Barton Forest

[Patton]

*walks into a remote part of Barton Forest* gosh it's been a while >.<

[Kitsune]

"I see."

The fact that they hadn't ran into any other guards in the passage is clearly answered by the snake's existence. This scarred beast is formidable enough to guard the passage on its own, meaning its the only thing to deal with. A good distraction is all that's needed. Kitsune looks up at the snake and sizes it up, "I wonder how fast that thing can move... Tell you what we'll do."

Being extra careful to limit her visible movements, she wills a single orb of condensed energy into her free hand. Holding it behind her for Shifter to take, she whispers her plan. "Someone has to follow that feather. You'll do that. As for me, I haven't spent any energy so I have some to spare. I'll draw our oversized worm friend away while you go on." Her voice holds no hesitation in it as she eyes the hissing beast in front of them. That could be because she has a plan...or Anubis' vile blood has clouded her mind. "When you get to the treasure room, hurl this energy ball into the center and head back to the throne room. Then grab Tenshi and get out of here. Got it?"

The serpent coils a bit and hisses louder, preparing itself to strike.

[Shifter]

"Yes." Shifter grasps the sphere in preparation to move ahead when Kitsune created a distraction. He didn't know how things would turn out soon but he understood that he would need to work quickly to complete the task before the situation became too hot to safely remain.

((*<.< @ holiday background* Very nice. XD))

[Kitsune]

((*laughs and nods* I'm definitely feeling the holiday spirit with all the festive backgroundness.))

"Excellent..."

Ever so slowly, she starts to move away from him while keeping her eyes on the serpent. Just as she expected, the snake follows her every move instead of watching Shifter. Grinning, she speaks up, "Nothing like a little game of cat and mouse..." Judging the distance is far enough, she grins and calls out to Shifter. "Now!"

At that very moment, she hurls a sphere of dark energy at the beast making sure to keep its attention. The snake hisses and easily dodges it, watching it as it slams into a wall nearby. Using the small distraction, she transforms herself into a slender, 5 foot mongoose and proceeds to taunt the snake with her own loud hissing. Of course the snake does not take too kindly to being attacked and the mongoose's taunting is only feeding its anger. Ignoring Shifter completely now, the serpent dives at her and snaps, missing by a few hairs as she leaps over it and lands on its head. Chortling with glee, she dashes down its back and into the very hallway the snake came from. With Anubis' head hanging from her teeth, she calls back to Shifter. "Good luck!" She isn't sure where she's heading exactly, but that just adds to the thrill of the "game" in her mind.

The snake, figuring the weasel-looking creature is the greater of two evils, quickly follows her down the hall.

[Shifter]

Shifter's sword hand clenches on the scimitar's handle and he lightly cries a release as a pilliar of wind swirls up from the floor and encircles him briefly before flowing above his head and dissipating. Now under the influence of a speed enhancing spell he dashes down the hallway, sphere in hand, in an attempt to catch up with the feather before the spell ended.

[Kitsune]

The sound of traps being set of in succession fills the hall as Shifter moves forward. Progressing deeper into the passage, the fleet footed youko is greeted by an almost unbelievable scene. Every booby trap set by the dark god has already been activated, most likely by the feather as it moved through the passage. Yet another effect of the enchantment placed on it. The stone walls are coated in acid and tar while heavy metal spears are sticking out almost everywhere. Dozens of strange shadow creatures lay dead all along the floor, unsuspecting victims of the sprung traps. The scene looks somewhat comedic, actually.

Beyond a set of six pendulum blades swinging from the ceiling, the passage opens up to a large empty room where the feather is twirling madly in the air. Behind the feather is a large metal door locked tight.

[Shifter]

He stops and cocks his head at the new scene to greet his eyes. It certainly makes a nice, if highly suprising, change from the usual for the youko. This would certainly make for a nice story some day, but for now he wanted to get through this nightmare of a world as soon as he could and take a break from the incessant violence. Taking his temporary good fortune courtesy of a well-crafted spell in stride, he makes his way down the hallways. Skirting around the heavy spears, he times his passage under the pendulum blades to avoid being sliced open.

[Kitsune]

The feather twirls around one last time before sparkling strangely. In a flash of brillliant light, the tiny feather reappears as a life-like version of Anubis himself. Fortunately, this Anubis standing before Shifter is but a transparent illusion. The copy of the dark god lifts its right hand up, palm pointed at the door, and speaks boldly in a foreign tongue. "Maftooh Baab."

With that said, the enchantment expires and the illusion of Anubis disappears, leaving the feather to fall silently to the floor. All Shifter must do now is mimic what the feather did and the iron door will allow him to enter.

((Yay, it's almost over. Then we can all go back to being bored and waiting for something else to happen. Well, at least I can. <.< Dunno what Shifter's going to do. *watches him conquer the world with all his newfound wealth* >D))

[Tenshi]

[.satisfied that she had done what she could to slow the monsters' progress, she concentrates on commanding the remaining spirits to finish off the guards, while only being able to hope that the serpents could handle the Golems. On second thought, perhaps she could teleport to the other side, and aid her companions in that way... But she was needed here. As soon as she finished with these pests, she would be able to help Shifter and Kitsune.

The serpent creatures slithered fiercely about, the four of them rising to attack positions. The first dashed forward, wrapping itself around one Golem, using a constricting grip to attempt a crushing technique. The other three charged at the other Golems as the beasts approached the Throne room. Quickly finding that their venomous bite would not suffice, they attempt to slice at the monsters with their thick tails, or trying out the constricting technique as well, mimicking the first.

In the first room, the spirits were being encouraged by the disappearing numbers of foe. A new vigor stirs within each one, as they fed off the victory they could smell comming their way. Perhaps they would achieve revenge today at last.]

[Kitsune]

The final high guard drops his weapon as he falls victim to a ravenous pack of daemon wolves. Even his armor couldn't protect him from their sharp talons and fangs. With the smaller enemies taken care of, all that remain are the golems.

Two of them working together had managed to take down and beat one of the serpents to death, but it was only by luck that they were able to catch the beast off guard. As the dark wizards and wolves begin to concentrate on them as well, the golems start to become more reckless in their attacks. One heavily injured golem grips a serpent by the neck and roars, raising the temperature in its burning core to unstable levels. In a shower of superheat, lava and brimstone, the golem explodes violently and takes its prisoner, and any creatures around, with it into death. The explosion had also released a thick cloud of volcanic gas that now covers the ground and fills the room with the pungent odor of sulfur.

The three remaining golems continue to fight on.

((Feel free to do away with the remaining ones whenever you wish, Tenshi. ^-^))

[Shifter]

When Anubis initially appears, Shifter pulls back into a ready stance. He hadn't expected the dark god to show up again so quickly after his violent demise, but at those kinds of power cheating death in some form would have become second nature to most. With the previous good luck he had been experiencing, having to get past the former master of the place made twisted sense in a cosmic balance manner.

As the transparent copy completely ignores its surroundings and goes through a motion in front of the door before disappearing, the youko raises an eyebrow. He hadn't even realised such thorough divinations existed until now. He smirks as he reminds himself that if anyone could discover such a spell in this age, it would be her to do so.

Walking over to the door, he raises his right hand, palm pointed towards, and repeats the phrase. "Maftooh Baab."

((I know you should be able to drag at least one or two other willing kitsune users along with you when you set out to recover your child. Aside from me - I will probably have become thoroughly exhausted from actually going on that killing spree your character has been considering. *considers making a game to trying to loot and damage the palace and surrounding grounds as thoroughly as possible* >D))

[Kitsune]

The heavy iron door clicks loudly and slowly pushes open on squeaky hinges, revealing the pitch black room beyond it. Once the youko steps forward and reaches the doorway, a simple lighting spell activates and fills the room with artificial sunlight. It is then that the true glory of the room is revealed.

Piles and piles of gold, silver coins, precious jewels, rare artifacts, priceless statues, amazing weapons and ornate tapestries are spread across the floor within to form the proverbial "gold mine". Piled up to the ceiling, there is far too much treasure for one person to carry out even in a dozen separate trips. To leave all of this wealth behind to be plundered by blood-thirsty demons would be a shame, but to leave it locked behind closed doors never to see the light of day...well that would be outright atrocious.

[themightyjello]

(( Just commenting, and dont take this as an actual something since I skimmed over (at best) that last whole shpiel involving the underworld, and haven't really looked at this one either... but...

How is it, Shifter, that your character who, according to you, was losing energy simply by BEING there, and according to Kitsune, was unable to absorb any from that place because it was ALL tainted... that you were able to turn your 'quick reconnaisance trip' into an all out WAR against the lord of the underworld and all his minions?

Just something that's been bothering me for a while... ))

[Shifter]

"Well, well, well - I see Anubis has been hoarding for a while now." Shaking his head with a partial grin on his face as he lightly considers just how big a fortune they had obtained, Shifter tosses the sphere into the center of the room. He would gladly help pore over the hoard's every treasure down to the last silver piece in due time but wanted to do what he could around here before then. He waits to make sure everything is still going to plan before he leaves for the throne room to find Tenshi.

((I had problems with my first trip because I had arrived unprepared. This plane is intensely hot so water loss is a major concern over time; and drinking the local water would leave you trapped on this world. Most living beings can only stay around for a few hours at most, but we have only been here for half an hour at best IC this visit.

The land's ki is safe enough, though only common in the forms of the ever-present heat and various fire storms and lava pits back on the plains. Some of the demons are so tainted that draining their chi would cause harm unless the energy was immediately expelled.

If you want the full details of how things turned out this way, you should go back and read the posts. >w< Simply, I tricked two of my greatest enemies into slaughtering each other on the field and stole Anubis' favored treasure on my second visit which gave Kitsune an idea to deal the dark god a death blow with the third, and apparently final, journey.

I certainly wouldn't stick around to fight using only my limited spiritual reserves, but unless the guards worked fast to clean up the battlefield or Anubis' spell permanently fouled the technological equipment used by the human fanatics, it should still be littered with high-powered weaponry capable of causing some major damage. >D))

[Kitsune]

As soon as the sphere lands on something solid, in this case a gold statue of a cow, it floats up and expands outward to form a portal leading to a safe "pocket space". There the treasure would remain until either Kitsune emptied it out herself or the time limit ran up. If time ran up, the treasure would simply pour out into one of the storage rooms back in the nogitsune shrine.

The swirling void grows larger as a powerful suction starts up, pulling in anything caught within the powerful winds. Gold coins, silver pieces, statues, expensive rugs and even the spare thrones are sucked into the vortex and deposited in the empty pocket space. This will continue until ever last bit of it is removed from the treasure room. When the task is completed, the void will collapse in on itself and close up.

...

Meanwhile, out in the maze of passages, Kitsune walks along in silence, her gold-colored fur matted with the drying blood of not only Anubis, but now the giant snake as well. It had been a terrible fight she won't soon forget. She snarls and continues to ignore the nagging pain in her head as she stumbles onto the exit into the throne room. Grateful to be out of that maze, she drops the dark god's head in front of her and sits back on her haunches. "I barely got out of that one alive. That thing could move a lot faster than I thought." She had managed to avoid its fangs in her nimble form, but the snake did knock her around quite a bit.

<i>"That is why I chose it as my keeper."</i>

Kitsune blinks at the voice in her head and looks around frantically, wondering if she had just heard what she thought she did. With her ears standing upright and alert, she listens for it again. Aside from the sound of fighting in the hall, there is silence.

Her red eyes narrow slightly as she licks at one of her bleeding paws, growling softly as she eyes her surroundings. '<i>Damn hallucinations... I'm hearing voices in my head now.</i>' She stands up and looks around. "I wonder if they're still here."