit, the man said, "well, we were here to take care of the lotus problem and uh," he looked around the lake seeing that while not all the lotuses were withered, there was a great many that were. "I'd say it was taken care of. It's been a long day so we should probably get back. And besides, I think if there's anything important down there I'm not allowed to go look at it myself." With that done, the rock person had eventually made their way over to the boat, getting aboard. As she did, the group then took off towards the land, presumably stopping here and there much to Rumian's dismay if they had wanted to collect any lotuses that were around the area. 

 

Once they had reached the shore, they walked away from the lake and the deer man soon looked to the others. "Well, I must thank you all for your services you have done for me on this day. While others might not think much of it, you have aided this town and nature itself, and thankfully it was before the dire consequences that could've settled in did." While his face was pleased, the expression turned to one of slight dismay as he said, "I must admit, I was not expecting something like that in the center, and I believe this job turned out more dangerous than I had originally intended. For that, I apologize. Furthermore," he pointed at the stone Ro held and said, "I haven't the faintest idea as to what that is. Nevertheless," he had recollected himself saying, "you have all performed admirably and I now know that if I'm ever in need of assistance, Cherry Heart is a guild I can trust. Now then, I believe this is the point where I say goodbye to you all, as I shall go to locate transportation that can take you back to your homes."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...