There and Back Again

Panicked, the fleeing thief stumbled over a paving stone. Thinking the shout was intended for him, he quickly scrambled to his feet and quickened his pace, while way behind Toad fell victim to a tragic misunderstanding. In his haste, the thief almost ran straight into 9S as he and the group casually headed to the inn, and he quickly made a sharp turn, barreling straight into a dingy alleyway.

A few drunk patrons were suitably impressed by Akane's magic show, and offered up some rusty daggers, snapped-off sword hilts, and even a mangled wedding ring. However, one by one the crowd went quiet as Tavros made his tiny presence known. "Cost effective?" snorted a brutish man with more piercings than hair. "Reasonably safe? What are you, a yellow belly?" This prompted a chorus of laughter and jeers from the group.

Over at the bar, some of the other patrons scoffed and sniggered at Corat's order of Red Tea. The barkeep, however, merely shrugged. Business was business, and the customer was mostly right. "Red tea coming up, and, uh... zrazy meat roll, was it? Eh, close enough." As the barkeep got to work on that order, it's possible, however unlikely, that Corat could have noticed the dwindled group heading to the corner of the room, and heard the hushed tones of the woman at the centre.

Columbia Christie took her seat at the table, with Geese and presumably Conan joining her. She tried not to let the drunkard murmuring in his sleep, or the teen boy disappearing in a puff of smoke, bother her as she made herself comfortable. "Thank you for your interest, Geese Howard and Conan. Howard Connections, that's a business, yes? I'm a trader myself- well, navigator for trade routes. But now all I have are a few things to my name: three chests of cargo, and some urgent news that must reach the ears of the empire before too long. You wouldn't have to escort me that far. If you get me to the vassal king, I should be able to find my own way. But time is of the essence, and frankly, I need all the help I can get."

Kled's bear trap missed the charging bison by a mile, but his axe swing landed a much more painful strike, as did Shoto's ice spike barrage. As if that bit of agony wasn't enough, the beast was hampered by Matilda grabbing onto its horns, which kept it busy just long enough for Mario to whack it in the head, and Kanae to flatten it with her staff. Literally flatten it, apparently, as hardly anything could be seen between the staff and the ground...until one after the other, a series of huge tentacles sprang out and wrapped around the staff. The next thing she knew, Kanae had a giant octopus about as big as her bearing down on her, tangling her limbs and roaring with terrible laughter.

Edited by LizardOfAus on Feb 13th 2019 at 11:44:10 AM

Shoto was starting to get tired of the monster's unwillingness to just die. His stomach was growling pitifully as he tried his best to stay alert and keep fighting. It was hard, but he managed to keep his hunger at bay while he could.

While the ice-spikes seemed to work with the other attacks, the thing also didn't stay dead, which was concerning. Was this thing immortal unless killed in a specific way? Or was it just too fast at shapeshifting and their attacks weren't keeping it down for long enough? Something else entirely?

Not that he had the time to really consider what was the correct solution. Tentacles were starting to advance on their giantess, who was definitely not someone they wanted out of the fight before the monster was dead. Unfortunately, he didn't really have many options when it was already starting to climb up the woman's weapon like that.

All he could do was send some ice up the length of the weapon (enough to get his ice up it, not enough to freeze it to the ground) and attempt to at least slow the octopus down by freezing it slightly.

Edited by Skooter910 on Feb 12th 2019 at 3:43:20 PM

Road to Gdonya

The monster once again reformed into an entirely different beast, shrugging off its injuries all the while. Kanae had no idea how they were really supposed to fight this thing, but she was confident it had to have a weakness. She didn't have long to consider what that might be before she was ensnared by tentacles, however.

"Get off me, you freak!" she shrieked as she flailed her limbs while struggling against the monster. "This isn't how I want to make my big debut!"

You know, considering this weird monster was turning in all sorts of animals, he would assume this was some kind of mushroom induced hallucination. But considering blood came out when he stabbed it with his axe, this might not be the case.

...Well, at least he thinks so.

Skaarl looked scared as the creature turned into a large octopus to deal with the giantess. Kled quickly picked on to that. Last thing he needed was Skaarl ditching him out of fear. "Don't you dare pussy out on me, Skaarl! We're close enough to killing this thing!"

The duo moved to one of the tentacles grabbing Kanae, and Kled started to swing his axe repeatedly to one of the tentacles, in a attempt to cut down one of the limbs of the large octopus.

At the uproar, the troll boy looked a mixture of confused and wanting to die. "Uhh, I-I've never had...oh wait, this is one of your 'human metaphors.' I've heard of those..." he countered awkwardly in an impotent attempt to save face. "Yyyyyou're right, who, ever you are!" He pointed a finger in the direction of the heckler, though his voice didn't have the bluster to really sell that he fully believed it. "Danger is what adventure is all about, I just need to, find a hoofbeast and, uh...yeah." Clearly out of fuel, he stepped awkwardly away from the door, uneasily turning to look at the cute pirate and the friendly neighborhood spiderguy performing a hold up on an unfortunate thievery victim mistaken for a thief.

It was probably best to just...go around that. They looked a little too busy to help him find a hoofbeast store. Instead he floated away from them in the direction of the weird blindfold couple and the dude who, in quite a hurry, almost collided with one of them.

Huh.

The boy's lusus managed to catch on before he did, buzzing up to the thief. "Tinkerbull? Uh, what are you doing?" he asked, flying a little faster though no less uncomfortably, happening to bump into a wall as he turned into the alley.

"Woah, woah, woah." Finn whirled around at the sight of the ruffian barrelling down the streets and into an allyway. "You see that, guys? That was a thief!" He smacked his fist into his open palm for emphasis. "We gotta get that guy and return his stuff!" Behind him, Jake began stretching his legs-both literally and metaphorically- in evident anticipation of the the inevitable chase.

Road To Gdonya, Blessed Silver

What an incredibly persistent creature. Still, all this shapeshifting could point it towards being a being of darkness. Not the most surefire way of confirming that, but Seras could only hope this time her hunch was on point. As Kanae and the others struggled with the giant octopus, she took a deep breath - an entirely superficial, but still calming thing to do - and then aimed the hand crossbow.

"Blessed silver and shards of penance, bring the verdict by your ruthless might..." She muttered the incantation to bring the blessing to life. The small bolt hummed with holy energy. It was making her queasy, but what could you do? Closing one eye, she took a moment more to ascertain her aim - before letting the shot loose. The goal was the monster octopus's eye. If the bolt would lodge itself in the soft matter, it would then explode into a cluster of small silver shards to further ruin the creature's sight and cause unimaginable pain.

And if it was in fact a being of darkness, the silver would have greater properties there.

Inn:

'Huh, I see... They're adopted brothers. That explains their... biological differences, 9S thought, relieved that one of his curiosities got answered, before a thief almost bumped into him, which made nearly fall.

"A thief? Then let's go get him, Toobs!"

"That's none of our..." 2B started, but her partner looked at him with the eyes that practically said "Please..."

"...Fine." After a brief speech, 2B began the chase with incredible speed, heading towards an alley. She did care, after all.

Outside Green Sailor Inn

So the masked man seemed to be equipped with some sort of grappling apparatus. Tetra squinted up at him as his figure, shadowed by the sun, soared over her and the crowd, depositing itself in front of the little thief. The halting gave Tetra the time she needed to catch up to them, her sword now unsheathed and glinting by her side.

Now that she wasn't running, Tetra took a quick second to pat her pockets down and confirm that the thief's attempt was unsuccessful. "You're lucky your sticky little fingers didn't grab anything," she growled at the mushroom, having arrived just too late to hear him fingering the real culprit, "Or you'd be losing them all to my blade. Y'thought I'd be an easy target cause I was young, shroom?"

Caitlin, Extremely Ticked Off

"And there goes plan B..." the white-haired woman muttered to herself. Not only was this creature much larger and therefore much more difficult to drain, but there was typically very little warmth to be extracted from an octopus- not only were they cold-blooded, but they typically didn't soak in much warmth from their environment. Obviously, heat-draining, however much it may have benefited her, was not the best option here.

Still, Shoto's attempt to impale the creature when it had still been a bison could potentially work if she targeted one of the beast's tentacles. With a newfound sense of determination, she launched a large, sharp icicle in that direction, hoping it would find its way there.

Matilda Wormwood

Matilda shuddered with effort, Biscuit snorting as he backed away from the bison-turned-octopus. Raising her hand, she pointed at the thing's main mass, trying to yank it towards whatever attacks were being launched at it.

It was getting harder and harder. Matilda was sweating bullets. Perhaps grabbing the thing's horns (when it had still been a bison) was not such a good idea after all.

Peter looked back just in time to see a very panicked cloaked figure stumble and run down an alleyway.

"Well that's definitely something a thief would do," Peter said, turning back to the Toad. By now Tetra had caught up, to which Peter stood. "Looks like you got it from here, sword girl. I'm going to go catch the actual thief now." And with that, Peter thwipped away, swinging up and over and around the corner the thief ran down. During the time spent as the wandering Man-Spider, Peter had grown very grateful for these web gauntlets that Drunk Peter made years before. They seemed like a completely stupid idea when he woke up the following morning (not helped by his hangover) but they've proved themselves time and time again.

"Watch out!" Peter shouted ahead at the group the thief almost ran into as he swung past. "Dangling legs comin' through!"

Green Sailor Inn

Akane made sure to give each of the items a sustained, head-nodding look of contemplation as they were placed in front of her, before graciously offering her excuses as soon as she came up with them. “Sorry, but even the gifts of Alexis can’t craft that much sword from nothing.” That would be way too much work. “Oh ho ho, at least buy me a drink first~.” The last thing I need is someone with less pennies than sense. But after she gave knives a good once-over, she earnestly fanned them out in front of her, nodding her head in undisguised appreciation even as she tested the depths of the rust by digging in lightly with her fingernail. Assuming these are still more blade than not, then maybe…

“Guess I’m gonna need that drink after all~. Bartender, three lemon juices please!” Gathering the three glasses and the three knives around Utsumi on the table like she was gearing up for one of her religious ceremonies, she raised an enlightening finger to her assembled crowd. “Today, we’re going to learn the secrets of a brand-new cocktail. It doesn’t have a name yet, but if any of you think of anything good, just let me know~! Three parts lemon juice, three parts rusty knives—oh, and can’t forget!” Leaning over to pluck a tiny cherry from behind the bar, she plopped it into her creation’s mouth, gripped him about the sides, and began to shake him in place like an oversized decanter. Upon setting him back down, the creature let out something akin to a great foggy belch, and Akane made a show of waving her hand in front of her nose as the mist began to engulf him once more. “P-U, Utsumi, have some manners!” She said, before offering the crowd a cheery parting wave. “That’s all for now, but come back in a little while, and you can see even more miracles first-hand!”

Akane let out a sigh just as soon as she slipped behind the table’s new roiling centerpiece, and plopped down next to her long-neglected glass of tomato juice. She swiftly brought the tart concoction up to her lips to sip at its red edge, hoping it would help soothe her own. There has got to be a better way than this. Akane thought as she set her drink down, before noticing the ruddy-nosed man in the corner sporting some very unexpected visitors— the kind brought about through desperation, secrecy, or maybe even a little bit of both. She strained her ears to hear their conversation over the drunken bawdiness and the obnoxious accordion, until she decided that it was time to make her introduction. Getting to her feet, with Rikka nipping at her heels as it was guided by sleeve-hidden gestures, Akane picked her way through the room over to the table until she made her presence known by finishing the last of her juice and setting the glass gently onto the tabletop. “Hello there,” she said pleasantly, sporting a wide smile and a gentle tilt to her head, “I’m so sorry for the intrusion, but I couldn’t help but overhear that you’re on your way to the court of vassal king Niezbadane, and that you require escort? I am a priestess of Alexis Carab, and I would be more than willing to extend his protections onto you all. For as it happens, I’m planning on making a pilgrimage in that direction as well! It seems that He has already put us on the same path, wouldn’t you agree?” She would finish, putting one of her sleeve-covered hands in front of her mouth to stifle a soft giggle.

Edited by Uncandescent on Feb 14th 2019 at 2:00:36 PM

As soon as the dark priestess came strolling up, Ms Christie once more returned to a state of sweat and panic. "A-A-Alexis Carab, huh? Not sure if I'm...familiar...how many people are overhearing?"

The thief barrelled down the dark alleyway, but soon found himself facing a wall and no doors about. Thinking fast, he yanked out a pair of pitons from his belt, and started scaling the left wall by the cracks in the brickwork. He worked with haste, seemingly ignoring the heroes gaining on him.

The great kraken struggled against the ice creeping up the length of the handle. Kled's axe swing wasn't quite enough to chop through, but it was certainly enough to get the beast's attention. Then came the spike of ice to its side, and the annoyed creature reached for the rest of the group. That was when Seras let loose an exploding bolt charged with holy power, directly into its eye.

"...aaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"

Screaming in agony, the shapeshifter completely let go of its quarry. As it dropped to the ground, its barely-tangible bobbed and swelled like living clay, flowing through every shape and colour. Eyes, teeth and other features formed and disappeared on its surface, with the exception of one marred eye that was now letting off a thin trail of smoke. In time, the flowing blob shrunk down and down, before finally settling on a solid shape. Where once there was a kraken, there was now a little man, barely more than four feet, dressed in dark clothes, with an oversized head of dark green scales, a big toothy mouth and a nose that was more like a toucan beak. He sat curled on the ground, facing away from the group, and with hands like bird claws he nursed his smoking face.

"My eye...what have you done to my eye?!"

Edited by LizardOfAus on Feb 15th 2019 at 2:46:37 PM

By the time his ice was crawling up to the monster, Shoto's vision was starting to blur slightly, and flashes of color were obstructing his vision. His legs were feeling more like jelly by the second, so when the monster screamed in pain and stopped being so monstrous, he couldn't keep standing any longer.

He tried his best not to draw any attention to himself as he stepped closer to one of the trees nearby. Once his hand made contact, he slumped over, pressing his forehead to it as he tried to keep himself from completely passing out. The sounds around him were muffled, but he managed to hear the gist of the former monster being quite upset.

Seeing the creature severely weakened, in part thanks to her efforts, Caitlin quickly focuses her attention on Shoto. It seems like the encounter has taken a lot out of him.

Reaching into a pouch around her waist, she pulls out a piece of dried-up root and hands it to him. "Here. Chew this. It should help."

Although she isn't especially physically strong, she tries to put her arms around him and gently move him into a sitting position so he wouldn't hurt himself any further.

Well, look at that! That thing turned out to be a person who could turn into multiple animals. Sadly, Skaarl won't get her meal at all, not much of a fan of human flesh. Well, anyways, time to get answers from this trespasser.

Kled slowly approached the shapeshifter along with Skaarl, his axe pointed at him threateningly.

"Oh, quit your whining. Didn't cried like a baby when I lost my eye compared to you. Now, how about you explain why you were disguised as a well and trying to kill us...unless you like a axe on your head."

Edited by Darkomega245 on Feb 15th 2019 at 1:00:11 AM

Matilda Wormwood

"Sorry, sir..." Matilda slurred. "There's no need to...be...so...mean..."

Matilda didn't have the strength of constitution that Shoto had, and quietly swooned, dropping onto the ground.

A voice managed to cut through the haze in Shoto's mind, trying to offer him some assistance. Voices in his head (that sounded a lot like a bastard he wanted nothing more to do with) berated him for showing so much weakness, and ordered him to pull himself together.

He couldn't completely recover in a second, however. He tried to shake his head, which just made things lurch uncomfortably, but he still forced his voice to stay steady as he responded, "I'm fine." Of course, his voice was the only steady thing about him, so he couldn't really fight off the attempts to get him safely on the ground.

Not that he really tried to. Once he felt the cold hands on him, he glanced up and saw white hair and blue lips, which were startlingly familiar. He wasn't quite out of it to get too confused, but he was thrown off enough that he stared up at Caitlin as she got him to the ground without any resistance at all. His expression wasn't quite as shocked as he felt, but his eyes were widened slightly.

Road to Gdonya

Kanae was relieved to be free from the monster's tendrils, to say the least. It seemed like the shapeshifter had finally been defeated.

"That's what you get for putting your hands on a beautiful maiden!" she pouted.

She noticed Shoto and Matilda fall to the ground out of exhaustion. Caitlin was attending to the ice mage, but Matilda still needed help.

"Hey," she called out to the small child as she carefully picked her up from the ground. "Hang in there, alright? We're almost near town, so I'll carry you until we find a place you can rest."

Matilda wordlessly wrapped her arms around Kanae. It was as if she'd used her own strength to restrain a bison, which she had done—indirectly, though her mind.

Kanae could feel the girl nod slightly, as if in agreement with what she said.

Road to Gdonya, That's All She Wrote

Well, that worked. Seras sighed and put the crossbow away. "Don't kill it! I'd like to have some choice words with this mingebag." She called out to Kled and Skaarl on her way to where the well was, idly examining the grounds. So much for getting any helping of water... "If any of you has any real water to share, I'd appreciate if you shared some with Mr. Not-Fugitive and Mathilda." She said to no one in particular, hoping that someone had what they needed; the two of them looked pretty out of it, even with Caitlin helping Shoto out. Then, Seras went back to the wagon, grabbing something that one could consider a hunting knife only if they were accustomed to average-sized huntsmen being seven-feet-tall. It certainly looked almost too big in her hand.

"As for you" She glowered at the pathetic sight held at axepoint by Kled, approaching. "that was the verdict of Amon-Ra. Now then... clever little move there, disguising as a well itself. Tell me what fresh hell spawned you and if there's more of you around the bend, before I carve the answers out of your flesh." Seras sneered, and for a moment it seemed like she was baring long, sharp fangs at the shapeshifter - but surely, this was merely just the optical illusion caused by extreme pain. "And you choose yer damn words carefully."

Edited by FergardStratoavis on Feb 15th 2019 at 9:57:49 PM

From the multiple other people deciding to also pursue the thief, the troll boy seemed to be starting to make the connection with regard to why his lusus was pursuing the man. After having to wildly duck to not be smacked by and/or impale the strange spider person, and briefly falling on his ass in the process, he continued once again trying to catch up to and stop the fairy bull. "...Ohh, I get it. But, Tink, should we really be making a scene like this? When we just got here? Tiiiink!"

Tink didn't seem deterred by this point, however, since it continued flying after the man, trying to sorta poke at his head when he started scaling the wall, before suddenly stopping and slowly backing a couple feet away from him. If he looked down, the thief might notice a gray boy with both hands to his forehead, looking up nervously at the little bull thing, while seeming to unsteadily sway in midair.

"Let's get 'im!" Finn raced after the thief, drawing the demon blood sword from his backpack as he did so. As he ran, Jake stretched into a tall, long-legged form, the better to stride over passersby as they scrambled to get out of the way. As the thief scrambled into an alleyway, Jake tried to turn on the spot - but his size and momentum meant that he slid past it, and despite growing several extra legs as he fruitlessly scrabbled for purchase on the slick pavement, he lost control and crashed into a nearby cart. Round green things went flying everywhere as Jake dwindled to his regular size, rubbing his head as a man desperately bemoaned his the fate of his cabbages.

"Ugh... s'rry..."

"Hey, thief!" shouted Finn as he pointed his sword at the man desperately trying to scale the wall, "How 'bout you pack up your pitons and get down here, huh?"

Edited by Locoman on Feb 15th 2019 at 11:12:10 AM

The thief was fast with his pitons, that was for sure. While Peter had to avoid flying tiny bulls and tall clumsy dogs - Gdonya was a weird place, for the record - the thief had managed to get a good ways up the wall before the Man-Spider even got to the alley!

"Actually," Peter said as he (literally) fell into line beside Finn, "I think he's good right where he is." He stretched his arm towards the thief, bringing a hand up to fiddle with some knobs on his gauntlet. Then, with a hiss and a 'thwimp' sound, a wide net of white webbing shot out from his wrist, aimed right for the thief.

Edited by TruthHurts22 on Feb 15th 2019 at 12:07:39 PM